No sooner had Li Cheng stepped out from Mount Wu than a black-armored cultivator came forward to meet him. The man had grey eyes, sunken cheeks, and a sword at his waist; his countenance was clouded with gloom, his teeth clenched tight, and his gaze heavy.
"Clan Brother!" the cultivator called out.
Li Cheng nodded. "Chen Yang, what has happened?"
Chen Yang was now at the late stage of Qi Refinement, surrounded by swirling grey qi. He cultivated the Kan Water art that Li Minggong had acquired north of the river, known as the *Duibing Tuohai Formula*. Its exact grade was unknown, yet it surpassed the *River Unity Qi Formula* by a cut.
The black-armored cultivator lowered his voice. "A party has arrived from the river. They are cultivators from Floating Cloud Cave, one of Mount Xiaoshi's Mifan Three Sects, claiming they have come to offer congratulations."
"Congratulations?" Li Cheng scoffed coldly, his voice hushed. "Mount Xiaoshi's Mifan Three Sects constantly eye our riverbank, creeping forward a foot today and an inch tomorrow, gathering demonic cultivators to prowl the northern shores... Congratulations? They come with ill intent!"
The shadow on Chen Yang's face was clearly due to this; his exchange with the emissary of the Mifan Three Sects had evidently been far from pleasant. The young man murmured, "Sir, the visitors were quite smug, yet they are led merely by an early Foundation Establishment guest elder. They are trying to provoke our family to test our true footing."
Chen Yang had a calculating mind and was never one to be trifled with; he had seen through their scheme at a glance. Cupping his hands, he said, "The party refuses to set foot on the islet, hovering aggressively in the air by the lakeshore. The Old Master has already gone halfway to deal with them. Please proceed there at once, sir."
Upon hearing that Li Xuanxuan had been intercepted by these men, Li Cheng's expression finally changed. The young man's ocular technique carried an ancient air; his pupils were dark as polished lacquer, purple light welling beneath them as he commanded in a low voice, "Go!"
Muffled thunder cracked beneath his feet, his figure blurring into a shuttle of purple light as he shot toward the islet.
From far away, he heard a shrill voice ringing out, amplified by spiritual power: "Old sir, just how old are you, still toiling over household affairs at your age!"
Li Cheng immediately looked ahead and saw An Siwei, clad in white, standing resolute. The spear from his back was already held in his hands, locked in a standoff with the young Daoist before him.
Li Xuanxuan stood behind An Siwei with furrowed brows, his aged face tinged with unease.
Fury flared in Li Cheng's heart. He swept down like a bolt of lightning, landing right amid the clamoring crowd of cultivators. Six tokens swirled around him, knocking several people a step back, while he slammed the spear in his other hand hard into the ground with a booming thud.
"You..." The young man's face shifted. He waved his sleeve to dispel the force, his face sour as he muttered, "Oh... so it is Fellow Daoist Cheng!"
Though the man looked youthful and his voice sounded strong, his aura reeked of the setting sun. Li Cheng could tell at a glance that he had merely touched up his appearance; in truth, he was an old relic well over a hundred years old, who had only managed to stumble into a breakthrough by sheer luck thanks to the shifts in spiritual essence in Daxu.
Li Cheng said coldly, "Greetings, Fellow Daoist!"
He thought to himself, *Floating Cloud Cave is not without high-level cultivators. This fellow is purely a pawn sent to test the waters!*
Mount Xiaoshi's Mifan Three Sects were newer sects that had risen north of the river, situated directly on the opposite bank. All three traced their lineage to Mount Xiaoshi, closely allied with one another, and with Tangjin Sect backing them, their strength was quite respectable.
These three were typical northern sects, lacking any fixed orthodoxy and under no obligation to abide by the immortal laws of the Three Sects and Seven Gates. Cultivators among them pursued Daoism, demonic arts, or Buddhism as they pleased, a mixed and unruly bag. Over the past decade, they had clashed with the Li family more than once.
Though Li Cheng did not recognize this man, the man recognized him. A few years ago, Li Cheng had guarded the northern bank; with his thunder arts and the *Six Thunder Xuan Punishment Tokens*, he had beaten several demonic-cultivating brothers out of their wits. The Three Sects had been so shaken that they were forced to swap in Buddhist cultivators to deal with him.
"Fellow Daoist Cheng... your cultivation has improved again! I am Zai Xingzi. Greetings, Fellow Daoist!"
Perhaps knowing he was no match for Li Cheng, and being on another clan's turf, Zai Xingzi maintained a polite facade. Offering a hollow, insincere greeting, he chuckled, "I merely saw this senior and asked a quiet question, nothing more."
How could Li Cheng fail to hear the mockery in his earlier words? He said coldly, "What brings you here, Fellow Daoist?"
Zai Xingzi smiled. "My Sect Master saw the colorful clouds rising over Lake Wangyue and the daylight breaking at midnight. He presumed Senior Ximing must have broken through to the Violet Palace, so we have come to offer our congratulations! Might I ask where Senior is?"
Li Cheng fixed him with a penetrating gaze and said coldly, "What does our clan elder's affair have to do with your Mifan Three Sects? Please return wherever you came from!"
Zai Xingzi frowned. "Fellow Daoist is terribly inhospitable. I came to offer congratulations... yet we cannot even catch a glimpse of him... nor has the True Person proclaimed his breakthrough to the clans and sects..."
He chuckled under his breath, answering his own question: "It seems a breakthrough failure... also brings forth a celestial anomaly of its own... Could it be that your clan's elder..."
The Mifan Three Sects were, after all, on hostile terms with the Li family, so Zai Xingzi refused to step into the grand formation, hovering safely in the air outside it. His voice was resonant, reinforced with spiritual power, echoing continuously across the lake.
Li Cheng's brow slowly knit together.
The Li clan's celestial anomaly was known to everyone in the clan and across the lake. The various prominent families had all guessed it was Li Ximing, yet none knew the exact truth. With the clan keeping silent, everyone had already been staring at the anomaly and making wild guesses.
Now that Zai Xingzi had spoken, the other families were no fools and could piece together the likelihood. An Siwei and the others stiffened slightly.
Zai Xingzi sneered, "Your clan's elder failed his breakthrough in a mere dozen years—it seems he was truly far too hasty! Fellow Daoist Cheng, you know as well as I... since when could a breakthrough to the Violet Palace be accomplished in a mere dozen-odd years!"
Li Cheng held his tokens and stood motionless.
Something had just happened to his own family, and Zai Xingzi rushed up so boldly—Li Cheng immediately understood much of what lay behind this, and his face darkened.
*Floating Cloud Cave has shallow roots and could never identify the origin of the anomaly on their own, let alone come to question us with such certainty. Entangled as they are with Tangjin Sect, there is no need to guess—it is that Situ Mo again...*
For him to speak so convincingly was far beyond what the Mifan Three Sects could grasp; Situ Mo had certainly coached them from behind the scenes. The Li family had been plotted against by that man multiple times in earlier years, and Li Cheng had long experienced his insidious nature. He could only exhale a quiet breath.
He said softly, "The purple flames on our Mount Wu have not yet subsided, and our elder has not yet emerged from seclusion... If Fellow Daoist Zai Xingzi continues to make trouble here, do not blame my thunder art for showing no mercy!"
Li Cheng gave him no time for further nonsense, cutting off his words in one breath. The tokens in his hand already surged with purple light, but Zai Xingzi merely chuckled.
*We already know Li Zhouwei went out to subjugate demons! What are you putting on airs for? Where else would that fellow dare go besides the Eastern Sea... With that white lin away, how would your Li family dare initiate conflict now?*
Having chuckled, Zai Xingzi quickly feigned alarm and said in a low voice, "Fellow Daoist, do not be angry! I was merely expressing concern. So your clan elder has already broken through to the Violet Palace and is in seclusion recuperating... My Sect Master prepared a gift long ago for me to present. Surely your noble clan will not drive me away!"
As he spoke, his eyes swept across the crowd and locked onto Chen Yang behind Li Cheng. He found the man's gaze chillingly ferocious, like a boning knife—ice-cold and venomous—staring straight back into his eyes.
Zai Xingzi had not expected a mere Qi Refinement junior to dare look at him like that. Taken aback, his prepared movements paused slightly as he took note of the man, thinking to himself, *What a vicious glare. I wonder which Li family junior he is; I will have to find an opportunity to kill him early on.*
Li Cheng, hearing the thinly veiled sarcasm in his words, felt a chill in his heart:
*It seems the various sects are quite certain... that Clan Uncle Ximing has failed his breakthrough... They have come prepared. Even if we turn them away this time... we may not be able to stop them next time.*
In truth, the Li clan members knew that achieving the Violet Palace within this time frame was practically impossible, and that hope was slim. Yet the jade talisman in the ancestral shrine still glowed, leaving a shred of hope lingering in their hearts.
However, over a decade had passed without the talisman receiving regular nourishment, so it was no longer truly reliable.
*Even though the Patriarch secretly laid plans, who could have anticipated running into this celestial anomaly...*
The thought flashed through Li Cheng's mind as Zai Xingzi presented the jade box, clasping his hands together with exaggerated courtesy while lifting his eyes to look at him with cold mockery.
All eyes gathered on the jade box. Suppressing his anger, Li Cheng looked at it; the box had a fine exterior, though there was no telling what lay inside.
*To accept it? Or not?*
After merely a slight hesitation, Li Cheng's expression returned to calm, and he prepared to reach out and take it.
*I can only play along for now!*
Just as he extended his hand, however, he realized that a warm, faintly glowing hand had beaten him to it, casually picking up the jade box. The hand turned it over into its palm and held it up against the sunlight for a closer look.
*Hm?*
Not only was Li Cheng caught off guard, but even Zai Xingzi was momentarily dumbfounded. Across the expanse of the great lake, silence fell. Everyone stared blankly up toward the sky.
Between the two of them, a man clad in a white-gold Daoist robe had abruptly appeared at some unknown moment. His features were not strikingly handsome, yet they were exceptionally dignified. His pale golden eyes were fixed on the jade box, and between his brows, a blinding point of daylight shone with resplendent majesty.
It was Zai Xingzi's first time visiting the Li clan, and he had never laid eyes on this man. Seeing only that the daylight between his brows was so bright he could barely keep his eyes open, he instantly had a flash of understanding and sneered inwardly:
*Li Zhouwei? So he never left after all... But so what?*
Before he could react and speak, a slightly trembling, excited voice rang out beside his ear:
"Clan Uncle!"
*Clan uncle? That's the wrong generation!*
Zai Xingzi's mind instantly threw itself into chaos. He stared dumbly at the man's face, only to see the man's gaze look past the jade box, his pale golden pupils calmly settling upon Zai Xingzi's face.
"Now that this True Person has forged a divine ability, your sect brings *this* to congratulate me? A Qi Refinement spiritual object?"
Zai Xingzi's gaze went vacant. He vaguely heard the old man behind Li Cheng burst into tears with a wail, but after only half a sob, the wail turned into laughter. The wild ecstasy on Li Cheng's face rapidly magnified in Zai Xingzi's pupils.
*Ah?!*
*Li... Xi... ming?! A True Person?!*
Lake Wangyue was dead silent, save for the old man's loud laughter. Zai Xingzi felt utter turmoil in his mind. Before his eyes, a brilliant beam of daylight pierced directly into his pupils, flying straight into his brain.
The layer of skin on Zai Xingzi's face was swept away as if by a violent gale, vanishing in an instant to reveal his aged, deeply wrinkled face. The utter horror in his eyes vanished as well; his pupils trembled violently, and both eyeballs scrambled out of their sockets, transforming into two large brown cicadas that fluttered their wings and flew away.
Eyeless, the old man looked terrifying beyond measure. His two arms shattered like porcelain, showering down like rain. The sun in the sky seemed like some dreadful magical artifact, turning his entire body limp, his flesh sloughing off like overboiled noodles.
His heart leaped from his chest like an untamed steed, dragging with it a stomach that resembled a giant scorpion and a long trailing tail of intestines.
Yet all of this seemed to be mere illusion in an instant—everything on Zai Xingzi restored itself to its original appearance. His lips quivered twice, and with a *bang*, he exploded on the spot into flying rocks!
Li Ximing then turned his face back.
Zai Xingzi cultivated Earth virtue, yet the hail of shattered stone clattering down had already turned into Mingfang stones. Falling like rain, they splashed into the lake, while Li Ximing stood serenely amidst the snow-white hail.
In the next instant, the knees of the entire entourage Zai Xingzi had brought buckled. More than a few fainted from terror, splashing into the lake with heavy plops. The Li clan cultivators scrambled to fish them out, slapping them awake with spiritual power and forcing their heads up to keep looking at the sky.
The purple flames on Mount Wu thickened abruptly. A radiant shaft of daylight shot straight into the firmament, swiftly merging with the colorful clouds above and transmuting them into dazzling, blinding masses of brilliance. Daylight inundated all of Lake Wangyue, mirrored upon the glass surface of the water until heaven and earth alike were bathed in stark, brilliant white.
Li Ximing did not open his mouth, yet a vast acoustic wave rippled through the air, surging into the Great Void and extending to every corner of the State of Yue:
"Li Ximing of the Wangyue Li clan, Daoist title Zhaojing, has on this day attained the Mingyang divine ability! Proclaiming our house a Violet Palace immortal clan, we shall establish rites and offer sacrifices three months hence. All fellow Daoists are welcome to attend and observe!"
The voice was bright, clear, and harmonious, carried in all directions by the power of his divine ability. Li Ximing hovered over the lake atop his divine power as flecks of golden radiance emerged from the colorful clouds.
*Hum...*
A bright white Heavenly Gate, intricately carved with ornate patterns, rose high from the iridescent clouds. Majestic dragon banners and luan carriages, brilliantly colored, shuttled through it; precious tally-staffs and pennants fluttered in the wind, accompanied by figures in golden armor and gilded robes bearing weapons, filling the heavens as they advanced.
Immortal music and arcane chants resonated in unison. As the Heavenly Gate descended bit by bit from the horizon, nearly all cultivators lost hold of their supporting winds, descending to the ground to halt and gaze in awe.
*The Mingyang divine ability—'Audience at the Heavenly Gate'!*
Only now did Li Ximing understand what an art-based divine ability was! His own body possessed merely purple flame and daylight, yet his divine ability was fully manifested within this stupendous 'Audience at the Heavenly Gate'! And the Wei Li had been an imperial clan; this divine ability's grand display was truly awe-inspiring...
He stood serenely amidst the daylight and immortal music. Many figures had long been standing within the Great Void, and now they manifested one by one. Li Ximing nodded with a faint smile, listening to the various voices that rang out.
An immortal mountain enshrouded in dark mist was the first to reveal its form, and a deep, resonant voice resonated: "Congratulations to our young friend on breaking through to the Violet Palace. Changxi offers congratulations on behalf of Xuanyue, wishing you great mastery of your divine ability and the forging of a Golden Core within a hundred years!"
Li Ximing lifted his eyes to look. Sure enough, standing upon the immortal mountain was a middle-aged man wearing jade upon his chest; in the blink of an eye, the man took on the appearance of a white-haired elder—truly mystical.
"Senior is too kind!" Li Ximing responded.
He returned the courtesy to this senior. To the south, a simple wisp of cloud drifted into view, where an elder with a stern countenance stood within the mist. The gaze he cast over was filled with astonishment, and even a touch of complexity:
"I am Si Boxiu of Qingchi... Seeing our young friend break through to the Violet Palace, this old man offers congratulations on behalf of Qingchi. We bestow the Great Lake as our congratulatory gift, wishing Fellow Daoist mastery over the Five Arts and ascension to the Fruit Position!"
Chapter 688