A Loose Cultivator's Path to Longevity

He had the Divine Profound Mirror as a Magical Treasure, the Soul Searching Technique as a Magic Skill, and similar methods involving Talismans.

Lü Zhong decided he would issue a decree the next day to have the entire Bihai Sect screened. It would prevent any infiltrators possessed by Celestial Demons from throwing the Sect into a chaotic mess.

He saw that the Female Cultivator was about to be parasitized.

A black light shot from his sleeve, wreathed in threads of lightning. With a single slash of the sword, it cleaved the possessed, dark-faced cultivator—along with the Celestial Demon in his Sea of Consciousness—in half.

”AH!” A scream escaped the Female Cultivator’s lips.

She stared in terror at the corpse on the ground as the scene of her near-possession replayed in her mind. Understanding what had just happened, she didn’t dare linger. She scooped up her scattered clothes, bowed deeply in the direction the Sword Light had come from, and fled without a backward glance.

”It’s over. Let’s continue our walk,” Lü Zhong said.

”Mm!” Yu Feng’Er nodded with a light laugh.

...

Time passed, day by day.

As his Cultivation Technique progressed, Lü Zhong’s physique grew stronger, and he was not far from attempting to break through to his twenty-third Acupoint. In stark contrast, his progress with the Spirit Forging Fire slowed to a crawl. The supply of Spirit Forging Fire Pills was intermittent, and eventually, his advancement came to a dead halt.

He had hit a bottleneck in his technique.

For several months, he couldn’t advance even an inch.

Lü Zhong felt quite helpless about it and decided to set it aside for the time being.

Fortunately, with the help of the Fire Cultivation Mantra, the power of his Purple Nether Extreme Fire was constantly increasing as it absorbed Fire Spirits. It had even undergone several Metamorphoses and was still sufficient for purifying Pill Poison. The need to master the Third Layer of the Spirit Forging Fire was not particularly urgent.

He then returned to his routine and continued his cultivation.

Meanwhile, many things were happening in the Southern Barbarian lands. Influenced by the chaos of the Celestial Demons, order in the Cultivation Realm had collapsed. Incidents of Dao Companions turning on each other and fathers and sons becoming mortal enemies occurred one after another. There was even a careless Core Formation Cultivator who was wounded in a sneak attack by a Celestial Demon.

Once the various Sects reacted and implemented countermeasures, the matter was quickly quelled.

「By the end of the year.」

「One morning.」

Lü Zhong ended his seclusion and stepped out of his Quiet Chamber.

His face was beaming with delight.

After so much time studying them, he had finally gained a preliminary understanding of how to set up Transmission Arrays. Considering the severe consequences of a failed Array Formation, he was now preparing to find a desolate island to conduct experiments.

He gathered the materials for the Transmission Array and transformed into a rainbow streak, flying toward the Outer Sea.

After flying for about a thousand li, a pair of twin islands appeared ahead. The two islands were a thousand zhang apart, which was perfect for setting up an array on each. He chose them as his target.

Using the Space Divination Technique, Lü Zhong spent half a month determining the corresponding coordinates.

Next, he began to set up the Transmission Array.

The process was rather complex, filled with a vast number of intricate calculations that had to be perfectly precise. Otherwise, it would lead to a teleportation accident. There was no room for the slightest error.

Even with the assistance of the Celestial Net Secret Eye Technique, he found the process incredibly difficult.

He toiled away for three months.

His first attempt ended in failure.

Staring at the fiery explosion in the distance, Lü Zhong felt as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head. Though he had anticipated this outcome, he still felt a pang of defeat.

He reviewed his experience and began his second attempt.

Lü Zhong studied intermittently for over half a year, failing a double-digit number of times and wasting spiritual materials worth more than 300,000 Spirit Stones, yet he still couldn’t get the hang of it.

Fortunately, he was not in a hurry and resolved to take his time.

...

In the time that followed, Lü Zhong entered a money-burning mode.

During this period, he did consider trying to purchase notes on Transmission Array Formation from the Long Family of Array Sword Mountain. However, that knowledge was among their most fundamental secrets, the very foundation that sustained the millennia-old Noble Family. As expected, his request was politely refused by the Long Family.

Anyone else probably would have been thrown out.

Another year passed like this.

Lü Zhong finally mastered the Transmission Array.

The experiment was a great success. Its maximum range was ten thousand li, the limit for a short-distance Transmission Array. Moreover, it required Azure Sky Stone to ensure stability; otherwise, accidents were highly likely, leading to the transported object being destroyed by spatial pressure.

For the time being, the stable Transmission Arrays he could build only had a range of a thousand li.

Lü Zhong was already content with this.

A distance of a thousand li would take even a Nascent Soul True Monarch some time to fly. Once he established a transmission network, he could teleport over ten thousand li at once, which would be enough to quickly escape any danger he might encounter in the future, preventing a repeat of the Ganquan Island incident.

At the same time, if he could lay down a Transmission Array network in the Western Realm, it might significantly reduce travel times.

However…

Lü Zhong recalled something strange. The Western Border Alliance, despite possessing the legacy of Transmission Arrays, hadn’t used it to build a large-scale network to connect their scattered settlements in the various underground worlds. It was truly puzzling why they wouldn’t use Transmission Arrays for easier communication and interaction.

But the number of puzzling things in the world was as numerous as the stars in the sky.

So there was no point dwelling on it.

The construction of the Transmission Array network began.

Using Tide Cave as the central point, Lü Zhong began setting up a large number of escape-route Transmission Array nodes at the locations he had previously scouted. Considering that the arrays might be discovered by accident, he also prepared special camouflage measures, emulating the Long-distance Transmission Array leading to the Western Realm by building each one in an Underground Palace.

He worked day and night.

During this time, apart from not neglecting his cultivation, he temporarily halted his training in all other Cultivation Secret Techniques.

After another half a year, the entire project was declared complete.

There were a total of one hundred and eight large and small Transmission Arrays.

They were spread throughout the entire Bihai region.

If he ever encountered an irresistible danger, he could use the Transmission Arrays to escape swiftly. With his Star Shifting and Dipper Changing Divine Technique, Lü Zhong believed no one in this realm could pinpoint his location. From now on, his safety was guaranteed.

After fortifying his home base, Lü Zhong turned his attention to the captured Mountain Shaking Ship. To sever its connection with the True Central Sect, he gave it a new name: the ”Bihai Ship”.

The repairs on the Bihai Ship had been progressing very slowly.

Even with technical support from Qi Yun, only the main levitation circuit had been partially restored, allowing it to briefly reach normal cruising speed in an emergency. Its other functions remained as they were.

...

The days passed by, one by one.

Then, the unexpected struck.

On this day, Lü Zhong was sipping tea in a Waterside Pavilion when a maid brought him a shocking piece of news.

Not long ago, Qingding Master of Changchun Valley—who had been in seclusion for so long that he had been all but forgotten by the world—finally found his opportunity for Nascent Soul Formation. He then overcame the Thunder Tribulation in one fell swoop and was now to be addressed as ”True Monarch Qingding”.

Two Nascent Souls in one Sect—Changchun Valley had returned to its peak!

’Trouble’s here,’ Lü Zhong’s mood soured.

Nascent Soul True Monarchs were terrifying, it was true, but they usually had a Sect to protect and would not leave rashly, lest enemy forces take the opportunity to attack. A situation like Shuini’s, who would disappear for periods of time, was extremely rare among the Nascent Soul True Monarchs of the Seven Southern Barbarian Sects.

Under these circumstances, the deterrent power of a Southern Barbarian Nascent Soul was limited.

But now, there was a new Nascent Soul Old Monster who could move about freely.

The immense threat he posed was self-evident.

The powers that had offended Changchun Valley would likely be trembling in their boots, living in fear day and night that True Monarch Qingding might one day show up at their door. Against a Nascent Soul True Monarch, any resistance was futile. Only another Nascent Soul could stop a Nascent Soul.

If things went as expected,

the political landscape of the Southern Barbarian lands was bound to become turbulent because of this.

The Daoist Sect, which had grown powerful, would be put back in its place. This might affect the relationship between Changchun Valley and the True Spirit Sect. Without a common enemy to deal with, Qingding might bring up old grudges.

Even now, Lü Zhong had not forgotten that he had once killed True Monarch Qingding’s disciple. Although Qingding had said he’d let the matter go back when he was at the Core Formation Stage Cultivation, now that the man had successfully reached the Nascent Soul Formation, it was possible he would bring it up again.

Sometimes, a person’s stated reasons hide their true intentions.

This was why his mood was so foul.

’Whatever, I’ll just take it one step at a time,’ Lü Zhong thought to himself.

Fortunately, as long as he stayed holed up in the Bihai Sect, whatever plans True Monarch Qingding had would be impossible to carry out. If the man chose to attack the Bihai Sect head-on, the Mountain-Guarding Grand Array would buy him time to escape through his newly built Transmission Arrays.

For now, Lü Zhong could only hope the worst-case scenario wouldn’t come to pass.