Wulongzi’s cave abode.
Xu Wusu and the other members of the Five Dragon Society were all present.
“Society Head, what should we do about the situation now?”
Fang Qing was among them as well, joining the other members in asking.
“Why would the Taibai Zhong clan suddenly make a move against our Bihai Sect? Our sect’s strength should be slightly above the Zhong clan’s… Could it be that there has been some movement from the Tianxin Linked Islands?”
“The Tianxin Linked Islands are merely an alliance of Foundation Establishment islands. They invited a Core Formation rogue cultivator to serve as their alliance leader, that’s all. They’ve always refused to help either side…”
Everyone discussed it noisily, then looked toward Wulongzi.
This Wulongzi had the appearance of a young man, with an ebony hairpin stuck in his hair and five dragon patterns embroidered on his cuffs. Hearing this, he merely smiled. “Our sect and the Zhong clan have never been on good terms. Previously, for the island where that spirit stone mine was located, we wiped out the Wu clan of Baixuan Island… and that Wu clan was an in-law force of the Zhong clan. Now that they have thoughts of revenge, it is hardly surprising.”
“The Wu clan of Baixuan Island?”
Fang Qing suddenly thought of the Wu clan cultivation technique preserved in the Heavenly Tome Pavilion—the White Water Art. Though it was a water-element technique, its magical power carried an innate yin-cold chill. It seemed eight or nine times out of ten that it had been passed down from the Zhong clan.
“In a sect war, even great Foundation Establishment cultivators might fall. We Qi Refining disciples are nothing but cannon fodder… Senior Brother, do you have any good plan?”
Xu Wusu spoke up to ask.
“Now that the sect is managing everything uniformly, war assignments will likely be issued very soon. For Qi Refining disciples like us, there are only three places to go…”
Wulongzi spoke with assurance. “First is to garrison the mountain gate and be responsible for the supply of resources such as medicinal pills, talismans, and magic artifacts. This can be considered the safest post. Competition in this regard is fierce. Unless you have a Foundation Establishment elder to vouch for you, I fear it will be very difficult to obtain…”
“Second is to garrison the various fisheries, medicinal gardens, and so on… If it is on Biyu Island itself, that’s still fine. The farther away it is, the more dangerous it becomes. However, the Zhong clan’s attackers likely won’t have very high cultivation either, so there will still be a chance to preserve your life.”
“Third is to be directly incorporated into the sect’s army, drill battle formations, and enter the main battlefield… Normally, with formations protecting you, even Foundation Establishment cultivators would find it difficult to break through. But if one side collapses, then the casualties will certainly be the heaviest.”
“Where does Senior Brother Wulongzi plan to go?” Fang Qing asked.
“Me? Naturally, I’m going to the front line to earn contribution points!” Wulongzi said confidently. “Among the three wartime posts, the front line gives the most contributions.”
“Senior Brother has admirable spirit.”
Fang Qing immediately praised him.
“Are all you junior brothers willing to go with me? As long as you are members of the society, I will do my utmost to make arrangements…”
Wulongzi looked somewhat expectant. Xu Wusu was the first to respond. “I will follow Senior Brother.”
Most of the disciples who could enter the Five Dragon Society did not have much background. At this moment, nearly half of them directly agreed.
Fang Qing waited a little longer. Seeing several disciples choose garrison assignments, he immediately followed the crowd as well.
“I would like to take a garrison assignment. Ideally, on Biyu Island…”
After leaving the sect, regardless of whether the battlefield was won or lost, to him the world would be vast, with nowhere he could not go.
If he truly encountered danger, he could simply hide in Ancient Shu.
On the contrary, within the sect, he felt somewhat constrained.
Besides, even if he wanted to be arranged inside the sect, he definitely did not have the background for it.
……
Three days later.
Red-Scale Fishery.
A streak of azure light descended, revealing Fang Qing’s figure.
Above the fishery, a layer of gray mist dispersed, revealing an immortal cultivator whose cultivation had already reached the late stage of Qi Refining.
The key point was that this person’s appearance was somewhat familiar to Fang Qing. “So it is Senior Brother Zeng Shu? Weren’t you on duty at the Heavenly Tome Pavilion?”
This person was none other than Zeng Shu, who had explained cultivation techniques to him back then.
“Sigh… There wasn’t much profit to be had from being on duty at the Heavenly Tome Pavilion to begin with. It was merely leisurely. Unfortunately, with this great war breaking out, a Foundation Establishment elder’s own child took over my post.”
Zeng Shu shook his head, then looked somewhat surprised. “Junior Brother, you have advanced quite boldly and swiftly. You are already at the sixth layer of Qi Refining?”
Fang Qing was accustomed to hiding his strength. Moreover, in this sort of great war in the cultivation world, concealing a hand of strength would better preserve his life. Naturally, he had long since used the Dao-Birth Pearl to conceal his cultivation, setting his apparent cultivation to around the point of having just entered the sixth layer of Qi Refining.
“Just luck…”
“Mm. Sect rules: first, verify your disciple token… As it happens, today another junior brother has also been assigned here to garrison.”
After Zeng Shu verified Fang Qing’s disciple token, he led Fang Qing on a patrol of the fishery. “This Red-Scale Fishery has a first-tier spirit vein. At its core, the spiritual energy can even barely reach second-tier standards. Back then, the sect dispersed it and guided the water veins to create this lake, all for the purpose of raising red-scale treasure fish… These red-scale treasure fish can only be considered half-demonic. If they become red-scale spirit fish, their value increases a hundredfold. After consumption, not only can they benefit cultivation, they can also greatly replenish qi and blood… Their scales are even the main material for refining several types of magic artifacts.”
“This side is the fisherfolk district. We cultivators may choose a place to build our own cave abodes… I suggest choosing somewhere closer to the core, to take advantage of that quasi-second-tier spiritual energy.”
Zeng Shu brought Fang Qing to a cave abode. “This is the cave abode chosen by that newly arrived junior brother… Junior Brother Li?”
When Fang Qing saw the person walking out of the cave abode, he was immediately startled. “Li Yusu?”
Li Yusu had lost one arm, and his complexion still looked pale. Clearly, his serious injuries had not yet healed. How had he been sent out as well?
“Senior Brother Fang…”
Li Yusu forced himself to salute. His face was ashen, as if his heart had already turned to rotten wood.
“Could it be… he was implicated and exiled in anger?”
Fang Qing’s heart stirred, but he certainly would not expose another’s scar and slap him in the face in person.
“So the two of you know each other. That’s even better… The formation used in this fishery mainly has only one warning function. If we truly encounter a powerful enemy, it actually won’t be of much use. We mainly rely on our daily patrols. For now, let us first assign time periods…”
Zeng Shu could tell that Li Yusu had a story, but he was far too lazy to listen to it.
Arriving at Red-Scale Fishery was already the result of all the painstaking scheming he could muster. After all, the fishery was on Biyu Island. If they truly encountered danger, they could still flee toward the sect. It could barely be considered safe.
Fang Qing naturally had no objections. However, when choosing his cave abode, he deliberately selected a rather quiet location far from the other cultivators.
When night fell, he gazed at the great lake, where dots of fishing-lamp flames flickered unsteadily.
He nodded and entered his cave abode, pasting up several talismans.
Light flashed. Clear and turbid qi formed a doorway, and Fang Qing’s figure had already vanished without a trace…
……
The land of Ancient Shu.
Fang Qing touched the jade bottle in his robes that contained the “Great Sun Purple Qi,” took a deep breath, and first began calculating out of habit.
Rumble!
He had only just entered the state when his expression suddenly changed.
Within his divine sense, the heavenly secrets of Ancient Shu were no longer a tangled mess. They were a cesspit! A cesspit!
“Ugh!”
His head felt as if it had been struck by a heavy hammer, and two streams of blood flowed down from his nose. “This is… backlash from the heavenly secrets?”
Only now did Fang Qing finally understand why, though the land of Ancient Shu had divination arts, they were utterly useless!
“The heavenly secrets… are too damned chaotic! I didn’t feel it before in the Bihai Sect, but compared to this place… I feel that even if one possessed divine sense in Ancient Shu, one still might not be able to begin cultivating the Plum Blossom Changes…”
If the heavenly secrets of the Bihai Sect were like the clear sky before the great war of his previous life, without the slightest pollution from radio waves,
then Ancient Shu was like the modern era of his previous life, filled everywhere with all kinds of electromagnetic pollution.
“Here, I can’t even calculate my own fortune and misfortune… The heavenly secrets are a mass of chaos.”
“A cesspit! A cesspit! With heavenly secrets this chaotic, I fear only those who have forged a Dao Foundation—and one specialized in divination at that—would have any slight ability to calculate. Even then, the results obtained would be the same as when I was in Qi Refining, only rough indications like auspiciousness or misfortune… Anything slightly more advanced couldn’t be divined, and it would be easy for others to alter or deceive the results…”
Fang Qing shook his head with a bitter smile, knowing that the Plum Blossom Changes he had finally managed to master had been crippled by more than half in this place.
“The only hope… is that my cheat is powerful enough. Perhaps it can grant some enhancement?”
“But the current me has no idea what to do…”
The Dao-Birth Pearl’s “As Though Within the Calculations” counted as a passive ability. Fang Qing simply had no idea how to actively make use of it to increase his own divination ability.
“Forget it. At least there is still some hope.”
“It’s just that relying on divination to safely make use of or trade away this spiritual resource is now impossible.”
Fang Qing shook his head. In the end, this actually came down to one sentence.
On the Ancient Shu side, everyone was too competitive, making it so that only Purple Mansion cultivators could barely deduce karmic cause and effect.
Whereas over in the Bihai Sect, it was a blue ocean. Even he, a minor cultivator who had only just begun, could calculate quite a few fortunes and misfortunes.
“Mm… I calculated my luck earlier. At Red-Scale Fishery, it is minor auspiciousness… It seems that during my garrison period, I won’t encounter any attacks.”
“But the heavenly secrets here are chaotic. Even if I can calculate fortune and misfortune, I must be careful. Or rather… I need to be even more careful.”
Fang Qing let out a long breath and silently pondered his plans.
“Great Sun cultivation techniques are hard to find. Could it be that I should sell this portion of Great Sun Purple Qi?”
“That is actually not a big deal. In any case, it is a renewable resource. It would be perfect for casting a stone to ask the way, letting me see how this cultivation world reacts to the reappearance of a Great Sun technique…”
“In that case, I need to choose a suitable force.”
Almost in an instant, Fang Qing thought of a suitable test subject—the Tianshui Luo clan!
After all, they had a grudge with him!
They certainly would not get a share of good things, but they definitely had a part in bad ones!
“Biluo Market… Jiuchuan Water Pavilion… Perhaps they are Luo clan forces?”
“Once the Luo clan obtains the Great Sun Purple Qi, even if outsiders do not know, I will definitely leak it.”
“Mm, this sort of thing is extremely dangerous. Even the identity Fang Shui cannot touch it… It would be best to use the Dao-Birth Pearl to disguise myself as another identity.”
Thinking thus, Fang Qing walked into a mortal city.
Compared to Ba Commandery several years ago, when war and plague were everywhere, this mortal city finally had some signs of human life.
He found a tavern and was just about to satisfy his appetite when he saw a fast horse arriving at the city gate with a message. The entire city erupted in cheers. “General Li has taken another city and now occupies more than half of Ba Commandery!”
“Sigh, General Li truly is a living bodhisattva who saves those in suffering and distress…”
“Ever since General Li arrived, good days have come.”
The common people throughout the city discussed it animatedly.
Fang Qing’s hand, holding his wine cup, paused. “This Li Rulong’s fortune truly has become unstoppable. Even if he only occupies the mortal realm, it is no easy matter… As for his cultivation, I fear he has already reached the late stage of Qi Reception, or even perfection, hasn’t he?”