Thousand Wood Temple.
In recent years, the temple grounds had remained outwardly relaxed but inwardly tense. Cultivators of the Second Realm and above were practically forbidden from leaving the Daoist temple unless they had urgent business. With nothing else to do, these people kept taking on disciples, expanding the number of Inner Sect disciples by more than double.
The somewhat deserted mountain ranges of the Inner Sect gradually gained a measure of life. At this moment, all the Inner Sect disciples were looking toward Thousand Wood Mountain, where spiritual energy had suddenly begun to surge. In some places, it had grown so dense it could be seen with the naked eye.
Yet no one dared approach, because that was Thousand Wood Mountain. Most Inner Sect disciples did not even qualify to enter it. Just now, another order had come down from the front hall: from this point on, no one was permitted to fly higher than a hundred zhang within the Inner Sect.
Outside Shen Xiaozhu's cultivation ground, everything was utterly quiet. The Spirit Gathering Array formed from Spirit Wood trees, driven by the sect's Nine Extremes Great Array, gathered dense Wood Spirit Qi—enough to sustain the consumption of her advancement.
Within the small courtyard of the cultivation ground, an isolation barrier had been raised. Outside it, Shen Xiaozhu's two newly accepted disciples stood guard on either side. Farther out, quite a few Immortal Realm cultivators guarded the cultivation ground inside and out. These Immortal Realm cultivators were all Shen Xiaozhu's followers. Most, like Shen Xiaozhu herself, came from ordinary backgrounds rather than Southern aristocratic families. Within Thousand Wood Temple, they formed no small force.
At the peak of a small mountain north of Thousand Wood Mountain, Dong Can of Winter Water Mountain and Yuan Zheng from the Alchemy Room