Paragon of Sin

The young girl's appearance was unexpected, but her identity was even more so, enough to startle each Sage present into a flabbergasted silence with wide eyes and a disbelieving gaze suffused with immediate recognition.

The young girl was at most twelve or thirteen, her alabaster skin was like flawlessly pale treasured material that glowed from within, beautifully stunning, which was heavily accentuated by her vividly luminous scarlet eyes that were utterly mesmerizing to observe. Her pomegranate sleeveless sundress decorated with frills exuded youthful exuberance alongside her ice-blonde hair cascading downwards to her slender shoulders.

When she left the Spatial Ring, her first action wasn't to cautiously observe the surroundings but to pat her dress and breathe comfortably with large, blinking eyes that were suffused with ignorant innocence.

Wei Wuyin genuinely felt that this eerily young-appearing yet shockingly ancient Senior Worldly Saint Alchemist and Original Magistrate genuinely needed to fix the flaws within her Cultivation Method to rectify her physical de-aging. At first, Wei Wuyin was uncertain if this was deliberate or not for her appearance, but after observing her for so long, he had figured out the cause was a lifespan-extension Cultivation Method that was more aligned with a Dark Method.

This was none other than Alchemic Saint White Sky! A co-conspirator to Enlightened Sage Springfield's plot against the Sky Heart Galaxy, and Wei Wuyin's captive. She was only alive after the Heavenly Daos had given a nudge suggesting she was far more useful alive than dead, likely indicating her becoming a Spirit of War was similar to death, but to not risk losing a potential fortune or fortuitous event, Wei Wuyin held back his slaying hand.

"World-Saint White Sky?!" Nepit immediately recognized White Sky at first glance. Her unique appearance among top-tier Alchemists in the Utmost Purity Galaxy made her stand out.

White Sky finally took the time to roam her gaze across those present. Slowly, her eyes widened. How could she not recognize the four Sages here? While they had never come to the Utmost Purity Galaxy personally, her network of information wasn't so useless that she didn't have detailed reports on every known Sage in the neighboring galaxies, especially since those eight Sages were cause for much speculation.

Moreover, she had some dealings with Sage River Oasis, having similarly overcharged her for products as most had. The currently named Resolute Dusk Galaxy was renowned for its exceedingly excessive amount of natural resources, including prohibiting Supreme Sages from interfering with that chaotic and uncontrollable region.

Pakhet, Nepri, Imentet, and Nepit were overwhelmed with questions as they looked at Wei Wuyin for any answers. Why was a Senior Worldly Saint Alchemist of great prestige like White Sky in Wei Wuyin's spatial dimension? Didn't Wei Wuyin mention that he had never been to the Utmost Purity Galaxy, yet he has a high-ranking member?

White Sky had similar questions regarding why four of the ten Sages of that galaxy were here. Moreover, with her cultivation and experience, despite being mostly sealed, she could tell they were in the Void-Blank Space between galaxies. When did these home-lifers type Sages become the exploring type?

Wei Wuyin ignored all of them. He gestured to the five captive geniuses. White Sky looked over and her eyes widened. "Is that Lu Xuanyu?!" She instantly recognized the Exalted World-Saint Azureriver's youngest Alchemic Knight despite his bindings and disheveled state. "Why do you all have Lu Xuanyu in this state? Do you know whose Alchemic Knight he is?!"

The four Sages were clueless about Lu Xuanyu's identity, and they didn't have much of a reaction. They were Sages. They held the pride of a Sage, and they wouldn't easily be thrown into disarray by White Sky's hysterics.

Seeing their ignorance, she looked at Wei Wuyin and said in a deep, heavy tone, "That's Exalted World-Saint Azureriver's Alchemic Knight! Azureriver of the Zenith Creation Tower!"

"..." "..." "..." Almost immediately, as the title dawned on each Sage, with the exception of Pakhet, their expression grew increasingly pale with fright. Nepit's pupils were trembling as she slowly turned to look at Lu Xuanyu as if her neck was having difficulty turning.

"Azu-Azureriver?!"

White Sky observed Wei Wuyin, but she was met with an expression of genuine indifference. Did he not know who Azureriver was or did he not understand the significance of the Exalted title prefix?! Capturing his Alchemic Knight would certainly offend that Alchemist!

"What do we do?" Nepit asked Nepri. Despite her current emotions, she still defaulted to seeking out her Dao Companion who was especially competent to handle situations that she felt were out of her depth.

Nepri was outwardly calm, and he observed Wei Wuyin. When he saw the true serenity in his eyes, his raging heart subsided.

"Do you recognize the others?" Wei Wuyin asked White Sky. While he could read their memories to gather information, he wanted to see if White Sky would present information from her perspective that might lead to any heavenly fortune. He had no Karmic Luck Value, so there was no assistance or nudging from the Heavenly Daos. He was essentially fishing out of a whim. Before that, he had her inscribe her extensive knowledge of the Alchemic Dao down and concoct products on the side.

White Sky took a deep breath and gave Wei Wuyin a deeper look. Then, she recalled that he directly killed Enlightened Sage Springfield and dared to scheme against them by blowing up Easy Spring. Pouting, she looked at the other four. She didn't recognize anyone else—oh?

"Is that Cao Zhulian?" White Sky asked in disbelief.

Wei Wuyin's eyes brightened ever so slightly. When he found Cao Zhulian, he noted his lime-green irises, but since eye color was largely irrelevant due to Ocular Spells and Cultivation Methods, he ignored it, but the Cao surname had created a second coincidental connection.

"Cao Zhulian?"

White Sky leaned over and verified that it was indeed that Cao Zhulian. "Yeah. He's a galactically renowned genius, while not at the same level as Lu Xuanyu, he was known by virtue of his own infamy." Given Cao Zhulian's age and cultivation base, he genuinely shouldn't be as renowned unless there was a far-reaching scandal or matter that involved him.

"Infamy?" Nepri thought for a moment then gave Cao Zhulian a second look. "That Cao Zhulian?!" His memories were triggered almost immediately as he recalled a piece of shocking news that even reached the Resolute Dusk Galaxy. One of his disciples who studied the Alchemic Dao had brought back a host of news from the Utmost Purity Galaxy and it had even reached him. Word of mouth was powerful.

White Sky nodded to confirm after giving Cao Zhulian another look to verify. It was indeed Cao Zhulian!

"Who's Cao Zhulian?" Seeing both White Sky and Nepri recall Cao Zhulian, Nepit was immensely curious as her beating heart followed Nepri's as it calmed down, finding solace in her Dao Companion's calm.

Imentet and Pakhet remained silent. They were noticeably ignorant of whoever Cao Zhulian was.

"It's a simple matter but also not very simple; this young man dared to slap a Supreme Sage, and he lived to tell the tale," White Sky said with an intrigued series of blinks as if trying to find that brave and reckless youth in the chained Cao Zhulian.

"Slap?" Imentet felt her mind buzzing with disbelief. He slapped a Supreme Sage? A SUPREME SAGE? How was this guy still breathing?

"Does his lineage have a Supreme Sage?" Pakhet asked. It would be reasonable if his father, mother, or ancestor was a stronger, ruthless Supreme Sage who was excessively protective of his lineage. As for thinking any organization would stay behind him to protect him? That was utterly delusional. He wasn't THAT talented. Even if they didn't fear the Supreme Sage, they had no reason to offend such a figure for a young man who was a mere Original Magistrate.

White Sky shook her head. "That's why it was so baffling and created wave after wave throughout numerous galaxies. He belongs to the Serene Mountain Sect of the Prosperous Ruin Galaxy, and while they had three Mystic Overlords leading their force—"

"They have a Sage," Pakhet corrected.

"Oh? Did Zi Ping recently ascend?" White Sky almost immediately deduced the one who had ascended without skipping a heartbeat or understanding the situation. It was widely known that the Serene Mountain Sect was led by three Mystic Overlords, especially after that event.

Still, a single newly ascended Sage wasn't enough to—

"She's a newly ascended Sage," Wei Wuyin interrupted. The Sage was a woman, and while she wasn't as excessively strong as Nepri, Imentet, and Pakhet who grasped Laws and had a type of uniquely shared cultivation, she was slightly stronger than an ordinary Sage. Her foundation was impressive.

"She? Could it be…Cao Jingyi?" White Sky asked herself and then looked at Cao Zhulian, and she felt that it made sense given their ancestral lineage. They would be out exploring the Dark Void together. She must have found a fortuitous encounter to ascend.

"Cao…" Wei Wuyin glanced at the cultivating Cao Cuifen. She had once told him that her green irises were a result of her bloodline lineage of the Cao Clan, and Cao Cao had altered the colors slightly, producing a lime-green color, but her own eyes were a brighter lime-green rather than strictly lime-green. It was a small difference, but it was enough to hide his lineage since colors in the eyes of cultivators were extremely distinct.

Moreover, Wei Wuyin knew that eyes contained history. The eyes of himself, his mother, and the King of Everlore were enough to exemplify that.

But how could a lineage in the Prosperous Ruin Galaxy have any sort of connection with the far Onestar Galaxy?

Wei Wuyin had always been a good guesser, and if he had to give it a shot, he would guess that it had to do with the Jiaolong and its failure to ascend to the heights of the Immortal Dao, including the sealing formation that surrounded the galaxy, and how excessively diverse the Onestar Galaxy was with superior and inferior classified races.

For example, the Cao Clan could have investigated or tried to extract benefits alongside the various other galaxies. That could lead to all sorts of situations that could be fairly reasoned as to how the Cao Clan's bloodline reached the Onestar Galaxy. Moreover, Wei Wuyin knew that Cao Cuifen wasn't an ordinary woman as she was a deliberate ploy set for Tian Xiaolu's future, and Bai Xiu already seemed to have connections with the Utmost Purity Galaxy.

There was a thin thread there that could lead to literally anywhere, especially if Cao Cuifen decided to follow Tian Xiaolu after failing to obtain the inheritance and became her Dao Protector for a period, following her on the journey through the galaxy or at the very least, creating a Karmic connection with the Cao Clan and herself.

If one took a little bit of a further dive into it, Tian Xiaolu's lineage, specifically Tian Taizong, had destroyed the Cao Clan during his tyrannical, invincible ascent to supremacy. This could create a karmic tie where perhaps…one day, Tian Xiaolu could be meant to assist the Cao Clan to compensate for that tragedy.

Wei Wuyin's depth of thought into it was quite wondrous, almost as if he was forging a link between the Heavenly Daos and its grand machinations.

That said…

…he could be completely off-base in his line of thinking. Fortunately, his instincts told him otherwise, something he always trusted. After stealing Tian Xiaolu's fortune, he had inadvertently taken her path of potential fortune.

Meeting Cao Zhulian here after Ming Shufeng, a Heavenly Seer had deduced fortune here, was far too coincidental. If his eyes and name were two coincidences, the fact that the Sages actively avoided the Serene Mountain Sect instead of ganging up on it first to eliminate the greatest threat seemed to have a faint heavenly influence.

Wei Wuyin subconsciously glanced at his right arm, almost pulling up his sleeves to inspect it. Not a single nudge. Was this the result of zero Karmic Luck Value or was there something wrong after that incident?

"Slap a Supreme Sage and a Clan Member of yours becomes a True Sage shortly after. Perhaps there's more to this story," White Sky mused to herself. While it was obvious there was more to the story, it was particularly hard to figure out since it concerns a Supreme Sage!

Wei Wuyin shook his head. He looked at Sui You and Chen Minghui and then settled on Cao Zhulian. He slowly walked forward and touched his right shoulder lightly. "Keep them tied up for now. You can free this one. As for the girl that Wei Si favors, we'll have her contact her force to pick her up. If they don't want her or are too scared to, then she can follow Wei Si if she wants."

Wei Si smiled awkwardly. It was hard to know what was going through his thick skull, but Wei Wuyin was certain it wasn't perverted or romantic. Wei Si just never had any interest in men or women.

"What about Lu Xuanyu?" White Sky inquired curiously.

"We'll ransom his life back to that Azureriver as a gesture of goodwill. Since he fought for fortune and lost, then that's that." Wei Wuyin decided.

"What if he takes offense and wants to seek vengeance? Or worse, he informs the world of what you obtained?" Imentet questioned immediately. In her opinion, slaughtering all except Wei Yinan whom Wei Si liked was a better move after sealing Wei Yinan's memories with extensive spells.

Wei Wuyin shrugged. "Not once did I say we needed to hide our identities earlier or that I was trying to. You guys are just in the habit of being bandits when fighting for fortune." Moreover, Wei Wuyin didn't mind Liu Suyin carrying an Ice Edict Seed around her neck. To take a step back, refining an Edict Seed wasn't too difficult, so it would be expected to have been used immediately upon acquiring it.

"..." The four Sages were slightly awkward.

Wei Wuyin shook his head.

Shockingly, White Sky also shook her head. She didn't even understand the context yet she felt concealing one's identity as an Alchemist at her level or expert at his was completely unnecessary.

An ordinary Sage might have to hide their identities, but not someone who could kill Enlightened Sages!

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