It was only a single five-hundred-year medicinal herb.
Now, Yun Jin could take one out with ease.
Yet it was precisely such a herb that had cost the entire Yun Family their lives!
In her previous life, Yun Jin would rather have become a maid just to enter Tianxing Sect, all because she wanted power, enough power to find the cultivator who had slaughtered the Yun Family and take her revenge.
In that life, she never attained such strength in the end.
And Ye Danxia, who had promised, after taking the ring, that she would help find the true culprit, also broke her word. She was too busy falling in love to remember the Yun Family who had died so miserably.
But in this life, Yun Jin no longer obsessed over finding the murderer. The reason was very simple.
And dramatic enough to be laughable.
After her death in her previous life, Yun Jin lingered as a soul, following Ye Danxia. She watched as Ye Danxia used the ring to gain Cang Li's trust.
Cang Li naturally learned of the Yun Family's extermination and conducted an investigation.
The result was that.
The cultivator who had committed the deed was found. He was a Golden Core Stage cultivator who had been tempted by the Demon Clan and strayed into demonic cultivation. Yet before Cang Li even needed to kill him personally, that man, after robbing the herb, was soon consumed by the backlash of evil techniques and died on his own.
The ending was somewhat theatrical.
But that's also normal.
If this was the protagonist's hatred, it would've definitely been described in great detail, carefully rendered with layers of suffering and resentment.
The protagonist's revenge would naturally have to be full of twists and turns to be satisfying.
But.
She had never been the protagonist.
The Yun Family was merely an ordinary mortal family.
Their deaths were insignificant, nothing more than a microcosm of this cruel cultivation world.
Yun Jin's pain and despair didn't matter either. As a side character, why would she deserve a dramatic revenge arc? For her enemy to conveniently die on his own was already an immense act of mercy toward her.
Therefore.
After returning to this life, Yun Jin no longer thought about seeking out the culprit.
That person had long since turned to white bones.
Yet her hatred had been buried deep within her heart.
That man was dead.
But.
Why are evil cultivators rampant now?
It's because of the Demon Clan's temptations.
And also because of the indifferent attitude of most cultivators.
Yun Jin had seen the root of the problem.
As long as the Demon Clan wasn't eradicated, there would continue to be countless cultivators seduced into becoming evil cultivators. Many of these evil cultivators dared not confront the major sects directly, so instead they chose to prey upon mortals and weak rogue cultivators.
Even with the Demon-Destroying Alliance, a single alliance couldn't eliminate all villains under heaven.
Many within the Demon-Destroying Alliance also only acted when there were rewards to be gained.
By the time they took action, those evil cultivators had already caused untold tragedies.
The Yun Family was one example.
Her Third Senior Brother's tragedy was another.
Evil cultivators and the Demon Clan coexisted and fed upon one another.
If she ever had the chance, she would wipe them out completely.
A trace of ruthless resolve flashed in Yun Jin's eyes.
The one who had annihilated the Yun Family was merely a Golden Core Stage evil cultivator. If she had possessed her current strength back then, such a person would've been nothing.
But at that time, she had only been a mortal!
Yet lacking power couldn't be called a sin.
There were so many mortals under heaven without spiritual roots. They were born without the possibility of cultivation. In terms of numbers, they were thousands, even tens of thousands of times more numerous than cultivators.
What should these mortals do? If they lacked power, did that mean they deserved to be slaughtered at will?
A thought gradually took shape in Yun Jin's mind.
She had traversed countless worlds. She had seen worlds ruled by the law of the jungle, and she had seen worlds governed by strict order.
Perhaps a world could never be absolutely fair, but a world where the weak could live in peace wasn't impossible.
Of course.
It's still far too early to think about such things.
If she wished to change anything, she first needed power, power that surpassed everyone else.
Even Ji Wusi, her master, was someone she would one day have to surpass.
Her master was good, but their ideals could never be entirely the same.
If Yun Jin wanted to practice the Dao she believed in, she needed strength worthy of being number one in the human realm.
An Tong watched Yun Jin's slightly cold profile, his heart trembling faintly.
Little Master looked rather serious all of a sudden.
It made him feel a bit scared.
He glanced at the Heart Trial Mirror and hurriedly changed the subject, "Little Master, they've all entered the second trial."
"This Duan Yiwei is just as we expected, he's completely full of himself in this world. Jin Yu is rather interesting, though. He directly abandoned his position of authority and fled…" An Tong continued explaining excitedly. Then suddenly, he noticed Yue Zhao's scene and let out a light gasp.
In the hundredfold-accelerated image, Yue Zhao had developed commercial systems and industrialization, and even cultivated the budding seeds of socialism…
An Tong was stunned.
He also knew that the three thousand worlds were each different.
But a relatively egalitarian world like the one Yue Zhao had created, this was his first time seeing such a thing.
Is this something people of this world could actually come up with?
In his astonishment, An Tong increased the intensity of his observation.
Then he saw.
Above Yue Zhao's head, two souls faintly manifested.
An Tong exclaimed in shock, "Little Master! This Yue Zhao is from another small world!"
Yue Zhao's soul had already fused quite well. If An Tong hadn't observed carefully, he might not have discovered it at all.
Having made this astonishing discovery, An Tong expected Yun Jin to be equally surprised.
He looked at her proudly, as if asking for praise.
Yun Jin's expression, however, remained perfectly calm.
An Tong froze, "Little Master, you already knew?"
Yun Jin smiled, "It wasn't difficult to notice."
An Tong didn't know that Yun Jin had traversed far more worlds than her Eldest Senior Brother ever had.
Only her divine soul was protected by the Super Simplification System, making it impossible for even An Tong to pry into.
An Tong immediately looked dejected. So Little Master had known all along.
He had thought this was a brand-new discovery.
But.
An Tong quickly perked up again and said, "Little Master, Yue Zhao came from another small world, and his two souls never fully fused. Wushuang Sect has a secret art that can fuse divine souls. This art is perfectly suited to Yue Zhao. After cultivating it, he won't only completely fuse his divine souls, but in the future, his cultivation of soul-related Daos will progress at an astonishing pace."
Tianpo also spoke up, "I originally thought this Yue Zhao didn't have much potential. But if he has dual souls, combined with Wushuang Sect's secret technique, Little Master, your Eldest Senior Brother has a chance to become a top-tier expert."
Dual souls were exceedingly rare. Looking across a thousand years of history, there were perhaps only one or two such cases.
And yet, Wushuang Sect had once had a senior with innate dual souls who left behind a cultivation method within the sect, this was precisely Yue Zhao's opportunity.
Yun Jin chuckled, "An Tong, take a closer look at my Second Senior Sister."
At Yun Jin's words, An Tong manipulated the Heart Trial Mirror and observed her carefully.
Then his expression changed once more.
Si Wanning didn't possess dual souls, but her soul was far stronger than most others. Moreover, within her soul lay traces of causality.
The Dao of causality was one of the supreme Daos.
For a cultivator to glimpse even a fragment of it was already extraordinarily rare.
Yet the marks of causality within Si Wanning's soul were strikingly clear. Why was that?