"Hey hey hey, don't die on me! Wake up, don’t scare me like this!" Shi Xia shook the old man, but he showed no reaction. Instead, his body slowly dissolved into faint specks of light and vanished. In less than a minute, the old man was gone—not even a drop of blood remained. All that was left was the jade token in her hand.
Shi Xia was utterly dumbfounded. What the hell was going on? Had the old man been pushed off the cliff too? And what was this Heavenly Star Sect? She’d never heard of it! Filled with unease and questions, she waited until the next day.
Splat. Another old man fell from the sky—Old Man Lin.
This one was in even worse shape than the last, missing both legs. It looked like a full-on car crash scene.
He pulled out a jade token and handed it over. "I am Lin Tang of the Yinsha Sect… Young lady, fate has brought us together… This contains all the techniques I’ve mastered in my lifetime… I hope you…"
Shi Xia almost burst into tears. Was cliff-jumping some kind of Lin family tradition? Why did all the Lins love throwing themselves off cliffs? And seriously, she didn’t need any golden fingers!
Because…
"I don’t have a spiritual root!"
Pfft—
Old Man No. 2 spat out a mouthful of blood and keeled over.
Day three.
Old Man No. 3 fell from the sky.
=_=
"I am Wu Jiang, elder of the Yubi Sect… This Linglong Art is an ancient secret technique… By heaven’s will, I pass it to you…" He pulled out a small bell.
Shi Xia’s lips twitched. Well, at least this one wasn’t a Lin. But…
"I really don’t have a spiritual root."
Pfft—
Old Man No. 3 also bit the dust.
Day four.
Old Man No. 4: "This is the Lingmi Hall’s greatest treasure… If you can master its inheritance…"
Shi Xia: "…Got it. Rest in peace."
Day seven.
"I am the Qitian Patriarch. This technique—"
"Yeah, yeah, just leave it there. I’ll take a look when I have time."
Day ten.
"…This object gathers the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. If you use it—"
"Let me finish this radish first."
Day N…
"I am—"
"Noted. Got any food on you? Since you won’t be needing it, might as well hand it over."
Pfft—
From that day on, it was like some kind of twisted agreement—every day, some half-dead wreck would drop from the sky and shove all sorts of cultivation manuals and treasures at her. Their titles only got more grandiose with each passing corpse. At first, their gruesome states shocked her, but after a while, she got used to it.
What was this, some kind of morbid inheritance showcase? Fine, fine, she’d open a secondhand marketplace and list all their junk.
And so, her collection of storage pouches ballooned at an alarming rate, stuffed to the brim with cultivation manuals and mysterious artifacts…
Until day fifteen.
Splat. Something different fell from the sky this time. A massive, golden-scaled dragon—over ten meters long, with razor-sharp talons, deer-like antlers, and a serpentine body.
An actual dragon! A gigantic golden dragon!
"Whoa…" Shi Xia and her imaginary friends were stunned. (⊙?⊙) Hadn’t her teachers at Qixue Academy said dragons and phoenixes went extinct ages ago? The textbooks were wrong!
Unable to resist, she tugged at its long whiskers. "Hey, you still alive?"
The dragon’s bulb-sized eyes swiveled toward her. "A mortal?"
It didn’t open its mouth, but a deep, masculine voice echoed directly in her mind, sounding terribly weak. The dragon was in bad shape—far worse than the missing-limbed old men. Golden blood gushed like a fountain from countless bone-deep gashes across its body.
"To think I would… perish here… Mortal, this is a heaven-sent—"
"Yeah, yeah." Shi Xia waved dismissively. She could recite this script by now. She was more interested in what loot the dragon would drop. "Just tell me what you’re giving me. Where is it? Need me to dig it out?"
She was already lifting its whiskers to search.
The dragon: "…" Is this how mortals are nowadays?
The golden dragon felt its blood flow faster. With a weak motion, it opened its maw and spat out a golden pearl.
"Mortal, this is my—"
"Dragon pearl!" Shi Xia caught it, but the golden hue faded, turning white.
"My dragon pearl… contains the heritage of my kind. You must deliver it… to a young dragon of my race!"
"Huh?" Shi Xia blinked. "So only dragons can use this?" Where was she supposed to find another dragon?
"Naturally. My kin—"
"Got it. You can die now."
"Wait—" The dragon stiffened. "You’re not going to try saving me?" It felt there was still hope.
"Don’t kid around." She patted its whiskers. "I tried with every old man who fell before you. None of them made it. Besides… I’m not a vet."
I’m not a beast, I’m a divine being, damn it!
Pfft—
The dragon coughed up blood and expired.
Shi Xia decided this couldn’t go on. Her radish supply was running low, and if this kept up, she’d either starve or go insane from the endless darkness. Just as she was at her wit’s end, the blackness beneath her feet clicked open.
Literally opened.
A rectangular section of the pitch-black ground swung upward like a door. A young man in his twenties crawled in, muttering to himself, "Which big shot fell this time? Why do they always land here—"
He looked up and froze, gaping at her.
Shi Xia gaped right back.
They stared at each other in mutual bewilderment.
After a long pause:
"You’re… alive?" the man asked.
"Uh… yeah?" Probably.
His face lit up with wild joy. "Alive! An actual living person! Finally!" He rushed forward and grabbed her hands, shaking them vigorously. "It’s been years since I’ve seen another living soul. Congratulations on falling down here!"
"…" Was that something to celebrate? =_=
"I’m Kong Yang," he said excitedly. "I’ve been stuck at the bottom of this ravine for ages. Now I finally have someone to talk to! What’s your name?"
"Shi… Xia Shi." Given the lethality of her real name, she opted for a slight adjustment.
"Fellow Cultivator Xia! Come on, let’s get out of this formation first." Kong Yang eagerly pulled her through the exit below.
The moment they stepped out, it was like emerging into a hidden paradise. Lush green grass stretched before them, dotted with unknown flowers. Above, the endless blackness was gone—replaced by a massive golden formation. But swirling atop it were thin, intertwined cyclones of black and white energy. Through the gaps, she could faintly see the cliff’s peak far above.
"This is…?" Shi Xia was baffled.
"That’s the Annihilation Formation," Kong Yang explained. "The black and white streams are Primordial Chaos Qi."
"Primordial Chaos Qi?" What the heck was that?
"You don’t even know this? How exactly did you fall down here?" Kong Yang glanced at her curiously, pulling her to sit beside him before continuing, "The Chaos Qi is the disordered energy from the beginning of creation, capable of devouring all spiritual beings. I don’t know why this energy exists in this valley. But because of it, a natural Spirit-Extinguishing Array formed here. We cultivators rely on spiritual energy to enhance our cultivation. This array extinguishes spiritual energy, so the higher one’s cultivation and the more spiritual energy they possess, the more severely the Chaos Qi will backlash against them."
"I see…" No wonder those old men looked worse and worse.
"I’ve noticed that anyone in this array with a cultivation level above Foundation Establishment can’t survive. I was at the fifth level of Qi Refining when I fell here, and even then, the backlash was severe—it took me years to recover. What about you?"
"Uh…" Shi Xia twitched her lips. "I don’t have a spiritual root." Zero cultivation.
Kong Yang blinked. "No wonder you’re completely unharmed."
"By the way, I saw a lot of people fall before, but their bodies disappeared."
"Oh, that’s my array." He pointed at the golden formation above them, looking proud. "You know how those people up there love throwing things down—dead bodies included. This valley lets things in but not out, and space is limited. If they dare to die, I sure don’t dare to bury them all! A valley full of corpses would be terrifying. So I set up this array—once they die, they turn to dust. Much more convenient."
"Uh…" Don’t make it sound as casual as sweeping the floor!
"Hey, is that a dragon pearl in your hand?" Kong Yang pointed at the white orb she was holding.
"Yeah." She nodded.
"No wonder the commotion earlier was so loud—it was a dragon falling." He looked enlightened. "It’s been a while since one dropped down."
"Do dragons fall often?" Are dragons really that common? She’d never seen one before—maybe they all ended up here?
"Not really." Kong Yang shook his head. "Just… a dozen or twenty times. Not that many."
"…" That’s not many?! That’s practically a major disaster!
"Chaos Qi isn’t tolerated by the Heavenly Dao and isn’t bound by time. So strange things often fall here."
Aren’t dragons divine beings? Since when are they "strange things"?
Wait—
"Not bound by time… So you’re saying the time inside the Spirit-Extinguishing Array is chaotic?"
Kong Yang nodded. "Though they might feel like only a moment has passed, they could’ve fallen into the abyss thousands or even millions of years ago."
No wonder she saw them dropping one after another like they were lining up—she and they weren’t in the same timeline. That meant even that dragon might have fallen eons ago.
"But this dragon pearl of yours is unusual." Kong Yang studied the orb in her hand with interest. "I’ve seen green, gold, blue, and red dragon pearls, but never a white one."
"You like it? Here, take it!" Shi Xia handed it over without hesitation.
Kong Yang froze. "You’re just giving it to me?"
"You said this valley only lets things in, not out. Besides, I don’t have a spiritual root—it’s useless to me."
"Shi Xia, you’re a real one! I, Kong Yang, officially call you a friend." He laughed heartily and took the pearl, pulling her up. "Come on, let me show you something."
