Beast Taming Immortal Clan

As the first Golden Core cultivator in the Zhou family, Lin Hongyu usually didn't interfere in the affairs of the Zhou family, but after hundreds of years of accumulated prestige, she still held a pivotal position in the Zhou family's cultivator circle.

Xu Fu, who is voting now, was a junior who was slowly trained under her guidance back then.

Moreover, she was the Daoist partner of Zhou Daoyi, the supreme elder of the family.

So things became a little complicated after she voted for Zhou Zhigan.

Just like how Zhou Zhiying was influenced by her father Xu Fu to vote for Zhou Zhixiong.

Who can guarantee that Zhou Daoyi won't be influenced by Lin Hongyu and make the same choice as his Daoist partner?

At this moment, the core clan members who were attending the meeting below but had no right to vote couldn't help but look at Zhou Daoyi, and even Zhou Xinyan, who had not yet voted, was no exception.

You should know that according to the rules, each Supreme Elder has five votes!

Therefore, whoever Zhou Daoyi chooses will be eligible to exchange for Core Formation spiritual items.

"Xinyan, what about you? Which one do you think has more potential?"

Zhou Daoyi seemed unaware that he held the final decision-making power, and simply looked calmly at Zhou Xinyan, asking for his opinion.

Seeing this, Zhou Xinyan's face immediately showed hesitation.

He had actually made plans long ago, but the current situation forced him to think more deeply.

Firstly, he couldn't figure out Zhou Daoyi's thoughts, and secondly, he was more concerned about Zhou Zhiying's other background.

But with so many clansmen watching, he couldn't afford to delay any longer.

After careful consideration, he finally looked at Zhou Daoyi and said, "I also vote for Zhiqian; I have a higher chance of him succeeding in forming his core!"

That sly one!

Upon hearing Zhou Xinyan's words, many core clansmen below secretly cursed him for being too shrewd.

But now it's a two-to-two vote, and the final choice still falls to Zhou Daoyi.

All eyes could only turn back to him.

Zhou Daoyi seemed to have been prepared for this, and he quickly nodded slightly and said, "Since it's a two-to-two vote, then I will make the decision."

After saying that, he turned his gaze to Zhou Zhixiong and said, "I also have high hopes for Zhixiong's talent in talisman making. I hope he can successfully form his core and create more and better talismans for the family in the future!"

Upon hearing this, Zhou Zhixiong was overjoyed and immediately stood up, bowing deeply to him and saying, "Thank you for your high regard, Elder. I will certainly live up to your expectations!"

In contrast, Zhou Zhigan, after a moment of fluctuating expression, quickly calmed down, seemingly having accepted the outcome.

Seeing this, Zhou Daoyi nodded secretly and immediately said to him, "Zhiqian, although you failed this time, you don't need to be too discouraged. After all, with your lifespan, you can still wait for the next application!"

"Yes, I understand."

Zhou Zhigan bowed slightly and replied respectfully.

But in reality, he didn't take Zhou Daoyi's words seriously.

In another thirty years, he will be over four hundred years old. Even if he obtains a Core Formation artifact at that time, the success rate of Core Formation will be affected.

Given his personality, he clearly wasn't willing to wait idly like this.

With the results announced, the first Golden Core Spiritual Item Distribution Conference after the Zhou family's reforms came to a close.

Having obtained the qualification to exchange for Core Formation spiritual items, Zhou Zhixiong went around borrowing merit points to prepare for exchanging them for Core Formation spiritual items.

Thanks to his outstanding talisman-making skills, he has also accumulated a lot of family good deeds over the past few hundred years.

However, whether it was Foundation Establishment Pills, spiritual objects that aided in opening the Purple Mansion, or other pills and spiritual objects that aided cultivation, they all consumed a lot of his merit points.

His goal was to exchange for a complete set of Core Formation spiritual items.

Therefore, relying solely on one's own accumulated good deeds is certainly not enough.

At the same time, because of his excellent talisman-making skills, he had a good relationship with the core clan members who had accumulated a lot of merit points, as well as clan elders such as Xu Fu. Naturally, they were willing to lend him some merit points at this time.

In fact, Zhou Zhigan's failure to compete with him this time may not be unrelated to this aspect.

After all, although Zhou Zhigan seemed to have better aptitude, the problem was that he had not been in the family for decades, his relationship with other clansmen was not very good, and he missed the opportunity to fight alongside other clansmen to resist the beast tide.

Therefore, when he competes with Zhou Zhixiong, a genius talisman maker, more people will be willing to support him.

In fact, when he went to see Zhou Xinyan before the meeting, although Zhou Xinyan did not explicitly express her support for him, she generally thought more highly of him.

Zhou Zhigan himself is probably aware of this situation, so he quickly accepted his fate after the results came out.

After learning of the voting results, Zhou Chun did not make any statement. He simply had his disciple Zhou Zhiying send Zhou Zhiqian a fourth-grade low-level defensive talisman and 300,000 spirit coins, explaining that it was a personal reward for Zhou Zhiqian's pioneering work in the sword cultivation path for the Zhou family.

Zhou Zhigan was also a smart man. After receiving the things and words passed on by Zhou Zhiying, he understood Zhou Chun's meaning.

After thanking Zhou Chun, he exchanged his family's merits for various spiritual items to enhance his strength, then bid farewell to Zhou Daoyi and left the family.

Since he is not as popular as Zhou Zhixiong within the family, and his contributions are not as great, he can only seek opportunities for Core Formation outside in the way he is good at.

This kind of thing, where everything can be obtained with just the sword in one's hand, is more in line with the cultivation path of a sword cultivator!

That day, Zhou Chun was cultivating the "Falling Treasure Golden Light" divine power in his cave when he suddenly received a message from Zhou Daoyi.

After reading the message, he calmly continued practicing his supernatural power for a while until he successfully defeated the third-grade high-level magic weapon wielded by his Daoist partner Su Yuzhen with this supernatural power. Only then did he use his divine sense to invite Zhou Daoyi to come to his cave for a chat.

When Su Yuzhen saw that her magical artifact had been knocked down and lost contact with her, she couldn't help but praise and flatter her Daoist partner, saying, "My husband's progress in this supernatural ability is rapid. I imagine he'll be able to knock down magical treasures soon. At that time, he will truly live up to his name of 'treasure-dropping'!"

But after hearing this, Zhou Chun shook his head slightly and sighed, "It's still far from enough. The opponents I'll face in the future will all possess top-grade magical treasures at the very least. To knock down treasures of that level with this divine ability, I'm afraid it will take hundreds of years of arduous cultivation!"

With their superior strategic vision, Nascent Soul stage cultivators naturally cultivate supernatural abilities much faster than ordinary cultivators.

Take this "Falling Treasure Golden Light" supernatural power, for example. He didn't even practice it every day, yet he cultivated it to the point where he could knock down a third-grade high-quality magic weapon in just one or two decades.

However, any supernatural power becomes increasingly difficult to cultivate as one progresses.

Although the "Falling Treasure Golden Light" supernatural power has great potential, theoretically it could even knock down Heavenly Treasures.

However, the difficulty of mastering it later is actually greater than that of the "Golden Escape Technique".

To achieve the feat of knocking down a top-grade magic weapon requires hundreds of years of arduous cultivation, and it also necessitates having a Nascent Soul stage cultivation level.

Even so, Zhou Chun still had to persist in his cultivation.

This is because this supernatural power is indeed extremely useful later on, and moreover, he can amplify its power through his innate supernatural power, "Qiongqi Enters the Dream".

The same goes for the [Formless Geng Metal Divine Light] supernatural power, which has now become almost the most valued supernatural power by Zhou Chun.

The power displayed by this divine ability during his last encounter with Master Xuanzhen greatly satisfied him, and he was also very much looking forward to its full potential once it was mastered.

More importantly, this [Formless Geng Metal Divine Light] can also accelerate the cultivation process through certain external objects.

For example, using divine light to decompose, absorb, and refine top-tier spiritual materials like [Gengjin] can accelerate the cultivation progress of this supernatural ability.

Zhou Chun plans to focus on collecting top-tier spiritual materials like [Gengjin] when he participates in exchange events in the future.

Soon after, Zhou Daoyi, who had received his invitation via telepathy, arrived at the cave dwelling. Su Yuzhen served tea to the two of them and then withdrew, showing no intention of interfering in the Zhou family's affairs.

"The matter has been investigated and clarified. The disappearance and death of Zhou Baisheng's parents back then was a deliberate act of faking their deaths. In reality, both of them were taken to a separate courtyard under the jurisdiction of the Moon Wheel Sect for cultivation."

"Moreover, Zhou Baisheng also has his own concubines and children there, all of whom have become disciples of the Moon Wheel Cult."

"From this, we can deduce that Zhou Baisheng's successful Foundation Establishment back then must have been due to the resource support of the Moon Wheel Sect. He himself had already been corrupted and recruited by the Moon Wheel Sect, becoming a traitor to his family!"

After taking a sip of tea, Zhou Daoyi spoke in a low voice about the results of his investigation over the past two years.

Given the Zhou family's current power and resources, it's fortunate that no anomalies were discovered before.

After learning that Zhou Baisheng was a traitor, it wouldn't be difficult to find out the reason for his betrayal by reviewing the family files, investigating his past travel records and contacts, and mobilizing intelligence personnel from all sides to collect information.

However, doing so would require a great deal of manpower and resources, making it impossible to do this for every member of the tribe.

Furthermore, if this survey were conducted on every member of the tribe, it could easily create a climate of fear and anxiety within the tribe.

After all, cultivators value their privacy highly, and many Zhou family cultivators are well-behaved even within the family, but no one knows whether they have committed any crimes outside.

If it's discovered later, whether to take action or not will be another complicated issue!

After listening to Zhou Daoyi's words, Zhou Chun simply nodded and said, "The aura emanating from Zhou Baisheng that day gave me a sense of familiarity, leading me to suspect that it was a fragment of Yin Yue Zhenren's soul possessing him. Now it seems that the Moon Wheel Sect was indeed behind this!"

"Including the people we interrogated earlier, the Moon Wheel Sect has now planted as many as five spies in my Zhou family. And that's just what we've discovered; there are probably many more that we haven't found yet."

As Zhou Daoyi spoke, a hint of anger flashed in his eyes.

It is perfectly normal for various factions to plant spies in other factions within the country.

However, as a family of cultivators, it is undoubtedly infuriating that the Zhou family members were bribed and betrayed in this way.

Zhou Chun naturally noticed the anger in the elder's eyes. After thinking for a moment, he said, "How about this, send an official letter in my name to the Moon Wheel Sect, questioning why they want to sabotage the relationship between the two forces, and see how they respond."

"Besides, didn't the Yan Yang Sect also discover a few people? Let's send them an official letter to question them as well."

At this point, he said with a hint of helplessness, "Although doing this is indeed somewhat ineffective, under the current circumstances, it's not suitable for the family to expand blindly. Let's wait a hundred or two hundred years, until the family's numbers and quality meet the needs for expansion, before causing them trouble and making them suffer losses!"

You can't get fat in one bite.

The Zhou family doesn't even have enough manpower to fully utilize their current territory, so blindly occupying more territory is not advisable.

Therefore, they can only proceed cautiously, waiting until the number and quality of their cultivators have increased before continuing to occupy more territory and resources, thus snowballing their own power.

Zhou Daoyi also understood this principle.

Therefore, after hearing Zhou Chun's words, he could only suppress his anger and nodded, saying, "I understand, let's do it this way for now."

He then sent official letters to both factions in Zhou Chun's name.

Although both factions received the official letter, neither responded, as if the matter had never occurred.

Anyway, they all know that the relationship between the two sides has deteriorated, so whether or not they explain is not important.

If the Zhou family really wanted to take action against them, they wouldn't be short of an excuse.

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, ten years have passed since Luo Qingni successfully achieved Nascent Soul.

On this day, Zhou Chun had just made another breakthrough in the "Golden Escape Technique" and was in a good mood, so he invited Luo Qingni to come over for tea and to discuss cultivation experiences.

Unexpectedly, halfway through their conversation, Zhou Daoyi suddenly appeared outside his cave dwelling, looking anxious, and knocked on the door, requesting an audience.

This made him frown slightly, and he quickly let the person in.

"Something terrible has happened! Half an hour ago, a crack suddenly appeared in the spirit tablet of Uncle Mingde, and his life seems to be in danger!"

Zhou Daoyi knew the matter was of great importance, and as soon as he saw Zhou Chun, he immediately explained why he had come in such a hurry.

Then Zhou Chun's expression changed drastically.

"Let's go to the ancestral hall first!"

With a gloomy expression, he waved his hand and immediately flew down to the ancestral hall with Zhou Daoyi, arriving at the quiet room where the soul tablets were kept.

This place is guarded year-round by elders of the Zhou family with cultivation levels above Foundation Establishment. The requirement for these guards is that once they come here to guard, they must never leave the mountain gate again in this lifetime!

The person on duty here at this moment is an old woman with white hair, who has the cultivation level of the late Foundation Establishment stage.

She was already standing where Zhou Mingde's soul tablet was kept, staring at it with intense anxiety.

Only after noticing someone approaching from behind did he turn around and hurriedly bow to the two people who had arrived, saying, "Junior Zhou Yuanhe greets the clan leader and the Supreme Elder."

"Xiaohe, you can go out now. We'll call you if we need anything."

Zhou Daoyi waved his hand, signaling the old woman to leave first.

Then he and Zhou Chun waited together, watching Zhou Mingde's cracked soul tablet.

At this point, all they could do was wait.

Because the places Zhou Mingde traveled to were not close to the family, even if Zhou Chun rushed there with all his might, it would not be possible to arrive in just one or two days.

If he truly has a chance of falling from grace, the results should come soon.

After waiting for about half an hour, seeing that the soul tablet had not actually broken, the two of them breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Zhou Chun quickly said in a deep voice, "The soul tablet is not broken, which means that he has not yet perished. He has only suffered a severe injury to his soul, and there is still a chance to save him!"

Then he turned to Zhou Daoyi and asked, "Grand Uncle, do you know where he is currently traveling?"

"Two years ago, someone sent a message saying that he had traveled to the Wuyang Kingdom, which is near the cultivation world in the far west, and was planning to travel there later!"

Zhou Daoyi quickly revealed the information he knew.

According to the Zhou family's rules, members of the core clan or above who travel outside the family must send a message back to the family every five years, roughly informing them of their current location and the place they intend to go.

This way, whether the family summons someone for something or sends someone to investigate after something happens, they won't be running around like headless flies.

Zhou Mingde had been traveling for many years and had always followed this rule, often entrusting some multinational chambers of commerce to pass messages to the Great Zhou Kingdom, which was easy to receive, and then relaying them back to the family through Zhou family cultivators.

Upon hearing his reply, Zhou Chun immediately nodded and said, "In that case, I will take his spirit tablet and head to the vicinity of Wuyang Kingdom to search for him. I will leave the family matters to you, Grand Uncle!"

Upon hearing this, Zhou Daoyi immediately replied, "Don't worry about the family. If possible, you must protect the life of Uncle Mingde!"

"I will."

Zhou Chun gave a concise reply, then immediately put away the cracked soul tablet with a flick of his sleeve. He then exchanged a few words with Luo Qingni, who was still in her cave, before quickly leaving the family's mountain gate with Silver Dragon Lord and Phoenix Lord.

Saving lives is urgent. After leaving the mountain gate, Zhou Chun immediately had the Silver Dragon Lord reveal his true form, and then he and Phoenix Lord rode a dragon to the cultivation world in the far west.

The fifth-order Thunder Flood Dragon King's flight speed was naturally faster than Zhou Chun's. In less than three days, he arrived in the territory of Wuyang Kingdom, which was close to the cultivation world in the far west.

In order not to alert the top-level beings of this country and hinder his rescue efforts, Zhou Chun could only ask Silver Dragon Lord and Phoenix Lord to suffer some injustice and return to their spirit beast pouches first.

He then took out Zhou Mingde's soul tablet.

More than two days have passed, and the cracks on the soul tablet have widened, but it has not yet broken.

This indicates that Zhou Mingde's injuries had simply worsened, but he had not died.

Zhou Chun felt somewhat relieved and immediately used the wisp of Zhou Mingde's divine soul essence within the soul tablet as a medium to perform a tracking technique to find his true body.

However, what made Zhou Chun's expression change slightly was that he tried several different tracking methods, but none of them achieved the expected results.

It seems there's some powerful resistance preventing the secret technique from tracking!

"This situation could mean either that the Supreme Elder has been captured and imprisoned in a special isolation formation, or that he has fallen into some special secret realm or a secret cave with the ability to isolate and track him!"

Zhou Chun's eyes flashed with a sharp light as he instantly deduced several of the most likely outcomes.

Then the first possibility is ruled out.

Because if that were possible, the best course of action would be to kill the person, making it much harder for the tracking technique to work!

If it's one of the latter two situations, then you should ask a local cultivator for information.

Thinking of this, Zhou Chun immediately concealed his cultivation level, transforming into a mid-stage Golden Core cultivator, and then flew to several large markets within the territory of Wuyang Kingdom.

His original plan was to directly capture a few local Golden Core cultivators and interrogate them for the information he wanted.

But after he went into the market and made some inquiries, he learned what had happened to Zhou Mingde.

Just a few days ago, a void secret realm suddenly appeared above an ancient battlefield within the territory of Wuyang Kingdom, attracting many cultivators who rushed to explore and search for treasures.

However, the entrance to that Void Realm is now jointly controlled by the Earth Mother Sect, the largest power in the Wuyang Kingdom, and two other major powers, prohibiting cultivators from outside these three forces from entering.

After Zhou Chun learned of this news, he immediately knew that Zhou Mingde had most likely entered that void secret realm.

The so-called Void Realm, as the name suggests, is a secret space formed in the void.

Some of these void realms are naturally formed, but many more are created by human intervention.

It is said that such void realms were very popular in ancient times. Powerful forces would open up such void realms to hide treasures or do things that were inconvenient for outsiders to know.

However, to artificially create such a void secret realm, one must first have at least the cultivation level of the late Nascent Soul stage, then find a suitable spatial gap, master the method of creating a void secret realm, and then consume a large amount of rare resources to set up spatial arrays to maintain the operation of the secret realm.

Therefore, after the ancient times, many of the hidden realms that people created for the sake of opening up collapsed and disappeared on their own because they were not properly maintained.

The void secret realms that still exist in the cultivation world today are either naturally formed secret realm spaces or maintained and cared for by a powerful force that has been spending resources on them for a long time.

To be honest, Zhou Chun had also been to such a void secret realm before, which was the "Heavenly Spirit Trial" he participated in when he was only at the Qi Refining stage.

That trial ground was a natural secret realm that the Heavenly Spirit Sect once discovered and mastered, which was then transformed into this unique trial ground.

This also shows that not all secret realms in the void are full of opportunities and treasures.

Some void realms have sparse spiritual energy, and apart from being used as a large warehouse, they don't have much other use.

However, since this void secret realm that appeared in Wuyang Kingdom has attracted so much attention from several major forces such as the Earth Mother Sect, it is probably not the kind of void secret realm that is useless!

After gaining a general understanding of the situation, Zhou Chun frowned and muttered to himself, "This is troublesome. Many Void Realms refuse entry to Nascent Soul stage cultivators. If I want to go in and rescue the Supreme Elder, I can only send an avatar, and I don't even know if the realm will sever the connection between the avatar and my main body!"

Over the years, Zhou Chun has naturally not neglected the cultivation of the "Taiyi Two-Part Divine Technique," and this technique is not far from the second level of mastery.

However, before one has cultivated the legendary "second nascent soul," the main body still needs to maintain a strong connection with the avatar in order to keep the avatar functioning.

Otherwise, without the support of the original body, the avatar will directly fall into a state of dormancy to maintain its immortality.

Despite these concerns, Zhou Chun quickly headed to the vicinity of the Void Realm.

When he arrived near the location of that void secret realm, he found that the three major forces of Wuyang Kingdom had already placed the area within hundreds of miles of the entrance under martial law.

Meanwhile, many cultivators who refused to give up gathered outside to observe and discuss the situation related to the Void Realm.

Zhou Chun easily learned from some cultivators who had witnessed the incident that before the cultivators from the three major forces appeared and sealed off the entrance to the Void Secret Realm, a Golden Core cultivator had indeed entered the secret realm with a fourth-tier fire-attribute demonic beast.