Old Man Ling's method of spreading the cultivation techniques of Ten Thousand Swords Cliff was ingenious. It sparked a mad scramble among countless cultivators, and the Human Race descended into turmoil as various factions became embroiled in war. At first, the fighting was only between Ten Thousand Swords Cliff and the other factions, but after a few accidental injuries, the factions began turning against one another as well. More and more powerful cultivators poured in, and the unrest escalated further.
As the factions faced off and fought among themselves, Old Man Ling remained busy, quietly assassinating people here and there. This only added fuel to the fire, stripping the major factions of what little restraint they had left and driving them into all-out conflict.
Shangguan Longyin was indeed a wise leader. He quickly grasped the crux of the matter: the person who had entrusted the techniques to the various auction houses was the mastermind. He summoned the sect's experts and put pressure on the auction houses. The leaders of several major factions also knew that letting the chaos continue was no solution. Though they had private reasons for fighting over the techniques, they couldn't show it openly. As a result, when Shangguan Longyin proposed tracking down the person who had put the techniques up for auction, few factions objected—and some even revealed information about Old Man Ling.
Perhaps Old Man Ling had known this would happen from the start, because he wasn't worried in the least. He had changed his appearance when entrusting the techniques to the auction houses. Below the Immortal realm, his cultivation was practically unmatched, and not a single person at the auction houses could see through his disguise. Shangguan Longyin's plan had plainly failed.
Although Shangguan Longyin had cleverly deduced that the auction houses of the