Van Huang frantically twisted his body as a powerful force continuously tore him apart. The pain seemed capable of driving one insane. Fortunately, his senses were then cut off, otherwise he would have fainted. But then, he discovered something unusual.
“Wait, why am I here?”
Van Huang was originally just a small rogue cultivator on the Yongle Continent. When his parents passed away, he was only thirteen years old.
Two years later, he joined a cultivation sect. Although his innate talent was quite good, for various reasons, he didn't meet the standards and was expelled by the sect. From then on, he became a rogue cultivator, wandering everywhere. Nearly a hundred years later, he was a ninth-level Spirit-Connecting Realm rogue cultivator.
With this cultivation speed, Van Huang had every chance to break through to the Thought-Condensing Realm.
While searching for an opportunity to break through to the True Core Realm, he accidentally got caught in a conflict between two Thought-Condensing Realm cultivators. Thought-Condensing Realm cultivators were all regional overlords; for a Spirit-Connecting Realm cultivator like him, they could easily crush him with minimal effort.
And so, he died.
Van Huang felt a bitter pang as he thought back. He had painstakingly cultivated to the peak of the Spirit-Connecting Realm, only to lose his life by getting caught in a fight between two big shots. What truly rotten luck.
Inside the pitch-black passage, he kept walking and walking for several hours straight.
Suddenly, a colossal object appeared before Van Huang. It was so massive that Van Huang could only see a small corner of it. Van Huang stared blankly at the colossal object, his mouth agape.
“A sta… a star!!!”
It was even more exaggerated than a star, so large that several Yongle Continents wouldn't be enough to match its size. The celestial body seemed to be made of flames, and these flames were incredibly strange—colorless flames, unlike anything Van Huang had ever encountered.
As he gazed in fascination, Van Huang noticed a strange change.
Around the colorless grand sun, twelve colossal suns appeared. Fortunately, Van Huang had already been stripped of all his senses, otherwise he would surely have suffocated to death.
Van Huang stood there for a long time. Suddenly, a thought was transmitted from within the colorless grand sun to Van Huang.
What it conveyed into Van Huang's consciousness was not a language he could understand, but then, as if a translation function activated, all the information became comprehensible.
“Successor?... Me?”
As if understanding Van Huang's words, the colorless grand sun's flames flared up.
Van Huang was surprised. The colorless grand sun seemed to be an inanimate object, yet it could communicate?
Could it be that what was before him was a grand sun that had cultivated into a spirit?
Suddenly, the colorless grand sun vanished, leaving Van Huang alone, utterly bewildered.
“Is this intentionally not giving me a chance to refuse?”
Van Huang sighed in vexation. Being a successor, a disciple, whatever, was fine, but at least get him out of here!
“It’s fine, as long as I’m alive.”
Van Huang suddenly felt that something was wrong, terribly wrong.
Wait a minute!
Hadn't he just died?
How could a dead person become a successor? This was clearly a scam!
Big Brother Grand Sun, why don't you trick someone who's actually alive, instead of targeting a dead person like me?
In this space, there was nothing but blackness. Van Huang rummaged through his clothes to see if anything was left, and just as he expected, everything had vanished.
Suddenly, Van Huang grasped a hard object. It seemed to be something hanging around his neck.
It was a flat stone, quite similar to a token. The ancestral artifact of the Van family, it had been passed down to Van Huang by his ancestor before they passed away.
The Van Clan was merely a mundane noble family, and he had no interest in mundane wealth.
But now, there was nothing else to do except thoroughly study it.
After more than three days, Van Hoang concluded that it was just a rock, nothing more, nothing less.
"What a waste of time."
Van Hoang set the rock down, and it immediately crumbled.
Van Hoang's face twisted in disbelief. "What just happened? My strength wasn't even great, why did you crumble?"
To Van Hoang's greater surprise, a chaotic ball of light flew out and shot straight into his glabella.
"What is this?"
A stream of thoughts was transmitted into Van Hoang's consciousness. This stream of thoughts was very chaotic, and it took him a while to barely make sense of it.
"What!!! A cultivation technique... for cultivating the divine soul?"
Van Hoang was shocked. Could a soul really be cultivated?
The essence of the divine soul was something even cultivators at the Condensation Realm couldn't grasp a tiny corner of, yet this thing directly helped cultivate the divine soul. How was this possible?
And it seemed this cultivation technique had no name, as if it was born from the primordial.
If it was born from the primordial, it would be even more precious. If this cultivation technique were to leak out, it would surely stir up another bloody storm across the entire continent.
Just thinking about it was terrifying.
But he was already a dead man; how could he die again?
But Van Hoang immediately felt dejected, precisely because he was already dead, rendering this cultivation technique useless.
Having nothing else to do, Van Hoang studied this cultivation technique.
The divine soul was a mysterious, elusive thing; even cultivators who had lived for thousands of years couldn't fully comprehend it. Therefore, cultivating the divine soul was truly too profound. With the insight of a Spirit-Connecting Realm expert like him, he could still only barely deduce the first layer.
The first layer, "Void," involved the divine soul still being in an illusory state. It only required simply accumulating spiritual energy, making it the most basic and easiest step to perform.
After several days of absence, the Colorless Great Sun appeared once more. Van Hoang was overjoyed. This time, he didn't delay any longer and immediately spoke.
"Great Sun Master! Take me out of here!"
Understanding Van Hoang's intention, a ball of flames from the Colorless Great Sun wrapped around Van Hoang.
His vision changed; it was no longer that dark space, but sunlight shining on his face, and his senses gradually recovered.
Van Hoang discovered he was standing amidst a group of young men and women, all with various expressions—nervous, anxious, confident—and everyone was looking towards one spot.
Following everyone's gaze, what met Van Hoang's eyes was a large gate, and on an iron plaque beside it, three characters were carved.
"Feng Yin Sect..."
Van Hoang's eyes widened in shock.