The Daoist School's Pursuit

The sights and experiences along the way need no further explanation.

Whether it's the various poisonous insects, miasma, spirits, and spiritual herbs that arose from the powerful Heaven and Earth Great Source on Wushen Mountain, or the villagers living there, they all continue to live their lives in their own way.

However, Li Qi would occasionally pick some of the spiritual mountains and Spirit Springs along the way, mainly to fish and gather some herbs to enhance the enjoyment of his journey.

If we really need to get somewhere quickly, then we can just have Shen Shuibi drive us to the outer regions. We'll arrive in no time. The point of going out on a trip is to relax.

The fish raised in the Spirit Spring were delicious, but Li Qi got scolded for starting a fire on the Old Ma's back.

Let them criticize; Old Ma himself has suffered just as much.

Upon arriving in Liesu, I skillfully found the tamer to activate the switch, completed Liesu's questions and tasks, and then gained the right to use it. In a flash, I arrived at the edge of Baiyue.

Having arrived at the edge of Baiyue, both of them had terminals, so they could easily obtain basic entry permits from the Nexus of All Realms, which was not a problem.

However, due to traffic restrictions on the Human Path, Old Ma couldn't fly freely at this time. Everyone landed and chatted happily in the bustling city streets, buying local snacks and enjoying the vibrant night view of the Human Path.

I must say, the Human Path snacks were quite delicious; they really know how to enjoy life.

Carriages with embroidered wheels, the moon shining on pavilions, and a large shopping mall opening in the sky. Thousands of Golden Lotus lotuses are scattered across the heavenly street, lanterns are lit up, and thousands of petals open at once, gathering like fireflies and scattering like stars. There are also warbling birds and dancing butterflies, and the sounds of music fill the air.

After spending the night in Human Path, they boarded Earth Flow Chariot the next day and quickly arrived at the local Golden Platform amidst a rumbling sound.

Riding on the Golden Platform, they arrived at the northeastern border between the Human Path and Daoist sects in an instant.

The northeastern part of the world, belonging to the Daoist sect, is a peninsula and archipelago.

The Northeast is the border between the north and the east. As we all know, the East China Sea lies to the east, while the north is covered by ice fields. Therefore, the Northeast is a group of cold islands. Of course, this is the basic climate.

In reality, the Daoist sect can set the temperature of this place to whatever they want it to be; it doesn't matter.

This northeastern region is dotted with peninsulas and islands of varying sizes.

This is commonly known as the Three Islands and Ten Continents.

As for the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens and the Seventy-Two Lesser Grotto-Heavens, they are widely distributed throughout the world and are not necessarily located in the Northeast.

The Northeast is merely the foundation of the orthodox Daoism; Daoism has never forced anyone to stay in one place since ancient times.

That would go against the meaning of carefree living.

The pursuit of freedom is essentially the ultimate goal of Daoism. This is a conclusion that Li Qi has drawn from Shen Shuibi and the Cultivation Methods of Mount Luofu during this period.

What is meant by carefree living?

To follow one's heart, to be unrestrained, and to do whatever one wants—this is the long-cherished wish of Daoist practitioners, and also their ultimate goal, the ultimate goal of the entire Dao Lineage, similar to the Human Path Man replacing Heaven, and the absolute nature of the Shaman Path.

Free from the constraints of desire, the limitations of perspective, the obscurity of demonic thoughts, the limitations of physics, and the control of life and death, one is free from all limitations.

What they want is individual immortality and eternal freedom.

Immortality here does not refer to living a long time, but to absolute 'immortality,' or in other words, being able to die only when one wants to die, and to live when one wants to live, and being impossible to destroy by any means.

Even sealing it is impossible; when one's mind is free, one's body is naturally free as well.

Eternal and indestructible, unbound, free and unrestrained, this is the pursuit of all 'immortals', just like Shen Shuibi's behavior. Shen Shuibi doesn't care about the life and death of strangers, because it's not important to her at all.

All she wanted was to stay close to the people around her.

But this does not mean that all True Immortals are self-centered, cruel, and inhumane demons.

The difference between immortals and demons is that the freedom they pursue does not involve taking pleasure in the suffering of the weak. In fact, it can be said that they truly achieve this, using the limits of the weak as their own limits, and forming an organic whole with all things.

The "Qi Wu Lun" states. "Heaven and earth and I were born together, and all things and I are one." One is not more noble than all things, but all things are bound by shackles, while one breaks free from the cage and is able to truly experience these situations.

Furthermore, true freedom also includes controlling one's emotions, not letting worldly joys and sorrows disturb one's free and pure State of Mind, and maintaining one's natural disposition from beginning to end. External things such as benevolence and morality, worldly values, fame and fortune, politics and religion are all barriers that bind and enslave people.

To truly transcend everything, beyond physical constraints, beyond mental constraints, beyond the constraints of life and death, beyond the constraints of worldly cause and effect, and ultimately reach the absolute state of being unrestrained, that is 'freedom'.

Cultivation, accumulating spiritual power, and cultivating one's mind and nature are all for the purpose of achieving ultimate 'freedom', because you cannot achieve this out of thin air. Cultivation is the foundation for you to achieve all of this. Therefore, Daoism has created many cultivation methods and Technique Method to help itself gradually approach this goal.

Of course, this is only the goal of the Hidden World Faction. After all, most of the Daoist practitioners that Li Qi has come into contact with are from the Hidden World Faction, while Daoism also has Manifest World Faction.

Li Qi had little contact with the Manifest World Faction, only knowing that it had close cooperation with the Manifest World Faction Human Path, and that many of its Daoist priests frequented the homes of kings and nobles, and even opened Daoist temples in the palace of the Emperor as Imperial Preceptor, and were granted the status of Crimson and Purple Nobles.

It's likely that both sides have common interests, otherwise things wouldn't have turned out this way.

However, the Manifest World Faction is only a branch. The Dao Ancestor of Daoism is the Hidden World Faction, so naturally most of them are actually Hidden World Faction, including the Three Islands and Ten Continents. In particular, Penglai, as the holy land of Daoism, is the core of the Hidden World Faction.

Although the Hidden World Faction doesn't have any means of support within itself.

Everyone is together in pursuit of freedom, and each has their own sect or personal ties, so it's impossible for them to form an effective and complete group.

Human Path is the only way to unite everyone's strength, while the Daoist sect is a loose organization where everyone does their own thing and no one interferes with anyone else.

The dragon flew across the sky, and Li Qi looked down at the sea.

Countless islands, truly countless.

Here, cultivators seem to regard the islands as their own territory, and coincidentally, it is not difficult for fifth and sixth-grade cultivators to create islands out of thin air, so there are many, many, many islands.

However, the world is too vast, and this sea area is also very large. It is still controlled within a certain range. It can be seen that these are still islands, separated by dozens of miles of sea, rather than a continuous continent.

Although it's several dozen miles, which is practically face-to-face for cultivators, it's still quite far.

Li Qi looked around. He had never been to the Northeast Islands before, so he should take a good look at the scenery.

The islands stretch far and wide, their expansive views reaching into the distance, shrouded in mist and mystery, filled with wondrous and bizarre sights, their paths crisscrossed by strange and wondrous creatures.

The winds and clouds change, the flood trees twist and turn, the osmanthus bushes are thick, the jade branches and stems are upright everywhere, and the coral is lush and verdant.

Numerous coral reefs stretch around these fairy islands, inhabited by many fairies and even more sea beasts, giving the impression of "island clouds rising from the sea, and mist connecting with the jungle."

However, Li Qi could also see that there were almost no cities or settlements around, only sacred mountains. Occasionally, one could see Daoist Immortal Mountain in the Immortal Mountains, but few Daoist priests. The area was sparsely populated and there were almost no mortals.

It seems that without cultivation, one is not worthy of appearing in this place.

"Yu, why are there so few ordinary people here? How do you manage to take on disciples and pass on your skills? You can't all be going to the outer realms, can you? The people in this world are naturally a cut above those outside the realms. It's not worth it to take on disciples outside the realms." Li Qi asked Shen Shuibi curiously.

Why must there still be human reproduction in the world?

The stronger the world, the more talented the people living in it naturally become.

In the Ninth Rank World, becoming a Ninth Rank person is extremely difficult. To become a Ninth Rank person means being one of the world's top beings, dominating the world, the supreme martial arts master, one in hundreds of millions.

But for someone in the First Rank World, becoming a Ninth Rank person is much, much easier.

As for the World of Heaven, it is a world far more powerful than the First Rank World -Rank World. Among those born in the World of Heaven, only about one in a thousand are at the Ninth Rank. The difference is enormous, a difference of several million times.

Excluding the Baiyue, the Baiyue region might only reach one ten-thousandth or even more, because it is a place of Daoist struggle, but even the Baiyue can still reach hundreds of thousands of times the level.

Therefore, it would be extremely unwise to abandon all the natives in the world and go to distant lands to find disciples.

It's not that there aren't people outside the realm. Those scattered geniuses who break through the world's constraints are indeed no less capable than the people of the world. After all, the base number is there. What's one in a few hundred million? Even if one appears out of trillions, the realm can produce countless others, and some super geniuses will inevitably emerge from among them.

Moreover, spiritual cultivation is not always about innate talent. One's way of thinking, or what is commonly known as one's temperament and intelligence, is what is more worthy of consideration. Therefore, the various Dao Lineage do not always select people from all over the world.

However, the top geniuses born outside the realm are probably only on par with the world itself. Giving up the world is equivalent to abandoning nearly half of the available talent.

However, Shen Shuibi shook her head and said frankly, "I don't know. I've never been to Penglai. In fact, we have no connection at all and are complete strangers."

Okay, that's what the Hidden World Faction is like.

The sounds of chickens and dogs can be heard between them, yet they never visit each other until they die.

"That's certainly strange, but it's normal to be unfamiliar with things when you first arrive. Everything will become clear once you go to Penglai." Li Qi nodded.

It's not that he necessarily needs to know now; the place he's going to is Penglai, Penglai 'll definitely be able to come into contact with more things.

Old Ma continued his cruise, swiftly passing over the countless islands below.

Huliang is not far away, about two days' distance. You can get there in a nap with your eyes closed.

As one of the 'three islands', Huliang served as a transportation hub and also as a gathering place.

The book says, "In the past, Fanghu was a playground, where immortals followed one another. In the morning, one would ride a crane instead of two ducks, and travel to and from the round hills, still in Fanghu."

This describes the grand scene of Huliang, a rare market place for Daoists. The so-called Fanghu is Huliang, also known as Fangzhang.

After all, everyone is human. Although most of them are shut-ins like Shen Shuibi, they still have basic trading needs. As more and more people come and go, things have become like this, and eventually, they even built the teleportation point here.

Before long, the two men and the dragon finally arrived at Huliang.

Here, we can finally see a portion of the Daoist sect's production capacity.

The first thing that catches the eye is the towering mountain peaks. It seems that Daoist sects particularly like to live in the mountains, but they are not without buildings.

The mountains are shrouded in mist, and the exquisite pavilions rise amidst the five-colored clouds, making the surrounding world appear even more 'vivid'.

Swallows flutter, butterflies flutter, white cranes leap, clouds gather and turn, and phoenixes dance as if about to take flight.

Countless small boats approached Huliang from the sea. Huliang Immortal Island seemed to be swallowed by clouds and mist. The countless boats were like being immersed in a star palace. The water rippled and the Spiritual Qi surged, making it extremely beautiful.

There are also many flying magical Law Treasure or mounts. For example, Li Qi and his companions could see many Flying Peaks floating in the sky, with floating mountains suspended in mid-air.

The treasure box hangs with golden ribbons, and the crimson pouch is locked with jade chains. Countless golden ribbons slowly descend from the Immortal Mountain, each inscribed with countless runes, each with its own unique power. Jade chains connect the Flying Peaks, linking them together to prevent them from flying too far apart.

Its jewels shimmered, its five colors swirled, its beauty was like pearls and brocade, it was majestic and magnificent, its grandeur was awe-inspiring, it soared into the clouds, and its golden light shone brightly for two hundred miles.

As they drew closer, the air was filled with the resounding strains of celestial music and a rich, exotic fragrance, seemingly the scent of medicinal pills. And it wasn't just one or two; there appeared to be a vast quantity of pills and herbs here, their aromas soothing and delightful.

As you approach further, truly nearing the Huliang, you'll find golden palaces with morning bells, thousands of households standing side by side, jade steps and celestial processions, a thousand palaces, brocade banners under the bright sun, feathered robes fluttering in the sky, refreshing purple qi, and white clouds gazing upon them. All sorts of celestial beasts and spirit pets are scattered across the land, and many Daoist practitioners also travel and move about here.

They didn't seem busy; instead, they sat leisurely doing their own thing. Even the young Daoist disciples were the same. Time seemed to slow down here, and reality became even more vivid.

The most striking feature is that everything becomes incredibly clear, as if a movie filter has been applied. The mountains appear more majestic, the water clearer, the sky bluer, and even the rolling sea of clouds seems more vibrant.

Flutes and drums soar into the sky, smoke and clouds meet, stars vie for brilliance, lamps and candles are dim, wind blows through windows and cloud beams, thousands of doors and households, buildings with nine pillars, looking east to the peak of Lingshou, the moon shines on the jade bed, looking west to the Huagai Ridge, bamboo is like gold, lush and protected from the dew.

Humans and spirits intertwine, veiled in green silk, with a purple canopy overhead; the beauty of immortals is unparalleled here.

Old Ma always appears imposing and extraordinary when he's out, but here he's as small as a mudfish, like a passerby buying steamed buns who wandered into a grand scene in a movie.

"This is really... cool. I didn't know that people from the Daoist sect liked this kind of extravagance," Li Qi exclaimed.

If these were just illusions or hallucinations, that would be one thing; Li Qi had seen far more spectacular illusions, after all, that was his profession.

But the scariest thing is that all of this is real!

With fewer than three ranks, this kind of scene couldn't be arranged!