I’ve become stronger. With Puppers’ assistance, I beheaded a quasi-immortal, but even if he hadn’t assisted me, I’m sure I could’ve achieved a similar result on my own. How did I become this strong all of a sudden? I’m not quite sure, honestly; it just happened. A few days after Lucia conquered the Death God’s Tomb, some vengeful spirit of sorts entered my weapon body. I killed it. And since then, my cultivation became much smoother, and I could feel myself growing stronger with every passing day. Not only that, but I found I could summon a strange aura if I concentrate enough qi onto my sword. It most definitely has something to do with the Death God’s legacy; I didn’t mention it to Lucia because I had a feeling she’d try to take it from me.

Speaking of Lucia, she’s about to get stronger. Again. After I finally felt like I caught up with her, she’s rushing ahead without giving me a chance to defeat her. A long time ago, she consumed lots of beast cores to grow stronger. Now, she’s consuming beast cores, but these cores belonged to immortal beasts. Although all she did was drink their blood, once she fell asleep, the cores in the formations above her shrank, and I can tell their essence is entering her body. Even now, the cores are steadily shrinking, and it won’t be long before they’re completely gone. If Lucia is a quasi-immortal right now, then doesn’t that mean she’ll become an immortal after absorbing all these cores?

If Lucia becomes an immortal…, I’ll once again be stuck inside of my weapon body. It’s not that I’m afraid of Lucia learning what she calls my deepest darkest secrets, it’s the method that she’ll employ. There is absolutely no way I’ll allow her to Soul Scour me, not after seeing what happened to the people she practiced the technique on. Once she becomes an immortal, I won’t be able to beat her if she decides to attack me to perform her Soul Scour. Thus, there’s only one thing I can do. Before Lucia finishes absorbing all those cores, I have to get stronger. Luckily, there happens to be a treasury filled with all kinds of weapons right in front of me. I already learned I can eat weapons other than swords—even if they taste awful—to get stronger. If I ate everything here, would I grow strong enough to defeat Lucia? Unless there are immortal-ranked weapons, I don’t think I will, but why wouldn’t there be immortal-ranked weapons here if there are immortal beast cores?

Lucia’s growing stronger via beast cores and blood. Mrs. Feathers is growing stronger as well. Ilya’s going through a bunch of jade slips. If I don’t take advantage of this treasury too, I’ll be left behind. Well, at least I’ll still be ahead of Softie, but that’s nothing to be proud of. Let’s see, what should I eat first? I’ll start with the swords, but there aren’t that many of them. None of them smell particularly appealing either. If there were an immortal-ranked weapon here, I’m sure it’d smell irresistible. There’s a small wall with swords hanging on it, and underneath each one, there’s a jade slip, presumably with a technique inside. However, I’m only interested in eating the swords. Why aren’t I interested in new techniques? It’s simple. They’ll take too long to learn and practice. Once I finish eating all the weapons, I’ll go back and learn the techniques. After all, I can practice these techniques while in my weapon body, but eating swords requires me to be in this form, the one that Lucia can Soul Scour. …I’m lucky Lucia can’t Soul Scour weapons.

“The treasury…. Master, do we have to accept this?” the woman called Hu Shen asked. She was watching me eat a sword, making me feel a little uncomfortable, but it didn’t matter. With Ilya’s contract binding her, she can’t raise a hand against us. Ilya did include me in the contract, right…?

“There’s nothing we can do,” Old Bai said. “We lost, and this is what happens to the losers. Like when our sect defeated the squirrels and claimed everything they had, all of our things shall be claimed by the people who defeated us.”

“How did we lose?” Hu Shen asked. “Don’t we have immortals backing our sect? If we truly were about to be defeated, won’t those immortals descend and wipe away our enemies? They took the sect’s resources; they were nurtured by the sect. How can they watch it be destroyed like this?”

Old Bai sighed. “It’s a little early for you to learn about immortals, but I can’t fault you for wanting to know. Immortals…, yes, they can descend upon the Immortal Continent. They wield unbelievable powers, but power like that comes at a cost. If you entered a land without qi, you could only rely on the qi inside of you to use your techniques. Once it runs out, there’d be no way to replenish it. It’s the same for immortals. Once they ascend, their bodies are changed, and they require the energy of the heavens to use their immortal techniques. When they come back to the Immortal Continent, they’ll only be able to perform one or two attacks before they’re no different from a quasi-immortal. And, the most important reason immortals aren’t willing to descend, once they come back to the Immortal Continent, to leave, they have to go through another immortal tribulation, one that is stronger than the last one they experienced.”

Interesting. It seems like Softie was wrong when she said immortals would hunt down Lucia. They won’t even come back to save their sect while it’s being ransacked. Why would they come down to hunt a squirrel in the name of the greater good? Well, it wasn’t a bad choice to return to the pocket realm when we did: Quasi-immortals were a threat to Lucia back then. But the thought of another realm or world above this one…, it excites me. And by the sounds of it, it seems like Lucia will be heading there once she becomes an immortal, which should happen pretty soon considering how many cores she’s absorbing. In that case, I have to eat these swords faster. Every bit of strength counts no matter how small.