The First Immortal of Destiny

Chapter 559: Chapter 559 Current situation and dilemma _1

Through Shen Mo’s strenuous efforts, the Inner Door disciples trapped in the Dungeon were rescued, undoubtedly resolving the Riverside Sect’s biggest crisis!

Imagine if the Soaring Serpent and Bizarre Dragon were to sleep for hundreds of years, and Shen Mo, Zhou Zhiwei, and others remained unable to find a way to save the trapped disciples, how would the situation have unfolded?

The various resources within the Dungeon would have been gradually depleted with the passage of each day.

Eventually, not even the Spirit Stones and resources to maintain the Formation and Prohibition at the entrance would have been available, rendering them unable to stop the Double-winged Flying Snakes that accidentally entered the Dungeon, resulting in heavy casualties among the low-class disciples.

If a Class IV peak snake beast had unfortunately broken in, even Yuan Heming would have been at risk of death.

Even if they had been extremely lucky and no snake beasts of this Realm had invaded the Mountain River Realm, as time went by, everyone in the Dungeon would eventually have died of old age.

For a Body Tempering Realm Cultivator, their Lifespan is slightly longer than that of mortals; under conditions free of illness and disaster, they can live for over a hundred years.

A cultivator in the Qi Gathering Realm has a Lifespan of two hundred years, those in the Spirit Sea Realm live for five hundred years, and those in the Golden Core Realm live for a thousand years...

After just four to five hundred years, including Zhao Lingyin, Ming Yu, and others, all the disciples previously in the Dungeon would eventually have died of old age. Even if Yuan Heming had not died from external calamities, he would have been nearing the end of his life with not many years left to live!

By then, even if there had still been living people in the Mountain River Realm, they would generally have been the descendants of the current disciples.

In the event of a shortage of external resources, they would most likely have been unable to cultivate to the Spirit Sea Realm. They would have had to hide from place to place, evading the snake beasts that accidentally wandered in, struggling for survival in the Dungeon!

This was an optimistic estimate; most likely, had the Soaring Serpent and Bizarre Dragon awakened and left, the Dungeon would have been left with only tombs, devoid of any living person.

As for the subsidiary courtyard, Shen Mo, freed from such worries, would likely not have invested a significant amount of effort into strengthening the sect’s power.

Chong’a Mountain might have become the new main gate of the Riverside Sect, but after losing a thousand years of heritage, it would very likely have been relegated to a small immortal sect. Perhaps it would have followed the example of the once-renowned great immortal sects in the Red Flame Zone, gradually fading away into history.

Regardless, Shen Mo’s actions this time had greatly benefited the sect.

However, he had already reached the Golden Core Realm and become a Supreme Elder, leaving the sect with nothing left to reward him with!

Aside from successfully rescuing his close ones, Shen Mo had also received many benefits.

Firstly, the various cultivation methods stored in the Magic Tower and the repository of Manuals and secret scrolls had all been moved out from the Dungeon; given Shen Mo’s current status, he could easily access and read them!

As a result, Shen Mo chose to cultivate spiritual-level cultivation methods like the *Divination Treasure Mirror*.

What pleased him even more were the Manuals and secret scrolls related to elixirs, talismans, artifacts, and arrays. These included elixir recipes and talisman scrolls up to Grade IV and Grade V, as well as extensive knowledge about Forging and the Array Path.

Secondly, he could also obtain any top-quality spiritual item from the sect’s Treasure Hall by paying a relatively small amount of Spirit Stones.

Lastly, he had a large number of disciples at his disposal.

Whether it was a rare spiritual medicine or valuable minerals needed for refining magic treasures, he only needed to give an order, and his disciples would gather them for him. If that failed, they could at least provide him with relevant clues!

...

Of course, even though the greatest crisis had been resolved, the Riverside Sect was still facing many problems.

These included issues like the whereabouts of the missing disciples, expenditures surpassing income, the source of new disciples, insufficient Spiritual Qi on Chong’a Mountain, and the difficulty of finding the entrance to the Vacuous Realm, among others!

During the recent upheaval, quite a few disciples had completely lost contact.

From the top down, there had been no news from Supreme Elders Feng Daogu and Gongsun Jiuru.

Gongsun Jiuru, along with Golden Core Realm cultivators from the other Four Great Sects, had ventured to the Heavenly Demon Realm in the Outer Zone, accompanied by a group of Spirit Sea Realm powerhouses, including Yang Xuan.

Initially, some news had trickled through, but with the dramatic changes in the Heavens and Earth, all passages to the Heavenly Demon Realm were severed, and no further news came from them.

The worst-case scenario was that they were trapped in the Heavenly Demon Realm, forever separated from their sect, with no possibility of contact.

A slightly better outcome would be that during the tumultuous changes, Patriarch Gongsun and the others had already passed through the Heavenly Demon passages and gone to other domains within this world. Due to the failure of communication methods, they were unable to contact their respective sects!

As for Feng Daogu, he was originally stationed in the city stronghold located between the Ghost Nation Ruins and the Black Mountain Demon Suppression Cave.

However, during the upheaval, it seemed a terrifying incident occurred in the Ghost Nation Ruins. Ghostly Qi enveloped everything, and solemn processions patrolled amidst eerie, ghostly music. This suggested that a powerful entity, a forbidden land, or possibly an Evil Spirit had descended upon the Ghost Nation Ruins.

Since then, Feng Daogu and the cultivators in the city stronghold had lost all contact with the Outer Realm.

Under such circumstances, even Shen Mo dared not venture there easily; their only hope was that Feng Daogu had been exceptionally fortunate and had not perished.

There were also others: Stars Peak Master Zhou Shili; Bright Moon Peak Master Yuan Jing; Yang Mao, the Hall Master of the Evil Punishing Hall; Yu Yan, the Hall Master of the Immortal Welcoming Hall; core disciple Chu Yuhua; Elder Yao of the Zhong State Defense Division headquarters; all the stationed Elders in the Wando Archipelago of the Immortal Burial Sea; the cultivators of each city’s Defense Division; and the disciples stationed at various industries...

They were neither trapped in the Mountain River Realm nor had they returned to the subsidiary courtyard on Chong’a Mountain; their fate remained unknown!

To individually search for their whereabouts and ascertain whether they were alive or dead was also quite challenging.

Furthermore, the financial imbalance of the Riverside Sect’s various cultivation resources was also giving Shen Mo, Yuan Heming, and Zhou Zhiwei, the three Supreme Elders, a considerable headache.

The Riverside Sect’s industries in the Qing State territory, including numerous mines, offerings from Cultivating Families, Jiyun Town, and the immortal workshops in various cities, had all been consumed by the Soaring Serpent, resulting in the complete loss of their largest source of income.

Currently, with the escape of the Inner Door disciples from the Dungeon, the sect had sufficient manpower. Shen Mo and other high-ranking members had dispatched several Spirit Sea Realm disciples to other states to re-establish contact with the lost industries there.

It was estimated that sooner or later, they would start seeing results!

Nevertheless, this still did not solve the Riverside Sect’s dire shortage of Spirit Stone resources.

The situation was more manageable for the three Supreme Elders, including Shen Mo. No matter how impoverished the sect became, their allocation would never fall short. After all, given the current situation in the Red Flame Zone, the stronger the top-tier experts within the sect were, the safer the entire sect would be.

However, for those below Sect Master Yuan Qingshi, the situation was quite bleak!

Take the newly appointed Rising Sun Peak Master, Jin Chinian, for example. His original monthly salary had been equivalent to various cultivation resources valued at two hundred middle-grade Spirit Stones.

Moreover, many of these spiritual items were highly valuable and rare. If he did not use them himself and sold them all, he could have fetched a sky-high price of three to four hundred middle-grade Spirit Stones!

But now, Jin Chinian could only receive twenty middle-grade Spirit Stones each month, with no other spiritual items.

The monthly salaries for Hall Masters, core disciples, Elders from various Halls and Peaks, inner disciples, and the like had also been roughly cut down to one-tenth of their original amounts!

The outer disciples were also having a rough time.

Although they ostensibly had no salary, they could earn resources for their cultivation indirectly by undertaking sect tasks.

But now, with the sharp decline in the Riverside Sect’s industries and expenditures exceeding income, it was challenging to issue as many tasks as before. Even when tasks were assigned, the remuneration upon completion was extremely low!