The main hall of Spiritual Artifact Peak was lavishly decorated, with even the most casual ornaments possibly being some kind of magical treasure.
Hua Kongque still hadn’t returned.
Jiang Bingbing had just finished eating melons in the backyard and was now sneaking back to the front hall, crouching low.
At the moment, she was restless and uneasy.
It had only been a few months since she crossed over, yet there were already so many juicy stories in the Sword Sect!
She couldn’t keep up with them all.
That Senior Sister Rong Rong was beautiful and had just given her a gift. Wouldn’t it be wrong not to save her?
“Who can understand my dilemma?” Jiang Bingbing muttered helplessly.
Did I cross over to save all living beings?
She asked herself sincerely!
Jiang Bingbing sighed, took out some red dates from her cloth pouch, and started eating. She scratched her cheek, shifted her sitting position, her anxiety and inner conflict clearly written on her face.
“Senior Brother Xie, the Formation Array on your sword has been stabilized.”
“Good, thank you, Junior Sister Rong.”
Finally back!
Jiang Bingbing’s eyes lit up, and she quickly ran out of the hall.
“Senior Sister Rong Rong—”
She ran up to the two of them, but before she could finish her sentence, she stopped abruptly. A man and a woman were walking up the steps below.
Both wore the blue-and-white robes of the Sword Sect.
On their chests, they wore the emblem of Spiritual Artifact Peak.
“Junior Sister—” The female cultivator covered her mouth with a light laugh, shyly glancing at Xie Yingnan. “Senior Brother Ying Nan, are you here to repair your Spirit Sword?”
“Yes,” Xie Yingnan replied indifferently.
It seemed Hua Kongque was still picky and didn’t just charm everyone he met.
But—
This voice sounded so familiar!
Right!
This was the woman speaking behind the rockery.
So it was these two who wanted to harm Wang Rong Rong.
Seeing Xie Yingnan’s cold attitude, the female cultivator’s pretty face darkened for a moment before quickly returning to normal.
It was like watching a master of face-changing.
She didn’t get angry but instead gently took out a deep blue umbrella from her Storage Bag and handed it to Wang Rong Rong. “Junior Sister, the master added a Formation Array and asked me to bring it to you.”
“Alright, thank you for making the trip, Senior Sister.”
Wang Rong Rong extended both hands, preparing to take it.
Jiang Bingbing suddenly felt something was wrong.
This was the spiritual artifact that had been tampered with!
“Wow—what a beautiful umbrella!”
As the two were about to exchange the umbrella, a small, chubby hand suddenly reached out and snatched it away.
Just as Jiang Bingbing was about to open the umbrella.
The female cultivator’s expression changed drastically, her tone turning hostile. “How rude! This is Junior Sister Wang’s lifebound spiritual artifact. How dare you, an outsider, snatch it so casually? Give it back!”
As she spoke, she reached out to grab the umbrella, her movements rough.
Xie Yingnan frowned. Although he didn’t like this little fool, she was still someone he had brought along. How could he let her be bullied?
“Junior Sister, aren’t your words and actions a bit too much?” Xie Yingnan drew the soft sword from his waist, the slender blade coiling around the female cultivator’s arm like a vine.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Jiang Bingbing opened the umbrella and threw it into the air.
The deep blue umbrella hovered in mid-air, and Wang Rong Rong frowned as she noticed something off about the Formation Array.
“Wow! Senior Sister Rong Rong, your umbrella is so beautiful! When will Bingbing have such a pretty spiritual artifact too?”
Her reminder was subtle but enough.
Wang Rong Rong sensed something, her expression dimming, though she forced herself to appear cheerful. “Junior Sister will have one too after reaching Foundation Establishment.”
Her bright and radiant face carried a hint of bitterness, and her smiling lips were tense. With a heavy heart, she turned to Xie Yingnan and said, “Senior Brother Xie, there are still matters to attend to on the peak.”
“Rong Rong won’t see you off.”
Xie Yingnan sensed that the atmosphere wasn’t quite right.
The two cultivators from Spiritual Artifact Peak were avoiding eye contact.
He understood the situation and cupped his hands in farewell. “Then I’ll take my junior sister and leave first.”
All the world’s a stage, and we must play our part.
When Jiang Bingbing was taken away by Xie Yingnan, she clung to his arm, shaking it vigorously. “Third Senior Brother, Bingbing wants a pretty spiritual artifact too! I want one, I want one!”
They made a noisy scene all the way back to Jade Immortal Peak.
Xie Yingnan slipped away as fast as his feet could carry him.
“Tsk, what a cheapskate,” Jiang Bingbing muttered as she returned to her small courtyard. She poured herself a cup of tea and gulped it down contentedly.
“Saving people is so exhausting!” she sighed.
…
There were still two days left of her break.
During this time, she visited Sumptuous Peak to deliver the blueprints to Martial Uncle Ma, asking her to craft the items depicted in the drawings into mounts.
The rest of her time was spent diligently cultivating in her room.
“I originally found the incantations obscure and difficult to understand, so why did everything suddenly become clear after I closed my eyes and meditated?”
Jiang Bingbing couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard she thought. She pondered for a moment, then slapped her thigh and came to a conclusion.
“I really am a cultivation genius!”
“…”
Fen Jue, who had just awakened from his cultivation, felt his breath catch.
He truly.
Regretted forming a pact with this shameless girl.
By the time Jiang Bingbing’s break ended and she attended class at Heavenly Virtue Hall, the incident at Spiritual Artifact Peak had finally come to light.
Zhuge Tienan excitedly shared the gossip with her.
“Little Bing, Spiritual Artifact Peak actually expelled two inner sect disciples. Guess why?”
Jiang Bingbing, of course, knew why.
If it weren’t for her.
Today’s gossip would have been about Wang Rong Rong’s death.
She played dumb and asked, “Why?”
Zhuge Tienan leaned in, looking as though she was sharing a family scandal. “I heard it was for harming fellow disciples!”
“Bad people, they deserve it!”
Jiang Bingbing crossed her arms, puffing out her cheeks angrily.
Zhuge Tienan: “They absolutely deserve it! When the Sword Sect was first established, the Ancestral Founder set the rule that anyone who harms fellow disciples would be expelled from the Sword Sect and never accepted back. Those expelled by the Sword Sect won’t be taken in by other sects either. They can only become rogue cultivators, and rogue cultivators have no one to rely on—it’s a miserable existence!”
“I don’t know what those people were thinking, always resorting to underhanded methods.”
“Mhm~” Jiang Bingbing murmured in agreement.
People who use improper means to achieve their goals have existed throughout history. From her school days to her work life in the modern world, she had encountered many such individuals with twisted intentions.
She was no stranger to it.
“Fortunately, there are no bad apples on our Beast Taming Peak,” Zhuge Tienan said, then nodded again to affirm her statement. “People who love little animals are all good people!”
“Exactly, exactly!”
Jiang Bingbing echoed like a parrot.
The two chatted for a little while longer until the teaching elder entered the hall, and the classroom instantly fell silent.
Jiang Bingbing listened attentively to the lecture, burying her head in her notes. Zhuge Tienan still couldn’t get used to seeing Jiang Bingbing work so hard.
Zhuge Tienan had been at the ninth level of Qi Refining for three months and hadn’t yet advanced to Foundation Establishment. Her father said she needed to wait for an opportunity.
What that opportunity was, she didn’t know.
Jiang Bingbing had worked hard until now and had reached the third level of Qi Refining. While she wasn’t as fast as others, given her childlike innocence, achieving this level was already quite impressive.
What no one knew was.
If Jiang Bingbing didn’t have a Chaotic Spiritual Root, with her level of comprehension, it wouldn’t have been impossible for her to reach the late stage of Foundation Establishment by now.
Since the legendary divine official of the Upper Heavenly Palace, the cultivation world had never produced another Chaotic Spiritual Root.
Jiang Bingbing was the second one Fen Jue had encountered.
People like her accumulate strength over time, and once their spiritual power reaches a certain level, their advancement speed becomes astonishing.
Moreover.
For those with a Chaotic Spiritual Root, fighting above their level is not a problem.
Why is that?
For example.
A single spiritual root is considered a top-tier genius.
If a single spiritual root cultivator only needs to absorb a cup of water’s worth of spiritual power to advance, then their Consciousness Sea contains only that cup’s worth of spiritual power. But for someone with a Chaotic Spiritual Root, they must absorb a bucket of water’s worth of spiritual power to advance, so naturally, the spiritual power within their Consciousness Sea is vast and profound.
When two opponents face off in battle.
The one whose spiritual power is exhausted first will inevitably die.
However—
No one in the Sword Sect knows that Jiang Bingbing possesses a Chaotic Spiritual Root.
And Fen Jue has no intention of letting outsiders find out.
Before this young girl reaches the Nascent Soul stage and gains the ability to protect herself, the fewer people who know, the better.
Innocence is no defense when one possesses a treasure.
In the cultivation world.
It is easy to snuff out a genius.
But it is difficult to help a genius ascend and prove their Dao.