I reign supreme in the Western fantasy world for eternity.

Lilith's expression instantly shifted from sudden realization to a face full of question marks.

"Childcare experience?" Her voice rose several octaves. "Master, where did you get a child? You don't even have a Daoist partner, could it be—"

"Fifth disciple." Ji Tian interrupted her, afraid that she would ask questions like, "Are you the Slime King, reproducing by splitting?"

Lilith blinked. "...Fifth disciple? You said I was the sixth disciple before."

"The fifth apprentice hasn't hatched yet."

"What does 'not hatched' mean? Wait, 'hatched'?" Lilith pondered for a long time, then was greatly shocked. "Your fifth apprentice is an egg?!"

"right."

Lilith opened her mouth, then closed it again, unsure where to begin her rant.

"Master, you took an egg as your apprentice?"

"It understands Taoist teachings and has already established a master-disciple relationship."

"How could an egg understand Taoist teachings?"

"When I teach other disciples, it's right beside me. Every time I get to a crucial point, the egg's body will pulsate with spiritual energy. Once, when I was teaching the 'Golden Elixir Dao of the Purple Mansion,' the whole egg lit up for a moment."

Lilith stared at Ji Tian's face, trying to find a trace of "I was joking" beneath that expressionless shell. She found nothing.

"Master, are you serious?"

"I never joke."

"So you just said you wanted to 'exchange parenting tips with dragons'—are you serious? Are you planning to walk up to a dragon and say, 'Hey, I have an egg that won't hatch, do you have any advice?'"

"Yes."

"And then the dragon will say, 'Oh, I see, I did that too back then, try spinning around a few more times'?"

"No, but you can ask."

Lilith was greatly shocked, and her preconceived notion that "my master is definitely not a normal person" was reinforced once again.

My master is very strong, but also very abnormal. What should I do?

She crouched down on a fallen, withered tree, hugged her knees, and began to speak in a tone that suggested, "I need to re-examine my life."

"So, you have a disciple who is an egg. It has been attending classes in the sect for three years, but it still hasn't hatched. Now you're following the demons into the mountains to find a dragon, supposedly to exchange parenting experiences—is it to ask the dragon how to incubate an egg?"

"Um."

"How long have you had this egg?"

Three years.

"It hasn't hatched in three years?"

"The gestation period for dragons is inherently long. Three years is but a fleeting moment."

Lilith was silent for a moment, her mind racing. Suddenly, a crucial question came to mind: "Master, where did you find it?"

"In the eastern border, near the Viscount of Pompeii, inside an extinct volcano."

At that time, Ji Tian had just entered the Purple Mansion Realm and happened to have found a disciple. He took her to find a suitable place to establish a sect, and then found the egg in a deep pit in a dead volcano.

"A dormant volcano? How could a dragon egg be inside a dormant volcano?"

"I don't know. There were no dragon nests, no dragon auras, and no traces of demons around at the time. It was as if it had been abandoned there."

Ji Tian paused, his gaze piercing through the dense forest, locking onto the movements of the demon squad in the distance, but Lilith sensed that his attention shifted away from the pursuit for a moment.

"I've tried many methods. Nurturing it with spiritual energy, gathering energy with arrays, setting up arrays with magic crystals—none of them worked. It wouldn't break out of its shell, nor would it respond; it would only occasionally glow faintly when it heard profound Taoist teachings."

"So you think it's listening to a lecture?"

"It's not just a feeling, it's certain. Once, when I was telling my disciples about the past of the ancient sages of the human race, when I got to the part about 'I am the Heavenly Emperor, and I shall suppress all enemies!', the whole egg shook. The other disciples all noticed it."

Lilith imagined the scene: Ji Tian was sitting in the sect's training ground, with several disciples sitting in front of him and an egg beside him.

When he got to the most exciting part of his story, the egg suddenly jumped.

The disciples, unfazed, continued taking notes.

She suddenly realized that the Wind Spirit Moon Shadow Sect was probably not a reclusive sect, but rather a large-scale, bewildering performance art group.

"Master, does that egg have a name?"

"No. Let it hatch by itself."

"Get it yourself?"

"A name is part of one's spiritual title. A name given by others is ultimately an external thing."

Lilith remained silent for a while.

She remembered that her name "Lilith" was given to her by her mother, and in the ancient demon language it meant "witch of the night," and she had never thought of changing it.

"Master, you're looking for a dragon... not just to ask how to hatch eggs, are you?"

Ji Tian did not answer immediately; his gaze remained fixed on the demon squad in the distance. But Lilith sensed that his attention wavered slightly for a moment.

"Dragons have long lifespans, and their memories can be traced back thousands of years. They know many secrets of this world that have been lost—about the origin of magic, about the relationship between demons and humans, about... the essence of the Heavenly Dao."

"So you want to ask them these questions?"

"right."

"What if they don't want to talk?"

Ji Tian's tone remained unchanged as he answered matter-of-factly:

"Then I, your teacher, also have some knowledge of martial arts."

Lilith paused for a moment, "...Master, didn't you say before that 'what is obtained by force is not the Way'?"

"One thing at a time." Ji Tian's gaze remained fixed ahead, his voice as calm as if explaining the principles of a cultivation technique, "Seeking the Dao is seeking the Dao, and subduing the dragon is subduing the dragon. If they are willing to speak, I will treat them with courtesy; if they are unwilling to speak—"

He paused.

"I will meet them with force. The Dao is there; it will not disappear just because the dragon is unwilling to speak. The dragon's unwillingness to speak is its problem, not the Dao's. Since the dragon is blocking my path and the Dao's way, then I will deal with the dragon first."

Lilith opened her mouth, then closed it again.

She recalled what her master had said last night: "It should be the norm for a Golden Core expert to annihilate a Qi Refining prodigy with no background, even if they are several major realms apart."

It wasn't a metaphor; he genuinely thought that way.

"Master, that's a dragon."

"I know."

"Living, the kind that can breathe fire and fly."

"I know."

"Aren't you afraid you won't be able to win?"

Ji Tian glanced at her sideways. It was a faint glance, but Lilith read a single sentence in it—"Are you kidding me?"

"We'll talk about it if we can't win." He looked away. "But before we fight, there's no question of whether we can't win."

Lilith took a deep breath and swallowed back the question, "Are you really human?"

She suddenly realized that her master's real purpose in seeking out the dragon might not be "exchanging parenting experiences."

Hatching the eggs was just a side effect.

His real goal was to ask about the secrets of the origin of magic and the nature of the universe.

If the dragon is willing to answer, that's good; if it's unwilling—

That would be the end of us.

"Master."

"What's wrong now?"

"You said before that you took that egg as your apprentice because it listened to your Taoist teachings. Now you're going to beat its kind. Won't it hate you when it finds out?"

Ji Tian was silent for a moment.

"Won't."

How did you know?

"Because it has listened to the Daoist teachings for three years. It didn't listen to techniques, but to the Dao. The Dao emphasizes cause and effect, and the fundamental principles. I fight dragons not for slaughter, but to seek the Dao. If it can't even distinguish this, then these three years of listening have been in vain."

Lilith stared at his back for a while.

She suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for the egg—it hadn't even hatched yet, and it already faced the ethical dilemma of "its master possibly beating up its own kind."

And since it doesn't even have ears, how does it hear these things? Does it rely on the eggshell for conduction?

"Master, I have a very serious question."

"explain."

"That egg—does it have ears?"

"no."

"Then how will it listen to the lesson?"

"Divine perception."

"Divine sense perception..." Lilith repeated the term, feeling that she might never understand her master's world. "So it can listen to lessons without ears. Then, after it hatches, will it not eat with its mouth either? Will it eat with its divine sense? And will it still be able to steal my little cake?"

Ji Tian did not answer.

Lilith imagined the scene: an egg floated above the dining table, its shell glowing faintly, and small cakes on the table disappeared one by one—no mouth, no hands, only consciousness silently eating.

She shivered.

"Master, I think I might need to reconsider my food safety within the sect."

"Don't worry. It eats spiritual energy, not cake."

"That's good." Lilith patted her chest, then suddenly remembered something, "Wait, after it hatches, will it start eating cake? If I try to take it from it, will I be able to beat a dragon?"

"You probably can't even break someone's eggshell right now."

"...Master, your words are too hurtful."

"truth."

"Oh, right, Master, besides you, me, and that egg, who else is in our Wind Spirit Moon Shadow Sect?"