He had started out as rogue cultivator in the third level of Qi Condensation, with relatively good latent talent. After being chased down by an enemy, he was on the verge of being killed when an enigmatic savior from a mysterious sect appeared. His savior had been in a bit of a rush, so after a moment of thought, gave him a mask and told him to find an Outer Sect disciple in the Blood Stream Sect named Nightcrypt. His mission was to take his place and carry out a certain task. The savior had even hexed the imposter’s soul.
The real Nightcrypt was actually dead by now. However, he had occupied a relatively stable position in the Blood Stream Sect. One of his ancestors had performed a great service for the Blood Stream Sect, and because of that, Nightcrypt had been guaranteed a place in the Inner Sect.
The imposter’s mysterious savior had visited him a second time to explain further details of his mission, which was to secretly acquire the relic of eternal indestructibility. His savior had described its appearance, and even told him where it was located. Apparently, there was a huge door guarding the way, the key to which was a unique medicinal pill.
The pill wasn’t difficult to concoct; even an ordinary apothecary could do it. Unfortunately, no matter who concocted it, the success rate would be fifty-fifty. Furthermore, the ingredients were very rare. Collecting them all would be a very difficult task.
Thankfully, his mysterious savior’s sect was very rich, and had already collected most of the ingredients. The only thing lacking was some beastbirth blood.
After replacing Nightcrypt and becoming a Blood Stream Sect disciple, everything went smoothly at first. He soon became an Inner Sect disciple, but quickly came to find that he had difficulty cultivating the techniques of the Blood Stream Sect. Although he had good latent talent, he wasn’t suited for blood cultivation. This problem grew worse and worse until he got stuck in the eighth level of Qi Condensation.
Gradually, the sect lost interest in him, and even his mysterious savior didn’t provide any help. For several miserable years, he had continued to cultivate alone in painstaking fashion….
His mysterious savior’s sect was a very, very long way away from the Blood Stream Sect, and there were other things that made it difficult to go back and forth between the two. Furthermore, he wasn’t able to directly plunder the relic of eternal indestructibility himself. Because of that, he only appeared three times, and those three times had all been by means of a projection, and apparently came at great cost.
The first time was when he arranged for Nightcrypt’s soul replacement. The second time was when imposter Nightcrypt became an Inner Sect disciple. The fanfare surrounding that event didn’t seem to please his mysterious savior, but didn’t stop him from explaining the details of the relic of eternal indestructibility. That was also when he gave imposter Nightcrypt the ingredients to concoct the medicinal pill, and explained that his mysterious sect would continue to search for the final ingredient.
The third time he appeared was right before imposter Nightcrypt entered the Fallen Sword World. He’d explained that if he couldn’t reach Foundation Establishment, that he would have to give up the mask and abandon his spy work.
Imposter Nightcrypt had been left with no choice but to rely on his divination skills to illuminate the correct path ahead. Everything after that was history….
“Is that sect full of idiots?” Bai Xiaochun blurted. “Why would they possibly pick you to be their spy? Furthermore, how could the Blood Stream Sect never have suspected you?!” In his opinion, either Nightcrypt was lying, or the mysterious sect was full of fools. Of course, perhaps there was some other factor that Bai Xiaochun was unaware of, something that gave the mysterious sect no other choice than to rely on the Nightcrypt soul replacement plan.
1. Generally speaking, I transliterate the names of characters, and translate Daoist names or nicknames. For Nightcrypt, I’m making a bit of an exception. This is supposed to be his actual name, not a Daoist name. So if I transliterated it, it would be Ye Zang. However, it’s a completely ridiculous name in Chinese, the kind of name nobody would have in real life. It’s supposed to sound cool/creepy/badass, except, sort of “made up” a.k.a. not a real name. To keep the outrageous flavor of the name, I’m going to translate it out instead of transliterating it. P.S. My apologies if anyone in the audience is actually named Nightcrypt, and is offended by me calling it a ridiculous name.
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Chapter
180: Could It Be The Will Of The Heavens...?
Chapter 180: Could It Be The Will Of The Heavens…?
There was another possibility, which was that, as Nightcrypt had said, the mysterious sect was too far away from the Blood Stream Sect, so far that even a projection was difficult to accomplish. That would explain their lack of both confidence and options, which led to their less than perfect decision.
Suspicious, Bai Xiaochun continued to pry Nightcrypt with questions, until even Nightcrypt seemed to be getting confused. Finally, Bai Xiaochun frowned, and then once again resorted to threatening to dunk him in the Heavenspan River. He then asked more questions, even down to the details of the formula to the pill that was needed to open the door. Slowly, he was coming to be convinced that Nightcrypt was telling the truth. Although his answers sometimes conflicted with each other, the overall bigger picture was consistent.
There even seemed to be certain things that Nightcrypt himself didn’t understand. All he knew was that he was a spy, and that his soul had been bound with a restrictive spell. If he didn’t follow his orders, he would die. He wasn’t even sure what to do with the relic of eternal indestructibility if he managed to get his hands on it.
To Bai Xiaochun, it didn’t make much sense that the mysterious sect would just hand the medicinal pill ingredients over to a stranger. The most likely explanation was that Nightcrypt’s mysterious savior truly approved of his soul, although another possibility was that the sect really was too far away, and they had no other option than to hand over the ingredients when they could.
Either way, it didn’t seem logical. It almost seemed like the mysterious sect hadn’t considered what to do after Nightcrypt acquired the relic of eternal indestructibility. Perhaps they didn’t really care about the relic at all, and simply wanted him to open the door. Or was it that they didn’t believe Nighcrypt to be capable of actually acquiring the relic after opening the door?
But if the latter were the case, why wouldn’t they just select another spy…?
“What a weird sect. Why do I get the feeling that they’re only going through the motions? It’s almost like they want certain people to think that they’re working hard at reaching some goal, but in reality, they don’t care.” The more Bai Xiaochun thought about it, the more strange he found the whole scenario.
Another odd thing was that the Blood Stream Sect never got suspicious of Nightcrypt. Although, based on Nightcrypt’s explanation, that was a question which could be answered.
“It’s all thanks to this mask, huh….” he thought. He looked over the mask in more detail, and was shocked to find that he had no idea what it was made of. However, its aura was shocking, and no matter how he looked at it, it seemed like a precious treasure.
According to Nightcrypt, putting on the mask didn’t just change your physical appearance. It actually transformed your flesh and blood. That transformation would reverse upon removing the mask, but as long as you wore it, no one would ever be able to detect any clues that you were a different person. Your cultivation base fluctuations would be concealed, and according to the representative of the mysterious sect, no one under the Mahayana Realm would be able to see them. Unfortunately, Nightcrypt didn’t know what the Mahayana Realm was….