"USELESS VERMIN! I have never felt so humiliated in my entire life!"

Ning Jing was sent flying against the stone wall, cracking half of her bones in the process. She vomited a mouthful of blood before falling to her knees. Her long sleeves were already turning crimson under the pool of red on the ground.

Elder Jiang paced back and forth, her robes swirling around her like dark clouds.

"How could you lose?" Her face was a mask of fury. "You, my prized disciple, below a mere Grade 3 talent. Explain yourself!"

Ning Jing's shoulders trembled slightly, but she kept her head down. "Master, You Rou's combat skills were beyond—"

"Silence!"

Elder Jiang snapped, stopping in her tracks to glare down at the girl. "Excuses are worthless. You were supposed to dominate this competition, to solidify my influence within the sect. Instead, you have brought shame upon us."

She turned away, her mind racing. "What went wrong? How could my calculations be so flawed?"

She had to admit that You Rou did have the background and the talent to win against her disciple, but You Mei... despite being a Grade 3 talent, Elder Jiang had no doubts she would win against Ning Jing if they fought.

She had invested much in Ning Jing, nurturing her talent and ensuring she had every advantage. Yet, she had failed at the critical moment.

"This doesn't make any sense!"

From the shadows of her living room, two figures emerged. They were Elder Jiang's spies, cultivated within the outer sect to feed her information. They bowed respectfully before her, waiting for her acknowledgment.

"Speak."

Elder Jiang had asked them to bring her information about You Mei as soon as she left the arena. One of the spies stepped forward, his eyes flickering towards the injured Ning Jing for a moment before focusing on Elder Jiang.

"You Mei doesn't seem to have been hiding her whereabouts, Master. She has been leaving the sect every day with outer sect disciple Li An, heading to the northern forest."

Elder Jiang's eyes narrowed.

"Li An? Who is she? What could they possibly be doing in the northern forest?"

"Until a month ago, Li An was a dull and gloomy girl who kept her distance from everyone. Her parents died to the beasts in the western forest, Master. It appears she and You Mei have been training together in secret. Li An might be more involved in this than we initially thought."

Elder Jiang's mind worked quickly, connecting the dots. Asking to be the student of the sect leader, showing off her political skills to the elders, two outer sect disciples with a grudge against the sect that did nothing to help them...

"So, someone else is playing this game of authority in the dark," she mused aloud. "This changes everything."

Elder Jiang turned her cold gaze to the spies. "If Li An is part of this, we need to find out who is behind her sudden rise. She must have had help. We need to extract all the information from her, no matter the cost."

It is true that she cannot do anything to the personal disciple of the sect leader, but the same could not be said for her friend Li An. She had no one to back her up within the sect, or the mastermind wouldn't have to remain hidden.

"What are your orders, Master?" The spies bowed lower, and a part of their bodies could finally be seen. They were all covered in black cloth, except for a small slit in the eye area.

Their cultivation was low, with the strongest of their group being a Spirit realm first stage, but that was normal considering Elder Jiang made the spy group based on the Grade 5 talent disciples who had no meaning left in life. They were no different from death warriors.

Elder Jiang's lips curled into a cruel smile.

"The moment Li An leaves the sect again, you are to intercept her. Use whatever means necessary to make her talk. I want to know everything – who she's been meeting, what they've been planning, and why You Mei has become so strong."

Ning Jing remained silent during the whole conversation. Her head was still bowed, but her bloody hands had clenched into fists on her knees. Elder Jiang's fury was palpable, and she knew better than to speak now.

"Yes, Master." The spies replied in unison before melting back into the shadows.

Elder Jiang resumed her walk, thinking about these new developments. The Gentle Sword sect was a huge pie, and many parties wanted a slice of it. Although she was proud, Elder Jiang did not think for a second that it would be easy to get a hold of this slice.

"Someone thinks they can challenge my authority from the shadows. They will soon learn the consequences of such foolishness."

She cast one last, disdainful look at Ning Jing. "You will redeem yourself with your performance in the inner sect, Ning Jing. Fail me again, and you will wish for a fate as simple as death."

The girl on the ground nodded silently, her body still trembling slightly. She knew Elder Jiang's threats were never empty.

A storm was brewing beneath the surface of peace.

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

In the dimly lit confines of her bedroom, Li An sat with her legs crossed and her hands resting lightly on her knees.

She was not cultivating, but instead staring at an intricate hexagonal node of condensed spiritual energy floating in midair. Contrary to the spiritual bullet, it was perfectly stable.

"The structure uses a concept similar to quantum locking. I make a portion of my spiritual energy act as a small, consistent magnetic field that locks the rest of the spiritual energy into place by making it flow along the field lines."

This golden hexagon had no burst ability and could not be used for combat, yet its value was much higher than anything else Li An had in this life.

What was her greatest problem right now?

Cultivation talent! In this reality, one could only be free if they had power, and one could only have power if they had talent!

However, the resources of the Gentle Sword sect, and even the surrounding sects, could not change the talent of a cultivator.

"I will not be bound by such limitations."

The hexagonal node pulsed gently, each facet gleaming like a holy artefact. This object was the solution to her problem, albeit far from complete.

"If talent cannot be increased through conventional means, then I will forge my own path. The artificial hexagonal meridian system will be my creation, a new method of cultivation."

Yes, Li An was willing to abandon her true meridians for a chance at greatness. She would have to insert almost a thousand of these hexanodes inside her body and connect them through electromagnetic circuits made out of spiritual energy.

One had to take into account that only one of the hexanodes took around two days to make. It would take time—perhaps a very long time—to complete the artificial meridians, but it was a journey Li An was prepared to undertake.

As for discarding her meridians, so what if she did?

Every time she looked at the colossal mountain of Mediocrity that loomed before her, Li An would scoff at the people who followed the well-worn paths that so many others had walked.

In the legends, was it not Lin Fei who first dared to forge his own path to greatness? He who became a legend not by walking in the footsteps of others, but by creating a new way where none existed?

"Walking the same road as all others, how could I ever hope to escape mediocrity? If I want to become extraordinary, I must do what others are too afraid to do."

She had to step off the known path up the mountain and venture into the unknown.

The artificial hexagonal meridian system had unlimited potential. Li An would never again be limited by the width and purity of her meridians, since the new ones were made of spiritual energy itself.

That was just the first and most important benefit. The higher she climbed in the Cultivation World, the more hexanodes she could integrate, condensing the spiritual energy even further.

"But to decrease the time necessary for the hexanodes, I need a lot of natural treasures filled with pure spiritual energy." Li An's gaze shone as she glanced at the giant pavilion at the sect's center.

She exhaled softly and allowed the hexanode to vanish into her right arm. Although it could not be used to circulate and gather spiritual energy from the environment or her body, it was still a good storage method for emergency situations.

As she stood, the atmosphere around her seemed to shift, the shadows on the walls deepening to unknown lengths.

Li An said nothing, but her lips curled up slightly into a hollow smile. It was about time she got some answers to her questions.

She walked to the door and stepped out into the cool evening air, taking a deep breath.

"A perfect day to kill."

Her body blurred as she walked towards the northern forest, each step propelling her dozens of meters forward. There were many servants and outer sect disciples along the way, but they were all too busy to pay her any attention.

The tall trees of the northern forest loomed ahead, their silhouettes eerie and imposing against the dark blue sky. Li An covered the distance in an instant, her eyes fixed on the light mist in front of her.

Stamp... stamp...

The quiet of the woods amplified the sound of her footsteps. With her pale skin and emotionless, dark eyes, she looked almost like a spectre.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

After a dozen minutes, Li An stopped abruptly and turned around.

"You can come out now."

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

A few minutes earlier.

Several figures clad in black, form-fitting garbs arrived silently at Li An's house, blending seamlessly with the shadows. Ba Du, the leader of the group, crouched low while staring at the pale girl on the other side of the window.

"There she is." Ba Du's gaze narrowed as he watched Li An stand up. "Why is she smiling?"

He felt a knot tightening in his stomach, and his mouth went dry. There was something eerie about her smile. Her lips curled up unnaturally, revealing teeth that seemed too white, too perfect, but her eyes remained cold and unblinking.

Goosebumps prickled his skin, and Ba Du noticed one of the assassins subconsciously take a small step back. "Now I understand why everyone stays away from her. What a creepy lass."

Li An left her room and dashed towards the northern forest. Ba Du flicked his fingers in a gesture for his men to follow.

"This feels wrong." Ba Du thought as they trailed their target from a safe distance. "Like we're being led straight into the jaws of a predator."

The girl increased her pace inside the forest, but her speed was not very impressive to the trained assassins. The light mist thickened around them, swirling gently over the dense vegetation.

Suddenly, she stopped and Ba Du signaled for the others to be silent.

"You can come out now."

"Oh? She noticed us?" She had probably sensed a presence, but did not know how many they were.

Ba Du and his group of five assassins dropped down from the trees, landing silently on the forest soil. They quickly surrounded her with ill intent, determined to finish their mission.

"Li An," Ba Du stepped forward, his eyes cold as he revealed his Spirit realm cultivation, "you provoked someone who you shouldn't have provoked. Tell us everything we need to know about the person behind You Mei and we will allow you to live."

The girl's eyes widened and she took a step back, her body trembling slightly. Her expression was the perfect mask of fear.

"P-please," she stammered, "I don't know what you're talking about. Who did I provoke? If you tell me, I am more than willing to cooperate with you."

Ba Du's lips twitched and he was about to answer her when he remembered giving the enemy information was dangerous. "Uff, that was close. She looked so confused that I was almost fooled."

Feeling slightly annoyed, he crossed the distance between them in less than a moment, his fist connecting with Li An's stomach in a brutal punch that sent her to the ground. She gasped while clutching the front of her robes, but managed to look up at Ba Du, her dark eyes filled with a pleading desperation.

He just sneered. "You think you can bargain with us? You're going to tell us everything we want to know, and this is not a negotiation."

Out of nowhere, a grotesque smile stretched across Li An's face. "What are you so cocky about? You are just dogs of a bitch-like master. I bet she is rotten garbage who cannot achieve anything except sending her subordinates to suicide missions."

Ba Du was immediately thrown into a rage and kicked her hard, sending her sprawling. The strength of a Spirit realm cultivator was nothing to scoff at. Li An coughed and some blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

"How dare you call master a bitch?! She is a greater el-" His face turned pale and Ba Du shut his mouth. His emotions almost got the best of him. He felt like a disgrace of an assassin.

"And it is all your fault." Ba Du glared down at Li An with a disgusted frown. He hated this girl with all his guts.

Meanwhile, she was still coughing up blood, her black robes covered in wet soil and pieces of broken leaves.

"Talk. This is the last warning I am giving you." Ba Du's tone was menacing, as if he wished for her to not speak.

"I'll talk," she whispered, "but you have to tell me who's behind this first."

Ba Du's boot slammed into Li An's ribs, sending a sharp jolt of pain through her body as she struggled to stay on all fours. Before she could recover with spiritual energy, another vicious kick to her side made her scream, her breath coming in ragged bursts.

Two of the assassins began laughing at her with raspy voices, enjoying the sadistic show.

"You're in no position to make demands. Either I hear what I want, or you are in for another round of pain."

"Tell me who's behind this," she insisted, her face hidden by the long threads of silky black hair.

"She is quite stubborn." Ba Du grinned. "They all break after some time. I am looking forward to this one."

He grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head back. "Let's break her teeth. They are too beautiful for my liking."

He raised his fist.

In that instant, the surroundings seemed to slow to a crawl. His heartbeat pounded loudly in his ears. He could almost feel it—the rustling of leaves, the distant hoot of an owl, the faint drip of moisture from the misty canopy above.

The fog thickened, its dampness seeping into Ba Du's skin. It brought with it a faint, earthy smell that mingled with the metallic scent of blood.

He looked into Li An's face, expecting fear or pain, but what he saw instead made his blood run cold.

Those eyes, stripped of the slightest hint of emotion, were as dark and profound as an ancient pool, hiding a terrifying beast within its depths.

Ba Du shivered as her gaze seemed to suck the warmth from the air. The 'thing' next to him was no human at all...

"Monste-"

A golden light erupted from Li An's hand, filling his entire vision.

Splat!

It was as if time had snapped back to normal.

Ba Du's skull was smashed by the explosive force of the spiritual bullet. Brain matter splattered violently across the lush forest vegetation, painting the leaves and branches in scarlet red.

The sheer energy of the sphere didn't stop there; before anyone could react, it tore through the closest assassin's torso in a devastating explosion. The body was brutally cleaved in half, each half collapsing lifelessly to the forest floor in a spray of blood.

Then came the concussive blast wave.

It ripped through the dense fog, making it swirl in small vortexes. The sonic force shattered branches and split tree trunks in its wake without mercy.

Caught in the shockwave, the nearest assassin was launched away from his friend's corpse, slamming against a tree faster than the blink of an eye. The impact was enough to crush his bones, leaving the assassin crumpled and motionless at the base of the shattered trunk.

...

The clearing was bathed in an eerie silence.

The remaining three enemies, momentarily stunned, were staring in horror at the spot where Ba Du had stood, not knowing what to say.

Li An rose to her feet in slow movements. The young girl covered in blood from head to toe was trudging closer to them with an annoyed expression on her face.

"Sigh... he didn't talk after all."

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

"Two cultivators in Foundation realm eighth stage and one in Foundation realm ninth stage... should be somehow doable." Li An had always wanted to obtain some bodies of experts at a higher stage in order to study them.

As for the Spirit realm cultivator Ba Du, she had to make use of dirty tactics and the surprise element, or it would be impossible to kill him. Even if she just shot the spirit bullet at him, there was a very high chance that he could dodge it with his much higher speed.

She did not expect the enemy to send so many people after a Foundation realm disciple at stage two.

Li An chose that specific moment when their faces were almost together to not give him any time to react. This way, Ba Du was killed before even having the opportunity to demonstrate his abilities at manipulating spiritual energy.

"The energy consumption of the spiritual bullet is crazy as always." She frowned when she noticed she had barely less than half of her total spiritual energy.

There was no need to worry too much, though. Regardless of whether they were ten or eighty one years old, these assassins were still youngsters who had lived most of their life in a righteous sect.

And they were in fact feeling the greatest shock of their lives. Where had they ever heard of a Spirit realm cultivator being killed by someone one entire realm below?

They watched as Li An began to walk towards them. It was possible for them to escape, but that would obviously result in punishment from Elder Jiang. Fighting for a chance of success was a better option in the eyes of death warriors.

As she advanced, the fog seemed to recoil, parting reluctantly as if dreading her approach. Each step she took was accompanied by the soft, ominous rustle of her robes and the snap of a twig or two.

The strongest assassin shuddered when he peered into her eyes. He saw something terrible — a sinister gaze filled with nothingness. The look of someone who could simply kill him and then forget about it.

Her advance was slow, methodical, a predator stalking its prey.

"We have to take her down," one of the assassins whispered urgently despite the trembling in her voice. "If we fail this mission, we will be deemed incompetent and worthless by Elder Jiang."

"Together, we can overpower this demon. She's strong, but I reckon she has close to no spiritual energy left, and she can't handle all three of us at once only with martial arts." The other assassin comforted her in a soft tone. He sounded like a man on his thirties.

The leader of the three, on the other hand, still had his eyes locked on the ominous figure of a little girl in front of them, his brow furrowed. "Remember our mission. Capture her at all costs. Don't hold back."

The middle-aged man and the girl spread out around Li An, their daggers catching the faint moonlight. As for the temporary leader, he sighed one time before diving towards the enemy.

The assassins launched their attacks simultaneously, their daggers slicing through the fog at a speed far above Li An's. She twisted to the side, letting two of the daggers miss by a hair's breadth. The sound of metal swishing past her ears was almost deafening in the eerie silence.

As for the last blade, it managed to form a shallow cut on her waistline, but it didn't affect her combat ability too much.

"Got you!" The female assassin lunged at her, aiming for the spot between her lungs.

Li An managed to sidestep in the last second, her hand shooting out to grab her wrist and twist it sharply. The dagger clattered to the ground as the girl cried out in pain.

Another assassin took advantage of her momentary distraction, slashing at her side. She barely managed to deflect the blade with her forearm, the edge grazing her skin and drawing a thin line of blood.

Li An found herself gradually being pushed back. An assassin struck her side with a powerful kick, the impact sending her stumbling. Another landed a solid punch to her ribs and the force of the blow cracked one of them.

The fight was going well, but the leader wasn't feeling happy. His eyes were opened wide as he stared at the face of the demonic 15-year-old girl.

She was expressionless.

There was no end to how expressionless she was.

Despite the serious internal wounds, despite being empty of spiritual energy, despite the situation not being favorable for her... there was not a single sign of the girl being worried, afraid, or even confident.

Suddenly, Li An shifted her stance, her body flowing into the patterns of the Cosmos martial arts, which were focused on counter-attacking with the strength of others.

She caught the female assassin's closed fist mid-air, using her momentum against her. With a swift twist, she redirected the force, sending the opponent crashing into a tree with a sickening thud. She slumped to the ground, unconscious.

The middle-aged assassin saw this and gritted his teeth, renewing his slashes with increased ferocity.

Li An's eyes gleamed with a predatory light. She let him get close, then suddenly spat a mouthful of blood into his eyes to temporarily blind him. As he tried to retreat, she drove her knee into his groin with as much force as she could. Before the assassin could react, an elbow to his temple followed up, knocking him out cold.

"One left." Li An glanced at the leader of the three, the only Foundation realm ninth stage alive at the moment. "They are too naive to be assassins or death warrior. Calling them by those names is an insult to the real ones."

This temporary leader also realized the dire situation. He roared in fury and lunged at Li An with his dagger, aiming for her throat. "Fuck the mission! I will at least bring her corpse with me!"

She ducked and weaved, using her instincts to dodge the strikes she could barely see. As he overextended on a slash, Li An grabbed his wrist and bit down hard on his hand, her teeth sinking into his flesh. The assassin screamed in pain and tried to pull away, but she held on, wrenching his arm until the dagger dropped from his grasp.

She then grabbed the fallen dagger and thrust it into his thigh, twisting the blade cruelly.

"AARRGGHH!"

His scream echoed through the forest, a chilling sound that was abruptly cut off as Li An drove her knee into his gut, forcing the air from his lungs. She followed up with a punch to his jaw, sending him reeling backward.

The assassin wanted to retaliate, but Li An stomped on his throat, crushing his windpipe and leaving him gasping for air.

"He shouldn't die from this. The spiritual energy will keep him alive for a while." She stored the fallen dagger of the female assassin on her robes and turned her attention back to the struggling leader.

"Fuckin'... bitch... I-"

The instant he tried to curse her, Li An's hands clamped down tightly on either side of the assassin's head, rendering him immobile. His eyes were locked onto the terrifying figure before him. He was made to stare closely at her bared, crimson teeth and eyes filled with a deep, unfathomable darkness.

"If you want to curse me, then go ahead and curse me. But, I won't kill you so easily. I won't kill you even if you beg me to kill you. You will live until your voice dies out, until your consciousness withers, until I obtain the information I seek. When your very soul crumbles, only then will I crush you underfoot like a bug."

Her bloodstained hands tenderly caressed the assassin's cheeks. The sensation of the lukewarm goo was seared into his brain. After stroking his cheek several times, Li An smiled.

"Kuh... kuh..."

"Oops, I might cripple him if I overdo it. He still has value for now." The girl took out her dagger again and made sure to slice the tendons of the three unconscious assassins. It wouldn't be good if they recovered, since their injuries were not as heavy as hers.

After finishing the gruesome task, she sat on a large boulder at the edge of the clearing, waiting.

Crimson liquid pooled around the fallen assassins, seeping into the ground and mingling with the mist that hung like a shroud over the trees.

The leader lay nearby, his body wracked with spasms. The sound of his gurgling, wet attempts to inhale spread through the forest, along with the scent of fresh blood.

Li An remained still, her eyes half-closed as she listened to the distant rustling of underbrush and the occasional snap of a twig.

"They're here."

A pair of big, mustard yellow eyes glowed in the fog.