Far away from Zhou Muxi, Mo Tianxiao and Huang Xiaoyao strolled around the Haoran Righteousness Sect.
As a sect on par with top-tier factions, the Haoran Righteousness Sect possessed formidable strength.
There had to be at least seven or eight Saint Realm experts within the sect. However, whether they had any Quasi-Emperor experts remained unknown; presumably, only the core elders would know such a secret.
But considering that the Haoran Righteousness Sect actually had the strength to contest the Supreme Dao Sect for the position of the leader of the righteous path, it was highly likely that a Quasi-Emperor was holding the fort.
Similarly, the royal family of the Great Zhou Dynasty, which matched the Haoran Righteousness Sect in power, was estimated to have Quasi-Emperor experts as well.
Looking at it this way, the Great Zhou Dynasty had at least two Quasi-Emperors.
"Brother Tianxiao, what do you think Zhou Muxi is really trying to do?"
"Could she have noticed something off about us?"
Huang Xiaoyao's small face was filled with doubt. She couldn't shake the feeling that Zhou Muxi had set her sights on them for some inexplicable reason.
"So what if she finds out? As long as she doesn't know my true identity, it's fine."
"Besides, I feel that even if she did know, she probably wouldn't do anything to us..."
That woman was plotting something massive. She wasn't necessarily devoted to serving the Blood God Palace; who knew what kind of schemes were hidden in her heart.
Although he wanted to pry the location of the Blood God Palace's headquarters from her mouth, now was clearly not the time.
"The Haoran Righteousness Sect is a good place. For the short term, we'll use this as our base of operations."
Mo Tianxiao already had a rough plan in mind.
The Haoran Righteousness Sect would serve as their public stronghold in the Great Zhou Dynasty, while the Blood God Palace branch would be their covert base.
This setup would last until they figured out the location of the Blood God Palace's headquarters and the identity of the employer who hired the assassins.
And the breakthrough for all these matters lay with Zhou Muxi.
Her strength far exceeded theirs, so they had to act with utmost caution.
After scouting out the layout of the Haoran Righteousness Sect, Mo Tianxiao and Huang Xiaoyao returned to the quarters arranged for them by the sect, spending the next few months in peace.
Mo Tianxiao would occasionally visit the Alchemy Hall to concoct some pills for the sect, and Yao Zhi would frequently ask him about alchemy techniques.
Occasionally, sect elders would bring medicinal ingredients and seek out Mo Tianxiao for pill concoction. He never refused anyone, successfully crafting the perfect image of a highly skilled alchemist with a wonderful temper and personality.
Everything seemed very peaceful.
Until one sudden day, an ordinary elder at the peak of the Primordial Spirit Realm died within the Haoran Righteousness Sect.
"Elder He has been killed!"
"What!? Who would dare commit murder inside our Haoran Righteousness Sect!"
"Could it be that Elder He went too far with his usual deeds, and an enemy hired an assassin?"
"Stop making wild guesses. An elder examined Elder He's corpse and found that he didn't seem to have been murdered; it looked more like he suffered from cultivation deviation."
"Cultivation deviation? Elder He was a peak Primordial Spirit Realm cultivator, how could he suffer from cultivation deviation?? Did he fail while trying to forcefully break through to the Dharma Aspect Realm?"
"Who cares? With all the terrible things he's done, he had it coming. Now that he's dead, probably no one will shed a tear for him."
Clearly, the deceased Elder He did not have a good reputation. No disciples felt sad over his death; in fact, many were secretly rejoicing.
The instigator of all this was naturally Mo Tianxiao, a Level Eight assassin of the Blood God Palace.
Killing someone within the Haoran Righteousness Sect was too easily discovered. Moreover, he didn't know if the sect's Quasi-Emperor was constantly monitoring everything that happened within the sect.
After all, an entity of that level could perceive the every move of everyone in the sect using just their divine sense.
Through months of indirect inquiries, he finally figured out that the Sect Master was indeed a Quasi-Emperor, but was currently in secluded cultivation and had no time to spy on the sect.
Coupled with the fact that Elder He was an old lecher who frequently came to Mo Tianxiao for pills, killing the target became much easier.
He only needed to add a little something to the other party's pills every time. Over a few months, the extra ingredients from each pill created a chemical reaction within his body, producing the illusion of cultivation deviation.
In this way, a flawless assassination was completed.
No one would ever suspect Mo Tianxiao, the beautiful alchemist.
Many elders and disciples had sought his alchemy services recently, and everyone else was perfectly fine. Why was it only him who had a problem? Obviously, it had nothing to do with the alchemist; it was simply his own cultivation deviation.
And that was exactly what happened. No one suspected that this was a meticulously planned assassination.
Inside the Alchemy Hall, a group of alchemists sat upright and cross-legged below. In front of them, Mo Tianxiao was demonstrating a back-to-basics alchemy technique.
"The back-to-basics technique is very simple; it's consistent with the alchemy techniques everyone learned at the very beginning. The only difference lies in the mastery of precision."
"Mastering precision requires not only an absolute understanding of the materials and mental control, but also tens of thousands of repetitions..."
In the corner, Yao Zhi and Zhou Muxi were also listening to Mo Tianxiao's lecture.
Yao Zhi nodded from time to time, agreeing with Mo Tianxiao's words. Occasionally, a look of sudden realization would cross her face as she mentally simulated the flaws in her own alchemy techniques.
Meanwhile, Zhou Muxi stared deeply at Mo Tianxiao, her profound eyes hiding whatever she was thinking.
Over the past few months, she had surprisingly found absolutely no trace of this person named Nan Mo.
According to intelligence, Nan Mo came from the Eastern Region and seemed to have appeared out of thin air. She couldn't dig up this person's past at all.
It was as if this person simply did not exist before this.
There could only be two reasons for such a situation. One was that this person's identity was so mysterious that even she didn't have the qualifications to know it.
But this scenario was absolutely impossible in the Xuanhuang Realm. In the Xuanhuang Realm, a person whose identity even she wasn't qualified to know simply did not exist.
Then there was only the second possibility: this guy named Nan Mo was simply using a fake identity.
Not just Nan Mo, but even the few people with her—she hadn't been able to discern their true identities either.
However, these past few months hadn't been completely fruitless. Through Yun Sangyi's identity, as well as the entire process from accepting the mission to assassinate Mo Tianxiao to completing it.
Zhou Muxi had formed a slight hypothesis about the origins of Nan Mo and her companions.
Perhaps they weren't human at all, but demonic beasts from the Hundred Thousand Mountains.
Only this theory could explain why she couldn't uncover their identities.
Thinking about how the demon race frequently ventured out to travel the human world, Zhou Muxi became even more certain of her idea.
These guys were just a group of demonic beasts coming to the human world to experience life. Joining the Blood God Palace was probably just out of momentary curiosity.
But did the demon race have an alchemy genius like Nan Mo?
In any case, Zhou Muxi was growing increasingly curious about Mo Tianxiao and his group. Her primary curiosity lay with Mo Tianxiao; she was itching to use forceful methods to subjugate him. Such a young, top-tier alchemist who was also a Level Eight assassin.
It would be a true pity if such a genius could not be used by her.
"It seems I'll have to employ some extreme measures..."
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ine. During your journey, you save an abandoned baby girl and become her elder brother】 【You rely on each other, becoming each other's support】 【At the end of the simulation, you shield the now-grown girl with your life, sacrificing yourself to block numerous demonic cultivators. You die, and the light in the girl's eyes fades】 …… 【Second Simulation: You are transported to a world where steam and magic coexist】 【You immerse yourself in the study of magic, obsessed with its research. One day, while out, you encounter a half-blooded demon girl wandering the streets. You take her in as your student】 【You teach the demoness what it means to be human, show her the beauty of the world, and nurture her into a miracle that surpasses even the gods】 【At the end of the simulation, you die of old age in front of the nearly immortal demoness due to your mortal lifespan】 …… One simulation after another, one encounter after another. Xu Xi suddenly felt something was off: "Wait, you said you're coming to the real world to find me?"
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
