However, having followed Lu Xuan for hundreds of years and cultivated authentic Daoist techniques for so long, the members of the Hidden Immortal Sect possessed incredibly strong minds. Overcoming their inner demons wasn't a major problem. In fact, Lu Xuan's inner demons were the most dangerous, yet he strangely overcame them in the end.
"Fellow Daoist, you've also come for the teleportation array in the mountains, haven't you? Follow me," Hongxiu asked Han Li, who looked completely bewildered.
Han Li quickly returned the greeting. He had no choice; the other party was a powerful cultivator in the late Core Formation stage, and he couldn't afford to offend him. What frustrated him most was that he had initially thought the teleportation array was his secret. But now it seemed that more than one person knew about it!
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Chapter 494 Chaotic Star Sea
With a helpless expression, Han Li followed the other person into the valley. There he saw a group of beautiful women. Even though he was a blockhead, he couldn't help but blush slightly.
"Sister, who is this?" Xiaobai and the others crowded around, looking at Han Laomo curiously. This straight-laced man felt his skin crawl under the gaze of these vixens.
"It's just a fellow Daoist who wants to use the teleportation array. Please don't worry about him. Fellow Daoist, it will take us a little while to activate the teleportation array. You can wait here for a while."
Han Li: "..." It wasn't that he couldn't speak. Rather, in all his decades of cultivating, he had never seen such a amiable high-level cultivator. In this world, the higher the cultivator's level, the more temperamental they were. Being arrogant was a virtue; killing someone at the slightest provocation was commonplace. This made Han Li feel almost unreal.
He secretly wondered what so many advanced cultivators were waiting for.
When Lu Xuan returned, he was equally bewildered to see Han Laomo. He knew Han Li had discovered the teleportation array. He had originally planned to leave the array for Han Laomo after he left, so Han Laomo wouldn't be left destitute in Tiannan. But he hadn't expected this guy to end up with him.
Han Li didn't recognize Lu Xuan as the strange man from the Blood Trial. However, when Lu Xuan appeared, he noticed the golden lightning. He realized that Lu Xuan was the one who had been besieged by seven demonic experts.
Recalling what he had witnessed earlier, Han Li thought of the seven powerful demonic cultivators, each exuding an aura so formidable he dared not even glance at them. Yet now, the man who had been besieged had managed to escape unscathed, and seemingly with considerable ease. This led Han Li to wonder: could he have single-handedly defeated seven high-level demonic cultivators?
"So it was you. You were the one who sneaked past us earlier. You're quite lucky. We're about to activate the teleportation array and leave this place. If you want to leave too, come along."
.............
The war in Yue Kingdom took a dramatic turn. However, calling it a turning point isn't entirely accurate. While the demonic path had set a trap and severely damaged the Seven Sects of Tiannan, the other six sects also suffered heavy losses. They lost six Nascent Soul stage cultivators in other locations, including two mid-Nascent Soul stage cultivators!
Seven people besieged the sect leader of the Hidden Immortal Sect, and in the end, only one Nascent Soul cultivator survived! This result enraged the demonic cultivators, but also filled them with lingering fear. Fortunately, it wasn't they who went to kill that fiend. They had heard that the opponent seemed to have mastered the Evil-Repelling Divine Thunder as his innate divine power. Every gesture he made was accompanied by golden lightning.
Heaven have mercy, for the demonic path, anyone possessing a magical artifact containing exorcising divine lightning is a death sentence. They'll generally risk their lives to kill their opponent because the counteracting effect is simply too great. But what if someone's innate divine power is exorcising divine lightning? How can that be a game?
Despite the heavy losses, the demonic path showed no intention of continuing to pursue Lu Xuan. They had no choice; who would go? Whoever spoke up, the others would gladly step aside. But regardless of whether their opponent had any other trump cards, the sheer power of the Evil-Repelling Divine Thunder was enough to make these demonic cultivators completely unwilling to face him.
"We need to carefully consider the matter of the Hidden Immortal Sect. Our spies should still focus on the war against the seven sects of Yue Kingdom. Our previous strategy succeeded and severely damaged the enemy. Now, we need to press our advantage and completely wipe out the remaining righteous forces in Yue Kingdom."
"How can we sweep them away? In the process of besieging the Hidden Immortal Sect, a total of six Nascent Soul level cultivators died. The remaining one won't recover for decades. By that calculation, our losses are not much less than those of the righteous sects of Yue Kingdom. If they discover this and fight back to the death, we cannot afford such losses."
Most members of the demonic path are driven by self-interest. If the ambush of Lu Xuan succeeds, all seven Nascent Soul level warriors will return intact. Facing the righteous path of Yue Kingdom, they will naturally be full of confidence. However, the current loss of so many high-level warriors at once could lead to massive casualties in a fight to the death with the Yue Kingdom cultivators. This is something the six sects of the demonic path absolutely cannot tolerate.
Neither the Seven Righteous Paths of Yue nor the Six Demonic Sects are actually significant in the entire cultivation world. The northern grasslands are home to the Mulan and Tuwu peoples. Beyond the grasslands lies the Great Jin Dynasty, hailed as a sacred land of cultivation. If they suffer too many losses in the south, the Six Demonic Sects will likely have sleepless nights.
Lu Xuan was naturally unaware that his battle before leaving had completely worsened the situation in Tiannan. The righteous and demonic paths had actually entered a stalemate. However, even if he knew, he wouldn't care. Because Lu Xuan was already in the Star Sea at this moment.
The Chaotic Star Sea, as its name suggests, is located at sea. The entire cultivation world is composed of countless islands. Large cultivation sects can occupy hundreds of islands, spanning tens of thousands of miles of sea. Smaller sects, on the other hand, can only huddle together on a single island. The law of the jungle prevails, the same survival of the fittest.
However, the righteous faction here is unified under a group called the Star Palace. Their leader is none other than the two most famous late-stage Nascent Soul cultivators in the Chaotic Star Sea, the Twin Saints of the Star Palace. They cultivate a unique divine power called the Primordial Magnetic Divine Light, said to be able to suppress all five elemental Daoist techniques and divine powers. Single-handedly, they have suppressed dozens of demonic sects in the Chaotic Star Sea, making them unable to raise their heads. They have become the nominal supreme rulers of the Chaotic Star Sea.
However, the Six Paths Old Demon on the demonic path is no pushover either. For over a thousand years, he has been able to barely contend with the Star Palace Twin Saints, making him quite a figure.
In short, the overall situation is different from that in Tiannan. But most importantly, the cultivation system here is also unique.
It's important to understand that although Tiannan is considered a remote and impoverished area by the Great Jin Dynasty, its cultivation traditions are actually of the same origin. The various systems are largely similar. Besides this, the grasslands have their own unique system. The third major system is that of the Chaotic Star Sea.
Because the two sides are so far apart and severely separated, the cultivation system here is completely different from that of Tiannan. Furthermore, since it's entirely islands with very little land, various rare and precious natural resources are extremely scarce. However, being located at sea, it's teeming with sea monsters. This has led to another significant difference.
The cultivation and alchemy systems here are mostly linked to demonic beasts. It's common to use the inner cores of demonic creatures to refine pills. They also use various special demonic beast parts to forge various magical artifacts. Therefore, the relationship between human cultivators and sea creatures in the Chaotic Star Sea is extremely tense, almost to the point of imminent conflict. The current peace is merely the calm before the storm.
It was under these circumstances that Lu Xuan and the others entered the Chaotic Star Sea.
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Chapter 495 The Most Profitable Sect
On the boundless sea, a gigantic ship is sailing at high speed. It is an enormous ship, several times larger than a warship in the real world, almost the size of an aircraft carrier.
Of course, such ships are not uncommon in the world of cultivation, especially in the Chaotic Star Sea. These are often transport ships belonging to large merchant guilds on the Chaotic Star Sea. These guilds do not only business with mortals; they travel throughout the entire Chaotic Star Sea.
They collect or trade various goods needed by mortals from the numerous surrounding islands, as well as lower- and middle-level spiritual items, such as low-grade spiritual herbs and low-level demonic beasts.
It's important to understand that the majority of cultivators are low-level cultivators. The Chaotic Star Sea is surrounded by ocean, and even adjacent islands are often hundreds of miles apart. While this distance isn't impossible for most Qi Refining cultivators, the various sea monsters and threats like storms and waves make these herb-gathering journeys quite unsafe.
These mortal caravans, however, compensated for their shortcomings with their giant merchant ships and large numbers of mortals. They were able to gather large quantities of low-grade spiritual herbs. Therefore, they became an indispensable part of the cultivation world. After all, every sect needs to train disciples, and these low-grade spiritual herbs and demonic beast cores are essential.
Therefore, these merchant guilds exist under the guise of cultivators. Of course, if a merchant guild wants cultivators to protect it, it still needs to hire spirit beasts. And at most, it can only hire cultivators around the tenth level of Qi Refining. Those at the Foundation Establishment stage would not do such a thing.
After all, time is precious. These mortal caravans often spend a year or more at sea each time they set sail. Cultivators don't have that much time to waste.
This giant ship currently employs only one cultivator... Well, not entirely, because they've employed a monkey. Yes, that's right, a monkey. It's a spirit monkey with a single, constricted pupil on its forehead. It's incredibly intelligent, able to understand all human speech. It can even communicate with people through gestures.
The spirit monkey is the spirit beast of a small sect nearby. This small sect is quite peculiar, called the Hidden Immortal Sect. However, what they do has nothing to do with the Hidden Immortal Sect. Although they don't do it in a grand manner, they are still quite high-profile nonetheless. This is because they have launched a very peculiar business: they offer spirit beast rental services to various merchant caravans.
The Hidden Immortal Sect possesses a unique secret technique capable of taming various demonic beasts. These beasts are then nurtured to possess exceptional intelligence and a remarkable understanding of human nature. They bestow these beasts upon their disciples as their spirit beasts. Simultaneously, they rent them out to surrounding mortal merchant guilds.
Most of the rented demonic beasts possessed cultivation levels above the tenth level of Qi Refining. Their combat strength was already the limit of the cultivators that the caravans could hire. Furthermore, these spirit beasts were much easier to serve than cultivators. Most of them would simply lie quietly on the ship, breathing and sleeping. They would only unleash their power when danger arose.
Normally, as long as they can provide fresh blood, they are much more profitable than human cultivators. So, over time, this business expanded. The small Hidden Immortal Sect ended up handling all the guard duties across the entire Chaotic Star Sea.
Don't be fooled by the seemingly low profit margins of this business. The sheer volume of activity makes it all worthwhile. A single trip only yields around ten spirit stones, but hundreds of caravans depart from the surrounding area every day. More than half of them hire spirit beasts from the Hidden Immortal Sect.
This means that the Hidden Immortal Sect could earn a net income of two to three thousand spirit stones every day without doing anything. This terrifying profit stunned the entire Chaotic Star Sea. Because of this, the Hidden Immortal Sect attracted countless covetous eyes. Whether it was their secret techniques for taming spirit beasts or their enormous profits, everything made the entire Chaotic Star Sea green with envy. The annual income of tens of millions of spirit stones was driving both the righteous and demonic factions of the Chaotic Star Sea nearly mad.
"The people from Star Palace are here again. I guess it'll be the same old story, asking us to join Star Palace."