Chapter 207: It's Just a Sense of Responsibility

Even when she asked Sword Lai, who had completely ascended to the Spirit Severing stage, whether he had sensed even a tiny bit of Yin Soul carrying resentment, Sword Lai said no.

That shouldn't be right; he had been tortured for so long, how could there be no resentment at all? Ruan Xing boldly guessed that that thread likely belonged to something like the laws of fate or the laws of causality.

However, as it had not yet been confirmed through multiple sources, she could not be entirely certain.

Yet, this period of research had not been in vain; at least she had developed new usable skills.

For example, Instant Movement is essentially the mutual conversion of two spaces, just like the way she grabs items from other places; she can grab other people to the place where she is, or grab herself to the place she wants to go, though these two cannot be performed simultaneously—that is to say, she cannot carry people.

However, the clothes on her body, her Storage Bag, and Dharma Artifacts can be carried, so Sword Lai can crawl into her Storage Bag and act together with her.

Currently, this skill still has some flaws because it can only teleport to places within her line of sight; no matter how far her Divine Sense can see, it is only within a radius of five miles, so she can only move within a five-mile range, and there is a limit to the number of times; the power of her Divine Soul in her body is only enough for her to perform Instant Movement three or four times at once.

As for traveling, it is far less convenient than a Teleportation Array; for the cost of two Low-grade Spirit Stones, one can teleport hundreds of miles away within two minutes.

It is just that Ruan Xing used to think it was expensive, so if she had time, she would rather fly herself; it was only a few days of travel, and the Spiritual Power consumed in her body would be fully restored after meditating for half an hour—a sustainable, renewable resource.

There is also a Magic Art she understands as the Space Cutting Technique, inspired by the Sword Tassel she obtained previously, which can instantly increase the attack distance of a sword to catch people off guard.

She imagines space as small cubes like those in "Minecraft," and what her Divine Ability grabs is just such a cube; when needed, she steals the spatial distance between herself and the enemy, making it look like the sword is still a distance away from them, yet it abruptly pierces through space and stabs into their body.

Or, when an enemy is about to attack her, she steals a space cube from elsewhere and places it in front of herself to use as a defensive Magic Art.

This was an attempt she made on a whim, and she did not expect it to actually succeed.

It can be used for both offense and defense, and it has growth potential.

It is truly an essential skill for staying at home, traveling, and killing or arson.

When she has more Divine Soul power in the future and her Divine Ability becomes more proficient, the space she can cut and move will be unimaginably large.

The last one is the Magic Art for controlling living people, which she experimented with many times on Foundation Establishment cultivators.

She named it the Thread Control Technique.

That invisible thread in her hand is like a Puppet Master holding strings, and those powerful cultivators are just like the puppets on her strings.

Every move they make is according to her will, subject to her manipulation.

After using it many times, she discovered that although there is only one thread, whatever actions the controlled person takes are based on her thoughts, which is why she could make a Foundation Establishment cultivator carve Runes on their own body, use a needle to embroider, and perform a series of other delicate actions.

The higher the cultivation of the person being controlled, the more they can realize the intense sense of incongruity in their body, and thus resist.

According to her verification, for small fries like Foundation Establishment cultivators and those below Golden Core, the resistance is negligible; she can barely feel it, and even if she controls dozens at once, there is no pressure at all; she cannot even find an upper limit to the number.

In the Simulation, she also tried it on other Nascent Soul and Spirit Severing stage cultivators; after she ascended to Spirit Severing, controlling Nascent Soul stage cultivators would be a bit strenuous after about five or six, and the upper limit might be around eight or nine.

She is also helpless about this point; it is mainly because she caused trouble everywhere in the Simulation, and she could never gather more than six Nascent Soul cultivators to trouble her at the same time, so there were no experimental samples.

As for Spirit Severing stage cultivators, she can only control one; when controlling the second one, she can only suppress the other party's consciousness to keep them from moving, and she can no longer control their body to do other things.

Ruan Xing is quite satisfied with these three newly acquired skills.

The only thing that leaves her with no clue is that none of these three skills appeared on the character panel of the Simulator.

This makes her a little confused.

But since the skills work perfectly fine, she did not dwell on it further.

The work of improving her cultivation technique has also come to an end; she used up all the more than one million points she had saved, and finally, in the last Simulation, she successfully broke through to the Return to Ruins Stage!

Therefore, she wants to make a bold decision: skip Spirit Severing and ascend directly to Return to Ruins.

This means she has to undergo two Heavenly Tribulations at once.

The Spirit Severing stage is fine; it is the Heart Demon Tribulation, which is the tribulation most prone to problems for others, because other cultivators who reach the Spirit Severing stage have lived for hundreds or thousands of years; in such a long time, they must have experienced unforgettable people or events, or various emotions like extreme fear, despair, sadness, or regret.

Therefore, when undergoing the Spirit Severing Heart Demon Tribulation, one must absolutely not be disturbed; Qintai He's grandfather was like that—he suddenly learned the news of Qintai Gu's accident while in seclusion, and his Spiritual Power went into a riot, causing him to suffer from Qi Deviation.

But Ruan Xing is different; having experienced the information explosion of modern society, she has long had a complete and independent worldview and personality, will not be influenced by this era, and has seen too many joys and sorrows of others on the internet, so her empathy is not strong.

Moreover, she is a person with relatively indifferent emotions; she has only stayed in this world for eight years, not even half as long as her previous life, and after having the Simulator, she has a goal for clearing the game of life and will no longer pay attention to the passersby in her life.

If there is any bond in the world that can move her, it would only be Ruan Tao.

Having met the person who cared for and looked after her the most when she was most helpless, Ruan Xing was inevitably captured by the bridge effect.

Therefore, in the Simulation, besides the sudden disappearance of the Simulator, the second most frequent Heart Demon Tribulation she experienced was Ruan Tao being killed in front of her while she could only watch helplessly and could not stop it, or Ruan Tao discovering that she was not the real Ruan Xing and becoming cold and hateful toward her.

Those Heart Demons about herself were the minority.

Most of what appeared were things she feared.

There were also a few times when she saw herself wake up and return to that ordinary and boring life in modern society, and everything about the world of Cultivation was just a flashy, beautiful dream.

This is indeed one of the things she fears will happen.

Her nostalgia for the modern world only stays with those entertainment and convenient living facilities; she can no longer eat the various delicious foods, or enjoy novels, games, movies, and TV shows.

She has no nostalgia for anything else.

After all, she now has the highest pursuit in life—Cultivation.

In the Simulation, these Heart Demon Tribulations do not pose a threat to her, let alone now that she has the memory of undergoing tribulation many times in reality? Heart Demon Tribulation, it is nothing more than this.

But the Return to Ruins Stage is a bit tricky.

The Return to Ruins Stage is almost that of a quasi-Immortal Lord, and the Heavenly Dao will have some perception, at which time large-scale heavenly phenomena will appear.

She does not want people to know her cultivation level for the time being, and she is also worried about encountering inexplicable people coming to make trouble.

Thus, leaving the final option unselected for now, she wants to return to Nanzhou and use the barrier of the little seed to help cover up this phenomenon and ascend to the Return to Ruins Stage while deceiving the heavens.

Moreover, after the Return to Ruins Stage, she will have to start repairing the Path to Heaven; after the ascension is complete, she can just take the little seed and leave the Xumi Realm.

As for the problem of the Xumi Realm barrier disappearing after the little seed leaves: for one, there is still the mountain pass blocked by a large number of Monster Beasts, so outsiders will not discover that a place isolated from the world hides a large number of Demon Cultivators.

For another, nearly two years have passed, and the Fengling Yueying Sect should be developing quite well; when she left before, many disciples were about to break through to Foundation Establishment, so there should be quite a few Foundation Establishment disciples now, enough to protect the mortals inside after the barrier disappears and kill the Monster Beasts that dare to walk out of the mountains and forests.

There are also Ruan Tao, Hu San, the Fairy, the Demon Lord, and others at the Golden Core stage, so maintaining the stability of the Fengling Yueying Sect should not be a problem.

And Cui Yurong; in the original novel, she had Golden Core strength the day she turned into a vengeful ghost, Nascent Soul in one year, and Spirit Severing in three years; as long as there is enough Yin energy, resentment, and Divine Souls to devour, Ghost Cultivator can be said to be the fastest way to practice in the world.

The disadvantage is that compared to other Demon Cultivators, they are more afraid of things like lightning and fire Heavenly Tribulations.

Although most Demon Cultivators never even thought about the matter of undergoing tribulation and ascending.

But Cui Yurong possesses the Nether Ghost Fire and has experienced being burned by heavenly fire, so she already has antibodies.

Ruan Xing changed the plot line; now Cui Yurong does not have the monstrous resentment she had in the original plot, but she still turned into a fierce ghost on the day of her death and could torture and kill ordinary Golden Core Cultivators. Over these past two years, with the help of the Righteousness Manor graveyard in the Xumi Realm, her cultivation realm likely hasn't progressed slowly at all.

Perhaps she has already reached the Nascent Soul stage.

Thinking of this, Ruan Xing immediately packed her things and checked out of the Cave Abode she had been renting.

She even got back half of the rent she had prepaid, four thousand Low-grade Spirit Stones.

Even the smallest mosquito is still meat!

Her points and Spirit Stones were both approaching zero.

Carefully putting away the Spirit Stones, Ruan Xing turned and walked toward the city gates, incidentally summoning her own Flying Dharma Artifact, the Shuttle Spirit Boat.

As for the Teleportation Array?

She couldn't bear to use it.

About seven or eight days later, Ruan Xing's Shuttle Spirit Boat appeared above Yunyang City in Nanzhou.

With her current cultivation, she no longer feared the protective grand array of Yunyang City at all.

Ruan Tao, who was handling a matter outside the City Lord Mansion, saw the Dharma Artifact flying in the sky; she originally had a look of anger, but when she saw the somewhat familiar boat-shaped artifact, it turned into a smile of slight surprise.

Not waiting for Ruan Xing to descend, Ruan Tao summoned her Flying Sword and flew into mid-air, "A-Xing!"

She lunged forward, and Ruan Xing hurriedly opened her arms to catch her; the Flying Sword retracted automatically, and Ruan Tao stood steadily on the Shuttle Spirit Boat.

Ruan Xing was somewhat surprised by Ruan Tao's liveliness; in the past, even when they hadn't seen each other for long periods, she had never been this excited.

Moreover, Ruan Tao's gentle temperament and resilient character were gradually shifting toward a beauty with a touch of sharpness.

She had become even more radiant and moving.

"Sister." Ruan Xing hugged her and then pulled away, asking with curious laughter: "Why are you so excited?"

A healthy flush appeared on Ruan Tao's porcelain-white skin, and she smiled somewhat bashfully, "I missed you, and I'm very happy."

The Ruan Tao of the past believed she was basking in her younger sister's light, having been able to escape their original family and become a young lady living in luxury in the Red Head Gang.

Therefore, she did whatever Ruan Xing told her to do; whether it was learning martial arts or practicing cultivation techniques, she was extremely diligent, fearing that she wouldn't be able to help her sister and would hold her back.

After all, her sister had walked step by step from a gamble to where she was today, and she dared not imagine how much suffering her sister had endured.

Since childhood, she had always acted as a protector, guarding her sister so she could grow up safe and worry-free; yet in these past few years, she had always been the one being protected, which made her feel very uneasy.

So even though she was well-fed and clothed, her life had always been filled with oppressive colors, and she rarely felt truly happy, often furrowing her brows.

That was until she came out of the Xumi Realm.

Her sister entrusted her with important tasks; she not only participated in the reconstruction of the Fengling Yueying Sect and helped Cai Wen organize scrolls and case files, but also shouldered the responsibility of leading other disciples to clear out the Monster Beasts causing trouble in the surroundings.

This gave her an indescribable sense of satisfaction in her heart.

Although she was so busy she couldn't touch the ground and couldn't catch her breath.

But being busy is good! It made her feel like she was a useful person.

After Ruan Xing left, it was even more so when she became the City Lord; because Hu San's cultivation didn't progress as fast as hers and he was better at managing complex sect affairs, although on the surface both she and Hu San were City Lords of Yunyang City and Huayang City, Ruan Tao was the one who handled matters for both cities.

This had the unintended effect of reducing the influence of the various small families in the two cities.

Now, with Ruan Tao at the helm, the City Lord appointed by the Fengling Yueying Sect was no longer just a mascot to show off strength.

Ruan Tao always had a group of disciples following her to hunt Monster Beasts and guard the peace of the town, and having tasted the power of being a City Lord, she had the strength of the Golden Core Stage, so the other small families dared to be angry but dared not speak, and could only let her do as she pleased.

Although there were more things to do, Ruan Tao felt that life was more fulfilling.

Because, she could finally help her sister.

Hu San only focused on managing the affairs of the Fengling Yueying Sect, especially the tasks Ruan Xing assigned to him: raising Silver White Fish, planting Spirit Fruit Trees, brewing wine, earning Spirit Stones to maintain the sect's operations, and so on, all of which took a lot of time and energy.

Fortunately, Xu Can was there to help him in the Xumi Realm, otherwise, Hu San would have been busy to the point of exhaustion all day long.

"As long as you feel happy," Ruan Xing smiled.

"I did many things down the mountain that you didn't assign me." After the happiness, Ruan Tao also remembered her past words and said somewhat embarrassedly: "I know that in the world of Cultivation, perhaps such things happen every day, but I couldn't watch it happen; I didn't want to let others bully people in front of me. A-Xing, will you blame me?"

Driving away those Loose Cultivators who were robbing houses?

She had known about this for a long time, and she felt that Ruan Tao had done the right thing.

Ruan Xing smiled and said: "Why would I blame you? You just have too much sense of responsibility."

Because of her sense of responsibility, Ruan Tao started managing the household and taking on all the chores when she was six or seven years old.

Because of her sense of responsibility, she had always lived so tiredly.

Ruan Xing just felt a bit of heartache for her.

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