Fang Han was, quite literally, cleaned out.
He had nothing left. Not a pill, not a spirit stone, not even a spare trinket. The Eightfold Pagoda had fully merged with the talisman from the Five-Element Land—absolutely impossible to give away now. And everything he'd seized from the Dragon Palace—treasures, artifacts, pills—had been burned to ash by his Golden Core refinement.
The World Tree's daily harvest of celestial energy?
That too was spoken for. Every drop had to be converted into the magic power required to fuel his Golden Core.
Because now, he had five spiritual seas and a Golden Core that housed ninety divine abilities. Each rotation of that Golden Core drained power in quantities obscene enough to make even immortals wince.
Without the World Tree siphoning celestial qi from the heavens, he wouldn't even be able to use his Golden Core. It would be a golden mountain he could barely lift, let alone wield.
Even experts like the Ghost Emperor or the Blackwater King—powerhouses in their own right—would find themselves dry as deserts after a single attempt to activate his Golden Core. They'd collapse on the spot.
A Golden Core forged from ninety divine abilities…
It wasn't a core.
It was a mountain.
Even practitioners at the tenth level of the Mystic Realm—those who defied fate itself—wouldn't survive more than a handful of activations.
All of this meant that every sliver of celestial energy he gathered had to be stored and stockpiled purely to keep his Golden Core functioning. Just one rotation consumed the equivalent power of ten thousand Nascent Soul Pills.
Ten thousand pills—for a single breath of activation.
No one could afford that.
Not even giants of the Eternal Life realm would waste energy like this.
Power always came with a price.
Without the World Tree, he'd be ruined—unable to operate his Golden Core at all.
And now, because all divine energy was being hoarded for survival, he had lost his once-legendary ability to "earn a fortune a day." He could no longer pull out a million pills—or ten million—to broker alliances, impress princesses, or buy whatever he wanted.
Being strong came with its own humiliations.
In the mortal world, even the mightiest warrior still needed food.
In the cultivation world, the stronger you grew, the faster you burned through your own resources.
Without the World Tree, he'd need mountains of spirit crystals just to take a single step. Every movement would bankrupt a mid-tier cultivator.
His entire net worth now consisted of:
The Yellow Springs Diagram.
The demonic blade Blood Sky.
The Eightfold Pagoda, forged from the talisman, the eight Dragon Palace treasures, and the Blood Dragon Crystal mountain.
As for the treasures in Yuhua Sect—the great defensive formations, the Five Prisons Cauldron, the Shooting Star Bow, the Giant Spirit Banner—those were controlled by the sect. He couldn't give them away even if he wanted to.
He couldn't show up at Exquisite Paradise with nothing but a cheap Golden Core-level birthday gift. That would be embarrassing on a planetary scale.
"Poor. I'm actually poor," he growled, half in disbelief. "Who would've thought? Fang Han—Golden Core forged from ninety divine abilities, magic nearing a hundred million—reduced to a beggar. If only I could find another chunk of the World Tree…"
The craving hit him hard.
More fragments of the World Tree meant more celestial qi.
More celestial qi meant smoother activation of his Golden Core.
And surplus energy would mean he could resume pill refinement.
Even Eternal Life experts couldn't refine pills, despite being able to draw celestial energy. Everything they absorbed barely covered their own consumption.
Now Fang Han was in the same predicament.
Just enough to survive.
"Why don't we go to the Five-Element Land and capture a few Xuanwu, Teng Snake, Vermilion Bird… Bring them back as gifts?" Yan suggested.
"Absolutely not," Fang Han said immediately. "That place is no gentle paradise. And that ancient Demon Sovereign—I don't trust him. Not to mention Taiyi Sect has its eyes glued to the Five-Element Land. Last time, Taihuangtian nearly killed me in open space. Until I rally more allies, I'm not setting foot there."
He shook his head.
He refused to be dragged into the Eternal Life giants' conflicts—not while he still had a future to protect.
"Then what now?" Yan asked.
"We start by visiting Prince Yi of the Great Xuan Empire. That man swims in wealth—best to use his resources instead of mine."
Just as Fang Han settled on that idea, a burst of starlight descended.
A plump, baby-shaped creature floated toward him—Nebula Baby.
"You're back from the Tai Chi Star Palace?" Fang Han asked. "To celebrate Exquisite Immortal Venerable's birthday, did the Star Master give you any gifts?"
"Mm-hm!" Nebula Baby chirped proudly. "Three hundred Star-Gathering Pills, three hundred Star-Light Beasts, three hundred flying swords, three hundred battle robes. Nothing great. My papa said you're rich, Brother Fang Han, so I should follow you when giving gifts!"
Fang Han almost choked.
"Follow me? I'm poorer than a wandering monk right now." He sighed. "Honestly, I was hoping to borrow a few things from you, but it looks like that's not happening. What about Xing Mie Xie?"
"He left already! Brought his own gifts to Exquisite Paradise. No way he'd travel with you—especially since you plan to bring a Taiyi disciple's Golden Core as tribute. Who wants to risk extermination traveling with you?"
"…Fantastic."
"Let's go," Fang Han said. "We'll see Prince Yi first."
He wrapped Nebula Baby in his sleeve and soared out of the Starry Gate. His gains from the Starry Domain had been monumental—Golden Core, Buddhist arts, deeper star-law comprehension.
Only problem: he was broke.
He didn't fly downward toward the earth. Instead, he moved through the Ninth Heaven Wind Layer. Normally, such travel consumed immense power—but to Fang Han, these winds were little more than a breeze. He wandered through the stormscape hoping to find wind elementals or lost flying swords left by ancient cultivators.
"Never thought I'd end up scavenging for gifts…" he muttered. "In the past I'd just throw ten billion pills at the problem."
Without spare celestial qi for pill-making, this frugality was suffocating.
Especially considering that Exquisite Paradise was a place where wealth was practically required. If he arrived empty-handed, not only would the sect's disciples look down on him—he'd lose face entirely.
But the wind layer yielded nothing.
Not a single wind giant.
Not a single ancient sword.
It felt like all his luck had been burned away when he created his Golden Core.
Exquisite Paradise itself was said to lie far overseas, beyond layer after layer of ocean, hidden among shifting dimensions and floating celestial islands. The sect was powerful enough to rival Taiyi Gate; its founder, Exquisite Immortal Venerable, was considered the strongest being in three thousand years—more formidable than Feng Baiyu or even the Star Master.
She had forged the Exquisite Da Luo Heaven, a divine ability at the mythical Da Luo level—beyond Eternal Life, touching upon true immortality.
Fang Han had studied a fragment of that art once. Even the incomplete version taught to Fairy Huoyun was beyond anything a Golden Core master could fully grasp.
Someday—at the peak of the Eternal Life realm—he might comprehend it completely.
As he mused, the wind howled violently around him. But he felt nothing. His Golden Core let him see straight through the storm layer to the world below.
He continued toward the Great Xuan Empire.
Then—everything shifted.
A massive swath of the wind layer simply vanished. Mist rolled in like a tide, thick and luminous. No wind. No sound. Just stillness.
Fang Han narrowed his eyes.
An ambush.
Mist swirled into the shapes of flowers and mountains. Birds sang. Rivers ran through fields of blossoms. Sunlight refracted into rainbows. Someone had created an entire serene paradise right inside the Ninth Heaven Wind Layer—an impossible feat of power and precision.
"Who?" Fang Han said coldly. "Who's manipulating space like this?"
Mist gathered.
Water shimmered.
A woman's silhouette emerged—soft as smoke, fluid as water, elegant as a lake sprite stepping across moonlit ripples.
Her presence was graceful—yet concealed a sharp, dangerous aura.
"Fang Han of Yuhua Sect…" the voice drifted.
His pupils tightened.
"Smoke-Water Yi. First true disciple of Taiyi Gate. Hua Tiandu's fiancée."
The watery figure grew clearer, her beauty amplifying with every breath.
She stared at him with a mix of surprise and calculation.
"You recognize me?" she said softly. "No wonder you can oppose Hua Tiandu. Your magic… is astonishing. Your Golden Core—how many divine abilities have you fused? Eighty? Ninety?"
Her eyes glimmered as she examined him—
and the trap closed around him.