Ready to Go

The festive atmosphere in the village celebrating the good news dissipated early due to the absence of the person involved. After the village chief organized a banquet to feed the bailiffs until they were full and satisfied, the bailiffs left under the enthusiastic farewells of the Xiushui Village residents.

For a time, Xiushui Village returned to its usual tranquility.

However, every household could not help but secretly rejoice at night over being exempt from miscellaneous taxes this year.

Recently, Lin Xiao also took the time to mention to Liao Pantu about going to the cultivation world.

Liao Pantu asked him to refine a Soul Nourishing Pendant or a similar easily portable item so his soul could reside within it. Otherwise, if he appeared in the cultivation world in his current state, Lin Xiao's travel experience there would probably not be very pleasant.

Not to mention anything else, just such a large piece of mobile Soul Nourishing Wood would attract many covetous eyes.

Lin Xiao not only talked to Liao Pantu about heading to the cultivation world but also consulted him about the Path of Questioning the Heart.

He had no clue about the Path of Questioning the Heart that the system required him to build.

When Liao Pantu heard that he actually wanted to build the Path of Questioning the Heart, he was a little surprised, but he was very happy to see it happen, so he said to Lin Xiao:

"The so-called Path of Questioning the Heart is naturally to question the true intentions in the hearts of those who pass through it. Almost every sect will have its own Path of Questioning the Heart. This path needs to be paved with Heart Questioning Stones, and as for these stones, they can only be found under the Heart Questioning Cliff in the Divine Hidden Continent of the cultivation world."

Therefore, on this trip to the cultivation world, Lin Xiao not only had to make connections but also had to go to the Heart Questioning Cliff to collect Heart Questioning Stones.

So Lin Xiao was still very busy recently. He had to squeeze in time to cultivate, research and refine the Soul Nourishing Pendant, and figure out more life-saving methods...

Guessing that Sun Yigao should be coming back in the next few days, Lin Xiao quickly found Liu Yunan and handed over the responsibilities of the private school's enrollment and managing various trivial matters of the sect to him.

After all, although Sun Yigao was very smart, he had not handled these miscellaneous affairs much, so regarding the private school enrollment, Lin Xiao planned to let Baldy assist him from the side.

After considering it, he decided to set the departure time for five days later.

It wasn't that Lin Xiao was overestimating his own abilities by wanting to venture into the cultivation world with only a Foundation Establishment cultivation base, but rather because he had his own considerations for the sect's development.

Previously, when they were chatting privately, Mo Yuanjiao had told him about the general situation of the Pusi Country they were currently in.

According to the current development trend of their sect, it was only a matter of time before they were discovered by the other three major sects in Pusi Country that Mo Yuanjiao had mentioned.

And looking at the rivaling stances of the three major sects, it was obvious that they would absolutely not be happy to see another sect pop up on their territory to carve up their original sphere of influence and the already scarce cultivation resources in the mortal realm.

Therefore, Lin Xiao did not want the gap between his sect and the three major sects to be too large when they were discovered, leaving them with no power to resist and unable to make the others wary.

Although he wanted to develop peacefully with everyone, others would not think the same way.

So he thought that just earning money and food was far from enough. Even though the sect's facilities were now complete in every detail, he felt it was best to head to the cultivation world to open up trading and information markets with them. This would be beneficial for the rapid development of their sect.

He had to make sure their Lingxian Sect was strong enough when discovered by the three major sects.

This strength could not just be his alone; it had to be a comprehensive strength of the entire sect.

Obviously, to achieve this, relying solely on the meager quest rewards given by the system and the current state of their sect was far from enough.

So he didn't want to delay the departure time for too long.

Moreover, just yesterday, his cultivation base had successfully advanced to the middle stage of Foundation Establishment.

Since it was impossible for him to advance to the late stage of Foundation Establishment anytime soon, he set the departure time for five days later. Five days should be enough for him to arrange all matters.

Thus, during these five days before departure, Lin Xiao was so busy his feet barely touched the ground.

He didn't even have time to mine, so he handed his small spirit pickaxe to Senior Liao and took him to the spirit stone mine at the bottom of the back mountain to help dig for spirit stones.

Going down into the mine to dig spirit stones for the first time, Liao Pantu felt a bit bewildered holding the small spirit pickaxe.

Several times he wanted to speak up and tell Lin Xiao that although he didn't have a massive stockpile of spirit stones within his soul body, he still had eight to ten thousand of them.

But after thinking for a long time, he ultimately didn't say it.

Forget it, spirit stones were the universal currency in the cultivation world. Who would ever complain about having too much money? Mining it is, then. It just so happened he was quite idle recently with nothing to do.

Anyway, if they really ran out of spirit stones while traveling outside, he could just take them out then.

And thus, Miner Liao was freshly minted.

With the mining issue resolved, Lin Xiao busied himself creating various cultivation techniques and spells.

There was no helping it; as the frequency of using spells increased, he realized that the spells he had created before were neither numerous nor refined enough. As for cultivation techniques, he only had one sword art so far, and he felt this was not very secure.

That was the cultivation world after all. For the sake of his own little life, Lin Xiao adhered to the principle of the more the better, frantically creating various techniques and mental arts whenever he had free time recently.

He also took the time to draw many practical talismans and formations, and refined many healing and recovery pills. The consumption rate of Senior Liao's medicinal field was extremely fast these past few days. Fortunately, he was almost entirely buried in the spirit stone mine digging away and had no time to come out. Otherwise, seeing the rate at which these spirit medicines were consumed, his heart would ache for quite a while.

On the third day of Lin Xiao's busy schedule, Sun Yigao finally returned to the village with his parents.

After receiving congratulations and thanks from the villagers, he went up the mountain and met Lin Xiao, who barely managed to squeeze out some time to host a welcome banquet for him.

The welcome banquet was entirely handled by Chef Jiang.

It was also at this welcome banquet that everyone, except for Liao Pantu and Liu Yunan, learned that Lin Xiao would be heading to the cultivation world—a place full of unknowns to them—in two days.

At the dining table, Lin Dayou sighed silently. He felt that the food made by Xiao Fuzi in his bowl was no longer as appetizing.

Seeing his look of my son is all grown up and hard to manage, Lin Xiao hurriedly said:

"Dad, just rest assured. I promise to guard my little life closely and absolutely won't give anyone the chance to take it away!"

Before Lin Dayou could say anything, Mo Yuanjiao, sitting next to him, spoke up with an excited face:

"Master, Master, if you are worried, let me go with Sect Master Senior Brother!"

Although Lin Xiao had previously clarified his and his father's relationship to him, Mo Yuanjiao still called him Sect Master Senior Brother without changing his tune.

Lin Xiao felt that since his father probably wouldn't take in any more disciples in the future anyway, let him call it whatever he wanted. If the seniority hierarchy was a mess, then so be it. It was only messed up for this group; in the future, if there were newcomers, he would just make sure everyone kept it under control.