Rachel’s eyes shot open. A tiny figure, her nascent soul, flew out of the center of her head. It looked exactly like her but transparent. With a cry, the nascent soul faced its head towards the ceiling and flexed her fists, pointing them towards the sky. Cracks made of blue light appeared on the soul, marring its previously perfect figure. The nascent soul’s cry increased in pitch, and the cracks enlarged until the soul was more broken than whole. As time passed, the cracks grew wider and wider until the last trace of soul that could be seen was replaced by a blue glow.

“Form!” Rachel shouted and punched her fists together in front of her chest. A miniature shockwave emerged from the clash, blowing her hair back. When the shockwave reached the broken nascent soul above her head, the light solidified, recreating Rachel’s figure feet first. By the time the shockwave passed through the nascent soul, the soul was back to how it originally looked but a bit opaquer. Rachel raised her head, and her nascent soul descended, reconnecting with her body. At last, she had succeeded in perfecting her Moon Lotus Cultivation Technique. Now, the seed within her soul could be properly nurtured. The soul-seed stage would no longer be her upper limit.

Rachel stood up and waved her hand. A simple cleaning spell wiped any trace of grime and dust off of her body, making it seem as if she had just showered and changed into freshly washed garments. She exited the abode and reenabled its barrier to prevent snow from flying in. She was standing on top of a snowy mountaintop, the place in the Moon Lotus Sect where spiritual energy was densest. How long had she been in seclusion for? She wasn’t quite sure, but it didn’t matter. With the way she left the world and the sect before entering seclusion, as long as an idiot hadn’t been leading the sect, the sect should still be recognized as the strongest in the world.

After reinforcing her cultivation and reaching new heights, Rachel wanted to test her strength. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone worth fighting. Both the Sun Cactus Sect and the Ten Faces Sect had been defeated and turned into vassals. With the resources they had to offer as tribute, there was no way the elders of those sects could possibly have caught up to Rachel. There were a few reclusive soul-seed cultivators, but they were known as reclusive for a reason. It was nearly impossible to find them. As for challenging her ancestors, they were too busy trying to ascend; they would never focus their energy into something that didn’t involve cultivating, which included fighting. A sigh escaped from Rachel’s lips. Was this the loneliness that came from being the strongest in a generation? Over the years, she had defeated challengers one after another. There were many of them at first, but as the years went on and she got stronger, the challenges dwindled to a halt. Now, they didn’t come anymore.

Since that was the case, the only thing Rachel could do was return to the sect and resume her roll as sect leader. Surprisingly, she had burned through a vast fortune of spirit stones she had been hoarding, more than she had expected it’d take to rebuild her foundation. Although being the sect leader restricted her freedom, it also paid pretty well. As she flew towards the main office, she couldn’t help but wonder how the sect was doing. As the strongest person in the world, she also wanted her sect to be the strongest too. It wasn’t important, but she wanted it to be that way.

It didn’t take long for her to fly to the main office, not at her speed. Rachel’s ice wings disappeared, dropping her onto the balcony that overlooked the plaza. Her gaze stiffened upon seeing the disciples below. They were all … beefy. She wasn’t quite sure how to describe them. They were no longer lithe like reeds; rather, they had turned solid like brick walls. Their muscles bulged, and their robes were all two to three sizes larger than they had been before Rachel had entered seclusion. Practitioners of the Moon Lotus Cultivation Technique would find themselves nimble and slender, flexible and lithe—none of which described how the disciples of the Moon Lotus Sect currently looked!

Had someone modified the Moon Lotus Cultivation Technique, and was the modified technique widely adopted amongst all the disciples? Rachel had no idea how else to explain the situation. She walked into the sect leader’s office from the balcony, and she found an extremely buff woman reading and writing on dozens of reports. “Elder Formation?’ Rachel asked. It wasn’t just the disciples? The elders had been afflicted with this physique too?

The buff woman, Elder Formation, raised her head and asked, “Sect Leader Rachel?”

Rachel furrowed her brow. “How long was I in seclusion for?” According to her internal clock, she should’ve only been secluded for twenty years. To a cultivator, twenty years was like nothing, but she felt like a gatekeeper who had stepped away to use the bathroom for five minutes and returned to a city full of walking giants. Perhaps she had miscalculated how long she had been away.

“It’s been twenty years,” Elder Formation said. “I’ve made a log of key reports and my responses to them.” She pulled a jade slip out of a drawer and passed it to Rachel. “With this, you’ll know everything important that has happened while you were cultivating.”

Rachel nodded and took the slip. She pressed it against her forehead, and her eyes glazed over. Less than a second later, she lowered her hand and gently tossed the slip onto the table. “I didn’t expect the world to change so much because of one person.” Her eyes lit up. “As long as we continue supplying titan flesh, blood, and cores to the rest of the world, humanity’s overall strength will increase by a whole level. Once that time comes, we can rally humanity and slaughter our way through the demonic battleground and establish a fortress on enemy territory. From there, we can conquer their whole world.”

Sweat formed on Elder Formation’s back. Why was it that the instant Sect Leader Rachel returned, she was already thinking about pushing the sect into another war? However, Elder Formation had to admit the sect leader’s words made sense. Thanks to the return of the lost art of rune enchanting, humanity’s strength did rise by a whole level. Thanks to the wondrous effects of titan flesh, even mortals could fight with the strength of golden-core cultivators—although realistically they’d never be able to afford the required amount of titan flesh even if they had the whole wealth of an empire. Thanks to the usage of titan hearts, golems became much more popular, and along with the golems came automation. What used to be done by slaves and unpaid interns—who were basically slaves—was now done by golems instead.

***

Emily sat in a waiting room. It felt like a spiky stone was resting inside of her stomach. Every time she moved, her stomach would ache, but when she didn’t move, it almost felt even worse. It made sense for her anxiety to crush her like this. If she failed her mission, she would die. By the end of the working day, which only had three more hours left in it, she could be dead. The system had tasked her with procuring the rights to selling the Moon Lotus Sect’s titan materials to the southwestern region of the continent. No matter how many negotiations she had gone through, the feeling of anxiety always weighed just as heavily on her the next time; however, every time she was sure she was going to die, she had always made it. Hopefully, it would be the same this time.

Her merchant group was called the Heavenly Golden River, named after the rivers of gold that would appear when the god of wealth bestowed his blessings on someone in the myths about him. From her little dojo, she branched out into different sectors of the market, eventually creating a group that controlled the flow of commodities within a whole county. She wouldn’t have been able to do it without the help of the system’s rewards. It was why she wasn’t sure whether or not to hate the system that controlled her life and death.

The door to the waiting room opened, and extremely muscular woman appeared. Emily thought the people in the waiting room, the merchants from all over, would be called in one at a time to undergo an interview, but evidently, that wasn’t going to happen. The muscular woman cleared her throat. “Which one of you is the representative for Heavenly Golden River?”

Emily’s heart nearly jumped into her throat. Why was she being singled out? She steadied her breath and climbed to her feet. “I am Emily, the representative for Heavenly Golden River.”

“You’re the one,” the muscular woman said. “Come in.” Her gaze swept over the rest of the merchants. “Everyone else can leave.”

Emily gulped and followed the Moon Lotus Sect disciple, trying hard to ignore the burning gazes of the merchants around her. When she walked through the door and entered the room, she couldn’t help but ask, “Why me?”

The muscular woman, Azalea, took a seat before staring at Emily. “Elder Vremya is a bit….” Azalea paused and circled her index finger around her temple a few times. “He said he liked the name of your company and wouldn’t even consider listening to anyone else’s pitch.”

Emily blinked. The text in her eyes was informing her that her mission was complete. Was negotiating with the Moon Lotus Sect supposed to be this easy? She had thought she’d be dead for sure before the day was over.