Prudent Traveler

It had to be understood that floating islands, aside from the very few that formed naturally through an extremely rare combination of favorable circumstances, were almost all constructed in the cultivation world with vast amounts of wealth or built by cultivators of extraordinarily profound cultivation.

And neither vast wealth nor cultivators of such power could possibly exist in the impoverished mortal world.

Yet one had appeared right before his eyes.

It was unlikely to have formed naturally, either. Given how rare such a thing was in the mortal world, its natural emergence would certainly have produced an extraordinary phenomenon with far-reaching effects. That would inevitably have alarmed the entire mortal world, rather than leaving him completely unaware despite spending so long gathering information throughout it.

It seemed this legendary Lingxian Sect was not quite as ordinary as he had thought...

That evening, everyone in the Lingxian Sect submitted their forms for selecting supplementary cultivation arts.

That was right. It was not only the disciples of Qingyun Peak. Every member of the Lingxian Sect, except for the five people in the Research and Teaching Group, had to select five cultivation arts.

The Research and Teaching Group was highly efficient as well. Less than half an hour after the forms were submitted, everyone's class schedules had been arranged, and it was announced that their classes would be held at Lingxian Academy at the foot of the mountain.

That night, Lingxian Academy, which was usually empty and silent long before nightfall, was brightly lit and bustling with people.

The members of the Lingxian Sect entered the appropriate classrooms according to their selections.

However, the people of Xiushui Village noticed nothing.

Sun Yigao had already set up an isolation formation around the academy, cutting off all sound and light. From outside, it appeared as quiet and deserted as usual.

The entire sect's evening classes had officially begun.

Because there was currently a severe shortage of cultivation-art instructors, Sect Master Lin Xiao had to set aside his evenings for teaching as well.

Fortunately, everyone already had a foundation in cultivation techniques, so learning these cultivation arts was not particularly difficult.

Lin Xiao felt that it would not be long before they could train some cultivation-art instructors to take over for the Research and Teaching Group.

Moreover, unlike the few members of the Research and Teaching Group, who needed to master hundreds of cultivation arts in a short period of time, the others only had to learn five. Reaching the first level would therefore be quite quick.

After only ten days, more than a dozen of the sect's hundred-plus members had mastered the first level of all five cultivation arts they had selected.

The teaching burden on the Research and Teaching Group was immediately reduced considerably.

More than a dozen additional cultivation-art classrooms were opened, filling every classroom in Lingxian Academy.

Lin Xiao was finally able to free up some time to consider plans for constructing cultivation-art training rooms within the sect.

Now that he had reached his current level of cultivation, he no longer needed to rely on the system's synthesis function as he had in the past whenever he built something.

After all, that thing was far too random. Once materials were thrown in, one could only leave the result to fate and accept whatever the system produced. It could not fully follow his intentions, and making changes afterward was inconvenient as well.

Besides, cultivation-art training rooms did not actually need many functions.

As long as they had a spirit-gathering formation and separate areas for cultivation and practical training, that would be enough.

So this time, Lin Xiao decided not to use the system's architectural synthesis function. Instead, he would build the rooms himself.

He chose a location on a mountain behind Qingyun Peak, with the sect's main plaza between the two peaks.

The reason he chose this place was that, if the number of sect members increased in the future, the additional disciples would certainly be settled on the mountains farther back.

With that arrangement, placing the cultivation-art training rooms in the middle would make them more convenient for everyone.

As for the other frequently used facilities in the sect, such as the Four Arts Hall and the Miscellaneous Affairs Hall... those could wait.

For now, he would plan and build one thing at a time.

Fortunately, Lin Xiao had now mastered spatial formations.

With a few spells, he opened up a suitable area on the second mountain peak.

The various kinds of wood, stone, and other materials required for construction had all been purchased in the cultivation world by the Finance Hall during its regular trips there. They were quite different from the materials of the mortal world. In both durability and ability to isolate energy, they were far superior to anything available in the mortal world.

For a Nascent Soul cultivator like Lin Xiao, constructing several cultivation-art training rooms with the materials on hand was effortless.

As he built, he incorporated the spirit-gathering formations and spatial-expansion formations he had inscribed. Before long, the cultivation-art training rooms were complete on the mountainside.

Five rows of elegant buildings stood scattered along the mountain wall. They seemed to blend into the mountain itself, harmonious yet striking. A small, elongated open area lay in front of the buildings, and beyond it was a broad stone staircase of only a little over fifty steps that connected all five rows.

Below the stone staircase, however, were steep rocks and sheer cliffs. There was no proper path leading up.

Lin Xiao did not continue.

The road from the plaza to the cultivation-art training rooms would be left to the disciples of Qingyun Peak.

After joining the sect, they had only experienced building houses. It was about time they tried constructing a road.

With that thought in mind, Lin Xiao flew down and landed in the small open area in front of the cultivation-art training rooms. He then pushed open the door and entered one of them.

Now that they had been built, they naturally had to be inspected.

Lin Xiao entered the first cultivation-art training room and looked around. After finding no problems, he nodded in satisfaction.

There were five rows of rooms, with ten rooms in each row, for a total of fifty rooms. From the outside, each room did not appear particularly large.

In reality, however, that was not the case.

The interior of every cultivation-art training room had been greatly expanded by a spatial formation. Each one was large enough to accommodate a hundred people for classes. There was also a separate area inside for the members assigned to that room to practice the cultivation arts they had learned.

To ensure that everyone could practice more effectively and safely, Lin Xiao had specially reinforced the practice areas with numerous strengthening, isolation, and energy-absorption formations.

This guaranteed that when the disciples practiced the cultivation arts they had learned, they would not tear the building apart, blow it up, injure themselves, or harm anyone else.

Lin Xiao carefully inspected every cultivation-art training room. He also tested the limits of each practice area.

Only after confirming that they could withstand even his Nascent Soul-level power without the slightest strain, remaining as sturdy as before, did he finally leave satisfied.

Before departing, Lin Xiao took an enormous piece of ordinary jadeite from his private treasury. It was about the same size as the Lingxian Sect stele beside the thatched shed at the sect entrance, though this was an unpolished raw stone. It had been sent as a gift by the Pu Si Kingdom some time ago.

He tossed the jadeite raw stone into the item's synthesis function, then added several spirit stones. Finally, he wrote two characters and placed them inside as well before ending the setup.

The system completed the synthesis in a flash, producing a jadeite stele for him.

Of course, although it still looked like jadeite, its hardness was now on an entirely different level. It was no longer something ordinary jadeite could compare with.

Lin Xiao casually planted the jadeite stele in the grass at the corner where the open area in front of the cultivation-art training rooms met the stone staircase. He looked it over from both sides, nodded in satisfaction, and left.

Amid the half-withered, half-green grass, the three characters “Watch Your Step” appeared upon the jade-green stele.