An emperor in his later years is summoned by his sister to save the nation's fate.

Then, she took out the stone axe that the system had given her as an initial gift from her backpack.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

With the power of her golden skin and jade bones, the stone axe felt as light as a feather in her hands, and she chopped down a Xuan Yin wood in just a few strokes.

The moment the Xuan Yin Wood transformed into a ball of light and fell into the backpack, the national fortune notification sounded again.

[National Prophecy Announcement: Lu Xueyao, the Chosen One of the Dragon Kingdom, has successfully collected the special material, Xuan Yin Wood!]

[Triggering a 100x national fortune manifest critical strike!]

[Reward: 100 pieces of Mystic Yin Wood! Already materialized in the treasury of the 749th Bureau headquarters in the Dragon Kingdom.]

Upon hearing the announcement, Shen Xingzhou of Bureau 749 was extremely excited.

He could tell from the images on the screen that this Xuan Yin wood was not an ordinary material for building wooden houses, but some kind of cold and supernatural material.

Chen Yan, who was originally studying the Dragon Blood Fruit, immediately changed direction and rushed to receive this batch of Xuan Yin Wood.

After collecting the wood, Lu Xueyao replaced her stone axe with a stone pickaxe. She walked to the rock wall and swung the pickaxe, smashing it hard against the obsidian vein.

With a crisp knocking sound, the 100 pieces of obsidian needed to build the lord's manor were finally collected.

Having done all this, Lu Xueyao, adhering to the principle of not wasting any nutrients, walked back to the corpses of the human-faced spiders.

She activated the devouring vortex in her palm, draining away all the remaining essence and supernatural power of the several strange creatures.

In the end, only one dark red blood bead was condensed.

Because she has already reached the pinnacle of body tempering, her physical body has reached its limit. The next step is to break through the insurmountable Transcendent Realm. Before finding an opportunity to break through, she cannot refine this blood bead.

So she directly absorbed it into her dantian and sealed it away.

Besides being used to break through cultivation levels, these blood beads have other wonderful uses.

If injured, one only needs to refine it to bring the dead back to life and heal the wounds instantly.

Of course, it can also be used to fill an empty stomach, but for the Blood Bead, this is only its most insignificant function.

All the materials were finally gathered.

"Brother, where should we build our lord's manor?" Lu Xueyao asked in her mind. Lu Li's divine sense had already selected an excellent location for her during the exploration.

"Go southeast, about fifty miles away," Lu Li gave a precise coordinate.

The reason for choosing this location was that Lu Li discovered through his divine sense that this place was a natural Yin Sha forbidden zone.

This type of terrain absorbs the surrounding yin energy frantically at night, inevitably attracting a large number of eerie entities.

For other chosen ones, building their territory in such a place is tantamount to an old man eating poison—it's suicide.

However, for Lu Xueyao, who cultivates demonic arts, what she lacks most right now is a mountain of strange and unusual things to serve as materials for her to enter the Transcendent Realm.

When Lu Xueyao sped all the way to the coordinates, the scene before her eyes sent chills down everyone's spines.

This place was a dark and eerie pine forest.

Even though it's still broad daylight, the sunlight can't even penetrate the dark needles.

Deep in the forest, wisps of black mist occasionally surged and rolled, filling the air with an ominous atmosphere.

Viewers in the Dragon Kingdom's live stream gasped at the sight, and the comments section instantly split into two camps.

"Are you crazy? This place is emitting black smoke in broad daylight; it's clearly a sinister lair! What did Lu Xueyao do here?"

"This location was a mistake! Once night falls, the eeriness of this place might flood the lord's manor. This is not a wise move!"

However, some viewers who had already understood Lu Xueyao's style held completely different opinions: "You don't know anything! This is called adapting to local conditions! Didn't you realize that Lu Xueyao is now following the path of demonic cultivation? Demonic cultivation is inherently defying the heavens and relying on plundering the world to strengthen itself."

What might be a death sentence for others is a delicious experience boost and excellent nourishment for her. This move is like building her fountain right on the enemy's high ground!

Lu Xueyao stopped at the edge of the black pine forest.

She took out the black village-building token from the system, and at the same time took out 100 pieces of ordinary wood and 100 pieces of obsidian from her backpack.

"Territory established!"

As the command was given, ripples spread through the void.

The wood and obsidian instantly transformed into countless points of light and disappeared.

The next moment, on the open ground outside the black pine forest, a stone house made entirely of obsidian and exuding a heavy aura rose from the ground.

The stone house has a simple layout of two bedrooms and a living room. Although it is rough, it provides a haven in this wilderness.

This is the most basic lord's manor. The moment the lord's manor was completed, the complete territory system panel was automatically activated in Lu Xueyao's field of vision.

On the panel, in addition to the Lord's Mansion that is lit up in the center, there are also densely packed building icons that have not yet been lit up.

Such as city walls, arrow towers, farmland, springs, and watchtowers.

The system provides a prompt that once the corresponding resources and materials are collected, these defensive and production buildings can be instantly visualized through the territory panel, continuously expanding the territory's size.

Lu Xueyao pushed open the stone door and walked into the two-bedroom, one-living-room stone house.

The moment the door closed, the stone house shut out the cold, damp wind from the outside world.

"Buzz—"

The void twisted, and Lu Li, a tall and imposing figure dressed in black, reappeared in the hall of the stone house.

"Take out the Xuan Yin Wood and the Ghostly Spider Silk." Lu Li's voice was calm.

Upon hearing this, Lu Xueyao immediately piled the special materials from her backpack in the center of the hall.

Even though Lu Li was just a projection, containing less than one billionth of the power of his true body, his vision as an emperor and his control over the laws still remained.

For him, crafting even the most basic Ten Thousand Soul Banner was a piece of cake, requiring little time or effort.

He slightly raised his hand and flicked his fingertips.

"call!"

A ball of dark red blood flame instantly rose above his palm.

The blood flames were not scorching hot; instead, they exuded a chilling coldness that could freeze even the soul.

Lu Li flicked his finger, and the Xuan Yin Wood instantly plunged into the blood flames.

Under the scorching heat of the blood flames, the rough wood quickly melted and shrank, eventually being tempered into a flagpole about two meters long and completely black.

Immediately afterwards, large swaths of the eerie spider silk were sucked into the flames.

Spider silk intertwined and merged in the blood flames, perfectly preserving the deadly poison and yin energy within, ultimately transforming into a bizarre banner that emitted a pale white luster and faintly depicted a twisted, wailing human face.

The banner and the banner pole fit together perfectly, and an extremely sinister aura of a demonic artifact instantly filled the entire hall.

Looking at the crude magic weapon in his hand, Lu Li shook his head inwardly.

This thing can only be considered a low-grade treasure in the cultivation world. Compared with his supreme imperial weapon, the Human Emperor Banner, which had been refined for thousands of years and devoured the souls of countless saints, it was far inferior.