"This..."

Sister Swallow’s expression stalled, like a bird hovering over storm-wrecked trees. Her gaze swept the chaos, then hardened like quenched steel. "This is the Immaculate Glazed Saint Physique. It’s the constitution my lady chased her whole life and never reached."

"Immaculate Glazed Saint Physique?" Nana Toki’s brow arched like a drawn bow. The name sounded like a sinkhole. "Why does your lady love these flashy stunts?" Maybe her realm shot up too fast, left empty hours like winter fields, so she started dancing on a knife-edge for fun?

System: "..." Wasn’t the point that the Azure Crow Fairy never reached this constitution in her lifetime?

"Perhaps my lady’s thoughts are already clouds beyond our sky," the Heavenswallow Serpent replied, face still as a lake.

System: "..."

"So why did a Saint Physique that never awakened in her past life awaken in this one?" Nana handed the unconscious Blue Magpie to Sister Swallow. She fished a teleportation talisman from her pocket like a leaf of light, ready to bail. If she wasn’t only at Golden Core, she’d have carved down those half-dead Immortal Realm cultivators like wheat.

Then she’d strip every storage ring clean as a bone.

"Shame." Luck favored that lot. She shot a regretful glance toward Chen Youxian and the others on the plain like a last wind over grass, then fired the talisman and took Sister Swallow and the rest off the battlefield outside Netherworld City.

"If you’re asking why... I’m not fully sure." In another secret realm under Netherworld City’s roots, Sister Swallow tucked the sleeping Blue Magpie down like placing jade on silk, then lifted her head. "I mentioned my lady’s mixed Immortal-Demon bloodline. Maybe that’s the wedge that split the knot."

"My lady’s Spirit Energy circuit was the finest under heaven, like perfect channels carved in jade. Sadly, she was born in the mortal world. With a supreme bloodline fed by bland mortal Spirit Energy, she advanced like a wildfire yet hit a cliff at the end."

"So once you absorb mortal Spirit Energy, you can’t take in Immortal and Demonic Spirit Energy later?" Nana frowned, a willow leaf creasing the stream. What kind of weird physique is that?

"Of course not! The Immaculate Glazed Saint Physique cultivates by drinking from both Immortal and Demonic realms, like twin rivers feeding one sea. And her circuits had long grown used to mortal ripples. Change it now, and you’re uprooting an old tree in a storm. Force it, and her foundation shatters; she’d have to rebuild. Back then the Three Realms were at war. Rebuilding meant a dead end."

"But in this life, Blue Magpie also guided Spirit Energy in the mortal world. Her path should be far from the Azure Crow Fairy’s. So why did she ascend?" Nana’s willow brows knit darker. Maybe she missed a grain-of-sand detail—like teaching some oddball technique.

Wait. An odd technique? Could it be...

"Purging Impurity Immortal Body Art...?" The System and Nana spoke in the same breath, two echoes in one valley. They met eyes, and a spark jumped like flint on steel.

"That art flushed all the mortal Spirit Energy out of Blue Magpie’s body. And Netherworld City sits under the Demon Realm’s canopy, so she could form the Immaculate Glazed Saint Physique." From a certain angle, luck opened a door by itself.

"Purging Immortal Body Art?" Sister Swallow’s look turned subtle, like tasting bitter tea. "Isn’t that a mortal-world wellness method to toughen the body and open meridians? Why would my lady cultivate that?"

Nana Toki: "..." Yeah... not easy to explain.

System: "..."

Anyway, the matter settled—for now. But their tracks were exposed, and they’d hijacked the Protagonist Lord’s bamboo coffin, almost a golden finger. Nana Toki feared this world’s Heavenly Dao would pull something deranged soon. She wasn’t wrong.

The Protagonist Lord allied with the Immortal Realm’s crowd.

She only learned years later. She was dodging Immortal Realm hounds and ramming herself into Nascent Soul with pills like bitter hail. Out of nowhere, a pillar of light speared the sky, thunder on a clear day. She froze, stunned. She thought some old fossil in the mortal world had ascended at Great Vehicle Stage. She looked up. Far off, the Protagonist Lord rode that sky-piercing beam into the Immortal Realm, trailed by several white-robed Immortal Realm cultivators at Great Vehicle Stage like cranes on a wind current.

Nana Toki: "..."

If that’s not hacking, what is? She was floored. Luckily, the Protagonist Lord didn’t stay up there. She kept asking around. A few days later, the Protagonist Lord popped back into the mortal world like mist unrolling. Compared to before, Tianqi Yu now carried a profound aura you couldn’t see through, like night pooling around a mountain.

She’d felt that sort of thing before, but this was different. That profundity nearly congealed into something you could touch, like fog becoming rain. Nana suspected the Protagonist Lord had cut some shady backroom deal with this plane’s slippery Heavenly Dao.

Otherwise, how would he dare to cheat so brazenly!

"What cheat. Host, that’s the plane child’s exclusive luck buff." The System couldn’t stand it anymore. "Maybe he snagged a fortuitous chance in the Immortal Realm. It replaced most of the luck you scraped off him, even overflowed. That’s why you can see it almost taking shape around him."

"Then why does he trip into fortunes while I don’t?" Nana sulked, heart like a cat scratching. She’d been grinding hard.

"Why... because he’s the protagonist. And you’re a tiny expendable side character."

Nana Toki: "..." Again with this cursed main-versus-side farce.

She’d thought the Protagonist Lord went up to accept a great legacy. Not so. Tianqi Yu took no inheritance. He got no Immortal techniques, no artifacts, no heavenly treasures. It was like a tourist stroll through a city of clouds, hands emptier than wind.

Only Tianqi Yu knew how priceless it was. He had seen the Heavenly Dao. Not the abstract thing from books and gossip. What he saw was a glowing sphere floating in the sky, a sun-bead over an abyss. First meeting, first glance, and he knew it held the world’s pulse.

They made a deal. Strictly speaking, not a deal. The Heavenly Dao tossed him supreme Dao fortune like a king gifting a jade seal, and asked for nothing.

"Perhaps... the Fate of the Azure Crow is bound by heaven..." That was the only sigh he heard before his awareness faded in the Immortal Realm, a wind through pines vanishing into cloud. To this day, he hadn’t pierced its meaning.

What is the Fate of the Azure Crow? And what is the Heaven’s will it spoke of?

Since it’s the Heavenly Dao, that will is its mind. What did that heavy sigh mean, like a bell struck in fog?

News from the Immortal Realm was too thin. He didn’t know where to step. If only he could reclaim the legacy early, ascend, and be enshrined an Immortal.

"Se—Senior Brother Yu! Senior Brother Yu! B—big trouble!"

While he pondered, a disciple barreled in from the hall, footsteps like scattered beads. Tianqi Yu remembered him faintly, an ink stroke faded. One of the Heavenly Ascent Sect disciples he’d taken to tour Netherworld City. Decent talent, only decent. Hardly great.

He kept the man close because he listened and worked for free, a dog by the fire. If he lived to see the day Tianqi Yu attained the Dao, Tianqi Yu wouldn’t mind tossing him a small crumb of fortune.

"What happened that has you so rattled?" Tianqi Yu straightened a little, back like a drawn bow, voice a lid on a boiling pot. "If it’s outside the sect, spare it."

Lately he’d been running around the Heavenly Ascent Sect like a man under hail. Justifying his Immortal Realm trip to the Sect Master and elders set his head ablaze. Add outside chores, and he’d go mad with flies.

"N—no, not a small matter outside! It’s big, Senior Brother Yu!" The disciple’s words broke like reeds. "I—Immortal Realm cultivators came to our mortal world!"

"Immortal Realm people in our mortal world?" Tianqi Yu felt a twist, odd as a swan in a muddy field. "Why leave their cushy days to come here?"

"Th—this disciple doesn’t know... but they’ve been talking about an Azure Crow Fairy since they arrived..."

"Azure Crow Fairy?" Azure Crow. Heaven’s will? Tianqi Yu’s eyes sharpened like ice, and even his aura shifted like a blade unsheathed. "Are they here for the Heavenly Dao’s matter?"

"Come. We’re going to see." His face changed like passing clouds, then settled. He headed for the sect square, each step a drumbeat.