Yin and yang flames blazed, fierce enough to smelt gold, forge iron, and liquefy stone.


    Lu Qingmo had hammered Han with a slew of warnings—how to tie up every loose end. Top priority? Zuo Tianzheng’s blade and armor. Both were standout pieces, high-grade gear, meaning they were damn tough. Tough, though, wasn’t eternal—or beyond reforging. Primordial Martial Weapons came from fire; melting them back down was fair play.


    Yin fire and yang fire tag-teamed, pounding the blade and armor with relentless heat. The yin-yang dance triggered shifts too obvious to spell out. If they’d still been tied to an owner, synced with their will and pumped with true essence, Han wouldn’t have had a shot. Now? No sweat.


    To speed it up, he even burned more lifespan to amp his power, boosting the flames. An Lang watched, staring at the sky, lost for words. Folks, who gets this? My Young Master’s literally torching himself.


    “Let’s see how loaded the Emperor’s envoy really was…” Han muttered.


    After some effort, he’d wiped Zuo’s mark off the spatial bracelet. Probing inside, its space outclassed his own three-hundred-cubic-unit ring.


    First up: books and jade slips.


    “No heavenly martial arts, huh,” Han said, half-bummed, half-figured.


    Unless you hit a freak stroke of luck—like Lu Qingmo scoring a peerless technique—no outfit would let a disciple haul heavenly martial arts or divine skills around. Too dicey.


    “So many cultivation logs and oddball stories… Gathered while chasing a fix for his flaw?” Han mused. “An Lang, copy these down.”


    The logs were a treasure trove of rare tidbits—stuff you wouldn’t find floating around. True or bunk, you’d have to sort that out, but they had real worth, big-time. An Lang zipped through, mental pen blazing, transcribing fast.


    “Bunch of pill recipes too—weird ones. Zuo put in work to patch himself up,” Han noted, pulling two. “Record these too.”


    Quirky, sure, but these two used stuff he knew—Yin God-tier herbs—proof of their heft.


    “Soul-Awakening Pill? Damn.” Han whistled. The effect was wild: granting soul cultivation talent and cracking open the soul realm, making someone a dual-path contender.


    Martial arts were simpler—hand anyone a method, grit, and grub, and they’d get somewhere. Even the slowest might scrape by after decades, barring total wrecks like Meng Hao, a rare “heaven-doomed” type. Soul techniques? Different beast. No hard rules, but they needed raw talent. No gift, no dice—ever. Soul cultivators all had that “wisdom root.” A pill rewriting fate like this? Mind-blowing.


    The ingredients, though—scarce as hell. Some, Han didn’t even recognize. He snail-called Lu Qingmo.


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    “Soul-Awakening Pill?” she echoed, floored he’d latch onto this after icing Zuo, chill as ever. “It’s legit—I’ve heard of it,” she confirmed. “But it’s near impossible to craft now. Check the recipe—needs Sky Pool Water, right?”


    “Yeah.”


    “Nobody’s seen that stuff in centuries. Plus, it’s a nightmare to refine—Yellow Spring Realm pros would balk. Don’t sweat it too much.”


    She added, “Post-birth soul talent boosts aren’t that wild. Every era’s got people pulling it off.”


    “Huh?” Han blinked. “Dual-path talent’s that common?”


    “Nah, it’s brutal,” Lu Qingmo laughed. “Guess who’s usually doing it, though? The immortals on the Mountains and Rivers Roll. Non-immortals need crazy luck or cosmic breaks.”


    Made sense—every era had its immortals.


    “Any immortal, pre-ascension, might stick to one path,” she said. “But once they climb, they can flip it—pick up the other path’s talent and blast off. At that level, it’s a breeze. Below it? Like scaling the sky.”


    “So the Xuandu Temple Master’s an immortal in both soul and martial?” Han gawked. That hardcore?


    “Nope,” Lu Qingmo said. “Top-tier folks can snag the other path’s talent easy, but ascending in both? Never heard of it. Word is the Age Emperor might’ve dual-ascended—unmatched—but it’s just talk. She’s been off in the Mountain-Sea Domain, out of sight for five hundred years. Nobody knows her deal, and we’re not digging into that league.”


    Han got it. No task’s too tough—just need luck and juice. Immortals had insane tricks, but dual-path ascension was a ghost even among them. The Roll’s top ten? No solid word anyone doubled up.


    What a goal. When would he hit immortality?


    Snail dropped, Han eyed the second big recipe—a healing pill, also Yin God-tier. The rest were weaker, but he clocked that Zuo had nabbed most of the Soul-Awakening Pill’s stuff—minus Sky Pool Water. Score. Yin God herbs aplenty—even without the pill, he’d hit the jackpot.


    “Lord Zuo, you’re a gem,” Han murmured.


    Clearly, Zuo had aimed to whip up the pill and jump to soul cultivation—martial road blocked, so pivot. Too bad.


    Han memorized the recipes, then chucked them back into the bracelet.


    “Fatal Blade—a Yin God-tier martial skill with前辈 notes. Royal stock, likely,” he said. “Shame it’s off-limits—too risky.”


    He copied it anyway. Good stuff, but Zuo’s ties meant Han could only peek at its logic, not train it.


    “Six Dragons Blood-Nurturing? A blood-boosting method—royal too.” Han sighed. The better these were, the more it hurt—untouchable. He’d have to unload them later, way later.


    Zuo’s bracelet also had bottles and jars—mostly healing pills, plus some sleazy bedroom enhancers for women. Lust-stoking crap. Nasty.


    One jade vial caught his eye: three Marrow-Washing Pills, boosts for hitting that realm. No other cultivation pills—Zuo’s condition didn’t call for them.


    Han checked them with the Three Yin Mountain God’s pill-test trick. Clean—no tracking vibes. Still paranoid, he snail-called again.


    “Aunt Mo, if I grab Zuo’s loot—no marks—could fate tricks pin it?”


    “Nah,” she said, dead certain. “Most fate techniques need a hook and get jammed easy. They’re not perfect—higher realm, more gear, more ties, harder to read. Black Mountain’s a natural scramble too. Royals crank out pills like those all the time—tons out there. No one’s tracing a handful.”


    Relieved, Han kept just the Marrow-Washing Pills. The bracelet’s other loot—random treasures—stayed mostly untouched. Less he took, less exposure.


    The other two’s pouches? Chump change next to Zuo’s. Whatever.


    They burned time copying knowledge stuff—memorizing or transcribing—then stashed the originals back. Han lumped the three spatial items together, yin-yang flames slamming down. A big boom later, they were toast. Wrecked or lost? Who cares.


    Once the blade and armor melted to base slag, Han finally chilled.


    “Let’s roll.”


    Breathing out, he checked the sky and headed for Black Cloud Town with An Lang. Six days in the mountain—mess cleaned up, time to bounce from this dump.


    “Young Master, think our road ahead’ll be—” An Lang started.


    Han slapped a hand over her mouth, glaring. “Jinx! Zip it!”