STNS: Chapter 545 (Patreon)

Wu Jian wound up sleeping alone the previous night after suggesting Wu Meiying and Hou Jingshu both join him in bed. He didn’t understand what he had done wrong. Were they really so against sharing his bed like that? Shuchang had told him about all the threesomes he’d had, and while Wu Jian wasn’t necessarily interested in them, he had thought it was a good compromise. Wu Meiying got to join them for some fun and Hou Jingshu got her sex. It was a win-win situation as far as he was concerned.

The next morning was tense. He sat at the table with Wu Meiying, Hou Jingshu, Zhou Lihua, and Youmei. Shuchang and Loong Mei were also present, though they were both silent as they watched them. It seemed they sensed that something had happened last night. He wished they wouldn’t stare at him like that. Shuchang was smirking like he knew exactly what had gone down while Mei Loong was frowning like she had an inkling but wasn’t certain.

Zhou Lihua had spent the entire day refining pills and so she didn’t know what had happened. Like Mei Loong, she was looking back and forth between the three with confusion clear as day on her face.

“Um… Wu Jian… your face…” she said, stuttering.

“Nevermind my face, please,” Wu Jian grumbled. His cheeks were a little swollen. Wu Meiying and Hou Jingshu hadn’t held back when they punched him. He wasn’t sure he deserved getting punched, but there was little to be done now.

“Wu Jian was just being a bit silly last night. Right, Jingshu?” asked Wu Meiying with a smile.

“Huh? Oh… yes, right,” Hou Jingshu agreed with a nod.

Wu Meiying clapped her hands. “In either event, there are some things we need to discuss now. Xie Longshan and the Azure Dragon Clan lie in ruin, but our troubles aren’t even close to being over.”

Loong Mei frowned. “I’d heard you guys had gotten mixed up with some exceedingly powerful people on the Xaio Continent.”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” Wu Meiying said. “The person after our lives is easily the most powerful individual in this entire world. Even Loong Chen and Zhe Dāozhe together could not defeat this person.”

Loong Mei closed her eyes for a moment. She, of course, knew of her brother Loong Chen, who was arguably one of the single most powerful individuals in the world. She didn’t know who Zhe Dāozhe was because she’d never been to the Xaio Continent. However, anyone spoken in the same breath as her brother was obviously very powerful. How strong was someone who could take on both her brother and this unknown individual?

“It’s not just him either,” Zhou Lihua amended. “The entire Zhou Clan is under his thumb… and now that I know who he really is, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Ten Kingdoms Alliance and Divine Moon Hall are entirely under his thumb.”

“Can you find anything with Clairvoyance?” asked Wu Jian.

Wu Meiying tilted her head, considering. “I can try, but I’d need to create a sealing formation that can block other people’s perception of me before I even attempted it. Zhou Shíwēi is searching for me. He’ll find me the moment I use one of my abilities unless we take the appropriate precautions.”

“You’re going to make a sealing formation?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Wu Meiying confirmed.

Sealing formations were intricate constructs of qi, dao intent, and symbolic runes that had very specific functions. A good example was the sealing formation that he, Hou Jingshu, and Shuchang were trapped in back during their jaunt through the White Tiger Sect ruins. That particular formation had been designed to transport and trap people within a small sealed world. However, sealing formations could do much more than simply bind and isolate people and things.

Wu Jian hadn’t studied them in depth, but he knew that a sealing formation was composed of a formation base, formation lines, runic script, core intent, and required a catalyst to activate.

“The sealing formation is called Heaven-Severing Temporal Isolation Seal. It prevents other cultivators who have comprehended the Dao of Time from being able to observe, trace, or interfere with my personal timeline. Within the sealing formation, I can also use my abilities to their full extent,” she continued.

“A seal like that cannot be easy to make,” Loong Mei said. “I know a little of seals, and I know even the simplest sealing formation requires hundreds if not thousands of spirit stones just to activate. Some require even rarer items.”

Nodding, Wu Meiying said, “This particular seal is especially advanced--at least for this small sealed world. The core principle is that it isolates my time into an isolated temporal pocket, essentially separating me from the timeline of the world. If it helps you visualize the process, then imagine that this world is a vast lake and every person existing inside of it is a rock that creates ripples on the lake. What I’m doing is placing a bowl around the rock that represents me. Any ripple I make will hit the bowl and bounce back.” She shrugged. “It’s not a perfect analogy since I can interfere with people outside of the bowl, but it’s close enough to explain how my technique works.”

“Something like that can’t be made in a day,” Zhou Lihua said. “What ingredients are required to make it?”

“Spirit stones for one,” Wu Meiying said. “They form the formation base. I’ll need at least ten thousand high-grade spirit stones. Fortunately, the Azure Dragon Clan is quite rich. They have enough that we can grab all the spirit stones we’ll need and it won’t even be a drop in the bucket.” She paused. “The bigger issue is that we’ll need Nine Heavenly Jade Hourglasses to use as nodes, and I’ll need to find a place where time flows unusually strongly.”

None of them even knew what a Heavenly Jade Hourglass was, nevermind where to find it. Wu Meiying said they were temporal artifacts forged from Heavenly Jade, which was a divine material attuned to the Dao of Time. These hourglasses contained Time Sand, which flowed not by gravity, but by temporal resonance.

Heavenly Jade was a crystalline, translucent jade that constantly shifted hues. They could be mined from time rift veins, which were found in chaotic space-time pockets or relic worlds where time had collapsed or fragmented. Time Sand, meanwhile, was a dust-like particle formed from condensed moments in time. Each grain represented a sealed moment, and when the hourglass was activated, the sand flowed not linearly but cyclically.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to find anything like that,” Loong Mei said after listening to Wu Meiying’s explanation. “But I can at least keep my eyes open.”

“Worst comes to worst, I can make them myself… but I’ll require the ingredients necessary. The problem will be finding space-time pockets.”

“Do those even exist on this world?” asked Wu Jian.

Wu Meiying nodded. “There are a few. They are not very chaotic, so we won’t be able to mine much, but hopefully, there will be enough that we can make nine of them.”

“You’re only talking about the Heavenly Jade though,” Zhou Lihua stated. “What about the Time Sand?”

“Don’t worry about that. I can create Time Sand myself,” Wu Meiying said proudly.

“This isn’t the only thing we need to do though,” Wu Jian said after a time. “As it stands, even if we know what Zhou Shíwēi is up to, we won’t be able to confront him without strength… I won’t be able to save my mother without strength…”

“Jian,” Wu Meiying said softly.

“Oh, Jian,” Hou Jingshu reached out and placed a hand over his.

“…” Zhou Lihua said nothing, but the look in her eyes spoke volumes.

Even now, Wu Jian could not believe that his mother was still alive after all this time. It was clear to him now that she had been captured instead of killed because the Zhou Clan realized Wu Meiying had escaped and was hoping to use his mother as bait once they found her to lure the woman into a trap. And now that he knew that she was alive and being held captive, he couldn’t do nothing. He needed to rescue her. He needed to save her.

“I assume this enemy of yours is at the Perfection Realm?” Loong Mei said. She crossed her arms and leaned back.

Wu Meiying shook her head. “He can’t bring his full strength to bear while he’s on this world, but his power is far greater than that.”

Loong Mei’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean--?!”

“I do,” Wu Meiying confirmed. “He’s reached the Divine Origin Realm at the very least… but I suspect he might be even a bit more powerful. Perhaps a Divine Soul Realm cultivator. He can’t be much higher than that, however. This world would kick him out even if his cultivation was suppressed. You can only suppress your cultivation by so much for so long. However, that is still far more powerful than anyone else we’ll find on this small sealed world.”

Loong Mei already knew about the Nine Heavens. They had informed her of its existence long ago, so she knew there was cultivation above the Nine Mortal Realms. However, learning there was someone who had reached that height, a realm of power only heard of in legends, was shocking.

She blew out a deep breath. “You guys have gained a terrifying enemy. I don’t envy you.”

Wu Meiying’s smile was dark and vicious as she said, “If only you understood just how small this enemy was, you would not be saying that. Zhou Shíwēi is only powerful here because everyone else is weak. In the Nine Heavens, he’d be a middling cultivator, the kind that you can find by the dozens clogging up sects all over. Unfortunately, we’re currently not equipped to deal with him. We need to get much stronger.” She turned to Zhou Lihua. “You, in particular, must increase your cultivation.”

“Me?” asked Zhou Lihua, pointing to herself and blinking.

“Yes, you,” Wu Meiying confirmed. “Your cultivation base isn’t bad, and your cultivation is stable, but you haven’t really increased it much since we’ve been here. Ideally, I want you to reach the Realization Realm at least. If you can, then you and Wu Jian can practice dual cultivation and reach even greater heights of power.”

Zhou Lihua blushed only briefly at the idea of dual cultivating with Wu Jian. They’d had anal sex, but they hadn’t gone any further than that. The original reason was because she had been a member of the Zhou Clan and was periodically tested to make sure her virginity was intact for her husband. Virginity was important in the cultivation world. Virgins had what was called a pure yin or yang essence. Once someone slept with a virgin, be they man or woman, they would acquire that essence and could use it to exponentially increase their own cultivation progress. While the original reason for her abstinence was gone, a new one had taken its place. She could not sleep with Wu Jian until it would benefit them both as cultivators. It was frustrating, but Wu Meiying had explained it and they understood why they needed to abstain.

It still sucked.

The fact that Wu Meiying suggested something proved she was an extremely practical woman. She had been fighting with Hou Jingshu just the other day, claiming she was not going to let her have sex with him anymore until she did, and now she was suggesting he sleep with Zhou Lihua to increase his cultivation. It made all the more clear how far she was willing to go to accomplish her goals.

Wu Meiying told Zhou Lihua that she would create both a training program for her to follow to increase her cultivation and also give her pill recipes to refine pills that would specifically help her cultivation. One thing she had suggested was that they find more Heavenly Flames. Consuming more Heavenly Flames would increase Zhou Lihua’s cultivation by several magnitudes.

Later that evening, Wu Jian stood outside, gazing up at the clear night sky, wondering how long it would take before he could save his mother. How many months or years would he have to wait? He didn’t know, but as he clenched his hands into fists, he promised himself that he would rescue her the moment he was able. He wouldn’t hesitate for even a moment.

He made this vow with the Nine Heavens as his witness.