“Wait, so we really are just heading right back to Lionheart Town?”

Wan Ling shook her head, “No, we’re heading towards Five Mountain Province. Song Lu Tian has offered to shelter us for some time.”

Seeing the confused look on Sage’s face, she shared a look with Zhu Jiao and they shared another chuckle, “You were battling near the border of Five Mountain and Endless Valley. I contacted all of your friends and had them use the Merciful Mollusk. I bought a special device from the Thousand Treasures that destroyed a Messaging Jade to get the location of the connected jade. Then we used the loaner Flying Ship to catch up with you in time.”

That explains the lost connection.

“The transportation formation fees is the reason we couldn’t bring so many people. It's a good thing you recently befriended two other Nascent Souls. The Song Clan is going to protect us while you recover, but you’ll have to teach some of their refiners how to create Formation Swords. The members of the Mount Song Sword Sect all seem to be jealous of Song Lu Tian’s swords. Normally this would be a big business opportunity, but we’ll have to trade it for a favor.”

Sage nodded, “It was an obscure thing I saw mentioned in the Holy Flame Sect Library. I developed a rudimentary technique to create an item set, I’m sure there are many more impressive ones out there in this endless world.”

“Your own technique? Well, then you’ll have to be half a teacher to some weapon refiners in the Mount Song Sword Sect. We’ve done some business with them over the years, but this is a good opportunity to deepen the relationship.”

Zhu Jiao smiled, “You’re so excited, Sister Ling. You should thank those Tiankongs, when everyone was drinking they begged to see the rest of their family. That little punk Jiyao got into a bragging match with Song Lu Tian and lost badly. That girl Baozhai tricked them into battling over who was the most generous, and that led to us being offered their protection for a hundred years.”

Sage released a long sigh, “I really will owe him greatly. It is definitely worth trading that technique I created to shelter with them. So many of King’s wives and descendants are already there, so it should be fine for us to stay with them.”

He looked at both Zhu Jiao and Wan Ling, wondering how he got into this strange position, but not daring to voice such thoughts. Then he bowed his head to each of them in turn, “Forgive me for not being strong enough to protect and provide for you.”

Two voices spoke in unison, “Idiot.”

The Five Mountain Province didn’t get its name because it only had five mountains. In fact it was the place where two mountain ranges met, the province had hundreds of mountains within it and was quite a popular place for rogue cultivators. For some reason, mountains naturally seemed to have higher densities of energy in the air around them, which made them a very popular place for cultivators to set up their headquarters. Sage also thought they liked to be secluded or look down on the normal mortals, so it was a given that with so many mountains there would be many cultivators occupying them.

It was also encouraged by the rule of the province, the Mount Song Sword Sect. They considered themselves a ‘righteous’ sect and ruled their province quite loosely. They let other cultivators do as they wished, and merely sent their own disciples out to gain experience. With so many roaming disciples eager to right the injustices of the world, their province was kept orderly without them having to keep track of anything. With such a loose hand and such good territory, many smaller sects and clans were constantly formed and destroyed, which bred lots of opportunities for their disciples to enter battle, which was just what they wanted. Other provinces would create strict rules for the local sects and clans, but the Five Mountain Province was far more free and chaotic to create a good place for their disciples to struggle and build their fame.

The actual source of the province’s name was the Five Mountain Sword Sect Alliance. An alliance of five sword sects, split among different Kingdoms, with each of them being named after a mountain. Just like the Artful Life Alliance was created to allow them to compete with first rate powers, the Five Mountain Sword Sect Alliance was created to allow them to deal on equal terms with a Kingdom. Even if the five sects were in different kingdoms, they were treated with respect and care by the royal families because of their cohesiveness. This greater privilege is what enabled them to lead their province so loosely, since they weren’t required to contribute so many resources to the Dou Kingdom. As a concession, some of the county prefects were essentially managed by the Dou Kingdom, but it meant they had free reign in the rest of their province.

Sage had only picked up bits and pieces of this in the past, but now that they were heading to the Five Mountain Province, he brought out a Memory Sphere filled with general information that had been collected by his Information Network as well as from the scrolls and books he’d looted from his foes. While he was always finding himself too busy to carefully learn it all, he always took care to store it and transfer it onto Memory Spheres. That technique he invented long ago to copy pages and maps into a Memory Sphere at high speed served him quite well. Most of it really wasn’t important, but he wanted to know as much as possible before falling under their protection. In the past he didn’t have much choice so he chose to trust them with King’s wives and children.

This could all be some sort of elaborate trap. Sending Song Lu Tian to help save me, just to lure me back and complete their collection of monsters. The Human Seal is definitely no secret to them now, could they want to steal it?

Sage’s worries turned out to be unfounded. The Mount Song Sword Sect were indifferent to his arrival. They met with only one Elder Song who greeted them and then dismissed them just as quickly, treating the matter as only a minor trifle. Sage could tell the man felt no threat whatsoever from the enemies that had given him such a terrible time. For him it was a great calamity, but to the Mount Song Sword Sect it wasn’t anything but air. They were sent to stay with the rest of King’s family and found that they’d been given their own mountain.

Unsurprisingly, many of King’s children had already formed many relationships with the Mount Song Sword Sect members. They had brought many Hoplites along with them, which meant they already had access to a crude Human Seal. Many hundreds of Bird type Demonic Beasts had already been collected from all over and inducted into this plan. They were given Human Seals and could form partnerships with the Sect cultivators. The Beasts weren’t official members of the Sect, but they could act as mounts or fight together as partners in exchange for cultivation resources. The crude Human Seals left them all looking like demi-humans with feathery ears and clawed fingers, but it only took a short while for the people of the province to grow accustomed to the demi-human teammates of the Mount Song Sword Sect Disciples.

The Tiankong Family basically became the beast taming division that the Mount Song Sword Sect never had and were treated quite decently. Sage was quite happy that Song Lu Tian had been able to secure such a nice place for them. He was afraid they would get turned into slaves, but because of Song Lu Tian and also the sect’s reputation, they treated them quite fairly.