The Sect Ancestor Leaves Seclusion, Mistaken for a Servant Girl's Handyman!
Synopsis
The Sect Ancestor Leaves Seclusion, Mistaken for a Menial Servant
After a hundred years of closed-door cultivation, I made my breakthrough to Spirit Severing. I left seclusion.
I had barely set foot inside the sect when a female disciple at peak Foundation Establishment threw a cup of Spirit Tea all over me.
I hadn’t said a word yet, and already she rolled her eyes at me.
“Stinking menial servant, are you blind? I’m standing right here in front of you, and you walked straight into me.”
I frowned. I did not argue with her.
She was the one who walked into me, but I did not intend to let anyone know I had left seclusion.
I apologized politely and turned to leave, and that was when she grabbed hold of me, furious.
“Hey? You spill my Spirit Tea and now you want to walk away? Clean up every drop on this ground!”
“If you don’t get it clean, you’re finished working here. You’ll spend the rest of your life inside my Myriad Soul Banner!”
I went still for a moment.
She wanted to lock me, the Old Ancestor, inside a Myriad Soul Banner?
Chapter One
I laughed, more angry than amused.
“Little girl, you were the one carrying the Spirit Tea without looking where you were going. You poured it over me. So how did it become my fault that your Spirit Tea is on the ground?”
I had expected the girl to realize she was in the wrong and back off.
Instead, she rolled her eyes at me again.
“You already apologized to me. Doesn’t that prove you’re the one who spilled my Spirit Tea?”
I had nothing to say to that.
What the hell kind of logic was that?
I rolled my eyes right back at her and turned to go.
“Hey! Stinking menial!”
“Do you have any idea who I am? I am Zhao Kexin, a core disciple of the Inner Sect!”
“Cross me, and see if I don’t throw you out of the sect tomorrow.”
I looked back at Zhao Kexin, my face flat, and said:
“A sect menial is an Outer Disciple of the Outer Sect. Without a serious crime, the sect has no right to throw a menial servant out.”
When I founded the sect, I had already expected that Inner Disciples would bully Outer Disciples.
So I set down the iron rules: short of a serious crime, no one but the Sect Lord may drive a disciple from the sect.
I thought that citing the iron rules of the sect would be enough to make Zhao Kexin back down.
Instead, Zhao Kexin’s brows drew together and her presence erupted at peak Foundation Establishment.
“Those rotten rules were set a hundred years ago. They were changed long ago!”
“A menial servant without a shred of cultivation base, and you won’t even admit you were wrong!”
“If I don’t teach you a lesson today, you’ll start thinking the sky belongs to you.”
My brow tightened. That irritated me.
Who had the nerve to change my rules?
And more than that: I had scraped my way through a hundred years of closed-door cultivation to this breakthrough into Spirit Severing, and I had wanted to show off a little.
Never did I expect that after I left seclusion, a female disciple at peak Foundation Establishment would take me for a menial servant with no cultivation base at all.
It was, to put it mildly, humiliating.
Zhao Kexin snorted and pulled a banner out of her Storage Pouch.
“Get inside my Myriad Soul Banner and think about what you did!”
I stared at the Myriad Soul Banner, speechless.
Zhao Kexin took my silence for fear and preened at once.
“Oho, scared now?”
“Fine. Since you have no cultivation base, swear you will serve me from now on, and I will let this go.”
“And more than that, I will teach you some decent Cultivation Techniques. With a little luck, in ten-odd years you might make a breakthrough to Foundation Establishment yourself.”
Then she covered her mouth and giggled.
I took the Myriad Soul Banner straight out of Zhao Kexin’s hands. I had no words left.
A rotten stick with a rag stitched to it, and she called that a Myriad Soul Banner?
Which made sense. How would a mere girl at peak Foundation Establishment ever get her hands on a real one?
“Hey, hey, hey! You can’t just take my things!”
Zhao Kexin shouted it out and reached for the Myriad Soul Banner.
I swung it backhanded and cracked her over the head.
“Ow!”
Zhao Kexin was livid.
“You hit me!”
“Oh, so you spilled my Spirit Tea, and now you…”
She did not finish. I hit her again.
“Ow.”
I put on my most innocent face and asked:
“What Spirit Tea?”
Zhao Kexin gritted her teeth, let her presence burst out at peak Foundation Establishment, and lunged for it again.
“You’re the one who knocked it over…”
I brought the banner down on her head and scattered the presence she had gathered.
“Ow, ow!”
“Say it again.”
“It was…”
Another blow.
“Hey! Let me finish!”
Two blows.
“Stop!”
Three blows.
…
“Stop! Stop! Stop!”
Zhao Kexin finally gave in. She held her head and looked at me, thoroughly miserable.
“Fine! I spilled it myself. Happy?”
I laughed without humor and raised the banner as if to hit her again.
Zhao Kexin clamped both hands over her head and shrieked:
“All right, all right! I’m sorry! I was wrong! I shouldn’t have blamed you!”
I shook my head and looked the Myriad Soul Banner over again.
It was junk, but there was real spiritual nature in it.
It could not bind a cultivator’s soul, but for the souls of small, weak beasts it was more than enough.
“Where did you get this thing?”
Zhao Kexin looked up at me, pitiful:
“The sect Elders handed them out. Everyone has one. But they can only take the souls of small, weak beasts.”
“Handed them out?”
Something did not add up. I had taken the sword as my Dao, and so I named the sect the Heavenly Sword Sect.
Every disciple we took was a sword cultivator.
Why would an Elder hand out garbage Myriad Soul Banners to the disciples of this sect?
“Why hand them out?”
Zhao Kexin’s eyes rolled around, she thought for a moment, and scratched her head:
“The Elder said the Soul Sect has been moving in secret lately. They gave us these Myriad Soul Banners so we would get used to them, so we would be ready to fight back.”
At the words Soul Sect, my brows drew together.
The Soul Sect. A sect with a name that stank.
A hundred years ago they used the size of their faction to harvest the souls of other sects’ disciples and refine them into their lifebound soul banners.
In the end the outrage was universal, and the Nine Great Sects joined forces and marched on the Soul Sect.
In that war, I killed the Sect Lord of the Soul Sect with my own hand.
That same war left me so badly hurt that I had no choice but a hundred years of closed-door cultivation.
If luck had not carried me through my breakthrough to Spirit Severing, I would have died long ago, Dao and all.
Now it looked as though the Soul Sect had not been wiped out after all. They were back.
A hand crept toward me, reaching for the Myriad Soul Banner.
Killing intent erupted out of me before I could think.
“Ah!”
I came back to myself and pulled the killing intent in at once.
Zhao Kexin jumped:
“I apologized already, so give me back my Myriad Soul Banner! The Elder said we can’t lose them. Losing one costs you your head.”
I nodded and handed the Myriad Soul Banner back.
At my realm, I had no reason to keep score against one girl.
But there was something ominous buried in that Myriad Soul Banner.
It felt like more than it looked.
I was lost in the thought when something cracked down on my head.
I looked up. Zhao Kexin was already a good distance off. She turned back, furious, and shouted at me:
“Stinking menial servant! You dare bully me? Just wait until I bring my father to deal with you!”
I…
Fine.
So my realm still was not high enough.
This one I would settle.
Chapter Two
In a single instant I was behind Zhao Kexin.
“And where do you think you’re running to, little girl?”
Zhao Kexin looked back, startled, threw everything she had into her legs, and fled.
“What do you want!”
I followed at an easy pace, smiling a little:
“Who was it that hit me on the head just now?”
“Not me!”
And with that she turned into a streak of light and bolted.
Flowing Light Illusion. The highest movement technique I had left the sect.
Only the disciples who stood out were ever given the chance to learn it.
And she knew it. Interesting.
The thought barely formed before I was moving, following her the whole way.
Until we came to a dilapidated Cave Residence.
Zhao Kexin rushed inside, screaming:
“Father! Help!”
Inside, a presence rose and fell, and something about it felt familiar.
“Girl, how many times have I told you not to go picking fights everywhere you go?”
An aged one-armed old man walked slowly out.
Zhao Kexin hid behind him, her face tight.
The one-armed old man smiled kindly, apology all over his face:
“My apologies. My daughter is a handful. I hope you will overlook it, Senior, and not hold it against a brat.”
Zhao Kexin said, astonished:
“Father, he is only a menial servant. Why are you calling him Senior?”
“He doesn’t have any cultivation base at all! Does he?”
The old man shot her a look, and her mouth shut at once.
She still stole glances at me, though, and muttered under her breath:
“Hmph. You chased me. Just wait and see what my father does to you.”
And then I finally placed the man in front of me.
He was Zhao Kezheng, the senior disciple of the Heavenly Sword Sect a hundred years ago.
I remembered clearly that after the campaign against the Soul Sect, he had already been at peak Golden Core.
Now an arm was gone, his cultivation base had fallen back, and his lifespan was nearly spent.
Zhao Kezheng seemed to recognize me too, but he could not quite believe it:
“Senior, may I ask your honored name?”
Zhao Kexin tugged at Zhao Kezheng, stunned:
“Father, he is just a menial servant! What are you doing?”
I looked at Zhao Kezheng and nodded slowly.
“I am Lu Chen.”
Zhao Kezheng stared at me, his eyes filling:
“Old Ancestor… Old Ancestor! You are alive!”
So a hundred years of closed-door cultivation had been long enough for everyone to write me off as dead.
I raised a hand and poured spiritual qi into Zhao Kezheng’s body, then pushed a Longevity Pill into his mouth.
In moments his aged face grew visibly younger, and the arm that was gone grew back.
Zhao Kezheng dropped to his knees, kowtowed, and wept.
“Welcome back, Old Ancestor!”
“Old Ancestor?”
Zhao Kexin beside him stared at me, her face drained of color.
Zhao Kezheng, his face alight, dragged Zhao Kexin over:
“Kexin, pay your respects to the Old Ancestor!”
Zhao Kexin fell to her knees in a panic and stammered:
“I… I pay my respects to the Old Ancestor.”
“I had eyes and did not see the mountain. I offended the Old Ancestor. Punish me as you will.”
I looked at the two of them, sighed, and waved them to their feet.
“No harm done. Young people are mischievous. That is only natural.”
“Now. Tell me everything that has happened since I went into closed-door cultivation.”
Chapter Three
Zhao Kezheng was about to speak when a shrill voice came from the mouth of the Cave Residence.
“Old Man Zhao! Your time is up!”
“So tell me, have you found me a Nascent Soul Pill, or are you ready to hand over your daughter as my Cauldron?”
Zhao Kexin went pale and hid behind Zhao Kezheng.
Zhao Kezheng clenched his fists and put himself in front of his daughter.
A young man in white stood at the entrance.
“Hm? Old Man Zhao, you have grown younger? And your hand grew back?”
Then the young man noticed me, and his brows drew together:
“Hey! Old Man Zhao! Did you trade your daughter for a Medicinal Pill?”
“Damn it. That Cauldron belongs to Your Daddy. How dare you.”
“Shit! I will send your daughter to a brothel!”
My face went black.
“What did you say?”
The young man sneered:
“So you are the one who touched my Cauldron. Why don’t you go and ask around about the name Ning Feng!”
“Get down and kowtow ten times. Hand over every woman in your family to make it up to me. Then I might consider forgiving you.”
Before the words were out of his mouth, I was in front of him, and one slap took his head off.
My face was ugly. I turned back.
“Tell me what happened!”
Zhao Kezheng let out a long breath and began to tell me what had happened in the hundred years since I went into closed-door cultivation.
After I entered closed-door cultivation, someone inside the sect spread word that the Old Ancestor of the Heavenly Sword Sect had been mortally wounded and had fallen.
The Heavenly Sword Sect had a long history and deep resources.
We had done the most in the campaign against the Soul Sect, and we had bled the most for it.
So once the news of my death got out,
the other Eight Great Sects all turned their eyes on the Heavenly Sword Sect.
And so the hunt against the Heavenly Sword Sect began.
At the time, the Sect Lord and twelve core disciples fought to the death and killed four of the other Sect Lords.
Only then did the rest break and scatter.
I let out a slow breath.
It was my fault. I had been bent on destroying the Soul Sect and ignored the threat the other Eight Great Sects posed.
“But if you drove them off, why has the sect come to this?”
“And what happened to your hand, and to your cultivation base?”
Zhao Kezheng gave a bitter laugh and started again, slowly.
Not long after that war ended, the Sect Lord and the twelve core disciples all died of their wounds.
Elder Qing took over as acting Sect Master.
The first thing he did was abolish the iron rules of the sect.
He encouraged the disciples to kill one another, to crush one another.
He even got hold of a Cultivation Technique of the Soul Sect from somewhere and taught it to some of the Inner Disciples of the Inner Sect.
After that, throwing your weight around became the custom of the Heavenly Sword Sect.
Zhao Kezheng was the first to stand up against it.
What he got for it was eight Elders attacking him at once.
They kept him alive only to use him as a vessel, drawing off his cultivation base and his lifespan without end.
I looked at the young man I had just killed without a second thought.
“Who was he?”
Zhao Kezheng:
“He was Elder Qing’s Direct Disciple. He used his position to do whatever he wanted in the sect.”
“More than a few female disciples have suffered at his hands.”
Chapter Four
Zhao Kexin stepped forward, shaking, and lowered her head:
“Old Ancestor, I truly did not mean it earlier.”
“That cup of Spirit Tea was handed out by the Elders. There is something wrong with it. That is why I wanted to cause an accident, so I would not have to drink it.”
I nodded.
“Don’t worry. I don’t blame you.”
“You say there is something wrong with that Spirit Tea. Do you know what it is?”
Zhao Kexin pressed a hand to her chest:
“Every time I drink that Spirit Tea, there is a wrongness in my chest I cannot name. And lately I heard that Elder Qing is in closed-door cultivation, pushing for the Spirit Severing realm. None of it sits right with me.”
Then.
“Ah!”
Zhao Kexin fell to her knees, her face twisted with pain.
“Kexin! Kexin, what is it!”
Black vapor rose off Zhao Kexin’s body, and the ragged Myriad Soul Banner drifted up into the air on its own, reeking of the same black vapor.
In an instant I understood.
The Spirit Tea had been laced with a Soul Seed!
The broken Myriad Soul Banner was a beacon.
Someone meant to use the secret art of the Soul Sect. The Myriad Man Sacrifice!
Zhao Kezheng panicked:
“Old Ancestor! Please, save my daughter!”
I nodded and waved a hand.
The black vapor inside Zhao Kexin scattered at once, and the banner was destroyed.
“Come. We have a debt to settle.”
Chapter Five
The moment we stepped out of the Cave Residence, everything outside was dark.
Black runes were burning in the sky above the Heavenly Sword Sect.
Someone had dared to remake the Sect-Protecting Grand Formation of the Heavenly Sword Sect into a formation for the Myriad Man Sacrifice!
Good.
One thought, and I had Zhao Kezheng and his daughter with me at the Formation Eye of the Sect-Protecting Grand Formation.
Two guards at early-stage Nascent Soul moved at once to block me.
“Sect Lord Qing has given an order. No one goes in.”
“Anyone who breaks in dies. No mercy.”
My eyes went cold. There was not a trace of sword qi cultivated in either of them.
What came off them instead was a sinister qi, very like the Soul Sect of old.
We did not move. One of them frowned:
“Can’t you understand plain speech? Looking to die?”
Die?
I gave a cold laugh, drew the sword at my waist, and cut a terrible arc of sword qi straight down.
“The one dying is you!”
The two guards never had time to react. They went down in their own blood.
So the Soul Sect had not been wiped out that year. Instead, the Heavenly Sword Sect had been dragged in with it.
I swung again and broke open the barrier over the Formation Eye of the Sect-Protecting Grand Formation.
A white-haired old man wrapped in black vapor sat cross-legged at the center of the Formation Eye.
“Kezheng. I did not think you would still be this stubborn.”
“You have joined with an outsider to stop my breakthrough to Spirit Severing!”
“Then do not blame me for forgetting old feeling. I will send you on your way!”
He said Zhao Kezheng’s name, but when he rose and charged, it was at me.
“Die!”
I laughed coldly and cut. His right hand came off.
“Aaaah!”
Elder Qing screamed and dropped to his knees:
“Who are you!”
My face dark, I walked slowly up to him.
“You don’t recognize your own Old Ancestor?”
“Old Ancestor!?”
Elder Qing was stunned.
“You… you have left seclusion?”
I smiled:
“That’s right.”
“You were the one who announced my death to the world, weren’t you.”
Elder Qing waved his hands in a panic:
“Old Ancestor, let me explain!”
Just then I felt energy gathering inside his body.
All the black vapor in the sect was pouring toward Elder Qing’s body as its center.
He was about to make his breakthrough to Spirit Severing!
I did not hesitate. I cut.
Elder Qing’s head hit the ground.
The black vapor drifted away.
And then several powerful presences appeared outside the sect gates.
One of them had already reached the Spirit Severing realm.
I gave Zhao Kexin an order.
Then I went out toward the sect gates.
“Who dares move against my sect!”
Chapter Six
At the gates of the sect, a great crowd had already gathered.
I hung in the air above them. I was in no hurry to show my true cultivation base.
“What business brings you to the Heavenly Sword Sect?”
The one at their front drew himself up, righteous:
“The Heavenly Sword Sect has joined with the Soul Sect to cultivate vile arts and bring harm to the world!”
“Now the Eight Great Sects join hands to destroy these demons! You All, surrender at once!”
The others echoed him:
“Yes, yes! Look at the Heavenly Sword Sect, reeking of sinister qi. Surrender now and your life may yet be spared.”
“Wait until our Spirit Severing expert makes his move, and every one of you dies!”
“Ridiculous!”
I gave a cold shout, and my presence burst out of me.
Spirit Severing!
“What!”
The crowd in front of me broke into chaos:
“Impossible. How could the Heavenly Sword Sect have a Spirit Severing expert!”
“It has to be fake!”
“Right! Let’s charge in together and wipe out these demons!”
“Kill them!”
I gave a cold laugh and cut.
Screams rose all at once.
“You want the Heavenly Sword Sect? You go through me first.”
They panicked completely:
“He really is a Spirit Severing expert!”
And the man at their head, the one at the Spirit Severing realm, vanished in a flash and ran for the distance.
So that was it. His realm had been faked with some art. In truth he was only at Nascent Soul.
And faced with a real Spirit Severing like me, he was afraid.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
“Sword, to me!”
The sword in my hand became a streak of light.
A Nascent Soul expert. Dead.
At last someone recognized me:
“It’s the Old Ancestor of the Heavenly Sword Sect!”
“What! Wasn’t he supposed to be dead!”
“Damn it! We were tricked! Run!”
In an instant the crowd scattered and ran.
I laughed.
“Gentlemen, since you came all this way, why leave so soon!”
“Before you go, take a sword from me!”
“Sword’s Extremity: Sweeping the Eight Desolates!”
My sword broke into countless flying swords and flew at the crowd.
The screaming did not stop.
Moments later, corpses lay across the ground and blood ran in rivers.
For a moment I went blank.
When had I become so eager to kill?
Then.
Behind me, a great surge of energy rose out of the sect.
The black vapor that had scattered was gathering again!
Someone else was making a breakthrough to Spirit Severing!
Elder Qing had clearly died by my hand just now.
And I had already searched the sect’s grounds. No one else inside fit the realm needed for a breakthrough to Spirit Severing.
So Elder Qing had kept something in reserve?
In an instant, a mass of Myriad Soul Banners rose into the air, burning with black light.
Inside the Heavenly Sword Sect, disciples were screaming everywhere.
No time to think. In an instant I was at the Formation Eye of the Sect-Protecting Grand Formation.
Zhao Kezheng was already down in a pool of blood, at death’s door.
I poured a stream of Spiritual Energy into his body at once:
“Kezheng, what happened! Elder Qing is dead, isn’t he? Why is this formation still starting up!”
“And where is Zhao Kexin?!”
Zhao Kezheng spat blood and stared hard at me:
“Old Ancestor, watch out!”
Then he fainted dead away.
I sent my Divine Sense out at once to sweep the area, and found no trace of Zhao Kexin.
A ring of black vapor now circled the barrier inside the Formation Eye.
Inside the barrier, a presence was making a breakthrough to Spirit Severing!
Zhao Kexin was inside it!
I cut down with my sword.
The barrier did not give. Not a scratch on it.
I was about to gather another arc of sword qi when a black sword ran me through the chest.
I turned, stunned. The one who had stabbed me was Zhao Kexin!
She was smiling, and the smile was wrong:
“Old Ancestor, let me borrow your cultivation base!”
In an instant I could not move, and my cultivation base was being drawn out of me along her blade.
“You!”
Zhao Kexin laughed:
“The formation was only a feint! I am the real killing blow!”
“Murderer of my father. Die!”
In an instant I understood.
I remembered who she was.
She was the daughter of the Sect Lord of the Soul Sect. Leng Keer.
“Today I avenge my father! I will use your power for my breakthrough to Spirit Severing!”
Then.
I laughed.
The seal came off.
I gave a cold laugh, caught Leng Keer by the throat, and said:
“Daughter, I am touched that you remember your father this well!”
“To thank you, you can be the nourishment for my breakthrough to Body Integration!”
Leng Keer went blank.
The energy in her body began to pour along my arm and into mine.
Back then, after the Old Ancestor of the Heavenly Sword Sect struck me down, I took his body while his guard was down. Body Possession.
To avoid being found out, I used my wounds as an excuse to go into closed-door cultivation.
I did not know the Old Ancestor’s Cultivation Technique of the Heavenly Sword Sect well enough, so I sealed away the memories that were originally mine.
Now the seal on those memories was gone.
I remembered at last. I was that Demon Lord who had never done a single good deed.
So the Heavenly Sword Sect had been taken over by my Soul Sect long ago.
“Father! It is so good to see you.”
Leng Keer gazed at me, dazed, tears in her eyes.
I knew it was only a performance.
“Myriad Man Sacrifice! Begin!”
The formation started.
In an instant everyone in the sect turned to flesh and blood and poured into my body.
I completed my breakthrough to Body Integration.
The first thing I did after the breakthrough was wipe out what was left of the Eight Great Sects.
After that, I raised the Soul Sect again.
From then on, the Soul Sect contended for the world.
(End)