The silence inside Spirit Abode 409 was absolute, broken only by the microscopic hum of the defensive barrier flickering against the sheer cliff wall outside. Deep shadows lengthened across the stone floor as the silver moonlight filtered through the purple-leafed bamboo grove, casting jagged patterns over Railin's motionless figure.
He sat cross-legged on the silk meditation mat, holding five glittering green mid-grade spirit stones in each palm. The dense, medicinal vapor of the three Foundation-Consolidating Pills he had just swallowed expanded rapidly inside his throat, radiating a scorching heat that surged straight down toward his stomach.
Under normal circumstances, an Eighth Level Spirit Refining cultivator attempting to absorb three mid-grade pills alongside ten mid-grade spirit stones simultaneously would face catastrophic consequences. The raw, violent torrent of spirit qi would tear through fragile meridians, shatter the dantian walls, and leave the body a crippled husk.
Railin did not possess ordinary meridians.
"Devour," he whispered in his heart.
Deep within his lower dantian, the black, liquid whirlpool of the Ashen Devouring Technique awoke. It did not merely absorb the energy—it struck like a hungry sea monster, snapping its dark jaws around the medicinal heat. The explosive essence of the Foundation-Consolidating Pills was instantly dragged into the vortex, stripped of its impurities, and refined into pure, liquid darkness.
Rumble!
At the same time, the ten mid-grade spirit stones in his hands began to tremble violent. Bright green threads of raw, unrefined spirit qi burst from the smooth crystalline surfaces, rushing into his wrists like twin torrents of liquid emerald. The qi traveled up his arms, burning through his skin with intense heat, but as soon as it hit his main meridians, the dark essence of his Eighth Level core enveloped the green streams, crushing them into dark blue energy.
His meridians, which had been widened and hardened by Deacon Xu's stolen vitality days prior, expanded even further under the tremendous pressure. They stretched like thick iron pipes, flexing without a single crack.
Inside his lower dantian, the dark liquid pool began to rise at an alarming speed.
Fifty percent filled... sixty percent... seventy percent...
The sheer volume of spirit qi generated by the mid-grade stones was staggering. Compared to the diluted energy found in low-grade stones, these mid-grade gems contained a concentrated essence that hit his core like heavy hammer blows. Each pulse of energy solidified his foundation, turning the dark liquid in his dantian into a dense, syrup-like substance that crackled with microscopic sparks of black lightning.
Hours melted away in the dark. The moon drifted past the high granite cliffs outside, casting the bamboo grove into absolute pitch-blackness.
By midnight, Railin's breathing had slowed to a whisper. The ten spirit stones in his palms had turned into dull, gray rock, crumbling into fine white dust that slipped through his fingers onto the stone platform. The medicinal strength of the three pills was completely digested, leaving his core standing at the absolute barrier of the Eighth Level Spirit Refining realm.
A invisible barrier blocked his path—a thick wall of compressed air within his dantian that separated the Eighth Level from the Ninth. The Ninth Level was the absolute pinnacle of the Spirit Refining stage, the final stepping stone before a cultivator could attempt to form a liquid lake of essence and step into the mythical Foundation Establishment realm.
Railin opened his eyes slightly. A dark light flickered in his pupils.
Without a second of hesitation, he reached out with his right hand, grabbed two more Foundation-Consolidating Pills and five more mid-grade spirit stones, and shoved them into his mouth and hands.
"Break!" Railin commanded coldly in his mind.
The Ashen Devouring Technique went wild. The black vortex doubled its rotation speed, creating a terrifying gravitational pull inside his body. The sudden influx of fresh, potent energy smashed directly into the invisible barrier in his lower dantian like a battering ram made of pure obsidian.
BOOM!
A dull, heavy echo vibrated inside his chest. Railin's body shuddered violently. A thin line of dark blood dripped from the corner of his lips as the rebound force vibrated through his internal organs, but his eyes remained sharp, cold, and entirely unbothered.
He did not back down. Instead, he forced his spirit sense—now dramatically enhanced by the newly forged obsidian soul sphere in his forehead—to compress the raging energy into a single point.
The Soul Needle within his upper dantian hummed with power, lending its absolute mental focus to control the chaotic energy below. With razor-sharp precision, Railin guided the black torrent, driving it into the microscopic hairline fracture he had just opened on the barrier wall.
CRACK!
The barrier shattered.
A flood of pure, black-blue energy surged out of his dantian, rushing through his twelve primary meridians in a wild, triumphant loop before returning to the core. The dark liquid pool inside his lower dantian expanded by nearly double, deepening in color until it resembled an endless, starless night sky.
The heavy, suffocating pressure radiating from his body expanded outward, causing the silk meditation mat beneath him to disintegrate into microscopic threads. The air inside the stone room became thick, heavy with the oppressive weight of a peak-tier cultivator.
Ninth Level Spirit Refining.
He had reached the absolute ceiling of the Spirit Refining realm.
Railin took a long, quiet breath, letting the newly formed Ninth Level energy settle smoothly into his expanded channels. His physical strength had easily doubled; his senses were so sharp that he could hear the rhythmic rustling of leaves hundreds of yards away down the mountain path.
Yet, just as he was about to begin consolidating his core, his sharp ears picked up a faint sound that did not belong to the wind.
Tink.
It was a sound so soft it was nearly imperceptible—the faint, metallic scrape of a fine wire pressing against the outer stone threshold of Spirit Abode 409.
Railin's eyes snapped open in the darkness. The dark light in his pupils turned deadly.
He did not move a muscle. He remained seated cross-legged on the stone platform, letting his breathing remain slow and steady, perfectly mimicking a cultivator deep in a state of closed-door meditation. But beneath his wide sleeves, his fingers curled slightly, and the invisible black soul sphere in his forehead began to spin with cold, predatory intent.
Outside the heavy ironwood door of the abode, three dark figures crouched in the shadows of the purple bamboo grove. They were dressed in tight, pitch-black night attire, their faces covered by cloth masks that concealed their features. However, the faint silver embroidery around their wrists betrayed their origins—these were no ordinary outer assassins. They were high-ranking enforcement enforcers or shadow operatives tied directly to the noble factions of the Inner Sect.
The leader of the trio, a lean man with narrow, serpent-like eyes, held a thin black needle coated in a faint purple liquid. He was carefully picking at the defensive array node set into the stone doorframe.
"Careful," the second figure whispered, his voice barely audible even in the quiet night. "The boy brought down Deacon Xu. His battle strength isn't normal for an outer commoner."
"Hmph," the leader sneered quietly, his fingers moving with practiced efficiency. "Deacon Xu was an arrogant fool who relied too much on his status and let his guard down. Railin is just a brat who got lucky by devouring unstable pill essence during the tournament. The elders of the Imperial Dragon Peak want his life before the morning assembly. A dead genius is no longer a genius."
With a soft, almost soundless click, the glowing blue light of the abode's defensive array flickered out. The outer array node had been bypassed using a specialized master key token provided by the registry administration.
The three assassins slipped through the heavy ironwood door like silent ghosts, closing it soundlessly behind them.
The lead assassin drew a slender, jet-black dagger from his waist. The blade was smeared with Seven-Night Soul-Rotting Poison—a lethal substance capable of paralyzing a Spirit Refining cultivator's meridians in seconds upon entering the bloodstream.
They moved in a triangular formation, their boots making no sound as they glided across the smooth stone floor toward the central platform where Railin sat motionless, his back turned to the door.
Ten feet. Eight feet. Five feet.
The leader raised his black dagger, aiming directly for the base of Railin's neck. A cruel, bloodthirsty smile twitched beneath his black mask.
"Die, commoner rat," the leader thought, plunging the dagger downward with lethal speed.
Swoosh!
The blade sliced through the air—and passed right through thin smoke!
The figure sitting on the silk mat collapsed into a cloud of fading black ash. It was merely a residual shadow left behind by Railin's sheer movement speed!
"What?!" The lead assassin's eyes widened in sudden, absolute horror.
"Looking for me?"
A soft, emotionless voice echoed directly behind the lead assassin's ear.
Before the leader could even turn his head, a cold hand reached out from the darkness and wrapped around his throat with the crushing force of an iron vise.
"Enemy attack!" the second assassin screamed, drawing his broadsword and lunging forward with full power, his blade flashing with bright yellow spirit qi.
Railin did not even turn to look at the incoming blade.
From his forehead, a microscopic, invisible thread of mental force launched through the air.
The Eclipse Soul Scripture — Soul Needle!
Thwack!
The second assassin froze mid-air. There was no physical sound, no explosion of light, and no bloody wound. But the moment the invisible Soul Needle pierced through his forehead and shattered his sea of consciousness, his eyes went completely blank. The yellow spirit qi around his sword instantly vanished like a blown-out candle.
Thud.
The second assassin collapsed to the stone floor like a puppet with its strings cut, his body completely lifeless, his soul utterly wiped out before he could even register what had hit him.
The third assassin, who was preparing to flank from the left, stopped dead in his tracks. Cold, paralyzing terror seized his heart. He looked at his companion lying dead on the ground without a single scratch, then looked back at Railin, who was casually holding their leader by the throat with one hand.
"W-What kind of evil sorcery is this?!" the third assassin gasped, his voice trembling violently as he backed away toward the door.
"Sorcery?" Railin tilted his head slightly, his grip tightening around the leader's neck until the bones in the man's throat began to creak loudly. "No. It is simply the difference between a hunter and prey."
"Agh... mercy..." the lead assassin choked out, his legs dangling in the air as he kicked frantically, his hands clawing at Railin's iron fingers in vain. "The... the Imperial Dragon Peak... sent us... If you kill us... the Inner Sect Enforcement... will execute you..."
Railin looked into the leader's terrified eyes with an expression of complete, terrifying neutrality.
"Enforcement?" Railin asked softly, a cold smile curving his lips. "They didn't see you enter. And they certainly won't find what's left of you."
"Wait—!"
Before the lead assassin could scream, Railin activated the Ashen Devouring Technique directly through his open palm.
VRRRR!
A violent black whirlpool materialized at Railin's fingertips. The lead assassin's eyes rolled back as his skin instantly turned a sickly grey. His spirit qi, his vital blood essence, and even his refined cultivation base were violently sucked out of his body in thick, dark streams of energy, flowing straight through Railin's arm and into his lower dantian.
The leader's body shriveled up at a terrifying speed, shrinking into a dried, hollow husk within ten seconds before crumbling into fine black powder on the floorboards.
The third assassin's mind completely snapped. Seeing his leader literally turned to ash before his eyes broke his sanity. He turned around frantically, reaching for the door handle to escape into the night.
"Did I give you permission to leave?" Railin's voice echoed softly from behind.
Flick.
Another invisible Soul Needle shot through the air.
The third assassin's hand froze an inch from the iron door handle. His eyes lost all color and focus, and he collapsed backward onto the floor, stone dead.
The stone room fell back into absolute silence.
In less than thirty seconds, three elite inner assassins—each possessing Eighth or Ninth Level Spirit Refining cultivation—had been completely eradicated. Two dead by soul destruction, one devoured into nonexistence.
Railin walked over to the two remaining corpses. With a quick sweep of his hand, he stripped them of their storage pouches, weapons, and identification tokens. He then pressed his palm onto their chests, letting the Ashen Devouring Technique consume their remaining flesh and bone until not a single trace of evidence remained in the room.
Only two piles of fine black dust remained on the stone floor. Railin casually waved his wide sleeve, generating a small gust of spirit qi that blew the dust out of the open window into the purple bamboo forest outside, where it dissolved into the earth.
He opened the stolen storage pouches, dumping their contents onto his desk.
Aside from a hundred low-grade spirit stones and several lethal poisons, he found a small, silver-embossed iron medallion inside the leader's pouch. The medallion was shaped in the form of a roaring dragon head, with two sharp characters engraved on the back: Ninth Peak.
"Imperial Dragon Peak's Ninth Faction," Railin murmured, his fingers tracing the sharp edges of the iron medallion. "They really can't wait."
He knew that his victory in the Outer Tournament had threatened the established balance of the noble families who controlled the academy's resources. By executing Deacon Xu, he had openly slapped the face of the Imperial Dragon Peak's administrative network. Sending assassins to murder him in his assigned abode on his very first night was their immediate, ruthless response.
If Railin were an ordinary commoner disciple, he would have died silently in his sleep, his body discarded in the mountain valleys as a failed cultivation accident.
"Since you have chosen to send gifts," Railin said softly, his dark eyes flashing with a cold, predatory light, "it would be rude of me not to return the favor."
He did not spend the rest of the night meditating. Instead, he put on the navy-blue inner disciple robes he had received from the Registry Hall, bound his black identity token to his waist, and concealed his true aura down to the Sixth Level of Spirit Refining using his refined soul control.
To any outside observer or deacon, he would appear as nothing more than a slightly lucky outer disciple who had managed to barely scrape into the Inner Sect.
When the first rays of morning light began to pierce through the thick violet mist hanging over the mountain peaks, Railin unbolted the heavy ironwood door of Spirit Abode 409 and stepped outside into the crisp, cold air.
The Inner Sect of the Grand Azure Academy was divided into four main sovereign peaks, surrounding a massive central valley known as the Trading Exchange and Mission Hub.
The four peaks were:
* The Imperial Dragon Peak — Dominating the north, home to the wealthiest noble factions, high elders, and arrogant scions.
* The Ice Mystic Peak — Dominating the east, a realm of freezing frost, home to ruthless ice cultivators and mysterious female elders.
* The Shadow Moon Peak — Dominating the west, focused on stealth, array formations, and mental arts.
* The Heavenly Sword Peak — Dominating the south, housing the academy's most fanatic sword cultivators and combat martial artists.
Railin walked down the winding white marble path leading toward the central valley. His goal was not the cultivation caves or the library, but the Inner Sect Mission Hall.
To survive and thrive in the Inner Sect, he needed two things: massive amounts of high-tier spirit stones to push his Ninth Level core toward the Foundation Establishment threshold, and access to the academy's wild boundary zones where he could hunt high-tier spirit beasts and devour corrupt cultivators away from prying eyes.
As he entered the grand plaza of the Central Hub, the area was already buzzing with thousands of inner disciples. Massive glowing jade boards hung thirty feet in the air, displaying hundreds of missions updated in real-time by the administrative deacons:
* Gathering Sun-Fire Herbs — Reward: 50 Low-Grade Spirit Stones (Low Risk)
* Escorting Merchant Caravans to the Capital — Reward: 200 Low-Grade Spirit Stones (Medium Risk)
* Clearing the Blood-Bone Valley Beast Horde — Reward: 5 Mid-Grade Spirit Stones (High Risk)
* Investigating the Anomaly at the Ghost-Mist Ridge — Reward: 20 Mid-Grade Spirit Stones & 1 High-Tier Pill (Extreme Risk)
Railin stood near the back of the crowd, his arms folded inside his wide sleeves as his eyes scanned the highest section of the glowing jade board.
"Look, isn't that the new brat from the Outer Competition?" a loud, mocking voice suddenly rang out from the side of the plaza.
A group of four inner disciples dressed in silver robes trimmed with golden dragon scales walked over, their expressions arrogant and condescending. The leader of the group was a tall youth with broad shoulders and a long, golden-sheathed saber hanging from his belt. His aura was strong—he was a genuine Ninth Level Spirit Refining cultivator on the verge of half-step Foundation Establishment.
His name tag read: Senior Disciple Lu, a outer member of the Ninth Peak faction tied to the Imperial Dragon Peak.
"I heard he was assigned to Abode 409 last night," Disciple Lu said with a sneer, walking up to Railin and stopping just five feet away. "Funny thing... three of my Ninth Peak junior brothers went missing in that exact area last night. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, commoner?"
The surrounding disciples in the plaza immediately backed away, forming a wide circle around the two. Everyone knew that Disciple Lu was one of the ruthless enforcers of the noble faction, frequently picking on new commoner disciples to force them into paying "protection fees."
Railin slowly turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto Disciple Lu's sneering face. His expression remained completely flat, completely devoid of any emotion or fear.
"Missing?" Railin asked softly, his voice calm and unhurried. "Perhaps they wandered into the mountains and got eaten by wild dogs. The mountain paths can be very treacherous for people who lack eyes."
The crowd gathered around the plaza gasped softly. To speak so blatantly to Senior Disciple Lu was practically begging for a beatdown right in the middle of the Mission Hub!
Disciple Lu's face darkened instantly, his narrow eyes flashing with murderous intent. He rested his hand on the hilt of his golden saber, step by step stepping forward until his aura pressed down on Railin like a heavy mountain.
"You have a sharp mouth, brat," Disciple Lu growled, lowering his voice so only Railin could hear. "Don't think that just because Elder Han spared you on the tournament stage, you are safe here. In the Inner Sect, noble blood rules supreme. A commoner like you is nothing more than stepping stone under our boots. Hand over your reward storage pouch and your golden library slip right now as compensation for my missing brothers, or I will ensure your legs are broken before noon."
The three disciples behind Disciple Lu chuckled menacingly, spreading out slightly to block Railin's exit paths.
Railin looked at the hand resting on Disciple Lu's saber, then looked up into the man's arrogant eyes.
Instead of showing anger or panic, Railin's lips curved into a faint, razor-sharp smile.
"Broken legs?" Railin murmured, taking a light step forward. The hidden Ninth Level aura inside his core twitched slightly, and the dark soul sphere in his upper dantian hummed with lethal readiness. "Senior Disciple Lu... are you challenging me to an official arena duel? Or are you just barking like a dog because your masters on the Ninth Peak failed to kill me last night?"
The entire Mission Plaza fell into a dead, shocked silence.
Disciple Lu's eyes widened in sudden rage. "You seek death!"
Before Disciple Lu could draw his saber, a cold, clear voice like cracking ice resonated from the upper balcony of the Mission Hall, cutting through the heavy tension like a frozen blade:
"Silence."
The temperature in the entire plaza dropped by ten degrees in a single second. Tiny crystals of frost began to form on the marble floorboards around the balcony.
Everyone turned their heads upward.
Standing on the high wooden balcony overlooking the plaza was the young woman in frost-white robes from the Secret Pavilion—the icy genius of the Ice Mystic Peak. Her piercing blue eyes looked down at the crowd, resting briefly on Railin before shifting coldly to Disciple Lu.
"The Mission Hub is a place for sect duty, not for the Ninth Peak's noisy dogs to bark," she said, her voice smooth yet filled with absolute, suffocating authority. "Disciple Lu, if you wish to shed blood, take it to the Life-and-Death Stage. Otherwise, get out of my sight."
Disciple Lu's face turned an ugly shade of purple. He swallowed his rage, knowing full well that he could not afford to offend a core disciple of the Ice Mystic Peak. He pulled his hand back from his saber, glaring at Railin with pure hatred.
"You got lucky today, commoner," Disciple Lu hissed under his breath. "But the Inner Sect Trial is in three days. Let's see who saves you when we enter the Crimson Mist Mountain."
Disciple Lu turned on his heel and stormed away with his group, leaving behind a heavy, lingering hostility.
Railin did not even glance at the departing assassins. He raised his head slightly, his dark gaze meeting the icy blue eyes of the girl on the balcony.
She gave him a cool, indifferent look, as if warning him that she had not stepped in to save him, but merely to maintain order. She then turned around, her frost-white robes fluttering in the wind as she vanished back into the upper hall.
Railin's razor-sharp smile deepened slightly.
"Crimson Mist Mountain..." Railin murmured to himself, turning his gaze back to the glowing jade mission board hanging high in the air.
That was precisely the lawless, dangerous territory he had been looking for.
Without another word, Railin walked up to the mission counter, handed his black jade identity token to the Grey-robed clerk, and pointed his finger directly at the highest-tier dangerous mission listed on the board.
"Register me for the Crimson Mist Mountain Trial," Railin said smoothly.
The clerk looked at him in surprise, but stamped the token without question.
The hunt was about to begin.
See you in next chapter....