Prison Peak was the place where the Dao Seeking Sect specifically detained criminals, the majority of whom were wicked ancient cultivators.
Beneath Prison Peak, cages partitioned the area into small cubicles. Held inside were all ancient Body Integration stage cultivators; once mighty figures who had commanded wind and cloud in ancient times, they were now reduced to prisoners, their very last ounce of value being squeezed dry.
The imperial court and the other four immortal sects maintained similar places to keep these ancient cultivators from wreaking havoc.
Inside the cages, listless soul bodies leaned against the walls, their eyes vacant.
Sensing someone's arrival, their eyes lit up one by one, twisting into vicious expressions to terrify the visitor—the only scrap of amusement left to them here.
Yet the moment they saw that the newcomer was Yun Zhi, their complexions turned pale with horror. They scrambled into corners, holding their breath and trembling violently, shrinking their presence as much as possible for fear of catching Yun Zhi's notice.
Many cages on Prison Peak stood empty, their upper right corners labeled: True Monarch Po Huang, True Monarch Mount Tai, Mad Demon Xuan Ling, Perfected Being Gui Ji... In ancient times, the mere mention of these names had been enough to make faces drain of color and limbs shake like sieves.
Yet now, every one of them had been incorporated into dharma treasures by Yun Zhi and refined into artifact spirits.
If they displeased Yun Zhi, they would be next in line for that miserable fate.
Yun Zhi lifted the seal on Venerable Calamity. Looking around, he quickly realized this place was built specifically for imprisoning people like them.
He felt a faint pang of shock. No wonder certain figures who should have revived could not be reached when he searched for them; they had been locked up right here.
*This Great Xia is far harder to deal with than expected...*
Suddenly, he noticed an adjacent cage. In the upper right corner was written: Blood Demon Venerable.
Blood Demon Venerable had seen portraits of Venerable Calamity and immediately recognized this great cultivator who had preceded him by tens of thousands of years.
Venerable Calamity roared, "Blood Demon! You opportunist piece of trash! You were only at early Tribulation Transcendence, yet you had the audacity to call yourself Imperial Preceptor!"
Both were at early Tribulation Transcendence, yet he had merely been a subordinate to the Imperial Preceptor, while Blood Demon had managed to become the Imperial Preceptor himself. The disparity was infuriatingly vast.
He had looked into the history of Great Yu following his slumber and knew of Blood Demon Venerable's existence.
For his own selfish gain, Blood Demon Venerable had propped up a useless puppet as Emperor Yu. Holding the emperor hostage to issue decrees, Blood Demon had plundered countless fortunes. To pander to the prominent clans of the day, he had enacted various measures that expanded their power—an act that directly accelerated the downfall of Great Yu.
Great Yu collapsed, chaos engulfed the realm, and the noble clans gained the strength to contend for supremacy over the world—and Blood Demon Venerable was the root cause of it all.
He would never acknowledge trash like this as an Imperial Preceptor!
Blood Demon was not intimidated in the least, letting him roar as a cold sneer tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Senior Calamity, that's crossing the line. The seat of Imperial Preceptor was sitting right there. If I hadn't taken it, someone else would have. How can you call that mere luck?"
"If the Lord Imperial Preceptor learns you're here, he will certainly kill you!"
"Then I'll just wait for him."
"Little Yun, brought in another one?" A childish voice echoed across Prison Peak as a white-haired child sized up Venerable Calamity from head to toe.
Venerable Calamity gave a start; he had not sensed how the other party appeared at all.
"A damaged soul, burnt lifespan... Quite ruthless to himself, isn't he? He was once at Tribulation Transcendence?"
"Yes. A Tribulation Transcendence cultivator from the early Great Yu era, Venerable Calamity," Yun Zhi answered.
The white-haired child nodded in sudden realization. "Oho, so it's him. Quite a famous figure."
"In less than half a year, two Tribulation Transcendence cultivators captured. Looks like some people just can't keep their patience."
Yun Zhi hesitated for a rare moment, feeling a bit awkward to speak the truth.
Before this, they had never captured a single Tribulation Transcendence cultivator, and now two had been caught within half a year. That was not necessarily because certain people were growing impatient, but rather a matter of luck.
The clues for the first had come from Buyi Town, and the second was someone Lu Yang had bumped into directly.
The sole common denominator in both cases was that Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou were present.
Considering that Lu Yang had also revived the Immortal Fairy, it was hard to say whether people lurking in the dark truly could not hold back, or if Lu Yang simply possessed a bizarre affinity for high-level cultivators.
"Grandmaster, I shall employ a few methods on him first."
"Go on, go on. Hopefully we'll get something useful this time," the white-haired child said with a chuckle, thoroughly pleased with this brilliant junior.
Blood Demon Venerable had been active far too late in history, so they had extracted practically no useful intelligence from him. Venerable Calamity was different; as a cultivator from the early Great Yu period who was active during the reign of the second Imperial Preceptor, he was bound to know a great deal.
"Though Eldest and the other eight are complete embarrassments who cause me nothing but headaches, the Ninth at least took in a fine disciple." The white-haired child's voice faded in and out before disappearing completely.
In its place came the agonized shrieks of Venerable Calamity.
"You haven't even asked any questions yet! Why start by beating me?!"
...
When Lu Yang went to Hundred Refinements Peak, he happened to see Li Haoran enjoying familial bliss halfway up the mountain with his former daughter, Qin Yanyan.
Qin Yanyan was still at late Foundation Establishment, seemingly yet to figure out how to form her core.
Li Haoran greeted him warmly, "Senior Brother Lu, you're back? A few days ago Senior Brother Meng invited me to some Grand Qingzhou Festival, but I had things to attend to and couldn't get away. Did you go to the festival?"
"I sure did! Junior Brother Li, you missed out big time. The Grand Qingzhou Festival was bustling. I managed to score a flying sword once used by an immortal from a street stall—though unfortunately it was broken, damaged by two half-immortal level supreme experts."
Li Haoran and Qin Yanyan sucked in a breath of cold air. From that brief description, it was all too easy to imagine just how tragic and brutal that battle must have been.
"Later on, Old Meng and I even took part in the young generation's tournament. The two of us stepped up in person to point out the flaws in their cultivation, making them clearly see the gap between them and us. In particular, first and second place were moved to tears of gratitude, swearing to redouble their efforts and cultivate diligently once they went home."
"Guiding their cultivation, huh..." Li Haoran imagined sitting in the judges' seats, pointing out flaws in other people's cultivation. Just the thought of it felt deeply satisfying.
"Cultivators from the Moon Laurel Immortal Palace, Five Elements Sect, and Prison Suppressing Sect also took part in the tournament, but their performance on the judges' panel was quite ordinary—nowhere near as prominent as Old Meng and me."
"Old Meng and I were offered handsome rewards for guiding others, but we showed noble integrity and turned them down."
"Unfortunately, halfway through the grand event, ancient cultivators attacked: two Body Integration cultivators and one Tribulation Transcendence cultivator. The Tribulation Transcendence one had vast divine powers; the moment he appeared was utterly despair-inducing. We all thought we were dead meat. Luckily, Eldest Senior Sister rushed over to save the day, and that's how we survived."
Li Haoran listened with immense envy. An immortal's flying sword, dispensing cultivation guidance, Eldest Senior Sister battling an ancient Tribulation Transcendence expert... every single story sounded so thrilling.
Unfortunately, he had to help Qin Yanyan form her core, so he had not been able to go.
"Did Senior Brother Lu come to my Hundred Refinements Peak for something?"
"I'm here to see the Fifth Elder. Is he around?"
Lu Yang had not forgotten the patent royalties for his flying car.
Li Haoran pointed toward the mist-shrouded mountain peak. "Look, he's right at the summit. Senior Sister Tao went up to see Master earlier too; not sure what it's about."
"I'll take my leave first, then. Farewell."
Qin Yanyan had just snapped back from the shocking scenes Lu Yang described. She turned her head and asked her former father, "Does he run into this much trouble every time he goes out? An ancient Tribulation Transcendence cultivator this time, and the Nine Nether Cult last time?"
"That's barely the half of it. You have no idea—Senior Brother Lu has a trouble-magnet constitution. Before the Nine Nether Cult, he even crossed paths with the Immortal Cult, and all that started just from going out to deal with a tiger demon at Foundation Establishment."
Chapter 374