Chapter 187: Moonlight Mountain (Please Subscribe)
Chapter 187: Moonlight Mountain (Please Subscribe)
Months later.
White Peace Immortal City gradually regained its usual bustling liveliness.
For cultivators, death was the norm. As long as White Peace Immortal City continued to produce Foundation Establishment Pills, more rogue cultivators would soon pour in from the Three Nations, forming the lowest stratum of White Peace Immortal City.
And White Peak Mountain had not broken its promise. The grand rewards, which began after the war, brought smiles to the faces of every cultivator who had survived the battles.
Amidst this jubilation, there was only one small, unexpected factor.
Namely, that group of cultivators who had originally bet against White Peace Immortal City, abandoned too many assets, and then used various means to try and escape.
Now, they were all lamenting their misfortunes, regretting their past decisions.
Peach Blossom Pavilion.
Jin Ling returned from the outer gates, her face clouded with ill humor.
“Is it that Dongmen Ying? ”
Wei Yi Xi also showed a look of disgust.
Back then, this Dongmen Ying had come to peddle his shop, and Fang Xi and Ruan Xing Ling had genuinely used their battle merits to purchase it.
After that, it was said that this person borrowed a considerable amount of external debt and finally gathered ten thousand battle merits to exchange for a Foundation Establishment Pill.
However, things went awry afterwards.
White Peace Immortal City still stood, not destroyed by the beast tide!
Furthermore, Dongmen Ying consumed the Foundation Establishment Pill, entered seclusion for three months, but still failed to establish his Foundation!
As a result, he was nearly driven to death by his own Dongmen family members!
Having nowhere else to turn, this person could only come to Peach Blossom Pavilion, kneeling and pleading, hoping Fang Xi and Ruan Xing Ling would return the shop to him.
After all, when they purchased it, Fang Xi had made Dongmen Ying go to White Peak Mountain to complete the transfer, and now that Pill and Artifact Pavilion truly had no connection to him whatsoever.
“So that’s how it is. . . ”
Fang Xi, who had just emerged from his seclusion, found it amusing upon hearing this, and stepped out of Peach Blossom Pavilion.
He saw Dongmen Ying, whose hair had turned completely gray, kneeling by the roadside.
Seeing Fang Xi emerge, he immediately kowtowed repeatedly: “Senior cultivator. . . I beg Senior cultivator to have mercy and return our ancestral property to the Dongmen clan. . . ”
“Hmm, Foundation Establishment failed, both vital energy and blood qi severely depleted, even his cultivation has fallen back to mid-stage Qi Refinement. . . ”
The Foundation Establishment Pill could only guarantee that one wouldn't die from a failed Foundation Establishment, but other after-effects like severe depletion of vital energy were still present.
Dongmen Ying’s seemed particularly severe.
Fang Xi commented lightly, then upon hearing Dongmen Ying’s words, he was suddenly amused to the point of laughter: “You sold your ancestral property and bought a Foundation Establishment Pill. . . was I forcing you to do it? ”
“You mistakenly believed rumors, or rather. . . you used the rumors to pressure the Dongmen clan into agreeing to sell off their ancestral property, and then you gambled on trying to break through to Foundation Establishment. . . Regardless of whether White Peace Immortal City declined later or you succeeded in Foundation Establishment, as long as one of those succeeded, you would have won. . . But precisely because neither happened, what good is it to come crying now? ”
“Senior. . . ”
Dongmen Ying was about to say more when he heard Fang Xi’s cold words: “Furthermore, though you kneel, you bear the suspicion of using coercion through influence. Do you truly think a Foundation Establishment cultivator can be insulted? Even if the Immortal City has its rules against internal fighting, you sold off your ancestral property and betrayed White Peace Immortal City. Even if you were to kneel to death outside Peach Blossom Pavilion or at the foot of White Peak Mountain, see who would come to your aid? ”
“Well said! ”
Accompanying the words, a feathered snake with six wings descended from the sky.
Along with it came a large hand formed of magical power.
Smack!
Dongmen Ying was slapped away, falling onto the street with blood streaming from the corner of his mouth.
Yuan Fei Hong jumped off the spirit beast’s back and glared furiously at Dongmen Ying: “You scoundrels! Brother Fang disdains to act, but I can! You are not a person of the inner city, and you may not linger without reason. Do not force me to kill you! ”
As a member of the White Peak Mountain lineage, he was naturally a member of the enforcement team.
And upon hearing Yuan Fei Hong speak thus, Dongmen Ying’s face finally turned ashen, and he departed like a stray dog.
“Brother Yuan, why have you come? ”
Fang Xi was a little surprised and stepped forward to greet him.
“Naturally, I’ve come for the rewards. . . Brother Fang accumulated a sum of merits from his previous pill refining, and there were also those two Thunder Horned Pythons later on, which are indeed mid-grade second-order demon beasts. ”
Yuan Fei Hong chuckled: “The Fairy Taoling next door exchanged her battle merits for a bottle of pills greatly beneficial for cultivation. May I ask what Brother Fang wishes to exchange for? ”
Fang Xi invited Yuan Fei Hong into his cave abode and had Jin Ling serve tea.
He glanced at the merit leaderboard, then smiled: “I’ll exchange for that piece of ‘Earth Flame Crystal’. . . ”
“Oh? ”
Yuan Fei Hong seemed somewhat surprised, but still retrieved a golden, glittering crystal from his storage bag.
“This Earth Flame Crystal is a top-grade material for refining spirit artifacts. It seems Brother Fang has designs on Fairy Taoling, haha, truly a talented man and a beautiful woman, a match made in heaven! ”
Yuan Fei Hong chatted with Fang Xi about some cultivation matters, drank a few sips of spirit tea, and then bid his farewell.
As he was about to leave, he seemed to want to say something.
But in the end, he merely let out a soft sigh and said nothing.
...
White Peak Mountain.
Ouyang Zhen was still very busy, even occasionally covering his lips and lightly coughing twice.
During the beast tide, he had activated a third-order magic treasure across a major cultivation realm. How could he not pay a price?
What’s more, war was dangerous, and after continuous fierce battles for several months, he had suffered many injuries, even to the extent of damaging his vital energy and foundation.
“Junior Brother, you’re here? ”
Suddenly, Ouyang Zhen paused his brush, seeing Yuan Fei Hong.
“Yes, the rewarding of merits is mostly complete. . . However, many cultivators have refused our recruitment. . . among them is Fairy Taoling. ”
Yuan Fei Hong reported everything meticulously, eventually seemingly unable to restrain himself from speaking: “Actually, Senior Brother. . . this Fairy Taoling has a good relationship with Fang Xi, and her disciple recently succeeded in Foundation Establishment. . . If she were to join our White Peace Immortal City, that would be an immediate increase of three Foundation Establishment cultivators. . . Yet, because of Fang Xi, her perception of us is poor, and she has no intention of becoming a guest elder. This back-and-forth, the loss is too great. . . ”
Recently, Fang Xi had gradually gained some renown in pill refining, and his feat of slaying a mid-stage Foundation Establishment demon beast with a single sword strike was widely celebrated. These two senior and junior brothers naturally knew about it.
Yuan Fei Hong’s voice continued: “If only back then, we could have. . . ”
“No need to say more. ”
Ouyang Zhen waved his hand, his expression not looking good.
Although the beast tide had ended, the White Peak Mountain lineage and the Immortal City's guest elders had suffered heavy casualties and were in urgent need of replenishment.
He had never expected such a situation to arise.
Only after Yuan Fei Hong departed did Ouyang Zhen’s face turn purplish. He suddenly coughed up a large mouthful of vital blood, staining the white paper before him crimson, and muttered to himself: “Could it be. . . that I was truly wrong? ”
...
Inside the cultivation chamber.
Fang Xi toyed with the ‘Earth Flame Crystal’ in his hand, lost in thought.
He had chosen this artifact refining material not to curry favor with Ruan Xing Ling, but because he had a use for it himself.
“Some treasure patterns are inherently unsuitable for array inscription, like this ‘Earth-Traversing Golden Light Treasure Pattern’. . . Once it moves, the array disperses. . . ”
To maintain the array flags and array plates at unshifting positions and angles during high-speed movement was truly somewhat difficult.
“My array cultivation is still too shallow; I’m merely an unconventional top-grade second-order array master. If it were those who genuinely advanced through skill, perhaps even third-order array masters, then all things could form arrays, and they would surely find a solution. As for me, who just rigidly applies things, if I can’t think of it, I just can’t think of it. . . ”
“This treasure pattern is still more suitable for refining into flight-type spirit artifacts. . . However, there are still some difficulties within. ”
Fang Xi casually tossed the crystal, his brows gradually furrowing:
“The treasure pattern’s tier is too high; it requires at least third-order spiritual materials to bear it. . . Earth Flame Crystal is the highest I can access, and it’s only a top-grade second-order material. . . In that case, I can only lower the requirements and refine a spirit artifact that has a limited number of uses! ”
“Even so, the requirements for the refiner are very high; at least a top-grade second-order artifact refiner is needed! ”
Ruan Xing Ling might not even meet this requirement.
Even if she did, Fang Xi wouldn’t quite dare to seek her out.
After all, last time it was just imprinting a spirit pattern, but this time it’s imprinting a treasure pattern; the two are completely different!
Given her intelligence, it would be easy for her to guess that he was hiding something!
“But artifact refining, I’m truly not good at it. . . Should I switch to studying the Dao of Talismans? Hmm, this treasure pattern also matches talismans quite well. . . an ‘Earth-Traversing Golden Light Talisman’? It feels like there’s great potential! ”
Unfortunately, although he possessed Chen Ping’s quasi-third-order talisman inheritance, he hadn’t paid much attention to it.
His own talisman mastery had always hovered around the first-order.
After all, cultivating, pill refining, delving into arrays, and occasionally visiting the Shard World already consumed too much of Fang Xi’s energy; he truly couldn’t afford to also cultivate the Dao of Talismans.
“I’ll make a note of it for now and postpone it. . . ”
Fang Xi rubbed his forehead.
Even after cultivating Divine Consciousness, a cultivator could be comparable to a small genius, but raising the hundred arts of immortal cultivation to a certain realm was still extremely difficult.
His current array mastery was entirely based on unconventional and unorthodox methods.
As for his pill refining mastery, it was only around mid-grade second-order.
As for puppets, it was even more tragically stuck at quasi-second-order.
The rest were even more unbearable to look at.
But in reality, such attainments already surpassed many old Foundation Establishment cultivators who had lived for over a hundred years.
...
A little earlier in time.
Moonlight Mountain.
This mountain was the ancestral land of the Song clan in the State of Yue, containing a low-grade third-order spirit vein!
A certain generation of Song clan ancestors migrated their entire clan here, and through the painstaking efforts of generations of Song family members, they developed this place into their main base.
A moonlit radiance consistently enveloped Moonlight Mountain itself, within which one could faintly discern scenes of a bright moon hanging in the sky and silver wolves galloping and howling.
Low-grade third-order – Heavenly Wolf Howling at the Moon Array!
This array, erected upon a third-order spirit vein and integrated with the earth vein, formed its own world. Furthermore, with the Song clan’s Old Ancestor, who was a second-order array master and a perfected Foundation Establishment cultivator, personally overseeing it, even a Core Formation Old Ancestor would find it difficult to breach!
“Patriarch. . . something terrible has happened! ”
This day.
A streak of light flew in hurriedly, revealing a grim-faced, middle-aged Foundation Establishment cultivator within.
He swiftly entered Moonlight Mountain City, arriving outside the main hall, holding a flying sword message in his hand.
“What happened? ”
The Song clan patriarch, Song Zhongjie, who was already at mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivation, transformed into a streak of light and appeared before the middle-aged cultivator.
“Third Brother, White Peace Immortal City reports that Old Ancestor Jiang appeared in White Peace Immortal City, crushed the beast horde, and slew the third-order demon king, the Golden Crown Thunder Roc. . . The beast disaster in White Peace Immortal City is thus resolved. ”
“This. . . ”
Song Zhongjie held the flying sword message, swept it with his Divine Consciousness, and his expression couldn't help but change slightly: “What about that third-order demon core? ”
“Only two Core Formation Old Ancestors can discuss such matters; how would outsiders know? ” The grim-faced Foundation Establishment cultivator gave a bitter smile: “But in the worst-case scenario, the Black Heaven Sect might produce a False Core cultivator! ”
“Damn it all! ”
Song Zhongjie crushed the flying sword message in his hand: “Could it be that the ambition of generations of my Song clan is destined to be unfulfilled in this generation? ”
Originally, the Black Heaven Sect was facing a generational gap, and Old Ancestor Jiang was nearing the end of his lifespan.
Yet, the Song clan’s Old Ancestor still retained a sliver of potential to break through to Core Formation.
Once Old Ancestor Jiang exhausted his lifespan and passed away, and the Song clan’s Old Ancestor successfully formed his Golden Core, then the Song clan would become the number one family in the State of Yue, fully capable of annexing all of the Black Heaven Sect’s resources and influence!
Precisely because of this, nearby immortal cultivation forces would often show the Song clan some respect.
But now. . . with the Black Heaven Sect capable of producing a False Core cultivator, things had changed.
The Black Heaven Sect’s mountain-protecting grand array would only be stronger than the Heavenly Wolf Howling at the Moon Array! And a False Core cultivator’s divine abilities were, after all, far more profound than those of a perfected Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Even if the Song clan’s Old Ancestor successfully formed his Golden Core, he would at most only be able to contend with the Black Heaven Sect as equals within the State of Yue.
“How is the Old Ancestor? ”
The grim-faced Song clan Foundation Establishment cultivator asked again: “Now that the Black Heaven Sect has an heir, I fear Old Ghost Jiang might go for a mutual destruction with us! ”
“No fear, as long as we hold fast to the grand array, we’ll be fine. . . ”
Song Zhongjie exhaled a breath of frustration. Only he knew that the Song clan’s Old Ancestor not only remained in perennial seclusion but had not dared to leave Moonlight Mountain City by half a step for several decades now!
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