Returning to the Indigo Realm's command center, Pef met the General's Avatar and nodded to her gallantly.

"Mission accomplished, General." he offered with a polite voice.

"Try not to explode more universes than needed, Divine Cook." the General answered in a vaguely annoyed tone.

Pef simply shrugged and sat into his command chair. This time, he really wasn't at fault for the disaster. A dozen universes destroyed wasn't a necessary loss or even expected. Even if he did sort of enticed the Sword Ancestor to use his strongest moves on the bees, with possible consequences not really accounted for. So maybe a little bit of guilt was his, after all.

On the other hand, he now had a measure for Master Jin's real strength, and thus what to expect from others of his realm that obeyed the Mercy Seat.

Even if only 100 of the remaining Bronze Realm Nobles had reached their 9th star, if they had the strength of Master Jin...hopefully most likely they didn't.

'How many like him can you kill, old badger?' Pef asked inward.

'There aren't others like him, not in the Middle Heavens. But, assuming they would have similar strengths, about 30 or so.' the Taotie answered after a long minute of thinking.

'So, you need to become three times stronger. It will take some effort.' Pef said with a frowning tone.

'The Taotie won't fight them by himself. Yue and you can make up the difference.' the glove added in a confident tone.

'We will have to deal with all the others as well. And some of these Nobles will have tricks up their sleeves, like that Heart Mirror.' Pef mused to himself, then turned towards the General.

"Any luck with your new bees?" he asked curious.

"The mortal ones can be easily subdued. But we have more than enough mortal ants anyways. The Divine Bees are far more difficult." the General's Avatar answered with a concentrated face, almost seeming in pain.

Pef nodded and laid back. It was expected to have problems unbinding the Divine Bees from the control of their Queens. For one, the General herself was only in Tier 9, while the Old Queen had been in Tier 10 for countless eons, way before the Tree Wars.

"Perhaps force is not the only answer. Try a flower as well. They are bees, after all." Pef proposed with a smile, producing an Immortal Peach flower and holding it out for the General.

"Idiot! I am a flower as well." the General muttered with displeasure, but took the white-pink flower anyway.

"I couldn't tell, your armpits surely don't smell like flowers." Pef answered with a teasing tone, then vanished before he got set on fire again.

He arrived beside Zen just as she killed another Tier 7 Bee and began her Ascension into the Divine Realm. With a quick swipe, he grabbed the suit and the user and brought them inside his inner world, where a familiar wooden house with a large terrace overlooked the sea.

"Careful now Zen. Draw the metal into your dantian." Pef demanded as his hand held out a fistful of Violet Metal, obtained from melting a Tier 10 Gorgon bones.

The process took days, as Zen was far too weak to manipulate the powerful metal by herself, and needed to recharge every minute.

But in the end, it was worth it. The strong Violet Metal ensured that her physical god transformation achieved the best possible result so far, 100 percent bonus to all physical stats, plus 10 percent bonus to her Metal Dao.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

As Zen rose to her feet, her hand clenched and her sword appear in hand, glowing with faint violet light along the edge.

"See! I told you Soul River, I don't need to dissipate into gas for my next Ascension." the Shadow Clone exulted with a joyous voice.

"Bring me your real body. I need to see what I'm working with." the sword demanded in a less enthusiastic tone, almost bored.

Zen glanced at Pef, who nodded and recalled Zara from her laboratory in the Blue Realm of the Pagoda.

"Nice to meet you, Soul River. And you too, Gundam Two." Zara offered with a small bow towards her clone's Artifacts.

"Tier 6, with an Immortal Flame as well? Decent, I suppose." the sword commented, sounding not too impressed. Then again, her former user was a Tier 10 Sword Master.

"We're not that focused on cultivation, Soul River. The eight of us each focus on different things, from Swords to Cooking, or Alchemy..." Zara began with a conciliatory voice, before the sword glowed brighter and flew in the air by itself.

"Then make one more clone, and have it cultivate! I am using thousands of high-grade crystals to defeat a single Golden Bee. It's pathetic!" Soul River shouted in displeasure.

Pef shrugged unconcerned. Crystals were the last of his worries.

Still, keeping the sword content might be worth it. He took out a one-line Golden Burger and offered it to Zara.

"Fine! Watch this!" Zara muttered and gulped the Ascension burger, then sat down to meditate, and soon peaked over into Tier 7. A weak Tier 7, but still an Immortal.

"Better. And you, the Cook! Give Zen some of your wine. Her Void Dao is too low for my strikes." the sword demanded while glinting menacingly at Pef.

Pef chuckled amused, and took out a full bottle of Paramita Wine. "Sure, I can provide some wine. But, I also need something."

Soul River flew around Pef in a circle then slapped the wine bottle towards Zen with its handle. "My body is not available. What do you need?"

"I need your knowledge, Soul River. I don't have clones like your user. And we might need to fight a thousand Tier 10 Nobles bound to the Mercy Seat." Pef said in a calm voice.

"You may touch the blade." Soul River offered after a long silence.

Pef didn't feel the blade, instead sinking into the ground and appearing into the Sword River, billions of swords floating all around like a school of fish.

'Move against the current, young Cook. I didn't expect you have already mastered the Universe Splitter.' Soul River spoke into his soul, just as Pef began to look around curious.

'You mean the Dimensional Strike or the Void Cutter?' Pef asked curious, as he wove Formations to protect himself from sharp edges flying towards him at speed.

'No. You copied what I did with the Bee wing. It's called a Universe Splitter. The next step after the Heaven Splitter you saw used by Old Man Jin.' Soul River offered and pointed at a distant island lying the middle of the Sword River. 'Reach there, and learn.'

Pef followed the advice and moved towards the safer island, only to find it was in fact a huge sword floating on the river like a leaf.

'Another junior? Are you sure you meant to come here, Junior? Surely the Creation river would be more suited, seeing all these arrays, and then your amazing cooking.' a voice spoke into Pef's mind, making him turn towards a man sitting on the edge of the giant sword, fishing for something in the Sword River. With a fishing rod without a line.

Pef sighed and took out his last bottle of Paramita Wine. Random encounters were never as easy as they seemed.