True Monarch Ma

The moment Old Horse saw Lu Yang, he sobered up halfway. Even though Lu Yang was in disguise, Old Horse hadn't met him yesterday; on which of Lu Yang's disguise outings had Old Horse not tagged along? Old Horse shifted his gaze and caught sight of the four people beside Lu Yang, and his drunkenness vanished entirely. Wait, why on earth are you five here? Do you have any idea how far this place is from where I dropped you off? At the speed of you five, it would take three full days of flying at full throttle to reach here! Did you head straight for my home the second I dropped you off? Although the Dragon Horse Clan couldn't compare to the ten great races like the Kunpeng Clan and the Black Tortoise Clan, they still held considerable standing in the East Sea. By the sect rankings of Great Xia, they qualified as a first-rank sect. And with Old Horse's return, the Dragon Horse Clan's standing among the Sea Race rose another notch. With his cultivation over these years, Old Horse had become the Dragon Horse Clan's undisputed top expert; not even the clan leader or Supreme Elders were a match for him. Returning home in glory, Old Horse naturally wanted to flaunt it lavishly. To that end, he had deliberately dropped Meng Jingzhou and the others off at the border of the East Sea, figuring that with their abilities, asking for directions, finding a map, and everything in between, it would take them at least ten days or so to reach the depths of the East Sea. And that wasn't even factoring in any trouble they might stir up along the way. If something happened en route, they wouldn't arrive even in half a month. Who could have thought? They had agreed to meet after two months, yet barely three days had passed, and they were already running into each other—and in such an awkward setting, no less. "Fellow Daoist, offer a toast to True Monarch Ma!" Seeing Lu Yang standing there dazed, the Three Heroes of Fangshan Island hurriedly sent him a voice transmission to remind him. Never mind that this True Monarch Ma of the Dragon Horse Clan seemed affable; he was at the Body Integration stage after all. If he took offense, any casual flick of his sleeve would be more than a Nascent Soul cultivator could bear. "True Monarch Ma, I toast to you," Lu Yang said respectfully. As Yun Zhi's junior brother, Second-in-Command of the Immortal Lineage, Young Cult Master of the Heavenly Court Cult, and senior brother to the Phoenix Ancestor, he had not an ounce of pretension. Approachable and affable, he treated his elders with the utmost courtesy. "True Monarch Ma, we toast to you!" Meng Jingzhou and the other three chimed in to join the fun, struggling to suppress their laughter. "True Monarch Ma, do you know these five?" Old Horse's follower, the Dragon Horse clansman who had earlier played the hype man, asked shrewdly, having noticed the peculiar atmosphere between Old Horse and Lu Yang's group. "We do, of course we do. We had the honor of meeting True Monarch Ma back at the Dao Seeking Sect," Lu Yang said with a hearty laugh. "Ah, right, I know them. They hail from Great Xia's... Where in Great Xia do you hail from right now?" "The Five Elements Sect." "Right! They are paragons from the Five Elements Sect, remarkably extraordinary. True pillars of talent, destined for great things!" Guessing that Lu Yang and the others wouldn't dare reveal their true identities, Old Horse showered them with praise without restraint. "The Five Elements Sect, one of the Five Great Immortal Sects?" someone gasped. That was an extraordinary background indeed—no wonder the Forefather placed such high regard on these five. Many Sea Race members were even considering marrying off younger kin to them as an investment. One virtue of the Sea Race was their extraordinary fecundity; even if an investment fell through, it cost them little, but if it succeeded, the dividends would be enormous. Meng Jingzhou nodded vigorously. "True Monarch Ma enjoys an illustrious reputation in Great Xia. In recent years, several battles involving Tribulation Transcendence cultivators and half-immortals broke out in Great Xia, and True Monarch Ma was present for every one of them. In those clashes, he advanced and retreated at will, emerging completely unscathed with consummate skill! Even those Tribulation Transcendence experts address him respectfully with 'Old'!" "The Dao Seeking Sect regulates entry and exit strictly, but True Monarch Ma is an exception—he enters and leaves the Dao Seeking Sect at will, and no one dares block him." The crowd marveled. With the testimony of disciples from a Great Xia immortal sect, it further demonstrated how thriving and prominent True Monarch Ma's life in Great Xia truly was. ... After the banquet ended, True Monarch Ma secretly sought out Lu Yang and the others via voice transmission, directing them to a side hall of the palace. "How did you end up here?" Old Horse had a bizarre expression; he had held back that question for the entire banquet. Lu Yang wore an innocent look. "Isn't this our first time in the East Sea? We're unfamiliar with the area, so we thought we'd find a place with plenty of high-level cultivators to buy a map. It just so happened we ended up here." "It really is pure coincidence," Lu Yang emphasized repeatedly that today's meeting was an accident. Old Horse: "..." If he had known, he wouldn't have left in such a hurry. If he had just left them a map, none of this would have happened today. "Wait here. I'll go find you a map." With a sullen face, Old Horse went off. He hadn't returned to the East Sea in over a century, so he didn't have a map ready at hand either. Before long, Old Horse returned holding five jade slips in his mouth. Inside the jade slips was the most detailed map he could procure on short notice. The five probed the jade slips with their divine sense and finally beheld the full scope of the East Sea. Sure enough, it was far more detailed than the ten-spirit-stone maps sold by the Treasure Gathering Pavilion. Whether it was the ten great races of the East Sea, human islands, or negligible Sea Race tribes, everything was accounted for. Having sent Lu Yang and the others off, Old Horse's mood brightened considerably. With Lu Yang and the others around during this banquet, he hadn't been able to cast aside all shame and truly let loose. "Maybe I should find another excuse to throw another banquet? But what excuse should I use..." The Sea Race loved throwing banquets—a tradition passed down from the Dragon Clan since ancient times. ... "Back in ancient times, we often held banquets too," the Immortal Fairy remarked, inspired by witnessing the Dragon Horse Clan's feast. "Especially Zhu Tian—he sang and danced, making it so lively." Upon entering the East Sea, Lu Yang's spiritual space had once again been altered beyond recognition by the Immortal Fairy. Filled to the brim with seawater, the spiritual space now saw the Immortal Fairy transformed into the form of a jiaoren—human torso and fish tail—swimming leisurely back and forth through the water in utter bliss. There was even a water bed floating on the sea surface; when the Immortal Fairy grew tired of playing, she could lie down on the bed and sleep—extraordinarily convenient. Lu Yang felt as though a slight tilt of his head would produce the sound of sloshing seawater. "Second-in-Command, cultivate diligently. The current spiritual space is still not big enough," the Immortal Fairy earnestly lectured, urging Lu Yang not to let negligence or indolence take root. "Yes, yes, yes. I will definitely cultivate hard to make room for an even bigger playground for you, Fairy." "A pity this is too far from the Demon Domain. Otherwise, we could call Zhu Tian over and host a banquet in the East Sea." The banquet the Immortal Fairy spoke of was the legendary banquet of immortals—grand and magnificent, on a scale that the Dragon Horse Clan could never hope to match. Lu Yang thought to himself, *Zhu Tian is the ruler of a demon nation after all, Fairy; couldn't you spare him a little dignity?* Lu Yang recalled Zhu Tian calling him "Big Brother" with every breath and shoving four imperial chairs into his hands before parting. His attitude had been exceedingly sincere. "Fellow Daoists, do you have a destination in mind in the East Sea? If you don't mind, why not come to Fangshan Island for a visit?" the Three Heroes of Fangshan Island invited the five. It was rare for them to encounter cultivators from Great Xia, especially from a top-tier powerhouse like the Five Elements Sect, so they naturally wanted to seize this chance to make connections. "Sounds good." Meng Jingzhou readily agreed. Since they had nothing else to do anyway, checking out Fangshan Island wouldn't hurt.