Yun Jhin walked inside of the inner palace slowly as the corpse king followed behind him like a meek lamb, the insides of the palace were sparsely decorated as pillars with skulls and bones were situated both to the left and right, a big table was already laid in the middle of the palace where the elders and the sect master were waiting for him.
Yun Jhin chuckled as the corpse king followed behind him and he said:
"This is a celebratory banquet, for our second heavenly realm expert, let's all enjoy ourselves for a while."
The elders smiled as they clinked their wine cups, Yun Jhin stood at the top of the table as he was the patriarch while the sect master stood on his left, on his right was an empty seat left for his wife which passed away a few years ago. The food on the table was the best that the sect could get its hands on, spicy crocodilus meat with medicinal plants sauce sprayed on top, wine from undead grapes fermented for 100 years, and a lot of other 'special foods'.
After everyone had their fill Yun Jhin as the patriarch had to make a speech:
"Thank you all for coming to my banquet today, you should know what happened to the two traitors by now as my son informed you, fortunately even though the traitors tried to assassinate me and my son we made fortune from calamity and with their help, we hastened the creation of our corpse king, a few months from now I will attend the yearly meeting with the patriarchs of the sword devil sect and the fairies sect, you should know what will happen after they will see a new heavenly realm patriarch in our ranks."
The elders chuckled as they looked at the corpse king that stood behind Yun Jhin like a guard dog, it stood there stiffly, if someone wasn't in the know they would think it was just a normal corpse without any power.
Yun Jhin cleared his throat as he continued:
"For now I will have to leave you as I have to enter closed-door cultivation until the meeting, as before my son will be in control until I exit the closed-door cultivation session of this time around, do not disturb me unless it's something really important, do you understand? I have the feeling that I could break through the 3rd level of the heavenly realm."
Yun Jhin walked a little bit closer to Miedo and whispered to him:
"slow the kidnapping unless they are talented, we need to put on a weak front for the others, maybe they would even attack if they thought something happened to me, we don't know for which sect Chu Mang and Chen Ming worked, I couldn't even guess that our elder Chen Ming betrayed us, he worked for the sect for such a long time but alas *sigh* maybe he was bought over by the promise of a breakthrough."
Miedo nodded his head slowly as he said:
"Yes father, I will see to your orders, anything else you have to tell me before you leave for closed-door cultivation?"
Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at Miedo and said:
"You are already pretty old Miedo, do you want me to tell you this even at your age?"
Miedo nodded his head as he looked at Yun Jhin with clear eyes, seemingly waiting for a response:
"Ok, I love you son, your mother loves you as well, I will see you after I leave closed-door cultivation, hopefully, you might breakthrough as well after what you experienced. so we could have 3 heavenly realm patriarchs holding the fort for the Corpse Refining sect."
Yun Jhin left the banquet behind as he entered the patriarchs cultivating quarters, it was near the treasury so it was very easy for him to directly enter the treasury, even if he didn't have patriarch his knowledge of formations would let him to easily infiltrate the treasury.
Yun Jhin looked around the treasury and sighed to himself, even though he had the memories of the patriarch he still felt that the treasury was a bit too empty, corpse pills and spirit stones, a few medicinal plants here and there, no treasures, Yun Jhin wondered where did that green-haired teen even get his artifact when the sect was this poor.
The patriarch's body stood on the spot as Yun Jhin's main body left the man's cranium through the nose and he started to take a closer look towards some of the things he didn't see in the patriarch's memories, some of them were a little useful but others were just straight trash, he shook his head as he looked around and then ate some medicinal plants and 3 spirit stones, afterward a notification appeared:
[Rank 7 mind-controlling caterpillar can evolve into the mind-transforming caterpillar.]
A mind transforming caterpillar was a higher form of the mind-controlling one, it could now control the people from a remote distance, it was like a robot which could be remote-controlled after the caterpillar ate the soul he would gain the remote control and it could control the body in a range of a few tens of kilometers, however, it would take more soul power to make the body act like normal, but it was also safer if it were unlucky in a fight the attacker might pierce the head of the host and the caterpillar would die.
A mind transforming caterpillar could reach Rank 8, after making sure he nestled himself well inside the patriarch's cranium he immediately started his evolution, Yun Jhin dreamt of his past lives as time passed, he woke up but he wasn't a caterpillar he was an old man! it was one of his memories as a past life.
He looked down at his withered hands as the memory played:
"Life, what is life? why do I seek eternal life? Do I seek it because I truly want to live forever? Why have I done so many atrocities throughout my life?"
This was one of the reincarnations that he didn't gain the memories of his past ones so he started to get a death resolution at the end of his lifespan, not many did reach the end of lifespan but a few did.
The memory continued to play as the withered old man said:
"Eternal life, eternal sands, I always wanted to reach that place, the place above, for what reason? I already had whatever a man could want, many beauties surrounded me, I was strong, I was rich but in the end, all my riches dried up, my beauties died and my strength was seeped away by the time and age."
"iii, how good it would be to be eternal, to be fully like this forever, to enjoy life at it's highest for how much you wanted to."
A dark gleam started to appear in the old man's dying eyes as he questioned himself:
"Would I enjoy eternal life? Would I? there was nothing for me out there, I already achieved everything that could be achieved, but I still feel empty and hollow, like something was eating at my heart, like something was still achievable like it was in front of me but I couldn't grasp it."
The man grasped the air as sand drifted through his fingers, those where the sands of time that we're eating away at his mortal body.
He chuckled darkly as he looked at his own body which was starting to disintegrate from the waist up:
"So many lives taken, so many bloodlines and constitutions, but not even one could reach the apex, what a trash world! What a trash universe! WHEN WILL YOU LET ME ACHIEVE WHAT I WANT? WHEN WILL YOU LET ME BE FREE?"
As the man shouted his last words he became a bunch of ashes that drifted into the wind, he lived his last seconds outside in nature, but even the birds and other animals wouldn't look down at him, his back carried too many sins and no one would mourn him, not even his descendants, they would rather start celebrating at their father's death.
Yun Jhin woke up from his dream as he felt the changes around his body, his face was a cold stone mask that couldn't be seen through, such pesky memories wouldn't touch him at all, after all, he already knew about them, sometimes dreams like these would initiate by themselves as a side effect from absorbing too many past lives memories, the fusion wasn't perfect but it gave him what he needed and he would have done it even if he knew such side effects existed in the first place.
Yun Jhin shook his head as he felt his new body, his rank was reset and fortunately, his cultivation didn't drop that much, he was at the eight stage of the earthly realm and he could feel that if he reached Rank 8 with his caterpillar body he could immediately break through everything and reach the heavenly realm in one fell swoop.
What he feared the most didn't happen, even though his body cultivation regressed it wasn't a bad thing, instead it was a good one, which meant he didn't reach his full potential, so he could cultivate again and get the benefits of that stage again, his body felt as strong as the ninth stage but he could cultivate again to the ninth stage!
It was like basically becoming 2x as strong in the ninth stage. Yun Jhin nodded to himself as he left the patriarch's cranium and saw his image reflected on the floor. He didn't change much but he now had two thin antennae on his head and his skin color was a deep red, his stinger was even sharper than before and it took a deep blue color.
Yun Jhin shook his head as he walked towards some spirit stones and ate them slowly, afterward, he found some food pills and ate them as well, after he felt he was full he directly entered back into his layer inside the patriarch's head and started his cultivation, with the help of the nutrients from the bodies of Chu Mang and Chen Ming he would now start his breakthrough to the heavenly realm, combined with the spirit stones and food pills that he ate right now he had a 100% chance of breaking through.
[Host can immediately reach the maximum rank of the mind-transforming caterpillar if host break through the heavenly realm.]
This was a piece of extra information that was really useful to Yun Jhin, he smiled to himself as he started to cultivate, he firstly fully adapted to the patriarch's body before he started his breakthrough session.
He made sure the corpse king kept a lookout for him while he broke through as he didn't want to be disturbed.
It was finally time to break through to the heavenly realm!