Feeling blood soak his flank with sticky warmth once more, Gao Feng quickly stood and tore Qin Yihua's sword from the melting ice, slinging it over his shoulder.

  His eyes quickly sought the south edge of the Grave, before falling back to Jun Li, who struggled in pain on the ground, clutching her throat. His grudge, and all the conviction to die that came with it, had dispersed like smoke in a rainstorm.

  "What a mess…" This incident had accelerated well beyond that of a Rogue Cultivator infiltrating the Earth Dragon's Grave.

  Multiple people were dead or crippled, not to mention, both last decade's drop of Earth Dragon Blood and this decade's drop have been lost. And on top of that, now there's some sort of powerful Cultivator or entity, seemingly capable of entering the Grave without being ejected.

  Despite all of this chaos having originated from Jun Li, Gao Feng almost felt bad for her.

  From his perspective, she had suffered badly from Junzi's emergence and had likely been putting up with this sort of thing for some time, based on the familiarity the two seemed to have.

  Of course, his perspective was fairly disconnected from the truth, but it compelled him nonetheless.

  … … … … … …

  Within a few minutes, Jun Li had forced herself to adapt to the pain that lanced through her veins, a sensation she feared may become routine as Junzi grows to become an active component of her Cultivation.

  Regardless of how the future might complicate her perspective towards him, Jun Li's feelings towards Junzi had, as a result of this encounter, devolved to the sentiment of a craftsman with unreliable tools.

  She didn't permit herself to consider Junzi's nature or potential autonomy more complexly than that. To her, he was a long-dead creature whose will, whose intent would eventually be scrubbed out of their inheritance.

  Rising to her knees, Jun Li looked around, enduring the pain that flowed out from her throat and penetrated even into her eyelids. 'I thought I sensed that guy leaving… I suppose I was right…'

  Oddly, nobody was present on the mountain's summit except for Jun Li, not even Little Yun. '...Where'd they go? I figure they would have jumped at the opportunity to get close to that… 'Junzi' thing.'

  Jun Li tried to read the pain that ran under her flesh for a moment, trying to understand where it came from and what its purpose was, but in the end, she struggled to endure the pain and sift through her own sensations. 'Maybe if I completed Nerve Tuning, I could have understood this a bit better…'

  Through the slowly-fading pain, Jun Li could feel new sensations spark to life, the depth and complexity of which expanded so quickly that she staggered with nausea.

  New strands of feeling stretched through Jun Li's body like a web, the sensations ringing so clearly through her mind, it was as if she had simultaneously run a finger across each and every vein in her body. 'Damn it… I'm already sick of seeing my own blood…' Almost instinctively, she understood the technique Junzi had engraved into her body.

  Raising her left arm, still cut to the bone from Gao Feng's initial attack, Jun Li focused on the new sensation that ran through the blood that had thickened at the wound. Led by new instinct and feeling, Jun Li willed that blood to move.

  Gently, strands broke free of the mass of blood, swaying gently into the air in all directions, like dozens of headless snakes. "Oh, ew." Somehow, this, of all things, was off-putting enough for Jun Li to recoil. And as much as she wished for there to be one, there was no ability within this technique to 'turn it off,' leaving her staring at a writhing carpet of parasite-like strands of blood.

  "Ugh… Are all Immortals such single-mindedly obsessed freaks?" Though she wouldn't flinch at the opportunity for a new, powerful tool, Jun Li had already become fatigued by the omnipresent aspect of blood that followed Junzi's presence.

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  "Ah, whatever…" Focusing on the carelessly bristling blood, Jun Li focused those serpentine strands together, compelling them to join and flow further out from her arm. Within a few seconds of careful coaxing, a long, uneven projection of blood extended out from Jun Li's arm, shifting and wobbling weightlessly with each of her movements.

  "Alright, and then…" Jun Li clumsily exerted effort to manipulate the projection of blood, pressing it down into a flattened plane. Although she initially intended to form a blade, it had ended up more like a long plate.

  'Good enough, now, can I…?' With the same sensation of flexing a muscle to rigidity, Jun Li imparted her will on the plate of blood, and watched as the light that refracted off its surface changed, from that of a blurry liquid surface, to that of a clear, yet distorted mirror.

  With her other arm, she reached over and snapped the solid plate off of her arm at its thin connecting point. Even as she released her conscious intent, the plate retained its solid, crystalline nature.

  Holding it up and testing its rigidity, something caught Jun Li's eye within the reflection of the plate. '...hmm?' A glint of movement in the reflection caused her to turn around, only to find nothing.

  Turning back to the plate, Jun Li found that the plate did not reflect any image of its surroundings. Peering into the distorted crimson reflection, Jun Li caught sight of a young man at a desk, his head down in a gloomy room, studying through the night in the hopes of becoming an official in adulthood.

  How Jun Li knew his intent was a mystery, one that only became more obscure as she shifted the plate slightly, causing the reflection to change entirely. Now, a young woman could be seen tending to a garden. Not one of Medicinal Plants like in Jun Li's world, or Spiritual Herbs like what would have been coveted in Junzi's world, but normal, mundane flora.

  When she shifted the plate again, a reflection of Qian Ruo could be seen, speaking gently to a shapeless silhouette in the form of Yuan Bolin, her companion whom Jun Li had met alongside her.

  She could tell, despite how singular and transient these moments seemed, that they had been repeating for some time without the occupants knowing. They were half-living actors playing out moments of their already ended lives.

  Pulling the plate away from her eyes, Jun Li felt a pain in the center of her head. "Ah, damn it…"

  Alongside the pain that dizzied her soul came the memory of Junzi's words, his claim that, in time, she would see the many people that had attended his 'banquet' where he ascended to Immortality, the many people that supposedly 'still lived, within their blood and souls.'

  "What a bad joke… You're so desperate to stop people from dying, and this is your alternative…?" A scowl formed on her face. "...there has to be more to it than that, I know you're delusional, but an outright liar?"

  Shaking off her thoughts, Jun Li savored the feeling of her pain subsiding. 'How long have I even been here?' By her estimate, the drop of Earth Dragon Blood had fallen almost halfway through the sixth day of the Grave's opening. If around an hour had passed since then, she had less than eleven hours to escape.

  'No sense standing around here…' Jun Li stretched her limbs, and after feeling a jolt of pain from her cut arm, coaxed out a layer of blood from the wound, before slowly compelling it to wrap around her arm and harden.

  Clenching her arm, she felt that the hardened blood kept the surface of her forearm from shifting and stretching. "Nice..." She was pleased to find a use for the new technique this quickly, even if it was primitive and achievable with other means. The convenience, at least, amused her. 'Much more comfortable than a slab of ice…'

  Looking out over the summit, Jun Li failed to find her 'guide' that would lead her safely out of the Earth Dragon's Grave. "Hey! Little Yun, where are you!?" Only a moment passed after her call before Little Yun scaled the edge of the mountain and rose into view.

  "Oh." Jun Li was surprised. "You were… hiding?" The notion confused her. 'Really? That guy comes out after all this time, and you run off and hide out of view?'

  Scratching her head in confusion as Little Yun slithered up to her, Jun Li let out a sigh. "Well, I'm sure there will be another opportunity, if you even want that…"

  Kneeling down, Jun Li reached out to Little Yun, who pressed into her palm with surprising eagerness, seeming more friendly than usual. 'Huh…' Putting aside her companion's odd shift in behavior, Jun Li looked around. "So, where did you come into this realm from anyway? Where did you enter from?"

  After a moment, Little Yun seemed to understand Jun Li's words somehow and moved slightly away before craning its body to point its head in a particular direction. It pointed up, towards the ceiling of the realm's south edge.

  Following the indicated direction, Jun Li didn't see anything from where she knelt. "Uh… you… fell from the top of the… realm?" Little Yun met her eyes, and although it didn't do anything as obvious as nodding, it seemed to affirm Jun Li's words.

  "Ahh…" Jun Li ran her fingers through her hair. "That's annoying…" She contemplated using the Glass Cloud Art to launch herself to the ceiling in the way she had before, but hesitated, remembering the violence of her ascent, and lacking confidence in carrying Little Yun along for the ride.

  "Well, I guess I'll have to climb." Jun Li let out a groan. "Hop on, Little Yun, this might… take an hour or two."