I reign supreme in the Western fantasy world for eternity.

Ji Tian pressed his hand on the ground, his divine sense like a needle piercing into the soil for about ten feet.

The dark figure huddled on the ground moved.

With all eight limbs exerting force simultaneously, the soil surged to both sides like waves, and a spider face covered with tumors emerged from the ground, its mouthparts opening to reveal three rows of sharp, inward-pointing barbs.

Rock spider.

The adult body is nearly six feet long, and its eight legs can be spread out to a full ten feet.

In the Adventurers' Guild's ranking system, this is a C-rank monster.

Thick-skinned and swift in movement, adept at ambushes, they are a nightmare for ordinary adventurers.

Ji Tian didn't even stand up.

He simply lifted his palm slightly off the ground and then pressed it down.

An invisible force poured out from the palm, like an unseen mountain crashing onto the rock spider's carapace.

The enormous creature that had just emerged from the ground suddenly sank, its eight legs bending simultaneously, the joints emitting a teeth-grinding creaking sound.

Its mouth opened to its maximum and emitted a sharp hiss.

Ji Tian flicked his other hand, his fingers forming a knife-like shape.

A wisp of white light, as thin as a hair, shot from the fingertip and precisely cut into the junction of the rock spider's head, thorax, and abdomen.

That's the thinnest part of its shell, and also where its nerve center is located.

As the white light entered, the rock spider's body convulsed violently, all eight legs stiffened simultaneously, and then it went limp like a puppet with its strings cut.

The Emperor's Banner unfolded automatically at his waist, and a dense, deep green soul drifted out from the Rock Spider's corpse, only to be silently swallowed by the banner.

The runes on the banner lit up for a moment, then returned to normal.

Ji Tian stood up and patted the dirt off his hands.

The entire process takes no more than three breaths.

Behind her, Lilith was still in the position of "crouching on the ground with her eyes covered," peeking out through a crack between her fingers.

"...Is it over?"

"Um."

She lowered her hand, stood up, walked to the corpse of the rock spider, and gently kicked the spider leg that was longer than her with her toe.

The corpse had lost its vitality, but the limbs were still slightly curled up due to nerve reflexes, which startled her so much that she jumped back a step.

"Still moving even when dead!"

"Neural reflex".

"Whatever you say goes." Lilith walked around the corpse, went to Ji Tian's side, and looked up at him.

Her expression changed from shock to confusion, and then from confusion to a kind of dilemma: "I have a question I want to ask, but I don't know where to start."

"Master."

"explain."

"You just...smacked and killed that huge spider?"

"Um."

"What level are you at again?"

"Peak of the Golden Core stage. According to the calculation method here, that's roughly equivalent to a Grand Magister."

Lilith remained silent for a moment, seemingly processing the information.

Then she stretched out a finger, pointed to the corpse of the rock spider on the ground that was being attacked by ants, and then pointed to Ji Tian.

"Grand Magister".

"Um."

"Class C monster".

"Um."

"You, someone capable of casting forbidden spells, came all the way to the mountains just to kill a C-rank monster?"

Ji Tian did not answer immediately. He glanced down at the Emperor's Banner at his waist. The banner swayed slightly in the wind, and the black soul mark at the edge deepened.

"To refine it," he said.

Lilith followed his gaze to the black banner. She had noticed it before—it had been taken from Ji Tian's waist and then hung back up.

She never dared to ask what it was because she felt that asking might be considered as "knowing too much" and she would be silenced.

"This... flag?"

"banner."

"A banner. This banner requires slaying demons to refine it?"

"I need a soul. The soul of a demon."

Lilith blinked, as if doing some calculations. She counted on her fingers, one by one: "You said you spent the whole night killing in the Ash Forest, and today you went back into the mountains to kill again—are you planning to wipe out every single monster in these mountains?"

"We don't need that many. Ten thousand souls are enough."

"Ten thousand souls." Lilith repeated the number, her expression subtle, conveying a sense of relief that "my master is indeed not a normal person."

She thought for a moment and then asked, "But Master, you're already a Grand Magister, why don't you go and kill high-level monsters? The soul of one high-level monster is worth dozens or hundreds of these little things, right? It's so inefficient to specifically target these weaklings."

Ji Tian glanced at her.

That look contained scrutiny, satisfaction, and a hint of approval that said, "You finally asked a good question."

"The spirit of the Human Emperor Banner is still too weak to be refined with a strong spirit."

"Then why didn't you refine the weapon spirit first... wait," Lilith suddenly paused, "you weren't planning to refine me into a weapon spirit from the beginning, were you?"

"What nonsense are you spouting!" Ji Tian's expression turned stern, as if he was displeased that his newly accepted disciple had said such things.

Thankfully, Master isn't that heartless and doesn't intend to harm the clever and adorable Lilith.

Sure enough, a beautiful girl is a beautiful girl wherever she goes! Even a cold and ruthless person like her master can be moved!

Just as Lilith patted her chest and breathed a slight sigh of relief, she heard a voice from the other side.

"With your current cultivation level, you can only be a main soul at most." After all, he is his own disciple, so he should always treat him better. Ji Tian thought for a moment and then said, "If you insist on entering the banner, then wait until your cultivation level is higher, and I will refine you into a weapon soul."

Wait, so it wasn't my wisdom and beauty that moved him?

It's simply because I'm too weak to be a weapon spirit.

Overwhelmed with grief, Lilith put her hands on her hips and shouted:

"Thirty years in the demon realm, thirty years in the human realm, never underestimate a poor young girl... Also, I don't want to be a weapon spirit."

Ji Tian nodded. In any case, he didn't plan to use the disciple as a weapon after taking him on as a disciple.

Also, what she said sounds familiar...

He also taught her some practical tips from the cultivation world.

Do you know why villains in the cultivation world are always defeated by the protagonist?

Lilith shook her head; in fact, she didn't even know what the word "cultivation" meant.

"Because villains like to wait." Ji Tian turned around and continued walking deeper into the mountains, his voice as calm as if he were lecturing on an elective course. "When the protagonist is in the Qi Refining stage, the villain is in the Golden Core stage. The villain says, 'Much Qi Refining isn't worth my time,' and then sends a few henchmen to give him experience points. When the protagonist reaches the Foundation Establishment stage, the villain is still in the Golden Core stage. The villain says, 'Let him jump around for a few more days.'"

He pushed aside a branch blocking his way and stepped aside to let Lilith pass first.

"The protagonist has reached the Golden Core stage, and the villain can no longer sit idly by. But by this time, the protagonist already has trump cards, fortuitous encounters, and the protagonist's halo. When the villain engages in battle, he realizes he can't win. Before dying, he shouts, 'Impossible! I could have killed you much earlier!'"

Lilith followed him through the bushes, her hood snagged on a branch, and she frantically pulled it off.

"So, Master, you mean you're playing the 'villain' right now?"

"Wrong, I am playing the role of the 'protagonist' who is 'unpredictable' and decisive in killing."

Ji Tian stopped and turned to look at her. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the tree canopy, casting dappled shadows on his face, but the light in his eyes was steady, like the water in a deep pool, without a ripple.

"Since we know that villains die from talking too much, and that protagonists rise from humble beginnings, then we should kill the protagonist with a single blow before he has any background and is still in the Qi Refining stage. No nonsense, no underestimating the enemy, and no chance for him to grow."

He turned and continued walking.

"In my opinion, in the cultivation world, it should be the norm for a Golden Core expert to kill a Qi Refining prodigy with no background who has a grudge against them or their sect, even if they are several major realms above them..."

Lilith followed behind him, her feet sinking into the gravel, a storm raging in her mind.

She was trying to understand this passage using the logic of the demon realm.

In the demon realm, it is only natural for the strong to kill the weak.

But no demon king or guild would go out of their way to kill goblins or kobolds, no matter how talented they were—not out of kindness, but out of shame.

A demon king of such stature, pinching ants—if word got out, the entire demon realm would laugh at him.

But Master's logic is different.

He doesn't live for "face," he lives for "the Way."

Face is for others to see, but the path is for yourself to walk.

It doesn't matter whether you lose face or not; what matters is whether your resolve is firm.

"So, Master," she jogged to catch up with him, her voice filled with the excitement of "I finally understand," "you're actually the kind of person who has 'caution' ingrained in your bones. No matter how weak the opponent is, you have to personally confirm that it's completely dead before you can relax."

"That's one way to understand it."

"So what would you do if someone offended you?"

"Kill him directly."

"Not giving him any chance?"

"Not keeping them."

Lilith took a deep breath and silently repeated the words, "I will never offend my master again," three times in her mind.

Then she noticed something.

The Emperor's Banner trembled slightly at Ji Tian's waist, with wisps of black smoke drifting across its surface—not smoke from burning, but a lighter, fainter kind of smoke, like ink spreading when dropped into water.

It rises slowly in the air and then disappears without a trace.

"Master."

"Um?"

"Why is black smoke coming out of your banner?"