I manage female characters in all the heavens.

Over the past two months, the area within a two-thousand-mile radius of the Heavenly Demon Palace has been almost entirely infiltrated by the Heavenly Demon Palace's influence.

Those demons and monsters that originally roamed around either submitted to the might of the Netherworld Demon and obediently became members of the Demon Palace, or they were eaten without leaving a trace, without even the chance to be reincarnated.

As the mastermind behind all of this, "Nie Xiaoqian" has been living a very comfortable life for the past two months.

Every day, a large amount of cultivation resources were delivered to her—natural treasures, elixirs, magical artifacts, ancient books and fragments... all sorts of good things filled the warehouse of the Heavenly Demon Palace.

Of course, the most important thing is the living dead.

Driven by her tyranny and the promise of great rewards, her demons and monsters displayed unprecedented enthusiasm for their work.

One after another, living corpse culture bases were established in various places, and the production lines for necrosis bacteria and corpse bacteria operated day and night, continuously providing her with high-quality living corpses.

Over the course of two months, the number of living corpses she had devoured had reached a terrifying figure.

As a result, her physical strength was enhanced to an extremely exaggerated level.

With a single arm swing, he exerted the force of five thousand pounds!

This might be insignificant in the world of Swallowed Star, but in the world of A Chinese Ghost Story, it is an unprecedented and great achievement.

What is this concept?

Even without using any true energy, magic power, or skills, she could kill an elephant with a single punch and shatter a city gate with a single kick, relying solely on her physical strength.

It has completely lost its connection with humans.

To her even greater surprise, as she devoured more and more zombies, her physical body began to undergo some extraordinary changes.

Humans in this world are born with "leaky bodies".

The term "leaky body" refers to a body that is born with flaws, making it unable to store magical power.

No matter how much one cultivates or refines their origin, the magical power they condense will dissipate from their body in a very short time.

Therefore, all human cultivators must rely on external objects, namely the Dao Foundation, to store their magical power.

Whether it's the Tianqiong Dao Foundation of the Danyang Sect or the various Dao Foundations of other sects, their essence is the same:

Using specially refined external objects, a space capable of containing magical power is created within the body to store the power and prevent it from dissipating.

But this is ultimately just a stopgap measure.

The mana capacity of a Dao Foundation is limited. Once it reaches its limit, to increase the total mana, it is necessary to replace it with a higher-level Dao Foundation.

However, no matter how advanced the foundation of one's Dao is, it has its limits, and changing one's foundation is extremely difficult; very few people in history have succeeded in doing so.

This means that the upper limit of magical power for human cultivators in this world was locked from the very beginning.

But now she discovers—

His own body underwent a strange change as it devoured the living corpse.

The change was so subtle that she wouldn't have noticed it at all if she hadn't had an extremely keen sense of her own physical condition.

Her body was slowly, gradually becoming able to retain magical power.

Although she still couldn't completely stop her mana from dissipating, compared to the situation where ordinary cultivators' mana was almost completely depleted in an instant, her mana was dissipating at least ten times slower!

This means that she can retain her magic within her body for a longer period of time.

If one can continue to devour higher-level undead and further strengthen their physical body, perhaps one day—

She can completely break free from dependence on the Dao Foundation, making her physical body the most perfect vessel for magical power!

By then, issues such as road base capacity limitations and the hassle of replacing road bases will no longer be problems.

Her magical power will grow without limit!

Such beings have existed in this world.

According to the records of the Danyang School, there were immortals in ancient times who were immortal and had boundless magical power. All the cultivation methods and spells we know today were left behind by those immortals.

Immortals are beings who do not need to rely on a foundation of Dao, and can store magical power on their own!

If she could strengthen her physical body to that extent, then at least in terms of physical appearance, she would have reached the level of an immortal, and could glimpse the mysteries of immortality.

“However, that realm is still a long way off…” She stood at the highest point of the Heavenly Demon Palace, looking down at the continuous cluster of buildings below, and sighed softly.

To reach that level, based on the current progress, it would probably have to devour at least a thousand or eight hundred giant corpses.

Giant corpses require extremely demanding conditions to cultivate, and each one is comparable to a thousand-year-old demon in certain aspects.

Where in the world could she find so many giant corpses to devour?

“Right now, changing the foundation is more feasible.” Her eyes flickered, and her thoughts drifted in another direction.

In the past month, in addition to helping her collect cultivation resources and cultivate living corpses, the demons and monsters under her command have had another important task—to find the lost legacies of various sects in the long river of history.

Although the cultivation world of this world has long since declined, it once had a glorious era in history.

The major sects of those eras were far more powerful than the Danyang Sect of today, both in terms of their cultivation techniques and their foundational knowledge.

If she could find a complete lineage passed down from a predecessor and obtain a more advanced method for refining the Dao foundation, her cultivation level could rise to another level in a short period of time.

She has now reached the upper limit of the Heavenly Qiong Dao Foundation, and her progress in cultivating immortality has stalled, with her magical power unable to advance any further.

This is a problem that must be solved, otherwise we will never be able to defeat the Black Mountain Demon in this lifetime.

A lot of information has been collected.

But the vast majority of these are just dubious rumors, such as a secret manual left by immortals in a certain cave, or the abode of an ancient immortal hidden in a certain deep mountain...

She sent people to investigate, but the results were either fake or worthless junk that wasn't even as good as the Danyang Sect's legacy, so she didn't even bother with it.

After filtering through all the messages, only three truly interested her.

The first one is a legend about the "Xuantian Sect".

It is said that this sect was once one of the most powerful cultivation sects on this land, possessing the supreme supernatural power to control the Nine Heavens Thunder.

However, the information was too vague; all that was known was that it was somewhere in a mountain range several thousand miles away, but the exact location had long been lost to history.

The second item concerns the relics of the "Netherworld Cult".

This sect is known for manipulating the dead and creating zombies, which is quite similar to her current undead sect.

But she had personally investigated the place and found that it had been dug up to the ground, leaving not a single intact brick or tile, let alone any trace of its heritage.

The third item concerns the "Golden Buddha Temple".

Jinfo Temple is said to have once been an extremely prosperous lineage of Buddhism, famous for the Golden Light Universal Salvation Sutra and the Lotus Path Foundation. Before the great changes in the world, it produced Arhats, demonstrating its extraordinary lineage.

According to information from his subordinates, the ruins of Jinfo Temple are located in a mountain 300 miles west of the capital, and have been abandoned for hundreds of years.

She took some time to go there herself.

The ruins of Jinfo Temple do indeed still exist, and one can still vaguely discern its former grandeur amidst the broken walls.

But the entire temple had already been turned upside down, and not only were there no ancient texts, but not even a single intact tile could be found.

However, she did not come away empty-handed.

Deep within the ruins of Jinfo Temple, in a secret chamber buried by collapsed stone walls, she discovered some remaining traces.

Those were claw marks deeply embedded in the stone wall.

The spacing, depth, and shape of those claw marks all reveal one thing—they were left by a giant centipede.

Moreover, judging from the age of the traces, the centipede had been here at least several hundred years ago and took something with it.

"The centipede demon... the legacy of the Golden Buddha Temple..."

As she stood in that secret room, looking at the claw marks covering the walls, a name came to mind.

Universal salvation.

The current Grand Preceptor of the Changming Dynasty, a highly virtuous monk known for his boundless Buddhist teachings and boundless compassion.

A centipede spirit that has cultivated for thousands of years.

Not only was he able to cultivate a complete set of Buddhist supernatural powers in his demonic form, but he also condensed the image of Buddha. He was able to use the golden body of Buddhism to shield his demonic body from the damage of the sun's yang energy, thus being fearless of sunlight and able to move freely in broad daylight.

These methods could not possibly have been created out of thin air by him.

The claw marks found at the Jinfo Temple ruins gave "Nie Xiaoqian" a clue:

Pudu Cihang is very likely the centipede demon that stole the Golden Buddha Temple's inheritance back then!

He himself received the complete inheritance of Jinfo Temple, which is why he has such an amazing Buddhist cultivation today!

Even the method of transforming oneself into a dragon through the baptism of fortune may have been obtained from the Golden Buddha Temple's lineage, since Buddhism has always been outstanding in its research on fortune and faith.

"Tsk tsk tsk..." She stood in that secret room, stroking her chin, a dangerous glint in her eyes. "So this is the treasure that made you rich..."

She was originally going to deal with Pudu Cihang.

This guy occupies the position of Imperial Advisor and is trying to transform himself by using the dynasty's fortune. Sooner or later, he will clash with her.

Now, there is also a need to seize the inheritance.

Since she suspected that the legacy of Jinfo Temple lay with Pudu Cihang, she naturally had no reason to let it go.

“However, this old centipede is quite powerful, so I need to test his strength first…” She already had a plan at that time.

Just then, news came from Yue Lingshan's side—Pudu Cihang had been acting strangely lately and seemed to be planning to take action against Nie Yan.

This is a good opportunity.

Her original plan was to have Yue Lingshan share her power with Nie Yan—to have Nie Yan stay in the capital, attract the attention of Pudu Cihang, and test his strength.

Now is the perfect time to turn the tables on them.

"If Pudu Cihang's strength is within the range of the three of us working together, then we'll take him down directly; if he's too strong, then we'll take Nie Yan and run away, and plan our next move later."

She believed that no matter how powerful the Bodhisattva of Compassion was, it could not stop her from running away.

Therefore, she instructed Yue Lingshan to continue to lie in wait near the capital, not to leave within ten kilometers of Nie Yan, so as to prevent the dual rings of spirit and soul from becoming ineffective, and to closely monitor Pudu Cihang's every move.

They were just waiting for the moment when Pudu Cihang could no longer restrain himself and would take action.

On this day, the emperor made a rare decision to hold court, and notified all the civil and military officials a day in advance to attend court the next morning.

Nie Yan was overjoyed and compiled all his thoughts and reflections from the past few months into a book, preparing to submit it to the emperor.

The next morning, before dawn, he went out to the palace to attend his first formal court assembly in a few months since taking office (the last court assembly was when he first arrived in the capital and everyone held a special assembly to welcome him).

However, when he entered the Tianyuan Hall, he discovered the eerie atmosphere there.