The Cold and Aloof Palace Master's Daily Demon-Slaying Life

One year, two years...

It was a morning shortly after my eighth birthday, during my third year at the elementary school.

She sat cross-legged and cultivated as usual, guiding her long-accumulated, stream-like internal energy to impact the invisible "barrier" deep within her dantian.

Once, twice... ten times...

Her internal energy repeatedly struck the barrier, but it remained unmoved. Instead, the shock caused her dantian to ache faintly and her meridians to twitch.

Fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead, and her face was pale, but she refused to give up.

She knew that this was the threshold of the Qi Refining stage.

Those who cross this threshold become true cultivators, their lifespan increasing to one hundred and twenty years, possessing various supernatural abilities unavailable to mortals. Those who fail to cross it remain forever in the "Qi Cultivation" stage, possessing talent but lacking strength, and remaining insignificant figures within their families.

"Again!!"

She silently screamed in her heart, throwing her last bit of willpower, along with all the internal energy in her body, and slammed it fiercely against the barrier!

"boom--!!"

It was as if a thunderclap had struck in my mind.

The barrier shattered instantly!

A surge of "spiritual power" far purer, stronger, and more vibrant than internal energy surged forth from behind the shattered barrier, instantly flowing through every part of the body! Wherever it passed, the meridians were widened, the flesh and blood were nourished, and the five senses became clearer than ever before. One could even "internally perceive" the flow of spiritual power within one's own body!

One layer of Qi Refining!

She suddenly opened her eyes, a flash of brilliance passing through them. She clenched her fist, feeling the surging power within her, several times stronger than before! With a casual wave of her hand, a faint but undeniably present invisible energy shot out, knocking a ceramic bowl off a nearby table with a "crack," shattering it into pieces.

Looking at the shards on the ground, Zuo Qingqiu took a deep breath to calm her agitated emotions.

It became.

The next day, she walked into the Zuo family's "Spirit Testing Hall," a place specifically for testing one's spiritual level.

The atmosphere in the memorial hall was solemn, with several senior deacons at the Foundation Establishment stage sitting upright above.

In the hall, there was a "spirit-testing stone" about half a person's height, which was completely black and had a smooth, mirror-like surface.

The cultivator in charge of the test gestured for her to place her palm on the spirit-testing stone and then fully circulate her spiritual energy.

Zuo Qingqiu did as instructed.

Her palm touched the stone surface; it was icy cold. She closed her eyes and concentrated, pouring her still-weak spiritual power, which she had just entered the first level of Qi Refining, into the Spirit Testing Stone without reservation.

At first, the stone did not react.

A few breaths later, a faint light suddenly appeared inside the spirit-testing stone.

The light rapidly brightened, its color changing from initial white to pale blue, then tinged with crimson, followed by bright yellow, jet black, and gleaming gold... the five colors swirled and grew ever more intense!

"This..." The monk in charge of the test widened his eyes.

The light did not stop. After reaching a peak, fine and mysterious silver patterns appeared on the surface of the spirit-testing stone. They meandered and moved like living things, and finally gathered in the center of the stone to form a complex and ancient rune mark!

The entire memorial hall fell into a deathly silence.

Several previously composed old deacons suddenly stood up, staring intently at the runes on the spirit-testing stone, their faces filled with unbelievable joy and shock.

"The five elements converge, and silver patterns naturally appear..." An old deacon's voice trembled. "This is... a Grade A Void Aperture! For a hundred years... no, our Zuo family hasn't seen one like this for three hundred years!"

"A first-class master of emptiness! My Zuo family has actually produced a first-class master of emptiness!"

"God bless the Zuo family! God bless the Zuo family!"

The ecstatic cheers nearly lifted the roof off.

Zuo Qingqiu withdrew her hand, and the strange phenomenon on the spirit-testing stone slowly dissipated. She stood there, listening to the surrounding commotion and looking at the excited faces of the old deacons, her heart calm.

Grade A hollow cavity.

One in ten thousand.

From that moment on, her fate was completely changed.

With the title of "Young Ancestor," the best mansions allocated to her, the most generous resources bestowed upon her, and special guidance from a cultivator... overnight, she and her family rose from marginal "rich farmers" to influential figures in the core circle of the Zuo family.

Mother Ning Yuhe was taken to a residence with more abundant spiritual energy, where servants attended to her and she was provided with spiritual rice and meat daily. Her complexion quickly became rosy. Her younger sister Leng Qiu also successfully sensed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth through cultivating the "Qi Cultivation Technique." Although she did not yet know her level of the Void Aperture, she had already gained a considerable amount of resources.

It seems that everything is moving in the best possible direction.

-

The initial experience of becoming a "young master" was fresh and fulfilling.

No longer did she have to worry about food and drink, no longer had to see her mother's worried face, and no longer had to worry about her younger sister's future. She could focus on cultivation without any distractions. The resources provided by the family far exceeded her expectations, and her cultivation progressed by leaps and bounds. In just one year, she broke through to the second level of the Qi Refining stage, leaving her peers far behind.

But a rise in status also means a broader perspective, and... exposure to more of the darkness that was once hidden.

She began to realize what kind of operating logic lay beneath the glamorous exterior of the Zuo family, this behemoth.

The spiritual rice that sustains these "immortals" in their cultivation comes from countless ordinary tenant farmers, just like her parents back then, who toil in the fields year after year, with most of their harvest taken away, leaving them barely able to feed themselves.

The spirit beast meat they occasionally ate came from a huge breeding farm controlled by the family. Most of the workers there were mortals from other families. The environment was harsh, the work was arduous, and there was always the risk of being harmed or even devoured by out-of-control spirit beasts.

The ores and timber used to refine magical artifacts and build immortal caves come from mines and forest farms deep in the mountains, where the death rate of workers is alarmingly high, yet they receive almost no protection or compensation.

She had witnessed firsthand how a tenant from another family was publicly whipped by the Zuo family's steward for failing to pay his rent. The man was left bloodied and bruised, wailing and begging for mercy, while the other tenants around him lowered their heads, daring not to speak out in anger. And that steward was merely a low-level cultivator at the fourth level of Qi Refining.

She had also heard that a mine had collapsed, burying hundreds of miners, and that the family had only provided a meager sum of compensation before nothing more was done. The miners' families were wailing and lamenting, but they couldn't even get through the gates of the mine's official residence.

In this world, all the resources for cultivating immortality come from tangible material production. And those who produce these resources are billions of mortals confined to the land, mines, and workshops. They toil like cattle and horses, but their output is consumed by a few cultivators who use it to pursue personal immortality and power.

Here, unless you are born with the ability to cultivate immortality, your fate and that of your descendants are almost predetermined from the moment you are born—to become tools for immortals to cultivate until death.

Cultivators are the biggest landlords and the most greedy parasites.

The Zuo family is merely one node in this vast, blood-sucking network.