Severing Ties: The Sect Regrets My Departure

Chapter 215: The Previous Owner of This Shard… Was a Saint!

“This is… Lu Qingyao’s Mountain River Remnant World?”

The moment Gu Xiu laid eyes on the jagged porcelain shard, the pleasant buzz of alcohol in his system evaporated.

He didn’t just recognize this object; he knew it intimately.

Over five hundred years ago, Gu Xiu and Lu Qingyao had ventured into a perilous secret realm together. The greatest Fated Chance within that realm had been this very item—the Mountain River Remnant World. To ensure Lu Qingyao could secure it, Gu Xiu had fought bloody battles for days, suffering grievous injuries that nearly cost him his life.

Since then, it had been Lu Qingyao’s signature Dharma Treasure.

But now… he had fished it up?

And it wasn’t just a matter of retrieving it.

“How has this Remnant World become an ownerless object?”

“Didn’t Lu Qingyao bind this treasure with her blood centuries ago? How was the connection severed? Did she voluntarily abandon it?”

Gu Xiu was baffled.

This shard was no ordinary artifact. For a Beast Tamer like Lu Qingyao, a portable world was invaluable. When they first obtained it, she had bound it immediately. Had she taken the wrong medicine? Why would she actively dissolve her ownership of such a treasure?

“Brother Dao, you seem to have lost your touch.”

Just then, Sui Xing—the spirit of the Star Shattering Forging Platform—manifested. He circled the floating shard, shaking his head theatrically as he addressed the Green Bamboo Rod.

“I thought at the very least you’d hook an Immortal Artifact. Instead, you drag up a broken piece of pottery? That counts as a miss, you know. A fumble.”

The Green Bamboo Rod remained silent and motionless, ignoring the taunt.

“Hey, don’t feel too bad, Brother Dao. Even the best horse stumbles, and even the sharpest blade gets dull.” Sui Xing waved his hand with the air of a magnanimous boss, then drifted over to Gu Xiu. “Let me have a look. Maybe it’s decent refining material.”

He reached out and grabbed the shard.

Zzzzt!

The moment his skin touched the porcelain, Sui Xing froze as if struck by lightning. His entire spectral form began to tremble violently. He stared at the shard in his hand, his eyes widening in absolute horror.

“G-Great… Great Dao… A Great Dao Artifact!!”

“This is a fragment of a Great Dao Artifact!”

Sui Xing whipped his head around to stare at the Green Bamboo Rod, his voice cracking. “Brother Dao… Dao Lord… you… you can even fish this up?”

The Green Bamboo Rod remained silent.

But Sui Xing was already spiraling into hysteria. “Holy Mother of the Stars! I, Sui Xing, actually misjudged something? This broken scrap is a Great Dao Artifact?”

“Absurd! Ridiculous! This is too absurd!”

“In my entire life, I’ve only seen a Great Dao Artifact twice, and both times they were on you. What kind of devil’s luck do you have?”

The last remark was directed at Gu Xiu. Gu Xiu could feel Sui Xing’s burning curiosity; if the spirit could, he would have dissected Gu Xiu right there to find the source of his fortune.

To be honest, Gu Xiu was equally shocked.

He was shocked not by the object itself, but by its true nature. Five hundred years ago, he knew the Remnant World was extraordinary, but he never imagined it was on the same level as the Green Bamboo Rod—a bona fide Great Dao Artifact.

“It’s a pity it’s damaged. The full power of the Great Dao can’t be unleashed. If it were complete… the implications would be terrifying.”

“Though, come to think of it… what kind of catastrophic disaster could shatter a Great Dao Artifact like this?” Sui Xing shook his head, his eyes filled with professional regret.

Gu Xiu didn’t dwell on the ancient history. He examined the shard one last time to ensure there were no traps, then hesitated no longer.

Blood Binding.

If the object still had a master, Gu Xiu would have paused. But since it was ownerless, there was no reason to be polite.

He pricked his fingertip. A single drop of crimson Essence Blood welled up and fell onto the porcelain.

Sizzle.

The blood was absorbed instantly.

Immediately, complex, radiant cyan runes began to surface on the shard’s glaze. The faint painting of the mountain and river seemed to come alive, glowing with a vibrant inner light.

Finally, the anomalies faded, and a profound mental connection clicked into place.

Blood Binding: Success.

Information about the Mountain River Remnant World flooded Gu Xiu’s mind. With a simple thought, a blinding cyan light erupted from the shard, swallowing him whole.

When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the backyard of the Listening-to-Rain Pavilion.

He stood atop a small, verdant peak.

This was the Mountain River Remnant World.

Gu Xiu had visited this place five hundred years ago, right after Lu Qingyao acquired it, so the terrain was familiar. However, the sensation was entirely different.

Back then, he was a guest. He had noted the thin Spiritual Qi and the small size, but little else.

Now, as the Master, he felt like a God.

Every blade of grass, every tree, every stone, every speck of dust… they all hummed in resonance with his soul. He sensed that he could alter them with a mere flicker of his will. The wind, the rain—everything waited for his command.

It was a profound sensation. Gu Xiu decided to test it.

He glanced at a pile of scattered rocks on the hillside.

Rise.

Without a sound, the rocks floated into the air. They drifted over to him and began to assemble themselves. Within moments, a crude but sturdy stone house formed out of thin air.

Fog.

Gu Xiu swept his hand. Instantly, the clear view vanished, swallowed by a dense, rolling white mist.

Wind.

He waved again. A gale roared into existence, tearing the fog to shreds in seconds. He intensified the thought, and the wind howled, smashing the newly built stone house back into rubble.

Ascend.

Without circulating a single thread of qi, Gu Xiu vanished from the ground and reappeared three hundred meters in the air. He stood on nothing, suspended in the void as if standing on solid ground.

“This place… is interesting.”

Gu Xiu’s eyes shone. Like a child with a new toy, he spent the next hour experimenting with his domain.

He discovered the extent of his powers. In this world, he was the Creator. He could make rivers flow backward, trees grow upside down, and the sun and moon spin in reverse.

However, this omnipotence was limited to the native matter of the Remnant World. He could not manipulate external objects with the same thought-based ease.

But that didn’t mean he was helpless regarding external things.

He could bury massive veins of Spirit Stones to boost the realm’s qi density. He could plant spirit herbs that would never suffer from pests or weather. If an enemy invaded, he could weaponize the environment—turning the wind into blades and the rain into needles—to suppress and execute them.

He was the Master of the World.

Satisfied, Gu Xiu willed himself out.

He reappeared in the backyard, where the Four Spirits were huddled around the floating shard, staring at it with intense longing.

“How was it?” Sui Xing asked eagerly.

Gu Xiu checked the time and found that the flow of time inside was identical to the outside. While he was inside, the shard remained in reality, but it rejected all other touches.

“So,” Gu Xiu mused, “if I encounter an unbeatable enemy, I can hide inside until they leave?”

“Stop muttering! Take us in!” the spirits clamored.

Gu Xiu smiled and waved his hand.

Flash.

Gu Xiu and the Four Spirits vanished into the shard.

The moment they arrived, the spirits scattered, running wild across the small mountain.

“Good place! What a good place! This qualifies as a Minor World! Truly worthy of a Great Dao Artifact!” Sui Xing shouted, inspecting the soil.

“Hey, kid! You know you can control the elements here, right? But let me tell you, that’s just the surface level. If this thing wasn’t damaged, you could change the Rules!”

“Rules, you understand?”

“Fire burns wood. Water douses fire. Those are laws. But here? You could make Wood conquer Metal. You could make Water burn!”

“You could strip intruders of their cultivation, turning them into mortals! You could enforce a Rule of Truth, where no lies can be spoken! You could even alter the flow of time!”

“This is a true Minor World. The Master here is the Heavenly Dao!”

Sui Xing’s lecture was breathless with excitement. Even Gu Xiu felt a stir of longing. It was a pity it was only a Remnant World.

Squeak, squeak, squeak!

Suddenly, the little black monkey, Haiqi, screeched from a distance. It was jumping up and down in front of a pitch-black cave entrance.

A cave?

Gu Xiu was surprised. He had been so focused on testing the atmospheric controls that he hadn’t inspected the geography closely.

He teleported over.

His expression turned strange.

With a wave of his hand, the earth rumbled. The cave vomited its contents.

Rumble…

Thousands of heavy wooden crates slid out of the darkness, piling up into a mountain of loot.

Every single crate bore the seal of the Azure Mystic Sacred Land, specifically, the emblem of Spirit Beast Peak.

“This is…”

“Stuff Lu Qingyao left behind?”

Haiqi was the fastest. The monkey pried open a crate.

It was filled to the brim with high-grade Spirit Beast feed.

Another crate. Beast Taming Flutes. Beast Taming Stones.

Another. High-grade Spirit Stones.

Another. Rare beast bones, feathers, blood, and evolution materials.

It was a dragon’s hoard of resources, enough to sustain a sect’s beast division for years.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Sui Xing clicked his tongue, shaking his head in admiration. “These are the supplies left by the previous owner. She must have used this place as a breeding ground.”

“What a saint! A truly good person! Not only did she give up the Remnant World, but she didn’t even take her supplies!”

“What a philanthropist!”

Sui Xing sighed, genuinely moved by the “generosity” of the previous owner.

Gu Xiu looked at the mountain of crates, a strange smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

A good person indeed.

His mind moved, and he vanished again.

He reappeared deep inside the mountain’s interior cavern.

Here, hidden away from the elements, sat hundreds of Spirit Beast eggs. They ranged in size and color, each one pulsing with faint divine power and life force. These were clearly the rarest specimens Lu Qingyao had collected over centuries, incubating here in safety.

However, Gu Xiu only glanced at the eggs briefly.

His gaze shifted to the back of the cavern.

There, resting on a pedestal, was an item that would make any Beast Tamer in the world go mad with greed…

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