Hong Bo was nothing more than a rogue cultivator. He’d simply hung around the Void Pill Sect long enough to learn every rumor and back alley, then bluffed strangers by waving the sect’s flag.

He never crossed any bright red lines—just nicked small advantages and kept out of the elders’ sight.

Ye Liuyun weighed it for a breath, decided the man wasn’t worth killing, and slapped a slave seal on him instead, stuffing him into the spatial world.

Though Hong Bo wasn’t a disciple of Void Pill, he’d dealt with a few of them, flipping their pills to the black-market stalls outside the gate. Ye Liuyun planned to use those connections later—let the man guide him through the underground stalls and maybe cozy up to more sect pupils.

After that he stowed the snow-wolf and the metal puppet, then stripped every Interspatial Ring from the corpses.

He Lingwu wasn’t dead—only knocked cold.

Ye Liuyun released a soul strand to ransack the man’s memories before devouring them. One snippet made him pause: He Lingwu had registered for an upcoming selection that would throw him into a secret realm.

He Lingwu himself had never entered; he only knew that every He clansman who came out did so vastly stronger.

The clan had a queer rule: each candidate must take two bodyguards inside. Yet without fail those guards died—every last one—while roughly half the disciples walked out alive. And every survivor remembered only what loot he’d gained; everything else was blank.

Reading that, Ye Liuyun frowned.

“Force guards in, none come out—looks like tribute. And wiped memories? The realm itself is scrubbing them.”

It felt more like some He family powerhouse’s private world; he double-checked through He Yunzhang’s slave seal.

But He Yunzhang swore the clan didn’t control it. The place was simply bizarre, and despite centuries of probes no elder could explain it. It merely tolerated bearers of He blood, so generation after generation they kept feeding it disciples while trying to map its rules.

After countless attempts they knew: eighty percent of anyone who stepped inside would die, and every survivor would be a blood descendant. Once they tried cramming in extra guards; not only did every guard perish, every disciple died as well. So each year they settled on sending roughly a hundred heirs plus two hundred escorts—and accepted getting fifty-odd heirs back as their best ratio.

They’d even thrown in titled elders; same outcome. Those who returned bore treasures: top-tier resources, lost arts, sword or saber insights suddenly sharpened to terrifying edge.

The strangeness hooked Ye Liuyun completely.

He decided to gamble. With He Lingwu in hand he could mimic his face at need—or duck into Lingwu’s pocket world or simply teleport away via his black tower.

He planted a slave seal on Lingwu first, then fed him one drop of life spring to knit his wounds. After that Ye Liuyun used Thousand Illusions to reshape himself into one of Lingwu’s original guards: aura lifted half-step deliberately low clothes torn like battle-scraps shambling beside his new “master” all way back home

When they reached estate household asked few questions hearing only pillsnatching gone wrong beating nothing more urgent urged heir heal fast not miss selection nobody spared glance at dusty guard behind

So Ye Liuyun settled into guest wing cultivating quietly waiting portal day

That same afternoon city garrison poured streets raided local guildhall slaughtered everyone inside spectacle drew every eye By time prefect yamen reacted Yu Wenqiang already finished looting corpses cold excuse ready guild abetted fugitive Ye escape With witnesses dead case collapsed prefect could do nothing recruitment notice next dawn new merchants invited

Second avatar slipped in via black tower claimed marrow-wash pill alone plus entire haul Yu Wenqiang seized One pill one trip seems wasteful yet foundation now iron-hard divine essence thickening fast breakthrough imminent

So he couldn’t allow his second-division clone to break through with sub-par stats. Fortunately, Yu Wenqiang had robbed the local guild; even if the black teleportation tower guzzled juice a few more times, the stockpile would still be far from empty.

He also fished out a few True-tier, seventh- or eighth-grade pills from the loot and tossed them to He Lingwu so the guy could brute-force some refinement in every stat. After popping them, He Lingwu didn’t get True-tier ninth-grade results, but anything beat nothing—his overall power still crept upward.

During the selection tournament he stole the spotlight, snagged first place, and pocketed a top-tier battle armor from clan HQ. At least when he finally stepped into the secret realm he’d have better life insurance.

Ye Liuyun skipped his matches and couldn’t care less about the He family circus; he stayed inside his clone’s pocket world cultivating on warp speed, racing to hit Unity Fourth before the realm opened.

He and both clones fed energy into the Element-Swap Cauldron together, converting it into divine yuan. This breakthrough was early-to-mid Unity, so the calorie count was hefty.

Divine yuan condensed way faster than mystic yuan ever had. The moment he locked in, both quality and quantity spiked; minutes later he was already knocking on breakthrough’s door.

He’d stacked enough combat credits back in Desolate Sea prep; when divine yuan surged it didn’t rampage—it just lazily widened meridians without blowing out any capillaries.

After cycling for ages through every channel, the stream funneled back into his core pill: a slow boil followed by solidification until grade Unity Four clicked in.

The upgrade left his core half-empty again—refilling would cost another mountain of juice—but at least everything ran smoother and safer than before.

For now Ye Liuyun drained every drop left in his Storage Stones and kept transmuting it into higher-grade divine yuan before feeding more raw power through Swap-Cauldron straight into himself.