After the scene in the square yesterday, Li Yan's longing for his parents grew even stronger. He wanted to reach Foundation Establishment as soon as possible, but he knew that this matter could not be rushed. He had to take it one step at a time. For now, what he needed to do was to first cultivate to the Great Perfection of the tenth layer of Qi Condensation, and then he could look for an opportunity to reach Foundation Establishment.
Li Yan calculated his plan in his mind. 'The True Scripture of Gui Water is especially fast in the Secret Room. It will probably take about two months to reach the Great Perfection of the tenth layer. During this period, I can't stop cultivating the Qiongqi Purgatory Art either.' But every time he thought of the cultivation process of the Qiongqi Purgatory Art, even now, Li Yan's heart still palpitated.
'The basic Immortal Arts have almost all reached the Greater Mastery stage that can be achieved in the Qi Condensation stage, so there's no need to rush to cultivate them further. The Fragmented Poison Body can probably only be advanced after reaching Foundation Establishment. Although I felt it was about to separate a long time ago, there hasn't been much progress. In this way, I can save the time for cultivating the Fragmented Poison Body and Immortal Arts, and reaching the Great Perfection of the tenth layer should be even faster.'
As Li Yan calculated and thought about his plan, he knew that just cultivating magical power was far from enough. A person's combat strength also needed to be matched with powerful Immortal Arts. But he had already practiced dozens of the more powerful Immortal Arts in the Qi Condensation stage. Although the sect also had some early-stage Foundation Establishment Immortal Arts, with the profound spiritual energy of Li Yan's True Scripture of Gui Water, he could barely cultivate them. Cultivating them could even give his combat strength a significant boost. But Li Yan still followed Pingtu's advice to save time and reach Foundation Establishment as soon as possible.
Both the True Scripture of Gui Water and the Qiongqi Purgatory Art were top-tier cultivation methods in the world. They had similar cultivation methods, which was to build a solid foundation. The True Scripture of Gui Water had no specialized Immortal Arts to go with it in the Qi Condensation stage. Using the True Scripture of Gui Water as a basis to cast ordinary Immortal Arts was sufficient, and their power was several times higher than when cast with ordinary cultivation methods. This was already quite terrifying. Only when the True Scripture of Gui Water was cultivated to the Foundation Establishment stage would specialized Immortal Arts and weapons appear. From then on, one would truly embark on a cultivation path different from other sects.
The Qiongqi Purgatory Art was the same. According to Gong Chenying, only when the Qiongqi Purgatory Art was cultivated to the second layer would there be a set of close-combat techniques to cultivate. There were no offensive techniques in the first layer. If one forcibly cultivated them in the first layer, the result would only be damage to the internal organs and bones, causing irreversible injuries. This was also why Gong Chenying had not produced any combat techniques.
After some thought, Li Yan had a plan. He considered it for a moment, then took out his token and first sent a message to Gong Chenying, telling her that he was going into seclusion for a period of time and that if she needed anything, she could send a message first, and he would see it when he came out.
After sending the message, Li Yan held the token and hesitated for a moment before sending a message to Zhao Min as well.
Zhao Min had also come to Li Yan's small courtyard with Li Changting last night. She was still in her white robes, her expression indifferent. The entire evening, she sat with Gong Chenying. The two women would occasionally whisper to each other, but most of the time they did not speak. During this time, Li Wuyi and Zhao Min even went out for a short while. When they returned, there was no change in Zhao Min's face; she still sat calmly at the stone table. But Li Wuyi's gaze toward Li Yan was very strange, and also held a trace of doubt. Li Yan appeared normal on the surface, but he had already vaguely guessed why the two had gone out.
Not long after, Gong Chenying's reply came first. She told Li Yan to pay attention to his cultivation process and not to be too eager for success. At the same time, she also told Li Yan that she would also use this time to charge toward the late stage of the third layer of the Qiongqi Purgatory Art. In a few brief sentences, although still indifferent, Li Yan could feel the trace of affection revealed by the young woman. These words of concern were rarely spoken from Gong Chenying's mouth.
Li Yan sat in the courtyard holding the token for a long while, but no more messages came. After a long sigh, he stood up and walked toward the cultivation room. But just as he stood up, a white light flashed on the token. Li Yan's expression moved, and his Divine Sense quickly entered the token. It was a message from Zhao Min. There was only one sentence on it: "You don't need to report your affairs to me." Looking at this sentence, Li Yan put away the token with a blank expression and turned to walk toward the cultivation room.
On Never-Parting Peak, looking at the waterfall cascading down outside the window, Zhao Min held the token in her jade-like hand and whispered to herself, "Is this a premonition?" Since she woke up this morning, she had a feeling that Li Yan would send her a message today. Then she just stood quietly by the window holding the token, for half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half... like a goddess's white jade statue, just standing there quietly, holding the token motionlessly, her eyes gazing dreamily at the waterfall outside the window, unaware of the time, tireless. After nearly two hours, a white light flashed on the token. Only then did Zhao Min move. After reading the message, she bit her lower lip, a complicated look in her eyes. Her Divine Sense entered the token several times, wanting to reply, but she always pulled it back. After a long time, she took a deep breath, and her Divine Sense entered the token. It was only for a moment before she withdrew it. Her whole person seemed to relax. After putting down the token, she slowly walked toward the cultivation room. She was going to charge toward the late stage of Foundation Establishment.
And the token on the table behind her seemed to have lost its value, lying quietly on the table. Even if other messages came, it would be in vain.
In the swaying, lush green bamboo forest of Little Bamboo Peak, inside a bamboo courtyard, Wei Zhongran and the palace-dressed woman were currently in the main hall, looking at Li Wuyi standing below.
"Did she really say that?"
"Yes. I finally asked her directly about this matter last night, but Min'er just shook her head and didn't show any expression." Li Wuyi stood with his hands down as usual.
"But before I went into seclusion, I heard that the two of them seemed to have some contact." Wei Zhongran's plump fingers tapped on the table, making a soft "da da" sound.
"This disciple only ran into them once on the back mountain of Little Bamboo Peak. They were walking down the mountain side by side, but they didn't seem to talk much, only occasionally exchanging a few words. At that time, this disciple didn't want to pay too much attention. The rest was all told by Changting. She said that every time Min'er saw Little Junior Brother, her eyes would inadvertently sweep over him. And whenever it was about Little Junior Brother, Min'er's words would be quite... quite... quite full of the intention to listen. This is something that rarely happens with Min'er. Changting said that in the past, she might only show a similar expression when others talked about matters related to me." Li Wuyi scratched his head and said with some annoyance.
"Then did she also treat Li Yan as a younger brother?" After hearing this, a trace of fatigue appeared on Wei Zhongran's plump face.
"That shouldn't be it. This is different from me taking care of Min'er since she was a child. How could that kind of feeling be easily born?" Li Wuyi said, shaking his head.
"What did you say to her last night?" At this moment, the palace-dressed woman, who had been sitting on the side without speaking, her large eyes darted as she asked.
Li Wuyi sighed softly. "I just asked her directly, what are her feelings toward Little Junior Brother? She didn't say anything, just shook her head." He also had a headache with Zhao Min's silence. Even when she was injured as a child and Li Wuyi asked her the reason, she would always shake her head or just be silent, making him have to try all sorts of methods to get a little bit out of her.
"Oh? Just shook her head? Were there any subconscious expressions or actions? Think carefully." The palace-dressed woman stretched out her fair and soft hand to tidy the few strands of black hair on the side of her face, her eyes blinking a few times.
"No, just shook her head. Her expression didn't change at all. You know her personality." Li Wuyi thought about last night's events again and smiled helplessly.
"Haha, then there's a problem." The palace-dressed woman smiled lightly, and a sparkle immediately appeared in her eyes.
Her appearance stunned Li Wuyi. Wei Zhongran knew that his wife was extremely intelligent and must have discovered something, so he couldn't help but speak.
"My dear Zhi, have you discovered something?"
"It's not necessarily that I've discovered something, but I have some guesses," the palace-dressed woman said with a smile.
"How come I didn't hear anything in Wuyi's words that could lead to a discovery?" Wei Zhongran looked at his wife and said with doubt.
Li Wuyi, standing below, was also at a loss. As the person involved, he hadn't felt anything was wrong.
"Don't you both claim to understand Min'er? Then let me ask you, if you had directly asked Min'er about matters related to another man in the past, how would she have reacted?" Seeing the two dazed men, the palace-dressed woman had to continue.
Hearing this, Wei Zhongran and Li Wuyi were first stunned, then they frowned and thought for a moment. Gradually, their brows smoothed out. Wei Zhongran seemed to be muttering to himself.
"Calm, too calm. It means that when she was called out by Wuyi, she had already thought of what Wuyi was going to ask. If she didn't have a bottom line in her heart, with her personality, although she wouldn't be angry, she would definitely be displeased about this kind of thing, and it would show slightly in her eyes or on her face. But why did she deny it?"
Wei Zhongran seemed to be asking another question at the end of his self-muttering. The palace-dressed woman also frowned upon hearing this. She couldn't figure this out either. With that girl's personality, how could there be any coyness? If there was, there was; if there wasn't, there wasn't.
For a time, the room fell silent. In the silence, Li Wuyi looked at the two who were lost in thought and quietly withdrew. But as he withdrew, he kept thinking in his heart, 'Sister Min, can your heart's knot really not be untied by anyone? Little Junior Brother, are you that person?'
In the Malevolent Spirit Sect, after the major event of Li Wuyi forming his core, as time went by, everything slowly returned to normal, and the number of people talking about it gradually decreased. The next scene was just as Yan Longzi and the others had expected. The entire sect once again set off a wave of cultivation frenzy. Some people went into seclusion one after another, cultivating assiduously; some went out for training alone, or formed teams to take on a large number of sect missions and leave the sect.
Some of these disciples who went out never returned to the sect again. Some returned to the sect after several months, or even several years, with a body full of iron and blood and scars. The killing intent on them was overwhelming, and their cultivation had soared.
And the disciples who stayed in the sect for seclusion also had their realms increase one after another. More than a dozen Qi Condensation disciples even successfully reached Foundation Establishment in the following year, which was extremely rare in previous years.
Some Pseudo-Core cultivators were still cultivating in seclusion and had not gone out for training, hoping to form a Golden Core as soon as possible, such as Baili Yuan, Wang Tian, Wei Chituo, Li Changting, and others.
The entire Malevolent Spirit Sect showed a thriving scene. But under this calm surface, what all the disciples didn't know was that the several Nascent Soul ancestors of the sect had frequently gone out in this year. It was just that with the status and cultivation of these disciples in the sect, they had no sense of these matters at all. Only the Golden Core cultivators knew a little, but even they only knew a rough idea. After those Nascent Soul ancestors returned, they were tight-lipped about it, not going into detail, as if they were planning something with the Nascent Soul ancestors of the other three sects.
At the same time, some strange things also happened in the outside cultivation world. Some sects and families would often disappear completely overnight, with the people gone and the buildings empty. Some places would have traces of fighting, while others would have no fluctuations of magical power or immortal arts at all, yet hundreds or thousands of people would disappear together, and even everything related to cultivation in the sect and family would disappear without a trace, as if they had evaporated from the world.
This terrified the nearby cultivation sects and families. But soon they would receive a jade slip. After receiving the jade slip, these sects and cultivation families would directly issue a gag order to their disciples, and not a single bit of the disappearance would be leaked. As for those cultivators who occasionally passed by this place, if they didn't find anything unusual, it was fine. But once they discovered the abnormality of this place, whether they were rogue cultivators or disciples of other sects, they would be politely invited for tea by these sects and families that had united after receiving the jade slip. If they resisted, they would be killed on the spot. Of these cultivators who were invited for tea, some would walk out afterward with a look of lingering fear, while others would disappear from then on, as if this person had never appeared in the world.
Although such things happened, relative to the vast territory of the Desolate Moon Continent ruled by the four great sects, it was almost not a major event. Coupled with the rapid blockade of information, this small wave disappeared in a flash, and the outside world had no idea that such things were happening.