"Humph! Today is the day that the Nine Provinces Pill Smithing sect will fall!" The man with multiple arms waved two of them and threw the pagoda’s roof to the side. "I’ll have you maggots know that I, Yuan Bai, am now a dignified Fifth Circle Pseudo Xian realm Cultivator!"

"Ack!" The already injured Master Li suddenly spat out another mouthful of blood from this revelation.

At the same time, the several dozen disciples present at the pagoda all had their hearts jump into their mouth.

What was a Pseudo Xian realm cultivator?

They were someone who had taken half a step into the Divine domain!

Cultivation followed a set pattern of Pseudo, True and Greater. A beginner cultivator was a True mortal first, before becoming Greater Mortal and then a Pseudo Master. A Pseudo Master also became a True Master and then a Greater Master. A Greater Master became a Pseudo Xian, then a True Xian, and so on.

As a pill refining sect, they had experts of the Greater Master and Pseudo Xian realms, but those Seniors were weakened from fighting against the Asura Demon sect’s own experts.

Currently, they did not have a single expert of the Greater Master realm, yet this guy who had broken through to the Pseudo Xian real was coming to bully them!

The disciples of the Nine Provinces Pill Smithing sect all felt very aggrieved!

Master Li gritted his teeth and curled his hands into fists. "Why are you Asura Demon sect still being this obstinate! That pill has long since become obsolete!"

"If a Demon sect does not destroy another sect that annoys it, can they still be called a demon sect?" The multiple armed man grinned.

"....." Xiao Shen.

What kind of Cultivators Mentality was this?!

Revenge is best served cold, yes. But was this not a bit too extreme?!!

Master Li grimaced and sent a message over to the disciples present using sound transmission via mental energy. He said. "Everyone, flee from this place and don’t worry about me!"

The disciples present all had grave looks on their faces. "Master..."

Simultaneously, he clenched his fist and a powerful aura burst out of his body. He grimaced and shouted at the expert of the Asura Demon sect. "Why don’t you just go and die!"

A sea of flames surged along with his hand as he punched out, creating a giant hand made out of flames that punched out with him.

As the flames surged and covered the entire pagoda, all the students present moved at once. They all performed an exquisite foot technique that made it seem as though they had teleported. This foot technique was used by pill refiners as they usually had to refine pills in multiple cauldrons and needed to watch each one. Its main purpose was mainly for swiftly shuttling between cauldrons, but it could also be used for escaping in dire situations.

"...." Xiao Shen.

He looked at the flames around him and sighed. "F*ck—"

WHOOSH!

If one were to ask him, who was he to ask?

Similarly, if no one were to teach him, then how was he to learn the technique??

He did not even finish his words before the flames swallowed him up and turned him to ashes.

***

[Lady Master of Heaven: Ehh? You died so quickly?!]

Xiao Shen nodded his head with a sigh. "Yeah. I got caught in the crossfire between two big shots and ended up getting burnt..."

He had become Xiao Dying Way Too Much Shen!

[Lady Master of Heaven: Hmm. Let me check how much the timeline has changed...]

[Lady Master of Heaven has gone offline]

"...." Xiao Shen.

At least take me out of this place!

He was not in the infinite clock spiral realm, nor was he in the Wielder of the Heaven’s Will inner world space. He was simply a consciousness floating in empty void...

***

Back in the Inner World, Lady Master of Heaven leisurely closed one eye and pinched on an invisible, illusory string in front of her.

This string was a thread of fate and could be used to see the outcome of an event.

Sure, she could just step into the future and see how the future would turn out, but, in order to see what exactly had caused the future to turn out that way, the strings of fate had to be involved.

Luckily, she was the Wielder of the Will of the Heavens. An ordinary practicioner trying to peek into the tapestry of fate would definitely have their brains melt and flow out of their noses!

As she touched that single strand of golden illusory thread, various scenes began playing out before her eyes.

The Great Nine Provinces Pill Smithing sect was destroyed by the Asura Demon sect...

The Asura Demon sect members began to fight over the spirit pills looted from the Great Nine Provinces Pill Smithing sect and end up destroying everything left...

The pill recipes were never found, causing pill refining to become a lost technique...

Cultivation system practicioners who knew how to refine pills were kidnapped and poached by big, powerful sects. But the pill refining techniques of these fellows were sub-par and the quality of medicinal pills take a steep decline...

After five thousand years, medicinal pills were inexistent, cultivation had become hundreds of times harder, and fewer people make it past Foundation Establishment...

After ten thousand years, cultivation ceases to exist...

"Aiyah, nothing changed." Lady Master of Heaven sighed and shook her head.

She stretched her hand and a spatial crack opened up into the void. She reached into it and dragged Xiao Shen back into her inner world, shaking her head. "You failed."

"I failed? Of course I failed!" Xiao Shen said. "I didn’t even get to learn many pill refining techniques before I died."

"Hmm. I guess it really is too far fetched for you to try to get the Great Nine Provinces Pill Smithing sect’s special pill refining techniques on the day it was destroyed. Do you think we should capture the sect master and beat him up until he spills all his secrets?" Lady Master of Heaven said.

Xiao Shen shook his head. "But you’re the Wielder of the Heaven’s Will, can’t you just, like, poof it up?!"

Lady Master of Heaven sighed and spread out her hands. "I have far more restrictions than you can think of, little friend. I can’t even split off a clone or descend by myself, how am I supposed to poof it up??"

"...." Xiao Shen.

Are all god-like existences this unreliable?!

He sighed and shook his head. "Let’s try again, then. Why don’t we try removing the Asura Demon sect fellows for a change?"

"Bah, the destruction of the Great Nine Provinces Pill Smithing sect is something ordained by the Will of the Heavens." Lady Master of Heaven shook her head. "I only need to figure out a way to have it done without causing cultivation itself to go extinct in that world line."

"Something like this isn’t really that hard to fix, though." Xiao Shen pinched his chin.

"Wouldn’t learning all the pill refining techniques of the Great Nine Provinces Pill Smithing sect and leaving before the destruction of the sect solve it all?"

"Mm-hm, that would solve it for sure." Lady Master of Heaven said and cocked her head with a smile. "But would you be willing to spend several hundreds of years learning all the techniques of the Great Nine Provinces Pill Smithing sect? Believe it or not, I’m beginning to think this is a wonderful idea..."

Fahhh

Xiao Shen’s face instantly paled.

A few hundred years?

His corpse would already have long since gone cold by then!

Human beings could only live for seventy to ninety years!

If ’a few’ hundred years were to pass, he would become a Xiao ’Aged to Death’ Shen!

Though, as the Wielder of the Will of the Heavens, Lady Master of Heaven probably had a way to lengthen his lifespan...

Tsk, what am I saying!

I don’t want to spend several hundreds of years away from Tian Hua and the others!

Several hundreds of years without TV, or QQ, or Weibo, or WeChat...

With no pizza, or fried dough sticks and soy milk...

And no Ubers, or cute delivery girls, or hent— Ahem, manga and manhwas or even online novels...

Instead of living such a life he might as well just dive into the Yangtze kiang at once!

Xiao Shen swiftly shook his head. "No, no. Let’s go with another plan."

Lady Master of Heaven nodded her head. "I figured."

Then her eyes lit up. "Right! I can project my Will on the world as the heavenly dao, but I’m only able to do it remotely. But, if I used that strange karmic... fate... soul... whatever network attached to you, I might be able to directly use your body to incarnate myself!"

"Hmm..." Xiao Shen frowned in thought.

What the Lady Master of Heaven referred to as the ’strange karmic or fate or soul network’ should mean his real life livestream...

But just what kind of thing was this stream exactly, that even the Wielder of the Heaven’s Will, the absolute pinnacle of existence and cultivation, could not properly identify it??