Lu Yang was somewhat surprised. He hadn't expected the Moon Laurel Immortal Palace, a place entirely composed of female cultivators, to have a dedicated Artifact Crafting Chamber. Normally, very few female cultivators were willing to forge artifacts.
After all, while female cultivators pursued higher cultivation, they also pursued elegance and beauty. For instance, Lu Yang had never seen a female cultivator swing a massive sledgehammer like Man Gu, nor had he ever seen one whose body could split apart into pieces like Li Haoran.
"Does Senior Brother Lu Yang find it strange that we female cultivators forge artifacts?" Lan Ting noticed the odd look in Lu Yang's eyes and roughly guessed what he was thinking.
"No, not at all," Lu Yang laughed awkwardly.
"It's not strange to think that way. Very few female cultivators out in the wider world become artifact refiners indeed. It's just that our Immortal Palace is a bit special."
"Special?"
"We have moon laurel trees."
Seeing that Lu Yang still looked utterly bewildered, Lan Ting led him to a small grove. The grove was filled entirely with moon laurel trees, which could fetch astronomical prices if sold out in the wider world.
Before they even stepped into the moon laurel grove, Lu Yang heard dull thuds, sounding like heavy objects colliding.
Then he saw many disciples of the Immortal Palace swinging axes at the moon laurel trees, gasping for breath and drenched in sweat. It was hard to imagine that out in the world, they all maintained the image of ethereal fairies who didn't eat mortal food.
Lu Yang noticed that whenever an Immortal Palace disciple chopped into a moon laurel tree, a notch would appear, only to heal rapidly right after, as though the notch had never existed at all. The disciples had to keep chopping, over and over, unable to stop.
"This is...?"
"This is a tradition passed down by our founder, Master Zhuiyue. Legend has it that in ancient times, the ancient immortal, Immortal Ying Tian, often chopped moon laurel trees with an axe for unknown reasons. Master Zhuiyue believed every action of an ancient immortal carried profound meaning, and that this was bound to be some method of cultivation, so she advocated chopping moon laurel trees with axes to cultivate."
"These moon laurel trees can certainly take a beating. If you can't fell one in a single strike, the notch heals immediately."
Lan Ting smiled sheepishly. "Since we already swing axes to chop moon laurel trees, swinging hammers for artifact forging doesn't seem like such crude behavior in our eyes.
"As for needing great strength to swing hammers during artifact forging, we built all of that up while chopping moon laurel trees."
Just as Lu Yang was about to nod, it suddenly struck him: if chopping moon laurel trees was a tradition of the Moon Laurel Immortal Palace, didn't that mean Lan Ting had chopped them too?
If Lan Ting also chopped trees, was it really reasonable for her to fight all day using fluttering ribbons from her skirt?
"Senior Sister Lan Ting, Senior Brother Lu Yang!"
The disciples swinging their axes with all their might brightened up at the sight of Lan Ting and Lu Yang walking together. Putting down their axes, they started toward Lu Yang.
Yet when they drew near, they hesitated to step any closer.
They had been chopping moon laurel trees for so long that they were covered in sweat; wouldn't it be terribly ill-mannered to approach Lu Yang like this?
By the time they realized they could just use the Body-Cleansing Incantation, Lan Ting had already pulled Lu Yang away. The two walked deep into the moon laurel grove, stopping only when they reached a moon laurel tree towering high into the clouds.
Lu Yang looked up. He couldn't see the top of the tree in a single glance and felt as small as a speck of dust standing at its foot.
"This is the Moon Laurel Tree Ancestor. It existed before our Immortal Palace was even founded. All the moon laurel trees on the Great Snow Mountain are the Tree Ancestor's descendants.
"According to the research of our founding predecessors, the Tree Ancestor is highly likely to be a moon laurel tree from ancient times, of immense age."
"Fairy, can you tell how old this tree is?"
Inside the spiritual space, the Immortal Fairy was earnestly building snowmen. Two snowmen stood side by side, with carrots stuck into their faces for noses and tree branches for hands. Names were written on them: the one on the left was Huang Doudou, and the one on the right was Lu Yang.
Hearing Lu Yang call her, she finally spared a sliver of attention to look outside.
"What a tall moon laurel tree!" Even the Immortal Fairy was seeing such a colossal moon laurel tree for the first time.
"This Immortal once saw a two-hundred-thousand-year-old moon laurel tree on the moon, and even that one wasn't as tall as this. This tree has definitely lived for over two hundred thousand years. As for its exact age, you'd either have to fell the tree and count the rings, or have Immortal Suiyue come over and ask the tree directly."
Obviously, neither method was feasible.
"However, it really could be a moon laurel tree from ancient times."
"How so?"
"Back then, didn't this Immortal need firewood for cooking and send Immortal Ying Tian to chop it? This Immortal specifically instructed him that we must take responsibility for our actions: if he chopped down a moon laurel tree, he shouldn't forget to plant another.
"Maybe this is one of the many moon laurel trees Immortal Ying Tian planted back then.
"With Immortal Ying Tian's blessing, that's probably the only way it managed to survive until now."
The Immortal Fairy's advanced concept of environmental protection left Lu Yang deeply shaken.
As far as Lu Yang knew, no tree had ever lived for two hundred thousand years. Even if the Moon Laurel Tree Ancestor before him hadn't been planted in ancient times, it still had to be the most ancient of trees, truly worthy of its title as Tree Ancestor.
Leaving the moon laurel grove and arriving at the other side, there was a large courtyard. Lu Yang saw many disciples of the Immortal Palace cultivating diligently inside: thrusting their bare hands repeatedly into scalding iron sand, smashing boulders of unknown stone with a single elbow strike, running while carrying miniature mountains on their backs...
Lu Yang found this scene extraordinarily familiar. This was exactly how Old Meng cultivated his Body Tempering!
"What are they doing?"
"Body Tempering," Lan Ting said seriously.
"Huh?"
Lu Yang felt that the Moon Laurel Immortal Palace's cultivation methods were truly completely different from female cultivators in the outside world. Even the disciples of the Charm Sect, a super-rank sect, wouldn't swing axes and practice Body Tempering at the same time.
"This also has historical roots.
"It happened about a thousand years after the Immortal Palace was founded. Great Xia was recuperating from war, the empire was at peace, and the people lived and worked in contentment. Ancestor Zhuiyue went down the mountain to travel.
"Later, at a bookstall, she inadvertently came across several rather indecent books. Although the plots differed, they all shared one thing in common: in every book, a fairy went down the mountain to train, inadvertently fell victim to an aphrodisiac poison, and the male lead had no choice but to detoxify her, thus making the fairy one of the story's female leads and beginning a tangle of love, hate, and romance with the male lead.
"At the start, the male lead was a nobody, but as the story progressed, he grew stronger step by step until he was worthy of the fairy.
"Ancestor Zhuiyue felt that even though they were stories, the premise wasn't without merit and could actually happen.
"Upon her return, she added another aspect to our training: Body Tempering. All disciples had to temper their bodies.
"With Body Tempering, one's constitution strengthens, drastically weakening the reaction to aphrodisiac poison and buying more time to find an antidote, so one wouldn't give her body away so casually.
"Facts have also proven that Ancestor Zhuiyue's decision was correct. Over the past hundred thousand years, quite a few seniors went down the mountain and fell victim to aphrodisiac poisons. Had they not practiced Body Tempering, they likely would have ended up in bed with some wild man of unknown origin.
"At the same time, Ancestor Zhuiyue took into account that stories often feature the male and female leads falling in love, only for the female lead's sect to oppose it and create obstacles, leading the male lead to achieve success and return to slap the sect's face. So she established a rule: if a disciple of our sect falls in love with a man, our sect must not interfere."
Lu Yang: "..."
Your founder really thought of everything.
Chapter 1013