Arranging Everything in Perfect Order

Although Liu Chun was not living at the sect, the Yuan family had never shortchanged him when it came to cultivation.

The place where he and his younger sister, Liu Qin, lived was also one of the more spiritually abundant areas within the Yuan family estate.

Qin Jianghe allocated Liu Chun’s cultivation resources according to his position as an elder of the Talisman Hall and the quantity and quality of the talismans he submitted each month, delivering them to him whenever he happened to visit the cultivation world for trade.

Every day, aside from looking after Liu Qin, Liu Chun devoted himself to crafting talismans and cultivating. Ever since he switched to the Primordial Essence Scripture, cultivation had felt as smooth as a fish swimming through water, and his cultivation level had advanced rapidly.

Now, three years later, he had risen from the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment to the early stage of Core Formation.

For Liu Chun, if someone had told him before he joined the Lingxian Sect that he would one day achieve Core Formation, he would never have dared to imagine it.

He had always possessed a heart that yearned for immortality, but at forty-five, still only at the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment, he understood all too well that reaching the Foundation Establishment Completion stage—or perhaps advancing just a little further—and exchanging all the resources he possessed for a pill capable of helping him break through to Core Formation would likely be the limit of his path.

By relying on medicinal power to force his way into the early stage of Core Formation, he might struggle to gain another hundred years of lifespan, but that would probably be as far as he could go.

As a rogue cultivator like him, without a good cultivation method, exceptional talent, or abundant resources, possessing only a minor skill that allowed him to live somewhat more respectably than ordinary rogue cultivators was already fortunate.

But wanting to steadily continue walking the path of cultivation, step by step, was truly an unimaginably difficult undertaking.

Yet now, what had once been impossible had become reality in only a few short years.

And he had not needed to pay any excessively one-sided price. All he had to do was earnestly carry out the things within his abilities—things he enjoyed and excelled at—while cultivating diligently.

Whenever Liu Chun, far away at the Yuan family estate in Yuanling City, thought of this, his heart filled with boundless emotion.

Meeting Lin Xiao in Yuanling City all those years ago had been the greatest stroke of good fortune in his life.

Compared to the Primordial Essence Scripture, however, most people within the Lingxian Sect still cultivated the Peach Blossom Myriad Void Art.

That was because not everyone who read the Primordial Essence Scripture felt that it suited them. In everyone’s eyes, whether a cultivation method was suitable came down to whether they could understand its contents and whether they could calm their minds enough to cultivate it.

Unlike the Peach Blossom Myriad Void Art, which most people could begin cultivating to some extent after grasping its meaning, the Primordial Essence Scripture was more selective about its practitioners.

Lin Xiao had subsequently fused several more cultivation methods, one after another. However, in terms of sophistication, none could surpass the Primordial Essence Scripture; and in terms of being both high-level and broadly compatible, none could compare with the Peach Blossom Myriad Void Art.

Thus, after three years, these two cultivation methods remained the mainstream choices among the sect’s disciples.

The other cultivation methods were basically kept in the reading corner of the cultivation room, where they served as occasional literary diversions for those who wished to change things up.

After dinner, everyone sat around the table, sipping tea and admiring the moon as they enjoyed this rare moment of leisure in the day.

At that moment, Liu Yunan’s exhausted figure appeared at the entrance to Yaoguang Floating Island in the distance.

Jiang Youfu had been keeping his eyes on the entrance. The instant he saw Liu Yunan, he happily waved and called out, “Yunan! Come over quickly—we saved some good food for you!”

As the years passed, they had somehow stopped addressing one another by the childhood nicknames they had once used. Instead, they now called each other by their proper names, formal yet still intimate.

When Liu Yunan saw everyone chatting after dinner, the fatigue vanished from his face. He put on a smile and hurried over. With a wave of his hand, Jiang Youfu brought out the food he had set aside and placed it at Liu Yunan’s seat.

Liu Yunan sat down, greeted everyone, and began eating with something close to ravenous enthusiasm.

The date for the sect’s recruitment of new disciples was fast approaching, and the Affairs Hall was swamped with work.

Since the Affairs Hall would be the department primarily responsible for coordinating with and arranging matters for the new disciples, many of the tasks fell to Liu Yunan.

Although the Heart-Questioning Path would oversee the disciple-selection process, the workload involved in promoting the recruitment beforehand, arranging the disciples afterward, and coordinating every related matter was far from small.

This was the Lingxian Sect’s first time recruiting disciples from the outside world. Liu Yunan hoped to handle everything flawlessly, so these days he had been pushing himself relentlessly—reviewing procedures, making plans, and coordinating with every department over the arrangements for the new disciples once they entered the sect.

He personally attended to every detail and was so busy each day that his feet barely touched the ground.

He hoped to make this recruitment drive a resounding success, establish a perfect image of the Lingxian Sect in the hearts of all the newcomers, and give every disciple who joined a genuine sense of belonging.

Everyone took the recruitment extremely seriously. Though they were curious, they refrained from disturbing Liu Yunan while he ate.

Only after he had eaten his fill did Qin Jianghe take the lead and ask, “Have you more or less finished making all the arrangements on your end?”

Liu Yunan let out a long breath after eating and drinking his fill. His overworked mind felt considerably more relaxed, and he nodded.

“More or less. I just have a few loose ends to tie up over the next few days. I’m really looking forward to the newcomers joining us!”

At that, everyone smiled in unison.

Jiang Youfu sounded particularly excited. “Our Spiritual Food Hall needs to take in some new disciples. I’ll teach them the spell I developed for quickly processing ingredients!”

Mo Yuanjiao chimed in as well. “Our Formation Hall too! Based on Senior Brother Sect Master’s description of that thing called a ‘roller coaster,’ I’ve recently developed another fun formation. I need some people to try it out and give me feedback!”

At those words, everyone coughed several times and turned their gazes away, refusing to make eye contact with Mo Yuanjiao even if their lives depended on it.

Ironhead Hu Liang was unwilling to be outdone. He hurriedly said, “I’ve gained some new insights from forging recently! I’ve been wanting to share them with someone, but everyone’s been too busy. Once the newcomers arrive, I’ll be able to teach them how to forge iron. Heh heh!”

Although the elders of the spiritual fields did not speak up like the young people, they were already imagining how, once the newcomers arrived, they would teach them all the skills they had developed for growing crops.

The new disciples who had yet to enter the sect had no idea that, despite not having appeared yet, their future lives within the sect had already been arranged down to the last detail.

“Oh, right. There’s something else I haven’t had time to bring up. I’m thinking of building a plaza on the mountain next to ours,” Liu Yunan said as he sipped his tea.

“I’ve made some inquiries recently about the response to our disciple recruitment in the outside world, and it seems to have been quite positive. Although we’ve raised the difficulty of the Heart-Questioning Path considerably after several rounds of adjustments, and our previous estimates suggested that only a few dozen people might ultimately pass, the main hall of our sect should be large enough in theory.

“But I think we should still make preparations. What if the number exceeds our expectations? In that case, the sect’s main hall might be a little cramped. It would be best to build a plaza.”

Qin Jianghe nodded at that. “Brother Xiao mentioned building a plaza before as well, but he never found the time to do it.”