"Good morning, Fellow Daoist Wang!"
"Fellow Daoist Luo, heading out again?"
"Mm."
At the entrance gate of Tianlan Peak, Wang Pingzhi, who was on guard duty, watched Luo Chen's retreating back with a touch of perplexity.
This man usually kept to himself and rarely left his dwelling. Why had he been going out every day lately?
After greeting Wang Pingzhi, Luo Chen emerged onto the streets of the immortal city.
He had clearly noted the confusion on the man's face.
During this recent period, his departures had indeed been overly frequent.
It was not because he was bogged down by trivial matters, but rather because he needed to go outside to practice Ninety Thousand Li, the Tier 3 flight spell.
Though Tianlan Peak was vast, there were too many prying eyes; practicing such a technique there would draw far too much attention.
Out beyond the peak, where the sky was high and the land vast, he had ample room to drill the spell.
Halfway along his route, however, Luo Chen turned into another street.
Looking up at the sign that read "Ice Billow Palace," he stepped inside.
Only after a long while did he emerge.
This errand was to deliver the high-grade Jade Dew Pills and Blood Burning Pills he had refined over the past year.
Weighing the storage pouch in his hand, Luo Chen showed a satisfied expression.
Another hundred thousand or so spirit stones in hand.
This sum was enough to cover what he had expended on Tao Wan.
*If you leave out the middleman, I could barely call this refining pills for my own use!*
Luo Chen chuckled and shook his head, but soon fell into wonder.
He had not seen Master Jueqing for a long time!
He had assumed she was in secluded cultivation, but just now at Ice Billow Palace, it had not been her receiving the pills either, but the aged Shi Boying.
*Could Jueqing no longer be in Tianlan Immortal City?*
Out of nowhere, the thought popped into his mind.
Once born, it lingered.
The handover of high-grade Jade Dew Pills was no small transaction.
Every single delivery was worth well over a hundred thousand stones.
In the past, when Tantai Jin conducted the exchange with him, it made sense—Tantai Jin was the eldest disciple of the Jueqing lineage and possessed the highest cultivation among them.
Yet ever since Tantai Jin departed for the Mount Thunder Accumulation battlefield, Fairy Jueqing had explicitly specified that all handovers be done with her in person.
Judging from these signs, had she truly departed Tianlan?
*Forget it. Wherever a Golden Core Master goes, what does it have to do with me?*
Luo Chen curled his lip, too indifferent to dwell on a woman who could turn on a dime and flip her temperament faster than turning the pages of a book.
Leaving the immortal city, Luo Chen rode his flying sword, soaring toward the region around the Qinhua River.
That was an area near Tianlan where spiritual energy was sparse.
Normally, even rogue cultivators rarely set foot there.
In truth, beyond a radius of a thousand li from Tianlan, such places were numerous!
It was somewhat strange.
Tianlan Peak was clearly a Tier 3 spiritual land, and the surrounding mountain ranges and canyons were mostly Tier 1 spiritual lands.
Yet once past that thousand-li boundary, it was as if spiritual energy had vanished entirely, leaving the terrain like the mortal world.
According to Luo Chen's estimate, this was related to the seven sects building the immortal city and forcefully elevating Tianlan Peak into a Tier 3 spiritual land.
A Tier 3 spiritual land could never arise from nothing!
It either had to be nurtured naturally, or formed by siphoning spiritual energy from other regions and fusing it together.
Only such an explanation fit the conditions around the immortal city.
It was said that other large immortal cities exhibited similar phenomena, which aligned well with Luo Chen's hypothesis.
Of course, these conjectures were merely idle thoughts to pass the time while traveling.
Upon reaching a stretch of rolling green mountains, Luo Chen naturally stowed his ordinary flying sword.
Lacking support and without riding clouds or mists, his body seemed on the verge of falling.
Yet a pair of illusory, deep-red wings unfurled from his back.
Without exerting much effort at all, he naturally hovered midair.
"As expected, the more time passes, the more attuned this implement becomes with me. It's just like my arms and legs, as if it were originally a part of my own body.
"With this, the boost to my combat capabilities is immense."
When low-level cultivators fought, they often stood rooted in place like wooden posts to unleash attacks, looking quite foolish.
Those with rich combat experience, like Luo Chen and Wang Yuan, would supplement their stances with lightness and vaulting techniques to avoid becoming sitting ducks.
Upon reaching Foundation Establishment, a cultivator's spiritual power was far more profound than during Qi Refinement, allowing them to ride clouds and soar on mist with relative agility.
Yet that was the extent of it!
After all, keeping an eye on the enemy while controlling magical implements already consumed tremendous mental focus; sustaining a flight art on top of that pushed them to their limits.
Even Luo Chen, in the past, had mostly stood motionless, bombarding foes with the sheer might of large-scale spells.
Dividing his mind for other purposes took a heavy toll on his spirit.
After he attained great circle completion in Bright Spirit Fiend Breaking and could split his mind three ways, the situation improved somewhat.
Yet it was only a slight improvement.
When all was said and done, he still had to divert attention to maintain the Wind Riding Technique.
Now, however, things were different!
The Lieyun Wings had merged as one with him. Responding as effortlessly as his own limbs, they required no mental strain whatsoever beyond ensuring a supply of spiritual power.
Because of this, he could be far more agile and mercurial in combat than others.
"And that's not all."
Luo Chen gave a low shout, and the wings on his back quivered.
The next moment!
He shot forward like an arrow released from a bowstring, arriving a hundred fathoms away in an instant.
Such speed was exceedingly rare!
And that was merely a short burst of acceleration.
What if it were used in close-quarters maneuvering?
High in the air, Luo Chen's figure darted up and down, shifting and pivoting with consummate grace.
Like a butterfly, like a swallow, he moved almost as nimbly as if he were on flat ground.
Abruptly, Luo Chen paused!
Then, bolstered by his spiritual power, he shot off toward the distance.
After a long while, he flew back.
*Huuu...*
Exhaling a breath of turbid air, Luo Chen wore an expression of undisguised excitement.
"As expected of a Tier 3 spell. With only 'perfect' proficiency, its speed already surpasses Tao Wan's Nine Gale Transformations. Truly surprising!
"Even if I cannot yet fly ninety thousand li in a single breath, among the Foundation Establishment tier, few could possibly match this."
Flying ninety thousand li in a single breath was the description for grand achievement in the Heavenly Roc Transformation.
Once this art reached grand achievement, its escaping speed would fall short of no Five Elements escape art, and could even rival the rainbow-transforming flight of a Golden Core sword cultivator.
For now, Luo Chen did not indulge in hopes of that realm; nor had he reached the third realm of body cultivation.
Yet for his present purposes, it was more than sufficient.
Of course, if outsiders learned that he had cultivated this spell to the perfect level in merely a few months, their jaws would surely hit the floor.
Luo Chen, however, found nothing strange about it.
To achieve such results, while somewhat unexpected, was well within reason.
He had the foundation of his mortal lightness skill, Carefree Wander, at great circle completion.
He had the reinforcement of the Wind Riding Technique at great circle completion.
He possessed a foundation sharing the same origin as the blazing cloud roc, coupled with an extraordinary talent for spells.
Such progress was entirely reasonable!
After a brief pause, Luo Chen flew up once more to an altitude of ten thousand fathoms—a height ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators rarely ventured into.
At such heights, cultivators on the ground would scarcely notice him.
Once in the high heavens, Luo Chen not only drilled Ninety Thousand Li, but also brought out the magic treasure, the Xuanhuo Sword, to familiarize himself with the method of channeling spells through implements.
Although Luo Chen frequently cautioned the Foundation Establishment cultivators under his command not to rely overly on magic treasures, he himself had no such qualms.
For one, his spiritual power was profoundly vast, far surpassing his peers!
Even though they were both at the sixth layer of Foundation Establishment, Xu Huanzhen was far inferior to him.
During his frequent sparring sessions with Chu Kui the previous year, he had vaguely gauged the spiritual power intensity of late Foundation Establishment.
Chu Kui, at the ninth layer of Foundation Establishment, had more spiritual power than him, but only by a limited margin.
In terms of pure volume and potency of spiritual power, the current Luo Chen was comparable to an ordinary late Foundation Establishment grand cultivator of the eighth layer!
As for the second reason, it lay in the utterly ordinary nature of this low-grade magic treasure, the Xuanhuo Sword.
It truly was far too ordinary.
It did not even possess an innate killing move.
Whether it was Danyangzi's Zixie Sword, Tao Wan's Flowing Cloud Flying Sleeves, or even the Blue Flood Dragon Bracelet Luo Chen had gifted to Gu Caiyi, all had accompanying killing moves.
The Xuanhuo Sword had none!
It was precisely for this reason that the flying sword seemed so commonplace, so cheap.
Yet, being a magic treasure, it naturally had its virtues.
And that was amplification!
When infused with spiritual power, this sword could amplify a cultivator's attack strength by roughly thirty percent.
Put simply, its ultimate move was its basic attack, and its basic attack was its ultimate move.
If an average Foundation Establishment cultivator acquired this treasure, they would likely consider it a white elephant.
A magic treasure without a killing move, and one that squandered spiritual power to boot.
For Luo Chen, however, spiritual power was never a concern; the amplification effect effectively made up for the shortcoming of his primary cultivation being of the wood element.
Furthermore, Luo Chen was exceptionally adept in fire methods.
Using an implement to channel his spells, the superposition of the two yielded even greater might!
High in the sky at ten thousand fathoms, an illusory mountain peak collapsed with a roar before Luo Chen.
Fierce shockwaves rolled forth in waves, whipping his brocade-white robe so hard it snapped loudly in the wind.
Holding the Xuanhuo Sword, Luo Chen let out a long breath.
"I wonder if a ninth-layer Foundation Establishment cultivator could withstand this strike of mine?"
After murmuring to himself, Luo Chen concluded his cultivation for the day.
Putting away the Xuanhuo Sword, he flew slowly back toward Tianlan Peak.
***
In the mountains there is no calendar; a thousand years pass in the world below.
For Luo Chen in the Foundation Establishment stage, a thousand years was too remote.
Yet amid the repetitive days of ceaseless pill refinement, spell drilling, and seated cultivation, time had already flowed into the second year since the Luotian Association entered the war.
On this day, Min Longyu returned to the Luotian Association.
He had not returned alone, yet he had indeed returned alone.
The statement was somewhat contradictory.
Yet when Sima Huiniang looked upon the coffin set in the grand hall, her entire body froze.
"A month ago, the Seventh Mountain of Mount Thunder Accumulation suffered a surprise attack from the Yan Alliance's army; Golden Core cultivators intervened. The Seventh Mountain was garrisoned jointly by a coalition of rogue cultivator forces. The Yan Alliance's Golden Core cultivator used overwhelming might to blast open the grand formation laid down by the Luoyun Sect. Ice Fort's Golden Core cultivators arrived too late to reinforce it, and the Seventh Mountain fell.
"In that battle, the rogue cultivator forces lacked a unified command and were routed into complete disarray.
"Our Luotian Association was only guarding a remote path and could have withdrawn unhindered, but we ran into an interception by a squad led by a late Foundation Establishment cultivator.
"Even though I used the Five Thunders Strike the Top Formation to deter that grand cultivator, the Luotian Association's members still suffered a devastating blow.
"In this battle, forty-three of the Luotian Association's Qi Refinement cultivators perished. Elder Li Yingzhang was severely wounded, barely surviving thanks to Hall Master Xu Huanzhen's rescue.
"Among the fallen... was the Hall Master of the Battle Hall."
Min Longyu kept his head lowered, recounting the events of that day one by one with deep sorrow.
The Hall Master of the Battle Hall was none other than Sima Xian!
Seated at the head of the hall, Sima Huiniang's fingers gripped the armrests of her chair with white-knuckled force. She asked in a freezing voice, "What was the name of that grand cultivator?"
Min Longyu froze, momentarily unable to answer.
Sima Huiniang took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.
"A late Foundation Establishment cultivator of the Yan Alliance is by no means an unknown figure. Could you not even learn their identity? Or was he not a cultivator of the Yan Alliance, but merely a vassal of the Sword Sect?"
Min Longyu gritted his teeth and said, "It was the dead of night, and his true appearance could not be seen. I only heard an early Foundation Establishment cultivator address him as Ku Chan."
Ku Chan!
Sima Huiniang silently repeated the name, as if carving it into the depths of her soul.
After a long silence, she asked slowly, "Where is Wang Yuan?"
Min Longyu let out a breath and continued, "At the time, I was worried more Yan Alliance cultivators would arrive, so I activated the Five Thunders Strike the Top Formation ahead of schedule. My plan was to severely wound the enemy and lead our Luotian Association cultivators away.
"Unexpectedly, even heavily wounded, they relentlessly pursued us, dogging our heels. Hall Master Sima fell during that pursuit.
"Seeing the peril of the situation, Hall Master Wang, Hall Master Xu, and Elder Li engaged in succession.
"In the end, I led the surviving remnants in retreating from the Seventh Mountain. Hall Master Xu brought back Elder Li, while Hall Master Wang's whereabouts are unknown."
First her elder brother fell in battle, then Li Yingzhang was critically wounded, with over forty Qi Refinement cultivators slaughtered in between.
And now, even Wang Yuan—the foremost figure beneath the Association Master—was missing!
Sima Huiniang closed her eyes as an oppressive gloom spread through the hall.
"President, please restrain your grief..."
"Get out!"
Min Longyu sighed, having no choice but to leave Huixin Hall.
After he departed, the hall sank into total silence.
Only after a long while did Sima Huiniang step down from the dais. She walked up to the coffin and pushed open the lid with trembling hands.
Looking at the mangled corpse within, she could not help but cover her mouth.
***
Stepping out of Huixin Hall, Min Longyu's whole body relaxed slightly.
Yet as he turned around and met pairs of staring eyes, he instinctively shuddered.
The newly advanced Foundation Establishment cultivators Murong Qinglian and Gu Caiyi.
Qin Liangchen, Bian Zhen, Yuan Dongsheng and his wife...
Numerous cultivators fixed their gazes upon him, as though harboring a thousand words they wished to ask.
At the foot of the peak, the sounds of weeping and wailing rose without pause.
The Luotian Association had been rooted in Tianlan for over a decade, and many cultivators in the Battle Hall had started families.
Now, with so many corpses brought back, the sorrow of their kin rose straight into the clouds.
It dyed the dusk over Danxia Peak with profound grief.
"Everyone..." Min Longyu had barely opened his mouth when a barrage of inquiries came at him.
"Elder Min, how is my elder brother?" The one asking was Li Yingzhang's sister, Li Yingjun.
Min Longyu answered instinctively, "He was wounded by a mid-Foundation Establishment cultivator, but his life was saved."
Upon hearing the first half, Li Yingjun went limp, kept upright only by her husband Yuan Dongsheng's support.
The second half, however, allowed her a sigh of relief.
"Why hasn't he returned if he's injured?"
"Because Master Yinyue of Ice Fort refuses to let anyone leave. Even for me, it was only because Master Jueqing spoke up that I was permitted to bring back the remains of our fallen cultivators."
"How could there be such a heartless order?"
Min Longyu gave a bitter smile, at a loss for words.
In war, where was there any room for human sentiment?
"Elder Min, did you see my husband Duan Feng? How is he? Is he hurt? Please, just tell me anything!"
"The disciples of the Luoyun Sect went to battle too, didn't they? Did you see my child, Xiaohu? His formal name is Qin Yuanjiang!"
"Where is Old Zhang? They say he's dead, but why haven't I seen his body?"
...
Question after question poured out from the crowd.
This scene seemed even more terrifying than facing an enemy force led by a late Foundation Establishment grand cultivator.
Min Longyu took an involuntary step back, completely at a loss for how to respond.
Then, someone called out:
"The Association Master is here!"
The next moment, the crowd parted on its own, making a path.
Along the jade stone walkway, Luo Chen walked up step by step, his expression placid.
Arriving at the front, he turned his head and looked at the pairs of eager, pleading eyes.
"Do you have nothing to do?
"Crowding here like this—what sort of spectacle is this?
"Those who don't know any better would think you were going to devour Min Longyu and force President Sima into a corner.
"Go back!
"Return to your respective halls. The full situation will be announced afterward."
Beneath his calm exterior, the words he spoke were sharp rebukes.
Over the years, Luo Chen had always been gentle, refined, and approachable within the association.
Yet at this moment, such sternness and severity did not provoke the slightest resentment.
Lowering their heads, the crowd retreated in silence.
"You two leave as well. Min Longyu stays."
Of the three Foundation Establishment True Cultivators present, Murong Qinglian sighed and walked toward Qin Liangchen, who was waiting in the distance.
Gu Caiyi's expression was grim as well; pointing toward the quiet hall ahead, she departed with light steps.
Now, only Luo Chen and Min Longyu were left at the entrance of the grand hall.
Without a moment's hesitation:
*Thud!*
Discarding all dignity and decorum expected of a Foundation Establishment True Cultivator, Min Longyu dropped straight to his knees before Luo Chen.
"Association Master, I deserve ten thousand deaths. I failed to protect the brothers of the Luotian Association."
"Who told you to kneel? Stand up and speak!"
With the crowd gone, an overcast, dark look showed on Luo Chen's face for the first time.
Under his reprimand, Min Longyu stood up with immense guilt, though his back was no longer as straight as it used to be.
Chapter 362