Chapter Ninety: The Saintess’s Story, Part Two

Then the woman, her whole body cloaked in black aura so that her true face could not be seen, took out a veil and said to her, “To become the Saintess of our Sacred Land of the Immortal Moon, the direct heir, you must never let anyone see your real face. If anyone does, kill him.”

She said nothing, only silently put on the veil, and then followed the woman in black aura back to the small village. There, along with the nearby villages, everything had already been reduced to a sea of fire, with no one left alive. From that day on, no one ever saw her face again.

The Saintess said softly, “I miss my father. However he treated me in life, he was still my father. My mother died after giving birth to me; he was my only family.”

Glancing at Night Without Horizon, who was fast asleep, the Saintess continued, “Then she followed her master in cultivation and became one of the Saintesses of the Sacred Land of the Immortal Moon.”

The day she embarked upon the path of cultivation, she saw all sorts of things that had never existed in her world before—demons, Buddhas, fiends, all manner of magical treasures.

The road of cultivation was cruel. On her very first day, her master locked her in with a wolf, and she had only a short blade. Her master said that only if she survived would she be worthy of becoming a disciple.

That night, a nine-year-old girl crouched in a corner, trembling with fear, while an adult wild wolf stared at her viciously. She wanted to live, and a fierce will to survive made her take up the short blade.

By the next morning, she was covered in wounds and on the verge of death as she hid in the corner. In front of her lay a wolf that no longer breathed. She had defeated the wolf and won herself a little more time to live.

The woman who radiated that strange power, her master, appeared once more and brought her to a valley. The wolf’s corpse was brought along as well.

Her master said, “The second test is to survive here for one year. You have nothing but a wolf’s corpse. Within these ten meters, no beast will come in; this is your safe zone. Outside are powerful beasts. Survive, and you may continue to hold the Saintess’s position. In one year, I will come for you...”

Then her master melted into the void and vanished. She had never imagined that the entry trial would be so hard, but she had no choice but to keep going, because from the moment she agreed to take the master as her teacher, her life no longer belonged to her alone.

There was nothing within those ten meters except a wolf corpse and the short blade in her hand. To survive, she drank wolf blood when she was thirsty and cut wolf meat to eat when she was hungry.

Every night, roars of beasts echoed through the valley. From time to time, strange beasts she had never seen before would appear and circle outside the ring of light around her. That ring covered ten meters of ground and was left to her by her master. Nothing else could get in, but she could come and go as she pleased.

Yet good times did not last. In just a few days, the wolf’s corpse no longer gave off blood, and the body itself began to stink. With no food left, she lost her only source of sustenance. If she wanted to live, she had no choice but to go out and look for food.

At night, the valley was often filled with the furious howls of beasts. She knew nothing of immortal arts, and the first beast to enter her sight was a fire-breathing one. She was instantly petrified.

All she could do was switch targets. When she was hungry, she gnawed on tree bark; when she was thirsty, she drank resin. But that fire-breathing beast simply settled down and made this place its home.

Later, another beast appeared: a wild boar covered from head to toe in festering boils. It, too, had taken an interest in this area, and soon it started fighting the fire-breathing beast.

The boar was covered all over in those boils, as if it wore a suit of swollen armor.

Seeing the boar arrive, the fire-breathing beast let out one warning roar after another.

The boar charged straight toward the fire-breathing beast with its two sharp tusks, shaking the ground with every step. That giant boar, three meters long, looked like a tank.

The fire-breathing beast opened its mouth and loosed a beam of flame, blasting the boar. The boar showed no fear at all. The moment the beast’s fire touched those boil-like swellings all over its body, it was like dry firewood meeting a blaze. It was as if a cannon had been ignited.

One by one, the swellings fell off the boar and flew toward the fire-breathing beast. When they drew near, each burst with a thunderous blast, and the force was so great that it left the fire-breathing beast a bloody wreck.

The Saintess glanced at Night Without Horizon, who was snoring soundly beside her. “Senior, guess what happened next.”

“After that, the fire-breathing beast was also enraged by the invader. A sky-filling blaze rose to the heavens in a torrent of fire, and in the end the two beasts crippled each other and died together.”

“I got a lucky break from it. That day was the first time I ever ate roasted pork. It wasn’t roasted by me, but it was truly delicious.”

After that, those two beasts once again gave me the means to survive.

And so I drifted along like that for half a year. After that incident, the cultivation method I had learned finally produced spiritual power, and I successfully reached the first level of Spirit Gathering.

“Hehe, Senior, by pure luck I managed to take my first step onto the path of cultivation. After another month of training, I had already reached the third level of Spirit Gathering.”

“Then I no longer had to live in constant fear every day. At first I could only go twenty meters out, but as my strength slowly increased, I could travel farther and farther.”

Gradually, she reached a range of about fifty meters, and as her strength grew, she no longer worried about food.