Cultivation begins in Qingfeng Market.

He gave his parents that villa in Ziyang Domain to live in.

The sect was too vast and too quiet; my parents weren't really used to sect life.

It's much better in Ziyang Immortal City; it has a lively atmosphere and neighbors interacting.

They planted some ordinary first-tier spiritual plants in the spiritual land of Zhaoyang Peak and sold them in their own shops. They didn't expect to earn much spirit stone; they were just happy.

Most of the time, Lin You and Ye Xiaoxiao use this villa in Tongmingyu.

There is a teleportation array between the two immortal cities, which is very convenient for sect disciples to use.

Lin You found the Ziyang Domain too peaceful; the Tongming Domain had more sects and independent cultivators, allowing him to participate in various affairs.

She was a sword cultivator, but she still preferred the diverse and chaotic atmosphere of the Tongming Domain.

Ye Xiaoxiao stayed because of Luo Yu. The Tianhuo Dynasty was rebuilt in Dingfengyuan. The three dynasties have been fighting fiercely for years, and Luo Yu has gradually gained his own position in the Tianhuo Alliance.

Apart from the ten years they spent in the Dao Inquiry Hall of the sect, Ye Xiaoxiao and Luo Yu never lost contact and even met occasionally.

Lin Zhao shook her head; she'd all grown up by now.

Lin You and Ye Xiaoxiao have joined the sect, and with the life-saving techniques he gave them, they won't suffer any losses.

Young people should handle their own romantic entanglements; he won't get involved.

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After traveling tens of thousands of miles downstream from Tongming Immortal City, the concentration of spiritual energy begins to decrease.

There are fewer and fewer cultivators. You might not see one who can fly for days. Occasionally, you might encounter a spirit boat, but it will just fly away from you and no one will pay any attention to you.

In the end, even the spirit boats disappeared, and only ordinary people's wooden boats and bamboo rafts floated on the river.

There are quite a few towns for ordinary people.

Large patches of aquatic plants and algae began to appear on the riverbank, densely covering the surface like a green carpet.

In some places, aquatic plants and reeds intertwine, covering the mud and sand, and over time, they have formed small islands.

Some wooden islands are only a few dozen feet long and inhabited by a few dozen people, while the larger ones can be several miles long and inhabited by thousands of people.

The island is covered with trees, simple houses, and fishing nets drying on it. Chickens and ducks roam freely among the reeds.

Such a wooden island is very fragile; a flood can wash it away, and a storm can overturn it.

Lin Zhao did a quick calculation and realized that he had been out for more than a year.

These kinds of days are actually quite nice.

Go wherever you want, and stop and stay for a few days if you see an interesting place.

But Lin Zhao also knew that he could do this because he was a cultivator.

I can travel 100,000 miles a year and I don't feel tired at all.

I don't feel bitter despite the wind and rain, and I can even go without food or water without any problems.

In a mortal's life, one must experience birth, aging, sickness, and death; corvée labor and taxes; war and famine; and various external pressures.

Just staying alive takes all your strength.

There were also many mortal dynasties on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Lin Zhao traveled and observed along the way, and whenever the mood struck him, he would disembark and spend a few days wandering around those dynasties.

These places have scarce spiritual veins, and very few cultivators.

The rulers of the dynasty were just a few Foundation Establishment families; Core Formation True Persons were legends, and it was rare to see one every few hundred or even a thousand years.

People with spiritual roots are detected at birth and then sent away—either to a celestial city, a sect in a nearby major region, or to sea to seek immortal opportunities.

Many people left and never returned; very few remained in the dynasty.

This place is more like a real ancient dynasty—cultivators remain hidden behind the scenes, controlling various forces within the dynasty and rarely showing themselves.

Lin Zhao only now realized this somewhat belatedly.

The places he's been active in over the years—Yunxia Mountain Range, Cangyun Mountain Range, Tongming Domain, and Jiuling Mountain Range—are not actually remote places.

Those places have many cultivators, and although the competition is fierce, there are still cultivation resources available.

In remote dynasties like those today, where spiritual veins are so thin they are almost imperceptible, Foundation Establishment cultivators are like gods.

A Foundation Establishment family can manage tens of millions of mortals, but it can't produce a single Foundation Establishment cultivator even after ten generations, because there is simply no opportunity to reach the second stage of Foundation Establishment.

Cultivators with spiritual roots either venture out to explore the world or spend their entire lives as Qi-refining cultivators within the dynasty, dying when their lifespan ends.

Therefore, when natural disasters struck, these dynasties could only leave ordinary people to fend for themselves.

Lin Zhao was by the river when he came across a wooden island about a mile in size.

It is also made up of countless reeds, aquatic plants, dead branches and some mud tangled together, relying on vines in the water to fix it in the shallow water on the shore.

The island is home to thousands of fishermen who make a living by fishing and collecting rare aquatic products, which they then trade with the inland dynasties for grain and cloth.

But now the island is falling apart.

A storm covering thousands of miles is pushing up from downstream. Dark clouds are looming overhead, and the wind and waves are tearing the vines around the island apart one by one.

The island was rocking violently in the waves. The wooden houses collapsed, and people were crying out, while others clung tightly to the wooden stakes.

The pontoon bridge connecting the shore has broken. Once the wooden island is detached from its anchor and swept into the middle of the river, it will drift downstream, and none of the thousands of people will survive.

Lin Zhao stood on the spirit boat for a moment, then sighed.

He flew off the spirit boat and stepped into the sky.

The aura of a Core Formation cultivator was released without reservation, and a sword intent soared into the sky.

A gaping hole, hundreds of feet wide, was torn open right in the center of the dark clouds, and sunlight poured down from it, shining on the wooden island and on the faces of the mortals who looked up.

But this is not enough.

The thunderstorm clouds stretching for thousands of miles, the sheer power of nature, were beyond what the Azure Lotus clone could withstand.

Even with the main body and the Heavenly Heart Dharma Wheel, it couldn't withstand such a wide-ranging thunderstorm.

Commanding wind and rain is a skill of a Nascent Soul True Monarch; a mere early-stage Core Formation clone like him doesn't yet possess that ability.

Lin Zhao opened his arms, and azure spiritual light surged from his palms, pouring down like water and disappearing into the river below the island.

A blue aura spread out from beneath his feet, rippling like water and turning the river water for miles around the wooden island green.

Tiny specks of light rise from the bottom of the water, increasing in number, then begin to condense, stretch, and transform into countless algae.

The algae intertwined, forming vines. These vines tangled and intertwined, tightly binding together with the previously crumbling wooden island.

It eventually solidified into a floating island several miles in size, shaped like a half-open blue lotus, floating steadily on the water.

This was his imitation of the method used by True Monarch Qingyuan to forcibly lift up a small world thousands of miles away with his ten-thousand-foot Dharma Form.

He could only provide shelter for a few miles around.

The roots of the blue lotus penetrated deep into the earth's veins dozens of feet below the riverbed, slowly drawing in the surrounding spiritual energy and condensing it into a faint barrier of spiritual light near the wooden island.

The wind and rain lashed against the barrier, creating fine ripples, yet the barrier remained perfectly still.

Lin Zhao looked at the blue lotus below and felt a sense of enlightenment.

Although a Golden Core cultivator still cannot resist the power of heaven and earth, they have gained the ability to protect themselves in the face of the vast天地 (heaven and earth).

"Once a golden pill is swallowed, my fate is in my own hands, not in the hands of heaven"—this is not an empty saying.

The blue lotus below, several miles in size, is a manifestation of his power, but it is also the limit of his current strength.