The beam of light soon dissipated and Zhi told everyone to return. He then glanced towards the various power’s that had come to spectate the Tribulation and seeing them leave as well, he slightly lowered his guard. Zhi looked at the sight of everyone who had protected the old man congratulate him and the old man in return, thanked them without putting on any airs.

After everyone had given their congratulations to the old man, they left to celebrate their first Origin Realm Expert. At least, the first one they knew of. After everyone had left, the old man looked at his hands and clenched them tightly, a hint of smile appeared on his face. It was at that moment, that Zhi appeared in front of the old man and said with a smile, “Congratulations.”

The old man did not put on any airs and gave a deep bow to Zhi. He then said, “This is all thanks to you Island Master.” Zhi patted him on his shoulder and said, “No need to be so modest, it was you who did all the work.”

The old man straightened his back and helplessly shook his head. He then said, “No, this is all thanks to you. If it hadn’t been for you, I would not have tempered my body. If it weren’t for you giving us all such optimal cultivating grounds, I am afraid I would have never even entered the Late Stage of Primadorial God Realm.” Hearing this, Zhi smiled awkwardly and said, “Well, it doesn’t matter if what Art the person practises.

If the person doesn’t have the Will, even the best Art in existence will not be able to help him.” What Zhi said was not actually belittling himself or over exaggerating the old man. If a person did not have the will to cultivate it did not matter if he had the most peerless talent and the best Art in existence.

If the person himself had no interest or will towards cultivation, he would never progress. The peerless talent may pass the Empyrean Tribulation with the help of his Sect or Clan but the Second Tribulation, he will never be able to pass it. Zhi then also smiled and told the old man to go back to the Island for now and celebrate this advancement with his family. He also told him to come and find him tomorrow as he would have a few gifts to give him for passing the Tribulation. The old man nodded and flew back to the Island.

Zhi just stood there looking over the damage caused by the Third Tribulation. It was actually quite horrific. The once serene and beautiful island was now turned upside down. All the trees were scorched, grass and wildlife had died off and the lakes had evaporated, leaving behind massive empty craters. Zhi just sighed as he thought to himself, “I need to prepare a location for Tribulations asap. If we let everyone undertake the Tribulation wherever, we will soon run out of places to live at.”

After slowly shaking his head, he also flew back to the Island. When he arrived on the Island, he could see the old man in the middle of a huge crowd that was toasting him one after another. Since the old man had more precise senses than the rest, he felt Zhi’s presence. Seeing Zhi looking at him, he raised his cup in toast towards him and smiled. Seeing this gesture Zhi smiled and waved towards the old man. He then turned towards his own courtyard.

When he arrived in the courtyard, he was greeted by twenty figures already waiting for him. Seeing them all arrive, Zhi nodded and set up Isolating Formations. These twenty people were all those that were at least at the Origin Realm but had chosen to hide their cultivation for some reason. Zhi looked over them all and said, “Now, I am not going to pry into your pasts or ask why you hid your cultivation. All I want to ask of you is that, are you going to continue hiding it or are you going to come out to the open with it?” Hearing this, one of the people in a long red robe asked, “Which does the Island Master prefer?”

Zhi was startled by the question but when he started thinking about it, he answered, “I would prefer you guys to stay hidden. A dagger is sharpest when it is hidden.” After Zhi said so, a smile formed on their faces as Hide said, “Although we feel bad for not doing our best during the war, we steeled our guts to not let Dragon Cross fall. If things had come to that, we would have all revealed our cultivation and slaughtered everyone who was out enemy at the time.” Following Hide’s statement was the nodding of everyone’s heads.

Although they all had complicated past’s they still all wound up at Dragon Cross and none of them could actually say that Dragon Cross did not offer them good benefits. Earning Contribution Points was not hard and everything could be traded with Contribution Points. Taking Hide for example, he had gotten a lot of complicated and profound Formation Diagrams from Dragon Cross that allowed his Forging abilities raise to a whole new level. Also, since Zhi had put all the materials he had obtained “up for sale” as well, he was able to obtain and use a lot of materials that he had only dreamed of using but had never been able to obtain.

Every single person present had gotten benefits like that, so although they were used to being rouge cultivators, they still felt indebted to Dragon Cross. Zhi just smiled at the Hide’s words and said, “I am actually planning on distributing you guys all over the World. If you have any objections to this or wish to be together with someone, let me know.”

All of the experts present narrowed their eyes and the man in the red robe asked grimly, “Are we preparing for war?” They had all seen the four figures that had ignored Zhi and tried to kill the old man from the Long Clan. They had also heard Zhi’s shout saying that those guys were from the Sheng Clan. Zhi just let out a deep breath as he gestured everyone to sit down.

They all knew that this was going to take a long time, so they sat down in a discourteous manner. Some sat on chairs while some sat down cross legged on the ground. Zhi also sat down on a chair and then said, “I honestly did not want to fight with the Sheng Clan but those pricks can’t admit their own faults. If they had left us alone, I would not have actually made a move against them. Maybe I would even have turned over a new leaf and tried to be on good terms with them.” All these experts nodded to Zhi’s words as they understood that the incident Zhi was referring to was the one with Sheng Jack.

Sheng Jack had mustered over a hundred Clans and Sect’s to eradicate Dragon Cross but it could still be forgiven on the account of it being his own personal doing, without the help or guidance from the Clan. If they had admitted that they had been at fault at that time and Jack had done it on his own and that their Clan had nothing to do with it, Dragon Cross naturally wouldn’t pursue it. Jack was dead, the remnants of the Long Clan had been annihilated and the hundred plus Sects and Clans had now become their subordinates. Since the culprits in question were actually dead, there was not reason to start nitpicking and pursuing the matter.

However, the Sheng Clan could not swallow their arrogance and had tried to assassinate a person from Dragon Cross that was undergoing the Third Tribulation. This was something that was a blatant sign of war against Dragon Cross. Since they had thrown down the gauntlet like this, Dragon Cross was not going to take this lying down.

In terms of allies, they had a very close relationship with the Phoenix Clan from the Upper Plans that was a Direct Branch of the Ancient Phoenix Clan. That meant that they practically had the backing of the Ancient Phoenix Clan. Also, the same way they had a relation to the Peerless White Tiger Clan and Primordial Black Turtle Clan.

Every one of those three Clans was a power that could destroy the Sheng Clan by themselves with no effort at all. Besides, Dragon Cross itself had twenty Origin Realm powerhouses and if you counted in the people from their subordinate forces, they would have over three hundred Primadorial Gods. The numbers of Paragons, Sovereigns and Empyrean level people was ten times the last. They themselves had more than enough people to put up a fight against the Sheng Clan. However, Dragon Cross was advantaged for one reason: They were not as arrogant as the Sheng Clan.

The Sheng Clan was a Clan that usually kept to themselves and procured their own resources. The trade they did with other powers was minimal and done only when absolutely necessary. However, Dragon Cross was different, it was a Sect instead of a Clan, so they were compromised of a lot of different Clans. They also had many Alchemists, Artificers, Arraysts, so they traded a lot with other powers. Zhi couldn’t possibly produce all of the materials they use, so they trade with many different powers for the materials. Dragon Cross also does order made Pills or Artefacts, so a lot of people come to have a custom made Artefact made for them specifically.

Thanks to this, Dragon Cross had a lot of connections and this made a difference of Heaven and Earth in this kind of scenario. Since the Sheng Clan did not trade much with others, they were not reliant on external sources. It would be hard to dry them up by leaving them no income of resources, however, they all went outside to temper themselves.

When word got out of Dragon Cross and Sheng Clan having a fight, most Sects, Clans or even Factions would side with Dragon Cross. They can just raise the tax for Sheng Clan members. All of them need to come out to experience the world and if all of the Major Cities and Enterprises asked ten times the normal fee in terms of taxes from the Sheng Clan, they would take a heavy setback. This kind of a conclusion wasn’t hard to reach actually since all of the old and ancient powers will be able to see that befriending Dragon Cross was many times more beneficial that bowing their heads to Sheng Clan.

Dragon Cross may be a new Sect but it had Arts that were many time better than most Sect’s Core Arts. They also had Artificers, Alchemists and Arraysts that did not produce goods only for the Sect but they also did custom work. They were not arrogant either and gave the same fixed price to everyone, it didn’t matter if they were Demonic Cultivators, Daoists or Buddhists. They didn’t discriminate by the Race either, so they could be seen as a very good business sect. The Sheng Clan however offered none of that and they also looked down upon anyone who wasn’t from the Dragon Race. To top it off, they also berated and disdained the people from their own Race that were not from their Clan.

The young man in white asked Zhi, “So, what is your game plan?” Zhi didn’t even need time to think about it before he answered, “Well, first things first, we will take over this World and set it up as our Head Quarters World. After everything is under our control, we will lay down the World Scale Defensive Formations and Qi Gathering and Purifying Formations. At the same time we lay down the Formations, we will establish the Branches of Dragon Cross and when all of this is done and the Branches have solidified themselves, we will start establishing Business Branches at the Upper Planes as well.”

He then let it all sink in for a moment before continuing, “We will also establish a Branch at the Ascended Plane. That Branch’s main purpose will be to monitor the Sheng Clan and also to establish new relations with different powers of the Ascended Plane.” After all of this was said, all of the Origin Realm Experts looked at Zhi with a hint of smile on their faces. They were quite impressed by the level headedness and planning of Zhi.

They had all been alive for thousands of years so it would not be hard for them to come up with a good plan or two but this kind of a step by step plan was produced by someone who was only twenty five years old and in such a short timeframe. He may look only fifteen but his foresight was quite terrifying.

Hide then suddenly asked, “Are you planning on distributing the Halls and creating different styles for the Branches?” Zhi nodded to Hide and explained, “Although, the original idea of creating a replica of Dragon Cross was good, I find that creating a specialized Branch would be a bit more beneficial. It would allow us to have more playing ground in terms of resources and personal. It would also ease the tensions between the Branches by quite a bit.” Hearing this, Hide nodded in understanding.

They had not taken the factor of struggles between Branches into account before. If every single Branch was a replica of Dragon Cross, it would cause unnecessary frictions and tensions. However, if you specialized the Branch, for example, one Branch had Artificers, the other had Alchemists and so on, it would not cause much tensions between them. They would still have competitions and such between them but it would not be something that will create some sort of blood feud between Branches.

Suddenly, a young woman in a white gown asked Zhi, “Do you have a specific placement for us in mind already or is there still time to change it a bit?” Zhi looked towards the young woman and nodded his head, “All I currently have in mind is how many people will go where. Who those people are, there is no set list yet so if you wish to be with someone or wish to not be with someone, let me know.”

The young woman nodded her head and then pointed towards the robust young man next to her and said, “We are husband and wife, so I would appreciate it if you could put us in the same place. Also, due to our cultivation method, we can only exhibit our true strength when we are together.” Zhi looked at the robust young man next to the maiden. His eyebrows furrowed as he asked, “You use a Dual Cultivation method?”