This tiny, milk-white flood dragon was at the critical juncture of coalescing into a dharma idol, with only a section of its tail left unformed. Once it fell into Wei Yuan's hands, the process naturally ground to a halt.
Wei Yuan was an expert in karmic luck himself, so he could tell at a single glance that a spirit-gathering array had been laid out in the hall. It was siphoning the karmic luck of the visiting guests, pooling it here to help the young girl coalesce her white dragon dharma idol.
No wonder the Xu family had been collecting lavish gifts for seven consecutive days and offering generous reciprocal favors, drawing a multitude of guests to attend the grand ceremony. The act of presenting gifts was equivalent to registering oneself on the ledger, signaling a willingness to contribute a measure of one's own karmic luck to the celebration. Those registers of gift lists were actually magical implements used to draw the guests into the array.
However, the Xu family's Third Branch did not take much karmic luck. The array drew it out in an exceedingly subtle manner, and lavish compensation was offered afterward. Even if most cultivators knew the truth, they would still obediently contribute their karmic luck. In their eyes, they had no way of putting that bit of karmic luck to use anyway, so they might as well offer it up in exchange for solid resources. If they could catch the Xu family's eye and receive an offer of recruitment because of it, that would be an even greater blessing.
As for the white flood dragon in Wei Yuan's hand, half was born of nature and half was condensed from karmic luck, granting it a remarkably high status. It already possessed its own innate spirituality at the dharma idol stage, displaying hints of a Scenery Command true spirit. If she cultivated to Scenery Command and took a white dragon as her true spirit, she truly would stand a chance of ascending to immortality. Even if the white flood dragon failed to transform into a dragon, taking a flood dragon as a true spirit would still offer a sliver of hope for ascension.
This young girl was an undeniable immortal seed, far superior to the one Wei Yuan had heard about earlier.
Outside the immortal manor, more and more cultivators gathered. Unrelated cultivators within the estate had already been cleared out, leaving only members of the Xu family's Third Branch. Shocked and infuriated, the Scenery Command elder stood at the entrance to the main hall, wanting to charge in yet holding back out of fear that Wei Yuan might harm the white flood dragon dharma idol.
Meanwhile, the girl within the array had awakened from her trance, her large, innocent eyes wide with sheer panic. With her dharma idol seized, she was completely immobilized. Wei Yuan turned the white flood dragon over and over in his hands to examine it; each time his fingers brushed over the dragon's body, she trembled involuntarily.
From a young age, Wei Yuan had often watched Ji Liuli and Zhang Sheng toy with Xu Henshui's Dao Foundation. Appreciating a dharma idol now followed the same logic in principle.
Suddenly, several overbearing auras surged from the distance, flying over with astonishing speed!
Standing guard outside the main hall, Li Zhi let out a helpless sigh, fished out a Southern Qi royal waist tablet, and hung it from his waist. Every single newcomer was at Scenery Command, and there were six of them. Adding the one at the entrance, that made seven Scenery Command experts. Roughly half of the Scenery Command cultivators the Xu family could openly deploy had turned out.
Although Li Zhi possessed a peak celestial idol and carried supreme treasures from the Four Sages Academy, holding off one Scenery Command expert was manageable, but he could not handle any more. At this point, he could only offer a wry smile and resort to using his status to suppress them.
When it came to using status, Li Zhi was thoroughly well-versed. He stepped squarely into the center of the main hall's doorway, blocking the path of the Xu family's Scenery Command experts, and said coldly, "I am Li Zhi, Great Tang's Mountain-Suppressing Jiedushi! Respected seniors, let us speak reasonably; there is no need to make such a fuss. When it comes to numbers, my Southern Qi Li family and the Four Sages Academy have never feared anyone!"
The killing intent of the Xu family's Scenery Command cultivators diminished slightly. They exchanged glances, all feeling a sense of wariness. The gap in national power between Southern Qi and Northern Qi was immense; the only reason Southern Qi had not invaded Northern Qi was that this land was too barren to be worth taking. Coupled with the fact that Xu Shuhe had continuously spread rumors of his imminent demise over the past century, under normal circumstances no one wanted to provoke him, which allowed Northern Qi to remain peaceful in its remote corner.
Everyone was well aware of Li Zhi's identity. He was a genius jointly nurtured by the Four Sages Academy and the Southern Qi royal family, and he had made an astonishing name for himself at the Qingming Realm Dharma Idol Gathering, ranking among the Twelve Celestial Idols. For such a figure, ascending to immortality in the future was practically a certainty, placing him immeasurably higher than the Xu family's so-called immortal seeds.
If anything untoward happened to Li Zhi here, the Southern Qi Li family's Immortal Ancestor would come knocking on their door the very next day to demand an accounting.
Thus, the Scenery Command elders were all troubled. An elderly man at the front said in a deep voice, "Our Xu family's Immortal Ancestor died in battle fighting for the Thirteen Great Clans! Is this how you treat the descendants of a martyr? In this world, reason must prevail. Does your family's Immortal Ancestor know that the Southern Qi Li family acts with such tyrannical overbearance?"
Li Zhi sighed inwardly. *Of course the Immortal Ancestor doesn't know. If he did, how could he have ever let me come?*
"The Immortal Ancestor naturally doesn't know. We came here on our own to play. If the old man knew, how could he have allowed us to come?" Wei Yuan showed himself, walking out of the main hall with the white flood dragon dangling from one hand and the young girl held in the other.
A middle-aged cultivator with a commanding presence flew into a rage. Stepping forward, he shouted, "Put Xuan'er down at once, and we can pretend today never happened! Otherwise, a lost child can be born again, and a fallen immortal seed can be nurtured anew. At worst, we will fight you to the bitter end today, and avenge the Immortal Ancestor while we are at it!"
This middle-aged cultivator possessed formidable strength, already at the late Scenery Command stage and nearing perfection. As the head of the Third Branch, both his divine abilities and Dao arts were of the highest caliber. Pragmatic and resolute, he directly signaled that he would rather sacrifice the young girl's life than compromise.
Such resolve was indeed rare, earning a nod of respect even from Wei Yuan.
Wei Yuan had committed the records of all the Xu family's Scenery Command experts to memory, while details regarding their dharma idols and crucial Dao Foundations were stored in Splendor of the Many Realms, ready to be retrieved at any moment. In a certain sense, Wei Yuan might be the person in history who remembered the most things; among the living Immortals of this era, few could accommodate such vast amounts of information.
Before him stood seven Scenery Command cultivators from the Xu family: three from the First Branch, two from the Third Branch, and the remaining two belonging to the Fourth and Fifth Branches.
As for the immortal seeds hidden or openly acknowledged within the Xu family, there were five in total. Two belonged to the First Branch, each possessing roughly a ten-percent chance of ascension. One belonged to the Fifth Branch, holding only a sliver of hope for ascension and likely halting at late Scenery Command.
Then there were two in the Third Branch. One was the young girl Xu Huaixuan whom Wei Yuan held in his hand, and the other was Xu Tiance, who had been kept deeply concealed and was said to have inherited Xu Shuhe's mantle, with an ascension probability supposedly fifty percent higher than the two from the First Branch.
Yet today, acting on a sudden whim, Wei Yuan had forced his way through their gates. The moment he laid eyes on Xu Huaixuan, he knew she was the true immortal seed. From this white flood dragon enlivened by karmic luck alone, she had a twenty-percent chance of ascending to immortality, far outstripping her peers.
By placing their true immortal seed out in the open while hiding someone inferior to Xu Huaixuan, the Xu family was playing the game of making the empty seem substantial and the substantial seem empty. If Wei Yuan applied too much pressure and they were forced to hand someone over, the one yielded would have been Xu Tiance or one of the seeds from the First Branch.
Ascending to immortality was not simply a matter of calculating probabilities; one also had to consider matching Heavenly Dao authorities. Because Xu Shuhe's legacy of true intent had been claimed by Wei Yuan, the Xu family's inheritance had been temporarily severed, leaving the younger generation with no ready-made Heavenly Dao true intent to utilize.
If they wished to ascend to immortality, they had no choice but to comprehend the Dao anew and attempt to master Heavenly Dao authority on their own. Under these circumstances, talent became paramount. Moreover, the manifestations of the Heavenly Dao often lasted only an instant; missing the opportunity might mean waiting a dozen years or even longer. Therefore, under normal conditions, the Xu family would undoubtedly let Xu Huaixuan attempt ascension first, with everyone else falling in line behind her.
Once Xu Huaixuan succeeded in ascending and mastered the ancestral Heavenly Dao authority, the path forward for her brothers and sisters would be cut off, leaving them confined to Scenery Command for the rest of their lives—unless they could carve out a new immortal path of their own.
The Heavenly Dao authorities that Xu Shuhe himself had mastered were few and specific, mutually proximate or adjacent and compatible. In other words, this path was too narrow, capable of accommodating only a single person.
This was the normal state of affairs along the immortal path. For instance, among the Palace of Grand Beginning's three abbeys and twelve halls, each of the twelve halls could generally support only one Immortal at a time. The three abbeys possessed broader paths, barely capable of accommodating two Immortals.
As for the Patriarch's path, it was naturally different. Allowing three disciples to ascend simultaneously was more than enough, but the remaining disciples simply fell short. Looking back now, Wei Yuan realized that each of the Patriarch's four immortal swords represented at least one Immortal, and with his world-shaking Dao arts, he could surely support another four Immortals on top of that.
Wei Yuan swept his gaze across the Xu family members, grasping the situation completely. He clapped Li Zhi on the shoulder and said, "A bunch of incompetent cowards, fierce in appearance but faint at heart. Brother Li, why waste your breath on them?"
Wei Yuan sneered, "A mere seven Scenery Command cultivators, and upon seeing me, instead of running away, you dare utter such arrogant words! When your family's Immortal Ancestor was slain by me that day, his tone wasn't even this grand. I'll give you a chance as well: kneel and beg for mercy at once, and I can also pretend today never happened!"
Li Zhi stared at Wei Yuan's back in confusion. *He has a flood dragon in one hand and a young girl in the other, so what did he just use to pat my shoulder?*
The Xu family's Scenery Command experts were furious. Channeling their Dao power, they worked together to lay down an array, intending to pool their strength to capture Wei Yuan. Despite the disdain on their faces, their actions showed they dared not be careless in the slightest, immediately coordinating an array at the outset.
Wei Yuan ascended into the sky, hovering in midair, and said indifferently, "Sweeping you away will be as effortless as crushing dry weeds!"
Above Wei Yuan's head, three human visages emerged, and in an instant, six gazes swept across heaven and earth! Back then, even an Immortal had struggled to withstand the gaze of the six realms, let alone a few Scenery Command cultivators.
In a breath, their Dao power fell into complete disarray, and their array was riddled with holes before collapsing on the spot. The backlash from the broken array instantly inflicted minor injuries on every Scenery Command expert.
Immediately after, a mote of sunlight emerged in Wei Yuan's hand. Wherever its radiance shone, cultivators below Scenery Command froze stiff, while the Scenery Command experts grew sluggish in their movements, moving like decrepit elders!
Aiming for a swift resolution, Wei Yuan directly unleashed the Evil Sun Heavenly Pillar. Wherever the evil sun shone, everyone's dharma bodies began to sprout wildly and mutate; if exposed just a little longer, the entire courtyard would turn into Flame Demons!
The evil sun vanished as quickly as it appeared. Taking advantage of the Scenery Command cultivators' impaired mobility, Wei Yuan reached out with two large hands, seized a Scenery Command elder by the neck with each, and flew away through the sky.
Only a single sentence echoed through the courtyard: "Today is merely a minor lesson. I shall return in three days. Tidy yourselves up and wait for me."
Only after several breaths did the remaining Scenery Command elders regain their mobility, overwhelmed by both relief and lingering terror. They had never imagined Wei Yuan could be so terrifying, capturing two elders alive while facing seven alone. How could they possibly resist him?
The elders exchanged glances, only to suddenly realize that the two elders Wei Yuan had captured both belonged to the First Branch, while the immortal seed he had carried off was from the Third Branch!
As the situation stood, the First Branch had only one Scenery Command expert left, while both elders of the Third Branch remained. As for immortal seeds, only the two from the First Branch were left, as the Third Branch's Xu Tiance was merely an empty facade.
The atmosphere abruptly turned subtle and grew increasingly perilous.
***
High in the sky, Wei Yuan flew swiftly upon the wind, carrying three people and a flood dragon in his hands.
"Wait for me! I can barely keep up!" Farther and farther behind, Li Zhi was forced to call out.
Li Zhi could see clearly that Wei Yuan currently possessed four arms, each holding one object. A face suddenly surfaced on the back of Wei Yuan's head and replied, "Bear with it, we cannot slow down right now! My Dao power is completely spent; we have to escape Northern Qi as quickly as possible!"
Flying with all his might, Li Zhi could barely speak. Hearing Wei Yuan's words, he could not help but ask, "Then why did you agree to meet them in three days?"
The face on the back of Wei Yuan's head chuckled. "Because by setting a date three days from now, they won't pursue us with everything they have! Right now, they're probably busy gathering allies, waiting for me to walk right into their trap three days later! Haha, let them wait!"
Chapter 1165