The Big Fish

For top-tier powers, elders and grand elders are never simply a matter of seniority.

Rather, it represents status and power.

Within the Liyang Cave Heaven, the sect leader holds far greater weight than forces such as the Purgatory Sect and the Yellow Springs Sect.

The Grand Elders' status is only equivalent to that of the elders during the Purgatory Sect's era.

Of course, compared to the elders in the Purgatory Sect, the Supreme Elders still have more say.

In the presence of a resident immortal, the supreme elders will volunteer themselves, and the resident immortal will ultimately appoint who will be the next sect leader.

If there are no immortals residing in the world, the sect leader is selected through competition from the Supreme Elders Council.

Whoever gains more supporters will be able to take the position of leader.

There is another variable involved, which is the crucial factor that cultivators cannot avoid—strength.

The position of sect leader is usually held by the strongest among the supreme elders.

The only difference is that some powerful elders are unwilling to devote their limited energy to managing the affairs of the sect, so their influence gradually diminishes.

However, in one respect, he has Gu Jinlai possessed the status of a supreme elder.

There are no more immortals remaining in Liyang Cave Heaven. Even the Supreme Elder, a master of the Void Immortal level, was targeted by the Demon Emperor among the Demonic Beasts and was wiped out in one fell swoop.

If things go wrong, he might become the only Supreme Elder in the Gu Jinlai of Liyang Cave Heaven.

Furthermore, since the sect leader was chosen from the Supreme Elder, he can also be regarded as the sect leader of Liyang Cave Heaven.

This is also why Liu Feiyun and others generously handed over all their Divine Ability Cultivation Method to him.

"When I built Lingxiao Palace, I intended for it to be comparable to the grotto-heavens and holy lands. But now... Lingxiao Palace hasn't developed yet, but I've become the master of a grotto-heaven first."

Gu Jinlai smiled inwardly.

Although he was merely a figurehead as the head of the grotto-heaven sect, the inheritance he possessed was genuine.

As he traveled by carriage, he focused his attention on examining the ancient texts piled high with a treasure trove of storage in Liyang Cave.

The ultimate Cultivation Method of Liyang Cave Heaven is the Liyang True Fire Technique.

This Cultivation Method was comprehended by Patriarch Li Yang from one of the Four Sacred Beasts—the Vermilion Bird.

A thousand years ago, the Celestial Master civilization was at its most prosperous and brilliant, hunting down divine beasts and forging divine weapons more than once.

Each divine weapon represents a lost mythical beast.

Even the Creator can only hunt down the weaker individuals among the divine beasts; the Creator must avoid the powerful ones.

The Vermilion Bird, one of the Four Sacred Beasts, is one of them.

Gu Jinlai, the main material of swords like the Heavenly Sword has been a legendary innate divine beast called the Candle Dragon.

Even the combined might of the Aries and Libra lords could not contend with this ancient being.

The Libra Star Lord was fortunate enough to discover the remains of the Candle Dragon on an extraterrestrial star. He eventually found the Aries Star Lord with these remains, and the two of them joined forces and invested countless materials to forge the peerless divine weapon, the Heavenly Extreme Sword, intending to transform it into the Libra Star Lord's divine artifact.

Of course, a single Creator cannot fight against a top-tier divine beast, but there were dozens of Creators at the time.

Swarming in, even divine beasts of the highest caliber would be surrounded and killed.

It is precisely for this reason that many mythical beasts have become increasingly rare in recent years, and have completely disappeared from human sight.

Rumors circulate that these mythical beasts may be hiding in some deep mountains and marshes, or that they have already left this world through their innate abilities.

After all, the Celestial Master civilization at its peak already controlled the world, and no matter how deeply the divine beasts hid, they could not escape their search and hunting.

"Liyang Cave Heaven truly lives up to its reputation as a cave heaven-level power built upon the profound mysteries of the divine beast Vermilion Bird. Of its nine great Divine Ability, four are Fire Element- Divine Ability. Furthermore, since thunder and fire are inseparable, it even boasts two thunder-based great Divine Ability, though unfortunately, one of them is a kind of escape Divine Ability. It arrived a bit too late. There's still one..."

He examined these Gu Jinlai texts one by one.

His gaze lingered for a moment on the great Divine Ability called "Thunderstorm".

This is a great Divine Ability mastered by Tianlongmu.

He still remembers the shock he felt when the celestial dragon unleashed this divine Divine Ability.

Unexpectedly, this great Divine Ability is now right in front of him.

"I can integrate this Divine Ability into the Lightning Domain, but it's not very meaningful. Right now, the Lightning Domain is only at the Great Perfection level and hasn't transformed into a Great Divine Ability Power yet. Even if I release it at full power, I can't maintain it for long. This time, the sweeping victory over the Chilong Territory relied entirely on the advantage of the Eternal Furnace's endless cycle of life. If I were to transform the Lightning Domain into a Great Divine Ability, with my Chaotic Star Body's attainments, I would feel exhausted after releasing it five or six times."

It has been weighed in our hearts Gu Jinlai.

Furthermore, what he found somewhat regrettable was that none of the nine great Divine Ability were biased towards defense.

It has to be said that this is a sect that has put all its skill points into output.

As for the four great Fire Element Divine Ability...

The other three paths are not Gu Jinlai being practiced.

His Chaotic Astral Body was not yet perfected, and he could not yet perfectly control the power of the Eternal Furnace. Cultivating great Divine Ability would be more harmful than beneficial.

But he memorized one of the techniques, the Divine Light of Departing Fire.

When attacking the Demonic Beasts territory, he used an attack method similar to atomic breath, but this attack was extremely crude in its use of the energy of the Eternal Furnace. It could only bully demon kings and demon Demonic Beasts, but could not defeat the demon emperor.

Similar to Atomic Breath, the Divine Light of Fire can unleash a blazing and violent beam of energy to remotely destroy targets.

Once he has perfected his cultivation of the Chaotic Starlight Body and can control the Eternal Furnace, he can take down even ordinary Demon Emperors with a single blow, let alone Demon Emperors.

They glanced at these Divine Ability from Gu Jinlai.

He glanced again at the still incomplete Lightning Domain, Lightning Dragon Transformation Technique, and Chaotic Star Body.

Then I looked at the fourteen remaining rays of light...

Finally, with a heavy heart, I turned my gaze away from these Cultivation Method.

"My most important task now is to perfect my cultivation of the Chaotic Star Body as soon as possible. Otherwise, no matter how much I practice, I will never be able to master the true great Divine Ability."

However, we should put aside the matter of Divine Ability for now.

The Cultivation Method is worth a look.

Even though many of the Cultivation Method were uncultivable, flipping through them greatly broadened his horizons, and even...

In the future, we will further optimize the Chaotic Star Body and the Eternal Furnace, transforming them from ordinary golden Cultivation Method to deep golden or even radiant golden levels.

Also...

Among the six Dao artifacts, there is a defensive Dao artifact called the Cloud Flame Robe.

If this artifact were used by Celestial Person, it could not be broken without Divine Ability offensive powers.

However, in terms of Gu Jinlai, its defensive capabilities have plummeted by 60%.

However, what has truly valued this artifact Gu Jinlai is its high-temperature resistance.

Even after he mastered the Chaotic Astral Body and possessed the Lightning Domain to project nuclear fusion energy, the power of each strike was still only equivalent to 10,000 tons.

Its power is equivalent to a superior offensive Divine Ability.

When the eternal furnace is running at full power to build up power for a single strike, the yield can be increased to the level of 50,000 tons.

Its power is comparable to top-tier offensive Divine Ability.

This level of power can not only kill an ordinary Demon Emperor with a single blow, but even a Demon Emperor would find it difficult to withstand a direct hit.

Further up...

That was the power he used to kill the Three-Headed Demon Emperor with a single blow using the Dao artifact, the Panwu Spear.

The equivalent is as high as 500,000.

This is already a realm of great Divine Ability.

While Yun Yanyi might not be able to withstand the aftershocks of a nuclear fusion energy release of 500,000 tons, 100,000 tons would not be a problem.

With this magical artifact, he was more confident in persuading City Lord Zhao Hua and others to accept the tens of millions of people.

After leaving Chilong Territory, the group's safety along the way increased significantly.

Although it would still take these people more than half a month to get to Wind and Rain City, arranging food, clothing, housing and transportation for tens of millions of people is no easy task.

Gu Jinlai, one must first go to the Wind and Rain City to prepare in advance.

At that moment, he led Zhao Yushu, Qi Yunxiao, Zhuo Chunqiu, and thirty Martial Grandmaster-level experts ahead to Fengyu City.

Without the burden of ordinary people, the group's travel speed was significantly faster.

In just a few days, the city of wind and rain was already in sight.

"You should mobilize the power of the Fengyu Chamber of Commerce to prepare for accommodating these millions of people."

Gu Jinlai instructed Zhao Yushu, "Qi Yunxiao and Zhuo Chunqiu will assist you."

"Yes."

Zhao Yushu nodded.

Qi Yunxiao himself has good organizational skills, and Zhuo Chunqiu is a master of the Celestial Person Realm. With the two of them there, handling such a small matter is not a problem.

"You few come with me to the headquarters."

Gu Jinlai, he glanced in one direction and said, "My Thunder Operation is not over yet. What I took down a few days ago were just some small fry. The big fish have not yet been served..."

The group quickly arrived at the headquarters of the main district.

Upon arriving at the General District Head's residence, Qiao Muqi immediately came out to greet him, letting out a sigh of relief, "General District Head, you're finally back! The City Lord Mansion's Mansion has inquired about you several times already, and the Grand Steward Luo Bing personally left a message instructing you to report your progress to his residence as soon as you return."

"Reporting on progress... As the head of the outer district, I am theoretically only responsible to City Lord Zhao. Luo Bing is just a steward of the City Lord Mansion, and she is in charge of the City Lord Mansion's affairs. She has no jurisdiction over me."

This Gu Jinlai.

Qiao Muqi paused slightly, then subtly hinted, "This Grand Steward usually acts on the orders of the City Lord, therefore... this must be the City Lord's intention..."

"If the city lord is so inclined, he can directly order me to come and report for duty. Why would he need to delegate this to someone else?"

Gu Jinlai shook his head. "Besides, I've already been gone for so many days, I'm not worried about waiting a few more. Moreover, the outer city area hasn't been cleared yet, what progress is there to report? It's possible that someone has pulled strings to get things done through Steward Luo. If I go now, wouldn't this thunderous storm be abandoned halfway?"

Qiao Muqi was stunned.

Lord Chief District Master, what is this...?

Completely disrespectful to the head steward?

"Alright, summon all district lords..."

The story, Gu Jinlai, has come to a halt.

He originally intended to summon the district lords to arrange for the acceptance of ten million refugees from Chilong Territory, but upon closer reflection, he realized that if he spoke now, the district lords might not listen, and would most likely choose to outwardly comply but inwardly defy him, thus wasting his time.

Therefore...

"I've only been gone for half a month, and I made all sorts of arrangements beforehand. What could possibly happen? Continue with Operation Thunder, gather all available personnel, this time..."

Gu Jinlai narrowed his eyes slightly. "Let's go to the Mountain and Sky Crafting Tower."