My Journey to Godhood as a Caterpillar

Every survivor from the tournament was watching Yun Jhin's projection with wide eyes as he opened his mouth and started his speech:

"You have fought very hard to reach your current position in the tournament and I'm very happy to see that the blood throne sect still has the reputation that would attract so many talented people to it, regardless if it's for the rewards or not."

"As you all have guessed I shall give out an invitation to all of the top 1,000 survivors of the tournament to join the sect."

The 1,000 people started thinking about the invitation that Yun Jhin gave them, most of them didn't want to be tied to a sect so one of them came forward gave a short bow to show his respect for Yun Jhin then asked:

"Patriarch Jhin, might I ask how your sect works?"

Yun Jhin smiled showing his sharp teeth as he said:

"How it works? It works as all sects work but there's a difference in mine and you should know it by now if you listened to universal gossip or news!"

The man shrank back as he knew what he meant, he wouldn't give protection to those that offended the other sects recklessly which meant his sect was going to have a lower appeal in the face of those second generations of young masters who liked to slap faces relentlessly for no reason rather than they were bored.

Yun Jhin knew these types of people got an enjoyment of slapping faces so he pretty much made them disinterested in his sect due to this rule.

However, this rule didn't apply to these rogue cultivators in front of him. They were all low-key people who knew when to advance and when to back down.

Most of these rogue cultivators didn't really want to join the sect and only joined the tournament because of the resources reward which they couldn't get in other circumstances even if they had the money!

Yun Jhin watched as most of them struggled on what words to use to refuse him, Yun Jhin shook his head as he chuckled and told them:

"I know rogue cultivators like you don't want to be tied to the rules of the sect and you don't have to worry if you don't want to join the sect, I just treasure talent and I hoped that you would be able to join the sect, unlike those untalented folk that has big heads but small brains even if you offended someone outside you could take shelter in the sect with no problems due to your high talent."

Yun Jhin's words made them reconsider considering that they would be protected if anything ever happened to them during missions or if they somehow offended anyone even though the chance was low there were people out there that would feel offended after you looked at them for more than a few seconds.

300 of them became undecided, 300 wanted to join and 400 refused regardless of Yun Jhin's good intentions.

2 of the women were in the undecided ones and 1 of the men, also one of them decided to join while the others refused but it was already a pretty good haul to have someone on the fence and one join.

Yun Jhin nodded as he waved his hand and said:

"Then let's continue the finishing stage so the winners can get their rewards!"

Yun Jhin's projection disappeared from the wall of the arena as some disciples from the sect came with lots to pick so they could have their random fights decided.

The fights were quickly decided and the stronger individuals easily made themselves appear as the fights went on, those that Yun Jhin identified easily won all of their matches thus ending up in the top 10.

The top 100 and top 10 had special rewards that Yun Jhin would give personally but only the top 10 took Yun Jhin's attention!

Those 4 men and 3 women all ended up in the top 10!

The 3 other spots were taken up by 1 middle-aged man, 1 man-beast cultivator, and 1 devil cultivator.

The man who wanted to join was actually faceless under his disguise on his skin filled face there were two long scars in the form of an x and his ears were long and red, his clothes consisted of a simple brown robe that concealed most of his body underneath it only showing his feet.

As rogue cultivators were mostly poor everyone there wore dirty clothes and they had no extra treasures on them besides their weapons.

Yun Jhin appeared in person as he hovered above them and slowly descended on the arena looking at the top 100 and top 10.

He handed them the promised resources directly as he gave each a spatial bag that contained the rewards they sought.

Then Yun Jhin invited the faceless fellow to follow him towards the sect not waiting for the fence-sitter's decision.

His actions made them a little bit flustered as they weren't even taken into consideration and thus some of them decided that they wanted to join the sect.

Yun Jhin smiled as he patted the ones who joined on their shoulders and took them in the sect, the others left with no problems and no fanfare as the tournament ended.

Yun Jhin gave the new disciples the elder statuses and imparted them better cultivation techniques based on their physiques and likes. Afterward, he talked with them for a while to get closer to them before sending them to do what they wanted.

In total he had recruited almost 500 out of the 1,000 survivors, the survivors knew when to forfeit and most of the time in the 1v1 fights it didn't come to any deaths, only 1 or 2 were killed.

Yun Jhin appeared below the palace as he looked at the bubbling blood river and started chuckling, the whole formation started to seethe as the river fused with it properly and Yun Jhin chuckling turned into a burst of full blown laughter!

"Now that everything is done I can start meddling in the universe again... ah you old fogies I must thank you properly for being as paranoid as me!"

Most of the old fogies that were currently alive were the same as the ones who lived in Yun Jhin's previous life, they have reincarnated earlier than him as when he died most of them were in their reincarnation phase so they were considered old at this stage, around half their life span or more if he calculated right.

Yun Jhin's plans for the universe were big as he realized the way on how to achieve the realm above the God one after he got his ass handed to Hell's willpower which had strength above the God Realm and combined with the secrets of the system that remained in his mind even after it left him, he realized that he always did things wrongly in his previous lives when he tried to ascend!

While a perfect body was certainly a way to achieve the new realm it didn't guarantee that you could ascend, the fortuned constitution would also help but it wasn't a surefire way of breaking through the shackles of the god realm.

Yun Jhin realized that the best way to breach the shackles of the universe and free him from the fetters of mortality was... fighting the universe itself!

He needed to steal all of the universal fortunes from the core of the universe and fuse with them to tame the universe and break free of its control!

While the universe wasn't conscious it's core shifted at immense speeds through a special space that only those that reached the 10th stage of the God Realm could feel, the 10th stage was also considered to be half a step into the realm above and Yun Jhin hadn't reached it in any of his lives due to his body not being able to withstand the forceful breaking of cultivation before it being reforged.

He reached the peak of the God Realm which was the 9th stage but he couldn't reach the half a step stage and that was why he was so obsessed with getting a new perfect body.

As for the fortuned constitution that the system was hinting at? It would certainly make it easier to tame and absorb the universal core but Yun Jhin knew that he might die of old age before he would be able to gather all of the fortuned ones and also find the core, fight it and absorb it.

It just wasn't feasible.

Even though he was still rather young right now the breakthroughs in the God Realm would take him a rather long while even though he had his previous experiences.

He sighed as he looked down at the blood river as a red mist started to appear above it, Yun Jhin slowly descended into the mist leaving only the gleam of his eyes visible as he suddenly closed them leaving the underground area silent and creepy, it was time for some intense cultivation so he could finally reach the God Realm!