"I heard that illegitimate daughter of your family tested as having a Single Spiritual Root? She's in the limelight for now." Nan Xianshi leaned closer, blinking her lively eyes. "And you're only blessed with Five Spirit Roots?"
"Bai Ling is no longer a member of the Bai Family, so she can't be considered one of my family."
"Looks like you hate her too? Not bad, not bad." Nan Xianshi nodded approvingly. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Since we've entered the immortal sect together, we'll be fellow sisters from now on."
Bai Lan nodded. Looking at the lively and tsundere Nan Xianshi, she lowered her head and smiled.
They had only just escaped death. Most of the mortals aboard the flying ship were still trembling with lingering fear, so how could they have the leisure to care about anything else?
Only bold people like Nan Xianshi still had the mood to strike up a conversation.
"Hmph, what a pretentious Little Vixen. She's always using that fragile posture to win sympathy. Disgusting." Nan Xianshi snorted coldly, her gaze like a blade as it swept straight toward Bai Ling in the distance.
Bai Lan followed her gaze. Sure enough, Bai Ling was speaking with the disciple named Le Qing, every frown and smile brimming with delicate softness.
And Le Qing's eyes, as he looked at Bai Ling, were already filled with tenderness.
She just wondered what expression Senior Brother Le Qing would wear in the future, when he discovered that his beloved Little Junior Sister had gotten together with his own master.
Would he fulfill their wishes? Or betray his sect?
Tsk, how interesting.
"Everyone, we've arrived." A clear, chilly voice rang out from above.
Bai Lan looked around at the sound. The flying ship slowly came to a stop, and the sight of the immortal sect gradually emerged before her eyes.
Layer upon layer of mountain peaks rose amid swirling clouds and mist. Flocks of immortal cranes and cultivators flying on swords could vaguely be seen weaving through them.
And where they stood was the outer sect.
"Martial Uncle, why are there so few disciples brought back this trip..." A blue-robed cultivator stepped forward, first offering a respectful salute. He glanced at the dozen or so disciples disembarking from the flying ship, then spoke with some confusion.
Weren't there usually fifty or sixty people in previous years? Why were there only a dozen this year?
"Hmph. We encountered cultivators from the devil sect lying in wait to kill us, and there was even a traitor among the inner sect disciples. That person seemed to be under Junior Brother Qing Xuan. Those devil cultivators must have come prepared this time."
That "Senior Brother Liu" was from True Person Qing Xuan's lineage... Wait, could Lan Ning, that young master of the Devil Race, have infiltrated the Azure Origin Sect under the alias Senior Brother Liu?
A guess flashed through Bai Lan's mind, but she shook her head. A guess could not be treated as fact.
"Since you are the outer sect steward, compile a list of those who perished on this journey and send their families some gold and silver." After True Person Zi Ling spoke, she did not linger. She summoned a lotus-shaped flying artifact and vanished from the spot in an instant.
Core Formation True Persons were just like that—coming and going like the wind.
The blue-robed cultivator known as the outer sect steward froze, scratching his head.
"Forget it, forget it... Hmm..." The outer sect steward glanced at the list handed over by a disciple beside him and slowly said, "Long Aotian, Bai Ling, Nan Xianshi, you three come with me. The Sect Master wishes to see you. Zhang Shan, take the rest to find lodging."
Two of those three possessed Heavenly Spiritual Roots, while Nan Xianshi had dual spiritual roots. All of them had quite good aptitude and would most likely be accepted directly into the inner sect.
As Long Aotian and Bai Ling left, they turned back with uncanny coordination and gave Bai Lan provocative smiles.
Bai Lan: "..."
You two really hadn't forgotten your original intention. Wherever you went, you never forgot to send a few eye-blades at her, your "number one enemy."
"If I enter the inner sect, Senior Sister, it's not as though I can't look after you in the future." Nan Xianshi arrogantly raised her chin, tossed out that remark, and quickly followed the outer sect steward.
Bai Lan: "..."
Tsundere was already out of fashion, thank you.
The bamboo houses the Azure Origin Sect had prepared for menial disciples had originally been four-person dormitories. There were more than twenty of them, but because the number of newly admitted disciples had sharply dropped, everyone could now receive a house of their own.
"There is a copy of the sect rules in each room, a set of instructions for drawing qi into your body, and a bottle of Qi Nourishing Pills. Our Azure Origin Sect does not have many rules. Only the bottom line of the righteous path must never be crossed. Otherwise, the Law Enforcement Hall will show you what it means to be better off dead. And for those who violate the laws and flee in fear of punishment, the Azure Origin Sect's kill order will follow you for life."
Everyone's expressions turned solemn.
"You are still mortals now. Remember to cultivate diligently and never slack off." After saying this, Senior Brother Zhang Shan pointed toward a distant mountain. "That is where the sect's spiritual fields are. Menial disciples must submit a fixed amount of spiritual herbs every month. Any excess can be exchanged for Contribution Points. If you fail to submit enough spiritual herbs for three consecutive months, you will be expelled from the sect."
So even cultivating immortality meant doing labor?
"Cultivate well. Once you break through to the middle stage of Qi Refining, you may enter the outer sect. After that, there will be no such restrictions, and you may do as you please. Dismissed."
Bai Lan casually chose a bamboo house and flipped through the sect rules in her hand.
They were nothing more than prohibitions against colluding with the Devil Race, cultivating devil cultivator techniques, falling into devilhood, harming fellow disciples, betraying the sect, and the like.
Just as Zhang Shan had said, the Azure Origin Sect did not have many rules. Its only bottom lines were also the bottom lines of righteous-path cultivators.
The Azure Origin Sect had been built atop a spiritual vein, where spiritual qi was dozens of times more abundant than in the Human Realm. Bai Lan's cultivation, which she had been suppressing without breaking through, could no longer be held back and burst through its bottleneck.
After spending half a day stabilizing her cultivation, Bai Lan opened her eyes and picked up the system, which was dozing beside her. "Come on, system. Let's go pick up some leftovers first."
Bai Lan had already more or less planned her next course of action back on the flying ship.
She remembered that, in the plot, both the Destined Male Lead and the female lead had found two very good mystical technique inheritances in the outer sect's Library Pavilion.
The skeletal old man at the bottom of the cliff had indeed left her quite a few cultivation technique inheritances, but most were intended for the Profound Yin Absolute Pulse and were useless to her.
Every newly admitted disciple had one hundred Contribution Points in their Identity Jade Token. With those hundred Contribution Points, they could exchange them for one low-grade cultivation technique in the sect's Library Pavilion.
But Bai Lan was different. She could repeatedly reload saves.
With one hundred Contribution Points, she could use those same hundred points each time to exchange for a different cultivation technique or mystical technique, learn it, then reload and start over.
By repeating this process, she would need only one hundred Contribution Points to learn every low-grade cultivation technique in the Library Pavilion!
There was no need to learn too many cultivation techniques, but if she mastered a hundred, or even a thousand or ten thousand mystical techniques, then in battle, she could flexibly apply the principles of mutual generation and mutual restraint among the five elements to catch her enemies off guard and send them to their deaths.
She possessed Five Spirit Roots, which meant she could learn mystical techniques of every attribute—metal, wood, water, fire, earth, and even wind, ice, and lightning!
Because the five elements were the root of spiritual qi itself: lightning and wood gave rise to wind, fire and wood gave rise to lightning, while metal and water gave rise to ice.
As long as her command over the spiritual qi of the five elements reached a certain level, she could use metal, wood, water, fire, and earth to derive the other three kinds of spiritual qi.
With anticipation glimmering in her eyes, Bai Lan asked around all the way and finally found the Azure Origin Sect outer sect's Library Pavilion.
"Oh? You must be one of this year's newly admitted disciples. You haven't even entered Qi Refining level one, yet you already aim too high?" The elderly man guarding the Library Pavilion raised his head and glanced at Bai Lan. His gaze suddenly sharpened. "Hehe, interesting. You actually used a breath-concealing technique to hide your cultivation."
Before you continue