Author’s note: This episode was sponsored by Shomari A, Frostwolf06, and Yeshkumar C! Thank you!!

Host’s note: I’m not the author. I’m just rehosting here for the author.

At this moment, Jin Xia’s cultivation had went from being at the 7th stage of Xing Profound to the 3rd stage of Spiritual Dan realm.

While the effectiveness of the formations may be great, the repercussions are likewise equally great. Moreover, the reformations are not exactly the most powerful to use, so Jin Xia was unwilling to expend it on Xie Mei, the Fei sisters, or even his parents.

Jin Xia had much more potent formations, but those would require him to reach a much higher realm before he could perform them. And he could not wait that long.

He wanted to wait until he was much stronger later on to perform a stronger formation technique on the ones who he is more close to.

Although Jin Xia could have used the formations on the Jin clansmen, he did not place much trust in the Jin clansmen overall at this point in time. Jin Xia needed two separate powers who were exclusive to only him and his parents to command, entities who would are completely devoted to them.

And the fastest method to obtain such entities is to create them with your own hands!

That’s why Jin Xia had decided to take in young children, transform them into high cultivators, and then properly nurture them, so that in the future they will be fully committed to him only.

Wiping off the blood on his face and calming his spirit, Jin Xia patiently stood on guard as he waited for the children to awaken. Although he was unable to use his Qi energies after overspending them, Jin Xia was determined to protect the children even if he has to overdraft his spirit once again.

He was not willing to let his hard work go to waste, much less let the ones whom he had carefully decided to nurture die so easily.

Jin Xia was willing to give his life up for them. This is his resolution as a deity. His conviction and obsession to something once he had set his mind on it. A stubbornness sculptured through aeons after aeons.

Unbeknownst to Jin Xia, several of the cities and human populated areas were currently in a turmoil. This was naturally due to the strange pillar of light they had seen in the sky moments before. Some stronger experts who were near could even feel a terrifying aura emanating from the blinding light. A few could roughly tell it was coming from the Kaitech Mountain.

In response to their curiosity and unease, several nearby factions had sent over their elders and scouting team to investigate the phenomenon. Many practitioners soon went rushing towards the direction where the pillar of light was last seen.

However, strangely, they were unable to discover anything. In fact, wherever they scouted, they could not find anything out of the ordinary. Even the forests and mountain ranges they visited were normal, with no rare treasures, that they thought to be the cause of the light, in sight.

After a few more hours of searching, these cultivators could only return back to their sect and clan in frustration and deject. No one discovered Jin Xia or the large group of children…

Of course, none of them knew that the reason why they were unable to find the “source” was related to Jin Xia having laid down a complex illusion formation within his surrounding.

After purposefully selecting a place populated with trees, Jin Xia had not only set up the formations used to help the children, but also an Advanced Illusion formation. In a small country like the Great Azure, a formation of this level was already more than enough.

After all, while inscripting symbols was a difficult feat, creating and breaking formations were even harder. Some powerful inscriptionists could even go through their entire career without being able to create a single formation, as such methods are often only obtained through rare scrolls and tablets.

It’s not something that a normal Rune Inscriptionist could simply “make” on their whim, contrast to making symbols where a few comprehensions would suffice. Only Inscriptionists above the Supreme realm would possess the qualification to create formations. Even the weakest formation would one to be a Level 8 Rune Inscriptionist.

While breaking a formation solely depended on a cultivator’s cultivators, the fact that it requires such a high level of cultivation and comprehension already goes to show the difficulty of making formations.

Thus, it was often better for lower leveled Rune Inscriptionists to learn formations left behind by great Inscriptionists. This way, they would not only possess a stronger method at an earlier stage, they could also gain a few insights into the art of formations!

But in a country like Great Azure, Jin Xia doubted there would any Rune Inscriptionist who possess a formation skill, much less the ability to break his formation!

It was only after night fell did the children groggily awoke from their slumber. Because of Jin Xia’s “Heavenly Healing Lotus Formation”, the children did not feel much pain during the “baptism”. Thus, they only felt their body being powered by a vigorous energy the moment they woke up, rather than being struck with excruciating pain .

Upon seeing that the children had awoken, Jin Xia quickly ordered them to follow him as he began to find the exit of Kaitech Mountain.

As the mountain range was quite small, only about ten miles north of Tian City, it was not a problem escorting the bunch of children.

It was finally time to head home after an extremely tiring day…

______

Arriving back at the Jin mansion, Jin Xia ordered the servants to prepare a large living quarter for the children. Although the sight of Jin Xia bringing home a large group of over 200 little children was quite strange, no one said anything.

Afterwards, Jin Xia visited his parents’ bedroom and spoke over the matter of creating the two groups with them. Jin Liu Dan was naturally very happy when he heard that their family would increase in power.

And with his son’s status in the family now, even he, the father, feels that it is quite hard to reject any of Jin Xia’s proposals.

With the matter easily settled, Jin Xia finally went back to his room to mediate and recover his energy.

As for training the children, Jin Xia had naturally already thought it over on their way back home. He decided that the next morning, he would personally divide up the children into two groups.

Jin Xia would hand the authority to command and the responsibility of training the children over to the Fei sisters.

He would let Qing Fei manage the personal Xia army and let Yu Fei be the head of the Jin assassin guild. As ex-princesses of a whole country, the two girls were well versed in various arts, including dancing, playing an instrument, commanding a military and strategizing war tactics, etc.

And over the two months, Jin Xia had begun to place his trust in the two girls a bit more after seeing that they were willing to follow him.

This had put his heart to ease, as he was afraid he would have to kick them out of the Jin Clan should they decide to stay with rebellious intentions.

Taking out a few elixirs from his Eternal Gourd and throwing them into his mouth, Jin Xia quickly began to cultivate.

As he quietly meditated, the night quickly passed and a new morning unceremoniously arrived.

***

Somewhere in the dense forests of the Kaitech Mountain range, loud roars and animalistic cries could be heard ringing throughout the night. It was now the beasts’ time of the day to roam the mountain as they please.

A few hours after Jin Xia had led the group of children back to the Jin Clan, a sudden tear appeared in the blue night sky.

*Riiiip*

Like a vertical eye, the space distorted and opened, revealing an endless darkness within.

Shortly, an aged man wearing golden robes stepped out from within the spatial tear.

Standing above on the air, the old man had a head full of white hair along with a touch of gentleness to his countenance, making him seem quite approachable and friendly. On his clothes’ chest area, was a brilliantly engraved character, “Wang.”

The moment the old man stepped out from the tear, the entire Kaitech Mountain range instantly quiet down. Except for the soft chirping of the crickets, there was not a single beast cry to be heard.

The rip in the sky slowly closed itself behind the old man.

The white haired man squinted his eyes as he surveyed the mountain range, as if he was looking for something.

When his search yielded no results, the elder gave a light sigh as he softly muttered:

“Master said the huge source of Qi fluctuation should here somewhere…aai… was I too late? Even after master had personally ripped open a spatial hole and sent me here, the preparation had in the end still taken quite some time…”

While the white haired elder was still scanning the forest below and muttering to himself, the sky was suddenly forced open once again. This time, a hole appeared in front of the elder.

The old man immediately looked up at the rip in front of him. Then, with wide eyes, he quickly adopted a semi-bowing posture facing the direction of the fissure.

The dark abyss within was once more revealed, except this time, no one stepped out from within the darkness.

Instead, a soothing and melodious voice floated out from within the spatial rift:

“Wang Ji, were you able to find the person?”

The old man gave cupped his hands towards the fissure and respectfully said: “Wang Ji, greets the master!”

Lifting his head up, the white haired elder had a glint of admiration and veneration as he looked at the dark rift.

“Judging from the faint human aura around this place, the person we are seeking had most likely already left a few hours ago. If you wish, I will search continue to search around the nearby vicinities for this person.

If not, this disciple of yours is willing to take any punishment for his lack of ability to complete this task that master had given me.”

The old man once again deeply bowed.

There was a moment of silence before the musical voice floated out once more: “There is no need for any punishment. We can only have ourselves to blame for being behind this time around. It took quite sometime to pinpoint this distant location… For now, do not give chase.

For someone who was able to cause such a large fluctuation of Qi that could even be felt across such lengthy distance…I can only imagine that such a person would most likely be an incredibly powerful expert.

Perhaps even comparable to I. If you were to be discovered by that expert, instead of making a friend, we would have made another mighty foe…alright, that is enough for tonight. Return now. We will talk later.”

Wang visibly shuddered when he heard last few sentences of his master.

The person they were looking for could possibly be someone “even comparable to” his master herself?

If that was true, then Wang Ji dared not imagine what might’ve happened to him if he had actually found the cultivator in question…

Having arrogantly scanned the mountain at the start and boldly releasing his aura, Wang Ji feared that if the hidden expert had still been around, he would have likely been killed several times over for acting so brazen!

After all, many high level experts hate being abruptly “felt” through others’ Qi sensing or investigated, especially by someone who was lower in cultivation. In many cases, it would end with the investigator dying at the hands of that superior expert. The personalities of these great experts were often quirky, sometimes even unreasonable to some extent.

Containing his horror to himself, the old man raised his head as he replied: “Your disciple understands, Master Jiu!”

With that, the white haired elder walked forth towards the spatial tear before completely disappearing into the obscurity. Afterwards, the tear slowly closed before the sky returned to its former cerulean hue.

Several moments after the old man left, a few powerful auras appeared above the sky again. Some even landed on the forest ground, while some other stronger experts chose to arrogantly scan their surroundings with their sixth sense.

Upon seeing that there were nothing out the ordinary, these peak experts could only furrow their eyebrows before vanishing and speeding away into the night sky.

After a long while, with no one else appearing again, the Kaitech Mountain once again regained its liveliness as if the previous period of silence had never happened.

Beasts loudly roared and insects madly chirped as the night slowly melted into the horizon.