Realm

Ning Yongrui and his son left.

Yun Long's figure stood at the valley entrance, watching the two figures disappear completely at the end of the mountain path.

He slowly turned around, and the faint scent of tea from the reception hall seemed to still linger in the air.

On the desk, the letter and the jade slip still lay quietly.

"As far as I know, the conflict between them has reached its peak. A major confrontation is imminent."

Ning Yongrui's words still echoed in his ears, sounding quite plausible.

The three families of Wanfang Lake had been in a tripartite standoff for many years. Open and secret struggles were the norm, but due to the intertwined interests, they were far from reaching a point of no return.

Yun Long knew this clearly. It was precisely this newly appointed Commander Ning who coveted the rich resources of Wanfang Lake and had led his clan to migrate here.

The various underhanded tactics he had secretly employed were the true driving force behind breaking the original balance and escalating the conflicts between the parties. His intentions were obvious.

Yun Long naturally did not believe Ning Yongrui's words entirely.

He still needed his Yun Family to personally enter the fray and understand the true depth of Wanfang Lake's waters, step by step.

Ning Yongrui's visit this time was by no means a gratuitous offering of intelligence.

He had his overt stratagems, and Yun Long also had his own plans.

If the Yun Family wanted to establish a firm foothold here, they could not entirely follow the script laid out by Ning Yongrui. They had to understand the overall situation and firmly grasp their own initiative.

His slender fingers gently picked up the jade slip and his divine sense sank into it.

In an instant, a flood of complex information surged into Yun Long's mind.

A detailed map of Wanfang Lake, the spheres of influence of the three immortal cultivation families – the Li Family, the Lu Family, and the Mo Family – their core members, the distribution of their various industries, and a specific description of the coveted "Three Treasures" were all presented.

The Li, Lu, and Mo families had been entrenched here for several hundred years, their roots deep and their networks intricately complex.

The jade slip also mentioned several frictions between the three families in recent years, but they were not as confrontational as Ning Yongrui had claimed. They seemed more like the usual tactics of probing used in long-term competition.

Yun Long slowly withdrew his divine sense, his expression as calm as an ancient well, without a ripple.

The information within the jade slip was indeed valuable, but it was limited to that.

He suddenly stood up and strode towards the backyard.

Passing through the elegant covered corridor, he arrived at the serene courtyard where Li Lingyue resided.

The courtyard was filled with lush flowers and trees, verdant and full of life, exuding peace and tranquility.

Li Lingyue was sitting quietly under the corridor, her delicate hands gently stroking her slightly bulging abdomen, her eyes filled with maternal tenderness.

Seeing Yun Long enter, a soft and moving smile bloomed on her cheeks.

Yun Long walked to her side and sat down, naturally taking her soft hand.

He could clearly feel the faint yet tenacious life stirring within her abdomen.

This would be the first of their Yun Family's seventh generation!

It was of extraordinary significance.

"Did Commander Ning and his son leave?" Li Lingyue asked softly, her voice light, with a hint of imperceptible concern.

"Yes, they left," Yun Long replied gently.

"What did Commander Ning say?" Li Lingyue looked up, gazing at her husband with concern.

Yun Long then briefly recounted the situation in Wanfang Lake and the matter of the Three Treasures that Ning Yongrui had mentioned.

As for his shocking statement of "cultivating to immortality through martial arts" and Ning Yongrui's probing remarks filled with hidden intentions, he skillfully omitted them.

Li Lingyue listened quietly, her head slightly bowed, and pondered for a moment.

"It seems this Wanfang Lake is not a peaceful place either," she sighed softly, then looked up at Yun Long, her eyes flashing with complete trust and reliance. "However, since we are here, we will make the best of it. Our Yun Family will always forge a path to the heavens, no matter what lies ahead."

She paused, her tone carrying a hint of urgency and determination: "Husband, you should go cultivate quickly. I have Father and the others taking good care of me, so you don't need to worry. Your strength is the greatest guarantee for our Yun Family to establish itself here, and the only guarantee."

Yun Long gazed at the worry and firm support in his wife's eyes, and a warmth flowed through his heart.

He knew very well that Li Lingyue was absolutely right.

What the Yun Family needed most urgently right now was the rapid improvement of his own strength.

"Alright, I'll listen to my wife," Yun Long stood up, leaned down, and gently kissed her smooth forehead. "You rest well."

After bidding farewell to Li Lingyue, Yun Long headed directly towards the direction of the family ancestral hall.

Since the day the ancestral hall was completed, he had chosen to meditate and cultivate in the courtyard of the ancestral hall, directly facing the main entrance.

He wanted the ancestors of the Yun Family to constantly supervise and urge him on, so that he would not dare to slack off in the slightest.

The Qi Refining Stage, while seemingly simple in its division of realms, actually had differences in strength between each level that could be minuscule or as vast as heaven and earth.

Cultivating the first strand of Qi Refining marked the first layer of Qi Refining.

The second strand marked the second layer.

Only after cultivating the fifth strand of Qi Refining would one reach the third layer of Qi Refining.

The early stage of Qi Refining, namely layers one to three, had an upper limit of nine strands of Qi Refining.

Nine is the extreme of numbers. Breaking through the limit of nine paths marks the first significant threshold of the Qi Refining Stage.

Upon cultivating the tenth strand of Qi Refining, one officially steps into the fifth layer of Qi Refining.

The nineteenth strand of Qi Refining corresponds to the fifth layer of Qi Refining.

The twenty-eighth strand of Qi Refining, then, is the sixth layer of Qi Refining.

The mid-stage of Qi Refining, that is, layers five through six, has an upper limit of thirty-six strands of Qi Refining, which is the number of Heavenly Stars.

Breaking through the constraint of the Heavenly Star number is the second, more arduous threshold of the Qi Refining Stage.

Ning Yongrui possesses a cultivation of the sixth layer of Qi Refining.

However, even at the sixth layer of Qi Refining, there is a world of difference in strength between someone who has just condensed their twenty-eighth strand of Qi Refining and someone who has already reached the perfection of thirty-six strands.

Even with Qi Refining of the same quality, a person who has just entered the sixth layer of Qi Refining does not have much of an advantage compared to a cultivator at the peak of the fifth layer.

Yun Long has been in this location for less than half a year, yet he has already successfully broken through to the mid-stage of Qi Refining.

But after entering the mid-stage of Qi Refining, he found that every step forward became exceptionally difficult and obscure.

He did not know that the mysterious card's boost to his cultivation speed only lasted until the third layer of Qi Refining.

After breaking through to the mid-stage of Qi Refining, every subsequent step would require him to rely entirely on his own effort and comprehension.

Currently, it is his own cultivation progress that is driving the slow upgrade of the quality of the character inheritance card.

The Shaolin Monk card in his sea of consciousness is no longer a Low-Grade Tier 1 item.

It has been upgraded to Mid-Grade Tier 1, barely matching his current cultivation realm.

The Bodhidharma Muscle-Tendon Classic is an extraordinarily powerful and unfathomably wondrous technique.

However, the Vajra Primordial Qi cultivated by it demands a far greater amount of spiritual energy from heaven and earth than ordinary Qi Refining techniques.

The twenty strands of Vajra Primordial Qi condensed within his body are like they are forged from refined iron, indestructible and immensely heavy.

Yun Long slowly closed his eyes, his mind completely sinking into his dantian's sea of qi.

Under internal observation, the twenty brilliant golden strands of Vajra Primordial Qi coiled within his dantian like dormant golden dragons, radiating immense and boundless power.

Under his mental guidance, they flowed slowly, perfectly integrating with his flesh, blood, tendons, and bones, becoming indistinguishable.

He began to circulate the cultivation technique, and the surrounding spiritual energy of heaven and earth was drawn in, converging madly towards him.

He carefully refined and compressed the spiritual energy pouring into his body, attempting to condense the twenty-first strand of Vajra Primordial Qi.

His frank admission to Ning Yongrui that he had no Spiritual Root, yet had still broken through to the Qi Refining Stage, was a decision Yun Long had carefully considered.

The Yun Family had many secrets, and as the family developed, there would only be more hidden matters in the future.

Especially the peculiar nature of the mysterious family tree, which absolutely could not be known to outsiders.

The Yun Family needed to provide a reasonable explanation to the outside world to cover up these earth-shattering changes.

Since his own abnormalities could no longer be completely hidden, he might as well draw all attention to himself.

He would establish a persona of a "peerless martial arts genius unseen for millennia."

That's right, I, Yun Long, am a martial arts master rarely seen in a thousand years. I entered immortality through martial arts on my own, thereby making the Yun Family no longer ordinary.

As for the Arhat Fist technique, although it cannot be compared to mundane martial arts, it is far from the level of the Great Arhat Fist, a supreme art that directly targets the Qi Refining Stage.

That was merely a smokescreen Yun Long intentionally cast to deceive others.

Yun Long's own strength had undergone earth-shattering changes, and the strength of other core members of the Yun Family had also improved significantly.

Yun He had already reached the peak of the Xiantian realm half a year ago.

She was only one step away from mastering the Xiantian chapter of the Wudang Xiantian Gong and thus breaking through to the Qi Refining Stage in one fell swoop.

When the family faced a catastrophic crisis, Yun Long had relied on consuming a large number of elixirs to narrowly break through to the Qi Refining Stage.

Now, the family's financial resources were vastly different from before, sufficient to purchase some elixirs that aid breakthroughs to help Yun He.

However, without Yun Long's suggestion, Yun He herself voluntarily refused this method of breaking through with external help.

This was not because Yun He did not want to break through as quickly as possible and become a true Qi Refining Stage cultivator.

Her true goal was to personally experience the difference between a natural breakthrough achieved solely through accumulated true qi over time, without relying on elixirs, and a forced breakthrough using elixirs.

Excluding those mysterious ancestors, their generation was the trailblazer for the Yun Family on this path of cultivation.

Some attempts and sacrifices had to be made.

And the valuable experience gained from these explorations would become an indispensable part of the family's foundation.

Yun Hu's martial arts aptitude was considerably inferior to his sister Yun He's.

He was now eighteen years old and had only just broken through to the Xiantian realm.

Back then, when Yun Long was eighteen, he broke through to Xiantian immediately after fusing with the mysterious card.

The difference in their innate talent was evident.

Li Lingyue's aptitude was actually quite good, but she required more time to comprehend cultivation techniques than the Yun siblings.

As a result, her cultivation speed was similar to Yun Hu's; she had also only recently broken through to the Xiantian realm.

Not long after breaking through to the Xiantian realm, she became pregnant.

The Bodhidharma Muscle-Tendon Classic was already profound and extraordinary. Now, Li Lingyue could finally set aside her previous eagerness to rush her cultivation and instead focus wholeheartedly on comprehending the mysteries of the technique while calmly nurturing her pregnancy, achieving two goals at once.

Li Pinghu and Shi Tie had only just begun practicing their respective cultivation methods. Although there were no significant changes to their realms, their internal true qi had condensed into a milky white color. Their combat power had consequently risen steadily, and they had already made a formidable name for themselves in the Wanfang Lake area, becoming a powerful trump card for the Yun Family against outsiders.

As for Yun Ji, this elder now lived a secluded life. Apart from his normal daily meals and taking care of his pregnant daughter-in-law, he rarely appeared in public.

He had long ago reached the peak of the Xiantian realm and was now wholeheartedly focusing on secluded cultivation, hoping to break through the bottleneck and truly enter a higher level of cultivation as soon as possible.