Is It Wrong to Bully the Novice Village for System Rewards?

Chapter 231: Heavenly Dao Qi, Mysterious Secret Realm

The moment Qi Yuan stepped out of the Ji Clan’s treasure vault, his hands blurred through a series of rapid hand seals. Whoosh! He cast an Earth Evasion Technique, plunging straight into the ground.

Enveloped in a protective shroud of Mysterious Yellow Earth energy, Qi Yuan shot downward like a torpedo, only hitting the brakes when he reached a depth of a thousand zhang. He hovered in the suffocating darkness for a few breaths. Then, with a subtle shimmer, his entire figure vanished, erasing his presence from the world.

A few seconds later, a shadowy figure materialized in the subterranean pocket where Qi Yuan had just been.

The newcomer’s eyes flared with a piercing, unnatural light, sweeping the empty earth. The faint, terrifying pressure leaking from his body marked him as a powerhouse at the Void Refinement realm.

Realizing the target was gone, the tracker didn’t even bother to stay cloaked. He ruthlessly expanded his Divine Sense, scouring the underground like a radar sweep. After a moment of dead silence, the figure’s expression darkened. He slowly pulled a communication talisman from his sleeve.

“Patriarch. Your subordinate is incompetent… I’ve lost the trail.”

Elsewhere.

A flash of white light illuminated the hidden cave dwelling on Blood Refining Peak. Qi Yuan stepped out, his eyes darting around cautiously. Only after confirming his wards were untouched did he let out a long, heavy sigh of relief.

He wasn’t stupid. He had fully expected the Ji Clan to tail him the second he left. A demonic titan like Ji Yuntian was a total control freak; there was absolutely zero chance he’d let an unknown junior waltz away unchecked, especially one harboring a secret that could collapse the entire clan.

Normally, dispatching a Void Refinement expert to babysit a late-stage Foundation Building rookie was like dropping a meteor on an anthill. If word got out, the tracker would be laughed out of the demonic path.

Too bad the brilliant Patriarch Ji had vastly underestimated his new “grandson-in-law.” Qi Yuan had completely pre-read the man’s paranoia. He had used the earth’s natural energy to scramble the tracker’s perception just long enough to trigger his system’s teleportation function and slip away.

It was a flawless, untraceable escape. Forget a Void Refinement expert—even if a Dao Integration powerhouse had been breathing down his neck, they wouldn’t have caught him.

After peeling off his ridiculous “pangolin” disguise, Qi Yuan shook his head and pulled out the rusted fragment of the Creation Cauldron.

“Well, that went infinitely smoother than expected,” he muttered. “With the Ji Clan’s ancestor, Ji Qingcang, successfully ‘rejuvenated,’ their impending crisis is effectively solved.”

He tossed the fragment lightly in his hand. “At least until my little scam gets exposed, the three-way cold war within the demonic sect will hold steady. Perfect cover for me to grind out my Side Missions.”

A cynical grin tugged at his lips. “The best part? That Peak Great Ascension old monster is now a glorified paper tiger. With his perception and reaction speeds lagging ten thousand times slower than a normal human, he’s basically been forcibly retired from the war between the righteous and demonic factions.”

He sighed dramatically. “I just single-handedly neutralized a major endgame boss for the ‘righteous’ path, and I can’t even claim the server first achievement. What an absolute scam!”

Still grumbling about his lack of recognition, Qi Yuan summoned the Mixed Sky Creation Cauldron from his spatial storage.

The moment the massive bronze artifact materialized, the rusted fragment in his hand seemingly came alive. It floated upward, hovering in mid-air as if caught in a magnetic pull.

The Mixed Sky Creation Cauldron began to vibrate violently, emitting a low, resonant hum. Countless complex, obscure runes flared to life across its surface, twisting and weaving together like living serpents.

Whoosh—

The fragment seamlessly melted into the cauldron’s chassis. Instantly, an incredibly profound, ancient, and oppressive aura exploded outward, carrying the heavy scent of the primordial era.

[Ding! Host has successfully repaired the Mixed Sky Creation Cauldron once. Reward: 3000 Counterattack Points, one wisp of Heavenly Dao Creation Qi.]

[Note: There are six other Immortal Cauldron fragments scattered across the world. Please continue this Side Mission. Upon retrieving all fragments, the full power of the High Grade Immortal Artifact, Mixed Sky Creation Cauldron, will be restored…]

As the system’s voice faded, Qi Yuan checked his inventory. Resting quietly in his spatial storage was a new wisp of iridescent vapor, swirling with seven-colored light. Deep within the mist, he could vaguely see chaotic, shifting phantoms that seemed to hold the blueprints of the three thousand Daos themselves.

“So this is Heavenly Dao Creation Qi,” Qi Yuan breathed, his eyes lighting up. “The visual effects are completely different from the Merit Qi.”

He clenched his fist, adrenaline finally beginning to pump. He had the resources. He had the power.

It was finally time to find a secure location and brute-force his way into the Soul Formation realm.

Meanwhile.

Within a certain secret realm strictly controlled by the Supreme Mystery Sanctuary.

Swoosh!

A brilliant column of teleportation light shattered the stillness of the forest. Five figures materialized, transitioning from translucent phantoms into solid reality.

The group consisted of two men and three women, all wearing the pristine, flowing robes of the Supreme Mystery Sanctuary. They carried themselves with the sharp, confident arrogance typical of elite disciples from a top-tier orthodox sect.

“Hiss… the Spiritual Qi here is incredibly dense!” a petite girl with delicate features noted, her brows knitting together in surprise as she took a breath.

One of the male disciples nodded, scanning the lush, overgrown environment with a confused frown. “That’s odd. This secret realm didn’t look anything like this the last time I was here. Did the environment trigger some kind of rare mutation?”

The leader of the five-man party was a green-robed woman in her early twenties. While her facial features were somewhat sharp and unremarkable, she carried a commanding, heroic aura that demanded respect. She also boasted the highest cultivation in the group—peak of the Golden Core realm. The intricate embroidery on her collar proudly marked her as a Legacy Disciple of the Supreme Mystery Sanctuary.

“Everyone, keep your guard up. Something about this place feels deeply wrong,” a soft, melodious voice interrupted.

The speaker was a stunningly beautiful woman in a pale yellow dress. Her immortal grace and peerless features made her stand out like a swan among crows.

This was Bai Xirou.

Despite only being at the mid-stage of the Golden Core realm—making her the weakest member of the expedition—her words carried an invisible weight. The moment she spoke, the rest of the team immediately tensed, taking her warning seriously.

After officially joining the Supreme Mystery Sanctuary, Bai Xirou had achieved the impossible: she was immediately elevated to the status of the sole Legacy Disciple of Jade Flower Peak. Anyone with half a brain knew this unprecedented promotion meant her relationship with a certain untouchable Holy Scion was extraordinary. But beyond her connections, her genuinely gentle, modest, and polite nature had rapidly earned her universal respect within the sect.

Recently, Bai Xirou had spotted a bounty in the mission hall: enter this secret realm and exterminate a rampaging Demon Beast. Desperate to temper her own combat skills and stop relying solely on her backing, she had requested to join this temporary hunting party.

The secret realm itself was merely a fractured spatial pocket. Because its ambient laws were fundamentally broken, it physically rejected anyone at or above the Nascent Soul realm. Thus, a party of five Golden Core disciples, led by a peak-stage veteran, was the standard deployment.

Their target was a late-stage Golden Core Black Fiend Demonic Ape. On paper, it was a glorified fetch quest. A textbook, low-risk extermination run.

Yet, as Bai Xirou stared into the dense, unnervingly quiet treeline, a cold shiver ran down her spine.

She couldn’t shake the suffocating, primal feeling that somewhere in the dark, a massive, unseen will was silently staring right back at them.