"I won't waste words—you all know the situation in this world and this country."
"It's almost identical to how our nation was decades ago."
"As for the content of this assessment, I believe you can already guess."
Man Sui's amplified voice echoed clearly across the field, reaching all ten thousand participants.
After decades of coexistence with extraterrestrials, beings from other worlds, and non-human species, everyone had long grown accustomed to the extraordinary.
"Your task is to rebuild our nation here—to make this land like ours: where everyone has food to eat, clothes to wear, homes to live in, jobs to work, and schools to study in."
"Can you accomplish that?"
As soon as she finished speaking, all ten thousand shouted in unison:
"YES!"
Their voices thundered like a quake.
"Excellent. Then, the assessment begins now."
The participants had been drawn from different professions—soldiers, police officers, doctors, educators, and civil servants. For a brief moment, no one knew where to start.
After a short period of confusion, several representatives stepped forward to organize the crowd and start planning.
Man Sui stood silently to the side, observing without interrupting.
The military representative, a young man named Li Chengcai, was the first to speak. "We should rally the army and march straight on the capital—overthrow that useless mortal emperor."
The police representative, Wang Zhengang, nodded. "I agree we should eliminate the mortal emperor, but I don't think a military uprising is necessary."
He turned to Man Sui. "Lady Man Sui, will you personally intervene in this assessment?"
Man Sui smiled faintly. "I will."
Li Chengcai was momentarily stunned. That made it simple—just crush everything in their path.
"But," Man Sui continued, "the more I intervene, the more points you will lose. The more casualties occur, the more points will be deducted."
"However, eliminating villains will earn you points."
"You each have a personal interface now, showing the materials and supplies you can exchange for."
Upon hearing that, Li Chengcai quickly discarded his idea of brute-forcing their way through. He nearly forgot—this was an assessment.
With Lady Man Sui's strength, wiping out resistance would be effortless.
They weren't here to rely on her.
Wang Zhengang understood immediately. Man Sui could step in if necessary, but doing so would incur penalties.
In other words, they couldn't depend on her lightly.
He opened his interface. Various supply options appeared—ranging from firearms and ammunition to food and airdrops.
There was no need for Man Sui to act.
They would handle it themselves.
The group quickly restructured their plan. Instead of storming the imperial capital, they organized into units of one hundred, each armed with modern firearms, to capture county towns.
Although they all started with zero points, Man Sui allowed their scores to go negative—essentially letting them take on debt in advance.
As long as they earned it back later, it was fine.
Though this world's dynastic fortune suppressed demons and monsters, the examinees weren't demonic beings.
A group armed with modern weaponry could easily overpower ancient troops.
Li Chengcai led over a hundred men along the road until they reached a county town. Without hesitation, they stormed in and captured the local magistrate alive.
"You dare rebel?!" shouted the county's head constable, blade in hand. "Release our magistrate at once!"
He had heard of uprisings breaking out across the land—but now it was his turn.
He eyed the group's strange weapons warily, recognizing the threat.
"Rebel? Don't be ridiculous," Li Chengcai sneered, pressing his rifle against the magistrate's head. "Our Lady Man Sui is the true chosen one—far beyond your useless mortal emperor."
He'd read history books describing how corrupt mortal dynasties once were.
And now, seeing it firsthand, he found the reality even worse.
The common folk were pale and starving, surviving on bark and roots. Bleached bones littered the roadside.
"From this day forward, this land belongs to the Man Sui Empire. Who agrees, and who opposes?"
He fired into the floor beside the constable's feet.
Ratatatat!
Bullets shattered the tiles and sent shards flying.
The constable stepped back repeatedly. Though he had trained in iron-body martial arts, against over a hundred men armed with automatic rifles, he stood no chance.
He looked at his men—none dared resist.
Silently, he lowered his blade.
There was no point in dying needlessly.
He could only wait for the imperial court to respond.
"Good," Li Chengcai said approvingly. "A wise man knows when to yield." He then shouted loudly:
"Guns in hand—follow me! Slay the nobles and divide the land!"
...
Lanruo Temple.
Beneath a massive purple banyan tree, Kiana Kaslana dug out Nie Xiaoqian's urn of ashes. From the mutated body of the Tree Demon, she recalled the parasitic plant seed she had implanted earlier.
A seed shimmering with violet light emerged from the great banyan tree.
Under the influence of the parasitic plant seed, the Tree Demon had gradually lost consciousness. The seed had completely absorbed her millennia of cultivation.
The parasitic plant seed had now collected all of the Tree Demon's power.
Kiana could use it to cultivate new demons or spirits.
Nie Xiaoqian was the perfect candidate for that.
Mostly because she was pleasing to the eye.
If the Tree Demon had been a beautiful maiden, Kiana might have considered using her too—but the creature was simply too hideous.
Kiana tossed the parasitic seed into Nie Xiaoqian's urn.
A minute later, the seed fused with the ashes. Nie Xiaoqian's soul was absorbed into it.
The seed inside the urn sprouted, rapidly growing before budding—and from that blossom, Nie Xiaoqian emerged.
Now, she lived again—but not entirely.
She had become something new: half-demon, half-ghost; half-living, half-dead.
This was an experiment.
Nie Xiaoqian had been transformed into a new species.
She inherited the Tree Demon's thousand years of cultivation, able to move freely between the realms of Yin and Yang.
Just then, a chill wind swept through.
Dark mist rolled in, and a ghostly figure appeared.
"So it was you who killed the Tree Demon."
The specter's voice was low and cold.
Kiana Kaslana had no patience for words.
In an instant, her body erupted with blinding white light.
Heaven and earth were consumed by radiance.
Within the light, the ghost's form melted away.
"AAAHHHH!!"
Its shrill scream echoed briefly before vanishing into silence.
As for the Black Mountain Demon and other denizens of the underworld—Kiana needed only to release a trace of her purifying energy. It was enough to annihilate them completely.
The disturbance drew Yan Chixia's attention.
He arrived swiftly on his flying sword, landing to find the once-heavy aura of death and Yin energy wiped away. Even the air now felt warm.
"What did you do?" Yan Chixia asked curiously.
"Nothing much," Kiana replied casually, placing the urn away.
She still needed to accumulate more energy before she could open pathways to the Underworld or Heaven.
By elevating her own existence level, she could render most restrictive or magical forces meaningless.
For example, a cultivator could use a spell to move a rock—but if that rock weighed several thousand tons, the same spell would fail.
Not because the spell itself was useless, but because it lacked the conceptual scale to act on something that massive.
Only beings of conceptual-level power could transcend such limits.
And as everyone knew, no conceptual god was ever weak.
The gods, demons, and spirits of this world did not possess that kind of power.
Ordinary rule-based abilities could be countered easily.
Recently, Kiana Kaslana had been studying the cultivation methods, spells, and artifacts of this world's various sects.
She had begun to grasp the underlying logic of their Daoist systems.
Most cultivators followed paths already trodden by others, full of artificial trials and barriers.
But with sufficient understanding of the world, one could blaze a new path.
That was exactly what she was doing—creating new species, reshaping heaven and earth, and breaking the current world's rules.
Nie Xiaoqian was her experimental subject—a heroine with strong karmic fate.
In this world's belief, becoming a ghost meant death.
But if a soul retained consciousness and independent thought, then, in Kiana's view, Nie Xiaoqian wasn't truly dead—she had simply evolved into another form of life.
The world's very laws were formed from the collective cognition of all sentient beings, given shape through mysterious forces that influenced reality itself.
For instance, a dynasty's fortune or an emperor's "dragon aura" was the crystallized belief of the people. They believed their ruler to be a true dragon's descendant—Heaven's chosen savior of mankind.
An individual's belief might mean little—but when millions believed the same thing, it could alter reality itself in a world like this.
Yan Chixia examined Kiana Kaslana closely and noticed that the aura of incense around her had grown stronger.
That meant she had received countless offerings from mortal worshippers.
A wild deity?
No—that wasn't quite right.
After days of observation, he realized that Kiana Kaslana was like a stone that had never cultivated a spirit—yet somehow behaved as if it had.
The incense and faith of mortals were shaping a divine soul within her, confirming that she had previously possessed none.
And yet, the presence or absence of a soul seemed to make no difference to her at all.
"Have you heard about the uprisings spreading across the land?" Yan Chixia suddenly asked. He had heard in town that a rebel army had captured over a hundred counties in a short time.
The rebellion's leader was said to be a woman.
This army executed corrupt officials, killed wealthy oppressors, and distributed grain and land to the common people. Within weeks, they had gathered immense support.
"I know," Kiana Kaslana replied indifferently.
"What do you think of it?"
"I don't," she said simply.
"..."
"The Tree Demon is dead. Where will you go next?" Yan Chixia asked. This woman was unpredictable—neither good nor evil—capable of anything.
"Wander around," Kiana replied casually.
She could feel the severed link between Heaven and Earth beginning to mend itself.
It was likely that her arrival—and the arrival of others like her—had begun to reshape the world.
More and more people now believed that they were true immortals descended from the heavens.
Man Sui's summoned forces were spreading knowledge of their otherworldly civilization among the common people.
Seeing Man Sui's success, other chosen ones from different nations began summoning their own citizens to assist them as well.
...
Inside a county town.
Li Chengcai and his group had solidified their control through decisive action—executing nobles, redistributing grain and land, and wielding firearms as tools of authority.
Though they had made powerful enemies, the commoners supported them wholeheartedly.
A few fearful townsfolk wanted to report them to the authorities—but Li Chengcai's men had guns.
"You said there's a female ghost in this house?"
Li Chengcai stood before the gates of an old mansion, flanked by several soldiers.
A cold, eerie air seeped out from within.
Having grown up in the Man Sui Empire, he was no stranger to the supernatural. From childhood, he'd seen all manner of phenomena—on television, online, and even in real life.
He'd even watched live broadcasts of chosen ones exploring other worlds and Hell itself.
Ghosts? Hardly surprising.
Hell was full of them.
"She's a vicious spirit," one villager whispered. "We've hired Taoist priests before, but none could do a thing."
"I heard the Lu family was massacred by their enemies," another added. "They all died horribly."
Li Chengcai listened quietly as the townspeople murmured among themselves.