Jian Dan stood before the towering gates of Tianyue City, slowly moving forward with the line of people waiting to enter.
Tianyue City was the closest cultivation city to the boundary between the cultivation and mortal realms. Its walls stretched twenty zhang high, with observation posts at the top. Jian Dan suspected that powerful cultivators with strong divine senses were stationed there, monitoring the surroundings.
These walls weren't just ordinary stone. Each bluish-gray brick had been refined and etched with runes. Together, the interlocking symbols formed a layered protective array that enveloped the entire city. From her observation, the array was currently operating at a basic defensive level—likely only activating its higher-tier functions during major threats. She wasn't sure whether the array drew its power from spirit stones or cultivators' spiritual energy.
It had taken her over ninety days to travel from the border to the nearest cultivation city. With her speed, she could have arrived much sooner, but after the incident at the demon cultivator's cave, she had grown more cautious.
She spent much of her journey training and hunting low-level spirit beasts, all while collecting ordinary spirit herbs. In doing so, she familiarized herself with the new environment and grew more adept at utilizing her newly acquired cultivation techniques—preparing herself to properly step into the cultivation world.
Before setting out, she had spent ten days in her temporary cave near the border, stabilizing her spiritual and demonic energy. She also sorted through her spoils both from the demonic cultivator's cave and the two ambushers' storage pouches. After getting a rough grasp of the current state of the cultivation world, she resumed her journey.
The black-gold storage ring once belonging to Mei Ji was a high-grade magical artifact, but its contents were somewhat disorganized. Given Mei Ji's cultivation level, most items were suited for demonic cultivators at the Nascent Soul stage or higher.
Of all her spoils, the two most valuable items to Jian Dan were the Heavenly Demon Art and the Mo Yue Zhan, Mei Ji's personal demonic weapon. The cultivation technique had already been imprinted into her spiritual sea. As for the Mo Yue Zhan, she had extracted its refinement method from Mei Ji's memory fragments and proceeded without hesitation.
She retrieved the Mo Yue Zhan from its sealed jade box. At the moment, the weapon still appeared as a crescent-shaped earring. Having already switched to the Heavenly Demon Art, Jian Dan formed a hand seal, and a streak of black demonic qi shot toward the weapon like an arrow. The weapon trembled faintly, then began greedily absorbing the demonic energy.
As more demonic energy poured in, Mo Yue Zhan started to shift from its dormant state, slowly expanding in size. Only now did its full form reveal itself to Jian Dan—a crescent blade about half a meter long. Both its outer and inner edges were razor-sharp, gleaming with a chilling light. The blade's body was adorned with a Manjushahua, its petals inlaid with fine cloud patterns, all rendered in hollow relief. The entire weapon shimmered with a silver-black luster, exuding an air of ancient elegance and menace.
Timing it perfectly, Jian Dan forced out a drop of blood from her heart and infused it into the blade. She intensified her seals and demonic energy output. As the blood merged with the weapon, its trembling gradually subsided and finally ceased. A link formed between the weapon and her mind and soul.
The blade spun happily around her once before flying directly into her dantian. There, it hovered before the Yin-Yang Taiji diagram, paused for a moment, then settled on the Yin side. It began slowly absorbing demonic energy, entering a state of restoration.
Now fully bound to Mo Yue Zhan, Jian Dan received all the information about the weapon through their spiritual connection. This was an ancient demonic artifact, passed down through the hands of several powerful demonic cultivators. After the last wielder perished, the weapon disappeared for centuries.
After a long slumber through changing times and fallen empires, the weapon had eventually been discovered by Mei Ji at the bottom of a lake in a mortal imperial palace. Upon binding it, she made it her life-bound demonic weapon. As her strength grew, so too did the weapon's power—until her demonic infant dispersed and the blade became masterless once more.
During the thousand years that Mei Ji was trapped in the cave, the weapon had expended its own energy to sustain her fading nascent soul, eventually reverting to its base form to preserve its essence. Now, with Jian Dan as its new master and a fresh source of demonic qi, the weapon offered no resistance.
Their soul link confirmed Mo Yue Zhan possessed an artifact spirit. Otherwise, it wouldn't have known to conserve energy or deliberately revealed its uniqueness to catch Jian Dan's attention.
After stabilizing the bond, Jian Dan's face, pale from the blood loss, began to regain some color. At the very least, everything was moving in her favor for now. Calming her spirit, she began circulating the Foundation Establishment stage of the Heavenly Demon Art, eager to recover the blood she had sacrificed.
This cultivation session took a full eight days. After completing nine full cycles of the technique, Jian Dan had solidified her Foundation Establishment cultivation base as a demon cultivator. However, no matter how much further she ran the technique, her cultivation no longer increased. Instead, the Yin side of the Taiji diagram within her dantian seemed to be expanding—subtly, but with a growing momentum that threatened to overtake the Yang side entirely.