Seeing the smile on Zhi’s face both the Ancestor and Fanghong were taken a back. To so confidently say that no one under the 2nd Tribulation wouldn’t be able to muscle their way in here, this made them curious of one thing: Exactly what was this Island. Seeing their suspicious faces Zhi continued smiling as he said, “I obtained this Island from the corpse of an Elder in the Ancient Battlefield. It had a jade slip on which were recorded all the relevant information of the Island. It used to be the headquarters of a very strong sect and from the various clues the elder had found, the sect originated from an unknown place. My suspicion is that it originated from the Ascended Plane.”

Hearing this both of them were dumbfounded. To actually have an Artefact from the Ascended Plane was something that every Clan or Sect would guard as their biggest treasure. Their Long Clan’s Secret Realm was also something that the Founder from the Ascended Realm had left behind for them. Inside it were various Ancient Formations and Arts that would be the Highest Grade to them. So a Fortress Island from the Ascended Plane was no way weak. They now understood why Zhi was confident in the Island.

However, as they were thinking of the many benefits of this thing, Zhi sighed, “Although I have bound it, I can at most currently control 15 pre cent of the total number of Formations on this thing. And it’s biggest size is currently limited to 6000 square kilometers. After I pass the Empyrean Tribulation, I can control about 40 pre cent of the total number of Formations. The size limit would also rise to 10 000 square kilometers. With every advancemnt from then on I can use more and more of the Islands formations.” After saying it like this, both Fanghong and the Ancestor felt their scalps numb as the Ancestor asked, “To completely control the Island, what level would you have to reach?”

Zhi thought for a while and said, “I need to pass the Second Tribulation and enter the ranks of Sovereigns. At that point in time could I completely bind the Island and freely use all of it. Also at that point in time, I can also open the Secret Vault of the Island.” The Ancestor tilted his head as he asked, “The Secret Vault?” Zhi nodded his head as he said, “Don’t forget, this used to be the headquarters of a Powerful Sect from the Ascended Plane. The previous elder who obtained this Island never managed to completely bind the Island but he speculated that at least someone from the Sovereign Realm was needed to completely and thoroughly bind it.”

This truly made them feel that Zhi had landed on a gold mine. This kind of a strong treasure had fallen into his hands, also the Secret Vault was probably several tiers higher than their Clan’s Secret Realm. The Ancestor now truly wanted to move their entire Clan here and now he understood why Zhi was so hung up on his own rules. With a place like this, he needed to have strict management or it could all go south real fast. As the Ancestor thought about it, he grit his teeth and told Zhi that he would join his Island even if he had to come alone. With that he headed back to the Clan to make preparations to take the people who agreed to Zhi’s terms with him to come here.

Before he left, he turned his sight towards Fanghong and asked. “What are you going to do?” Fanghong thought for a second before saying, “I will come back to the Clan with you but my goal is going to be different from yours.” Hearing this Zhi understood something was going to happen but before he could say anything Fanghong smiled to him, “Don’t worry I am only going to cast her aside. When I cut my ties with her, I would like to see whether she has the face to still stay there and leech the resources or not. Also, it will be fun to see how the Grand Elder is going to handle this.” Hearing this, Zhi also smiled.

This would completely destroy that woman’s reputation and face. If the Grand Elder decided to intervene somehow it would show everyone that he was involved in the incident. This move was quite ruthless but since Zhi didn’t have any good feeling towards the woman he just said to Fanghong, “Give her a good strong slap for me.” Hearing this Fanghong just smiled and followed the Ancestor to go to the Clan. Now with only Zhi left there, he stared at the sake cup in his hand for quite while before slowly standing up. He found Zhishi and Fend to help him create a memorial stone for his mother. He didn’t tell them everything but he told them that the dragon form that time was his mother who had now died.

It didn’t take them long to find people and the materials to create a nifty gravestone for her. They created a 2 meter high Cross with a dragon coiled around it. In the centre of the cross stood a name: Long Xiaomei. The gravestone marker was made from Volcanic Stone that was extremely strong, was resistant to any element and had a deep black jade glow. The end result took the craftsmen only a few days to make but the it was beautiful thing. He even said that if anyone dares to as much as put a scratch on it, he will personally skin that person.

Actually, he didn’t need to make such a threat because everyone knew that Zhi’s background was not simple and to make a gravestone marker for her was already a great honour for them. When Zhi was looking at the gravestone, suddenly Zhishi appeared behind him as he respectfully said, “Ancestor we have followed your order and contacted our Clans to spread the word of our recruitment.” Zhi glanced towards him and nodded.

When Zhi had found them a few days ago he gave them the task of contacting their Clans and bringing them here if they wanted. Also to spread the word of Dragon Cross now taking in people. The first patch of people were due to arrive tomorrow. After such a dominating display of might, the Demons found their safe haven. All they knew was that this Island had a Dragon that could kill the right hand man of the Dragon Emperor, who was a late stage Empyrean King, with only pressure alone. The Humans didn’t dare to stay on this continent any more and all of them were scrambling to actually release their slaves and flee back to the Human Continents.

As Zhi nodded towards Zhishi, he suddenly felt that someone had entered the Island Formations. When he focused on who it was, he discovered that it was Fanghong. Well, the aura was Fanghongs but the appearance most definitely wasn’t. The person had a luxurious azure robe on, his hair was cut short and he had no beard. When before he looked like a beggar, now he looked like a very upright person. He waited until Fanghong reached him before smiling at him, “I didn’t nearly recognize you. I almost unleashed all the Formations on you.”

Fanghong’s face flickered when he heard that and just said with a bitter smile, “As they say, the clothes make the man.” Zhi chuckled but then his face turned serious as he asked how it went. As if anticipating this, a big grin appeared on Fanghong’s face. He said, “Well, long story short is that she lost all he standing in the Clan until the Grand Elder “graciously” took her in. However, her acts disgusted everyone in the Clan, even those who supported her before.”

Then Fanghong narrated everything in detail, about how Fanghong had demanded to do the Bloodline Test with their “son”. In the beginning, she had tried to evade that but when the Ancestor stepped in and told them to do it, she only had to reluctantly do it. It wasn’t a big surprise that their bloodlines didn’t have anything in common. If a Father and Son both dropped a drop of their blood, they would call for each other and they would fuse perfectly. However, this wasn’t the case, making it obvious to everyone that that bastard wasn’t Fanghong’s son. However, the Ancestor saw an opportunity and ordered the Grand Elder to also drop his blood there.

In the beginning, everyone were suspicious about this order but when the Grand Elder’s drop of blood perfectly fused with the bastards, it was obvious to everyone who the child belonged to. Not only did it undermine the concubines reputation, it also made everyone look at the Grand Elder with scorn. This would help the Ancestor win over people more easily if he used this as an example on how rotten this Clan was already and beyond healing it was. Zhi could only sigh to the move the Ancestor made, it truly was vicious and killed two birds with one stone.

However Fanghong had one regret, it was that he didn’t record the two’s faces when both he and the Ancestor told everyone that Zhi was still alive. The Grand Elder had even shouted out that it was impossible, making him more guilty and suspicious. No one even say anything about Fanghong slapping her so hard that she flew through a brick wall. When Zhi heard that the slap made her fly through a brick fall, he instinctively winced.

Zhi spoke a few words more with Fanghong and then decided to pour all of his efforts into creating the Artefact Pagoda. Although he had a lot of formations, it still was quite difficult to create ones that tested the applicant. After a week of different tries, he finally succeeded with it. When he opened the Pagoda to the public, everyone were astonished to discover that it was in a pocket dimension and the amount of Artefacts that were there didn’t use numbers to count but mountain loads to count. When he had dealt with most of the issues there, he created four pendants that allowed the 4 Island Lords to access the Treasury. He had already opened up most of the Cultivation related formations on the Island, he had dealt with all the urgent issues, now all they had to do was wait until the first influx of people stopped so they could deal with the loopholes and problems that cropped up. However, from what Zhi observed, he didn’t need to personally do much in that department.

Feng and the rest fully displayed their expertise in managing people and resources. Everything worked like clockwork and Zhi didn’t have anything more to worry about. So he told Feng and company that he will go into cultivation now and if there are no major or urgent things, they can make the decision themselves. After doing so, Zhi finally entered closed door cultivation. Ever since he left the Ancient Battlefield, he hadn’t had time to properly cultivate as he had to deal with one thing after another. As he checked his injuries, he nodded his head when he couldn’t find any. He closed his eyes and entered cultivation state. When he opened his eyes again he was standing in front of a luxurious black palace.

At the highest peak of the palace was a 3 meter high pedestal on which was a black core with white stripes forming a beautiful pattern on it. The Core was now fully formed and to advance to the next step, he needed to find his soul and infuse it with the Core. If he managed to do that, he would enter mid Nascent Soul Stage and it would only be a matter of time before he birthed his Nascent Soul. As he focused on finding his Soul, he started thinking about one thing: What exactly was a Soul? The more he pondered on it, the more was dragged into a mysterious comprehension state. Since he was fully immersed in the comprehension, he didn’t notice that his Qi started rotating on it’s own.

The Tattoos on his body also started to glow with light as if resonating with something. As Zhi’s Qi kept rotating, it also started attacking a few small tunnels. Those small tunnels were what people would usually call “Hidden Meridians”. Unless you had a special technique to find them, finding and excavating them would be extremely difficult to do. However, the gains from excavating them were very beneficial towards ones cultivation. Currently, without Zhi knowing, his Qi was roaming around his body and excavating those hidden meridians. As time passed, the number of meridians excavated only grew. After excavating the 81 meridian, the progress slowed down considerably. The Qi only stopped searching after excavating the 98th meridian. When the 98th meridian was excavated, Zhi’s body shuddered as black impurities were forced out of his body.

However, there weren’t a lot of them, as Zhi was more and more immersed in his comprehension of the Soul, he finally opened his eyes and said, “So that’s it.” As he said so a small replica of himself appeared above the Core. As it sat down cross legged on the Core, it started slowly sinking in. Zhi kept observing the process and a few hours later, the Soul had fully sunk into the Core and merged with it. A popping sound rang out as more impurities were forced out of his body.

Seeing the impurities being forced out of his body made him feel as though he was reborn. Now all he had to do was wait until the Core gave birth to the Nascent Soul. As he was pondering on what to do in the mean time, information appeared in his head. It was a technique to purify his Qi and temper his internal organs. What picked Zhi’s interest the most was that there was also a technique to store Qi included.

The point of this technique was to infuse his Qi into a symbol and he could use it as a reserve in times of need. It was like a reservoir of extra Qi. With having nothing else to do and since the Fruit had told him to do it, he started practising according to the technique the Fruit had given him.

***

In a secluded little cottage sat an old man with long black and white hair. As he sat there in meditation, he didn’t emit any signs of life. He was like a corpse Suddenly, he opened his eyes. One of the eyeballs was pitch black while the other was completely white. He turned his head towards the side and said, “Sandra, you seem to be in a happy mood.” As he said so, a petite woman appeared out of thin hair.

She also had black and white hair as one of her eye whites was black. Her figure wasn’t anything too outrageous but the black robes she was wearing perfectly hid her curves. She had a bit of a childish face as she smiled towards the old man and said, “Hey, old monster, the one who obtained the Fruit in the Immortal Demon Realm has made a breakthrough.” The old man was startled for a second before he closed his eyes. He immediately smiled as he said, “Hoho, seems like his progress is not half bad. The purity of his Qi is very good while his body is very thoroughly tempered. I’d say that that young boy is quite the Genius.”

The little girl nodded as she said with excitement, “He obtained the most picky of the Guardian Fruits. None of our Fruits were as thorough as his and he has reached his level in a mere ten years, he will soon reach the Empyrean Level, then Sovereign Level. After passing the Third Tribulation and stepping into the Origin Realm, he will be a very good helper to us.”

The old man let out a little laugh as he said, “True, but that is only if he manages to get that far in the first place. Countless years have passed since the Guardian Fruits came to existence and since the beginning to now, no one who had possessed that Fruit has managed to pass the Third Tribulation and enter the Origin Realm.” Hearing this the little girl pouted as she stuck her tongue out towards the old man saying, “Meanie, this guy is different. No one else had managed to acquire the Tattoos either and he even has the Wings. If he survives until the Third Tribulation, there is no way he can fail it.”

The old man just gave out a little laugh again when he saw how the little girl names Sandra was defending Zhi. He looked towards the horizon and his gaze seemed to pierce through the fabric of space itself and it was like he was directly looking at Zhi. “Huh, that is...” The old man was astonished when he discovered the symbol of entwined flames on his forehead. They both had the same technique so they knew what it was.

Sandra’s mouth opened wide as she exclaimed, “Isn’t that the Flame Reservoir?” The old man nodded and said, “Now then, I take back what I said before. It truly would take a miracle for him to fail the Third Tribulation.” The little girl chuckled as she heard that.