When Immortal Ascension Fails Time Travel to Try Again

I used my spiritual energy to throw a certain poison master’s doors open before stepping into his alchemy lab. “Senior Noxious Fangstrike, it’s time for your bath and acupuncture treatment!”

He held his middle and index fingers up as he directed a cleaning technique to scour his so-called Little Cauldron — the massive gold cauldron that took up a good chunk of the large room.

He frowned and finished his sanitization by incinerating the physical and energy residue left over from the previous batch of pills. “This isn’t a good time. Return in two hours.”

I crossed my arms. “Are you joking? You’ll just vanish on me for the whole day again.”

“…”

“If I hadn’t caught you at the final hour last time, it would have messed up your treatment schedule!”

He cleared his throat. ”I had important sect business to take care of back then!” This fucker wasn’t fooling anyone. “Besides, I feel like I’m cured enough. I can control my side effects now.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Should we test it by using my cleaning technique on you?”

He narrowed his gold eyes at me. ”Your cleaning technique is abnormal.”

“Ridiculous! You’re just jealous because it’s more effective than yours!” A few months ago I’d realized that I could remove the tiniest particles of dirt, the merest hint of sweat, and all the extra energies that didn’t belong in a given area. Even excess hair could be removed if I thought of it. This gave me a rare epiphany that tuned my technique up a notch.

He looked like he wanted to argue with me about it, but couldn’t.

Muahahaha!

“Look, I can prove that I’m fully cured.” He activated his spiritual energy without putting pressure on me. It still caused me to step back.

Damn it. I missed being strong.

“I had an epiphany yesterday after you left. I’ve finally reached the peak of Nascent Soul!”

Using my divine sense, I examined every inch of him, something he’d gotten used to me doing after agreeing to become the Nascent Soul test subject. While many of the blockages had loosened or vanished entirely, there were still a few in key areas that were preventing him from being where he should be.

Basically, I needed to call him out on his bullshit.

“Your ‘enough’ is not the same as being perfectly cured. And while the peak of Nascent Soul is good, if you were really fully cured, you should be looking to transcend your Immortal Bone Creation tribulation.” The fucker had the energy for it thanks to his unorthodox cultivation method.

“Immortal Bone Creation! Ha! Don’t say that so casually. There might be many of those monsters in your sect, but this continent only has eight.”

“Just eight?” Damn, this continent seriously lacked resources.

“Four are the leaders or ancestors of the major righteous sects. One is our sect leader. The last three are the heads of the largest clans.”

“You forgot to list the demonic cultivator who sent his disciple to steal your sect’s life energy. That would make nine.”

He froze. A vein on his forehead bulged. “Do you mean to tell me that there’s an Immortal Bone Creation expert, who is also a demonic cultivator, just running around this continent somewhere?!”

Wait. I’d mentioned that Demon Lord Xu had a powerful master backing him, but had I really never brought up what a realm he was?!

Yeah, not even once in two years. Fuck. I’d just assumed everyone knew! Wasn’t it obvious?

Then again, this backwater continent didn’t even have one Immortal Ascension stage master.

I clasped my hands behind my back. “I noticed his presence when Demon Lord Xu died because a curse on his body activated and attacked me.” Technically, it aimed at all of us, but I took care of it before the others felt anything.

“I don’t remember sensing energy that powerful.”

“Of course you wouldn’t have. It was a curse from someone much stronger than you. The spell hides its presence until it hits its target and, since it never actually reached me, no one would have noticed it.”

Actually, I sensed the Immortal Bone Creation level Qi because my soul’s realm was far higher. It was naturally obvious to me.

He frowned. “Then how—”

“My master. He left a protection on my soul. It activated and saved me,” I lied.

He stared down at me for a long moment. I wasn’t sure he believed me. Why would he ever think I was lying?

Wait, that was before I recreated the seal restricting my soul’s appearance. Could this fucker have seen my massive soul back then? That would explain why he suddenly became so docile and treated me with more respect. He even apologized!

The main reason I hid my soul’s appearance — other than to stop others from believing I was a demonic cultivator who had taken over the body of a young girl — was to prevent some bastard of a Nascent Soul or higher from grabbing me and refining me into a nourishing elixir. But on this continent, Immortal Ascension experts didn’t exist. If he had seen my soul, he might have been too terrified to even consider turning me into medicine.

This guy probably ignored me out of respect! Was this a situation like that infamous, ‘we don’t talk about the immortal grandpa sweeping the sect’s pathways’?

Well, whatever. If he wasn’t going to mention it, I wouldn’t bring it up either.

”Grandmaster Linlin—“

”Just two more days and you’ll be finished with your treatment.”

He opened his mouth. “Just two more times?”

I nodded. “Judging by your rate of healing, what I sense from your body, and how you have near complete control over your physical side effects, you only need two more baths and acupuncture treatments.”

He grimaced. “Alright.”

Was this asshole finally letting me give him his treatment without fighting it?

He suddenly tilted his head as if he received a sound transmission. “We really do need to put this off, though. I have an emergency meeting.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I don’t believe you. In fact, I’m planning on having a nice, long conversation with Dread Lotus about this.”

He pointed at me. “Don’t keep threatening me with my niece! It won’t work this time.”

I stared at him and crossed my arms.

A few weeks ago, I brought up how he kept putting off his necessary treatment until the last moment. After that, she came by and scolded him for a full hour. She even told him about how she’d suffered through a much worse bath. While she didn’t say who’d given it to her, I still earned a glare from the poison master.

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Eventually, she played the same anesthetic song I had played for her while he sulked inside his cauldron.

She really was the best.

He grimaced. “Fine, come along.”

***

We landed in front of a beautiful white and red palace on the sect’s center peak. I assumed this was where the elders met because Pearlescent Rose stood next to an older and powerful demonic musician. There were also several Nascent Soul experts who nodded to Noxious and completely ignored me.

Once we entered, everyone walked inside and sat in two opposing rows in front of a throne.

I pretended to be the poison master’s attendant and sat down behind him.

By this point, I was sure Noxious wasn’t faking it and was tempted to leave since unnecessary meetings sucked ass. They also went against my Dao of Paperwork.

The Junior Sect Leader Irrepressible Wild Hoof solemnly entered the hall and sat on the throne.

The guy finished the treatment course a few months ago, which brought him up to the peak of the Golden Core realm.

The moose antlers that once weighed his head down had vanished. I had a feeling they’d never come back. Living with horns that large must have given him massive migraines.

I could sympathize somewhat. Just over six years ago, from my perspective, I’d lived with a huge, unneeded asset on my chest thanks to that scumbag author and his fetishes. Actually, for the past three or four years, I’d been developing there as I’d gone from pre-teen to teenager. I’d taken to using the body-transforming aspects of my disguise technique to keep my chest to a reasonable size.

At this point, I didn’t know how my unaltered body looked, but I had a feeling that I was restricting my growth there. And I couldn’t be happier about it. This was essentially giving the universe’s author a big ‘fuck you’. Muahahaha!

When I first saw Wild Hoof, he had a resting furious face. Now that my cure had fixed his side effects, he could wear a perfectly neutral expression.

It probably also helped that he’d grown up fast recently. Messing up so badly that he almost cost the sect tens of thousands of lives could do that to a man.

The Junior Sect Leader raised his hand and everyone quieted down.

“This is a very important meeting between the sect elders, so everyone who isn’t an elder or an immediate heir, get out.” The guy’s eyes landed on me.

I stood, intending to leave. This was Noxious’ meeting, and I was only confirming that he had a legitimate excuse.

The poison master’s hand landed on my wrist, stopping me. I looked down at him.

::What? You of all people know I’m not actually part of your sect::

“Grandmaster Linlin helped develop a cure for our beast blood contract bath.”

I stiffened. All eyes from the sect elders turned toward me.

::What the hell are you doing?::

“Without her, I would never have reached the peak of Nascent Soul in this life. If anyone deserves to be in this meeting, it’s her.”

“Then we should make her a temporary elder.”

The two nodded to each other in tacit understanding.

“Anyone disagree?”

“No,” the elders chorused.

Pearlescent Rose sent me an encouraging smile.

Shit. That Wild Hoof fucker actually made me an elder? And this damn potions master who knew where I came from agreed?

Goddamn it. Being too skilled was a burden sometimes.

::I have a feeling you’ll need to hear this,:: he replied.

::We’ll talk about this later, you punk.::

This was too well scripted to be anything other than a setup.

Various servants at the Foundation Establishment realm left the room. An isolation formation activated as the last one stepped out, causing the air to still.

I sat back down just behind and to the side of Noxious.

Wild Hoof’s hands tightened on his knees, turning his knuckles white. “My master has been in seclusion for too many years. We can assume that he failed to reach Immortal Ascension and passed away.”

The silence in the hall was far too thick as everyone realized what this meant for the sect — that they no longer had the protection of an Immortal Bone Creation expert and were ripe for looting by those sects and clans that did.

Well, fuck. This sect was seriously doomed. It was going to crumble worse than those starter sects that appeared in every tenth Xianxia I read in my past-past life.

“We have news from our spies that the sect leaders of the Harmonious Sound Sect and the Leashed Claws Sect are on their way here with an army. They’ll be here in a week at the earliest.”

I glared at Noxious accusingly. He deduced this ahead of time, didn’t he? What the fuck did he expect me to do about this? Talking to them was just fantasy. I might have been the ancestor of an orthodox sect, but would the sects of these continents respect me enough to let such a juicy target go? Of course not!

Noxious Fangstrike’s cheeks turned pink. It was barely noticeable, but since I’d worked with the fucker for the past two years, I could tell.

::Grandmaster Lin, are you sure your fellow sect ancestors didn’t bribe these guys to come here to make trouble for us?::

::I am 80% positive.::

::That’s a huge margin of error!::

::Your leader passed away, making your sect the perfect target for looting. I only left a 20% chance because it’s likely one of their buddies decided to use their request as an excuse::

::You call yourselves righteous but still attack a sect when they’re down.::

::Are you joking? Even the orthodox sects respect strength above all else. This continent has limited resources. What do you expect them to do?::

His face darkened.

::Look, I’m not saying they’re right. Just that their actions aren’t unexpected.::

“What does that mean for us?” Pearlescent Rose asked.

”Are we going to abandon the sect and escape?” A puppeteer elder with azure hair and fish fins for ears asked.

A woman with lion features next to him pulled his fin. His gold eyes started to water. ”Don’t even suggest that! I’m sure the junior sect leader has a plan.”

Wild Hoof raised his hand and silence filled the room. “We’re not doomed yet! Please come out, uncle.”

A man with dark blue hair appeared beside the throne. He had cyan snake eyes and wore a confident grin.

Several gasps escaped from the older elders while the younger ones looked confused.

Noxious’ jaw tightened. His knuckles turned white as he clutched his knees tighter.

”This is my master’s junior martial brother, Resentful Shadow Snake. He’s been in closed-door cultivation for the past 70 years and he is preparing to go through with his Immortal Bone Creation tribulation.”

The bearded man grinned and casually leaned an arm against the throne’s backrest. ”I also have a Cloud Skipping Lapis Viper that will reach the pinnacle of the fourth stage with me.” That was the equivalent of beginning Immortal Bone Creation stage for spiritual beasts.

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“Together we’ll be able to defeat both Peerless Cacophony from the Harmonious Sound Sect and Dominant Restraint Master from the Leashed Claws sect.”

There was a problem, though. It would take time for him to fully condense his first immortal bone after his tribulation. And we only had a week. Plus, he hadn’t been through my treatment, which would resolve the chaotic energies in his body and allow for an easier tribulation.

Basically, this guy might fail or be too injured to help.

Also, I didn’t like how he looked at Noxious. Sure, the poison master was an asshole sometimes, and he came off as far too intense, but he didn’t deserve to be glared at like that… well, maybe he did. Whatever. The point was that the glare Resentful Shadow Snake sent to him told me he wanted him gone and could afford to bide his time.

That meant that I couldn’t trust this resentful snake with Dread Lotus and my student’s safety.

“How long will it take you to transcend your tribulation and create your first immortal bone?” The fin-eared puppeteer asked.

”According to my brother’s method, two weeks.”

That was fast, but not an unreasonable amount of time. Especially if he planned to use the fight with the righteous sects to help him further condense his first bone and solidify his foundation.

”We can’t hold out that long against those sect masters! They’re too strong,” an elder who looked like an old man said.

“You can’t expect our disciples to stay here and wait for death!”

”Quiet!” the junior sect leader said.

Everyone in the room stilled.

“My master already knew he might fail. He left us with a defensive formation that even several Immortal Bone Creation experts can’t break. Unfortunately, due to the skirmish with the demonic sect, we only have enough spirit stones saved up to power it for two weeks.”

”That’s so close,” someone murmured.

”Since their one-week arrival is an estimate, we’ll have to turn it on in the next three days. Once the formation is activated, we won’t be able to leave, so you must summon all of our disciples within that time and prepare any supplies. The Irrepressible Beast Blood Sect is going to war!”

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