Gathering of Fellow Disciples

Time passed in a flash, and half a year slipped by in the blink of an eye. As the date of the alliance meeting approached, the atmosphere on Mount Hua grew increasingly fervent.

Making a name for oneself has always been the central theme of this jianghu. For the younger generation in particular, the allure of fame is even greater.

In order to achieve good results in the grand competition, the seeded contestants retreated into seclusion to prepare, and the prevailing spirit on the mountain took on a brand-new look.

Influenced by the heightened atmosphere of cultivation, even the friction between the disciples of the Sword and Qi Factions diminished, as if their conflicts had vanished overnight.

Li Mu was naturally happy to see such a change. Everything was so harmonious now; why bother with all the killing and fighting?

However, ice three feet thick is not formed by a single day's cold. The struggle between the Sword and Qi Factions had deep roots, and the interests involved behind the scenes were immense; it was simply not something that could be resolved in a few words.

When facing outsiders, everyone could still join forces, but once the external pressure was lost, that was when internal strife would erupt.

The question was, were there still enemies that could make the Mount Hua Sect tremble with fear or walk on thin ice?

Regrettably, the answer was no.

The Five Mountains Alliance's greatest enemy, the Demonic Cult, had been mired in internal power struggles ever since the last great war between the righteous and the demonic.

Their forces had already withdrawn from the Northwest region, and the few remaining branch altars were trembling with fear; they could not possibly bring pressure to bear on the Mount Hua Sect in the short term.

As for Shaolin and Wudang, they were enemies lurking in the shadows, and it was far from the time for them to cross swords.

On the surface, everyone was still "good friends." Most Mount Hua disciples were unaware of these two enemies, and even the sect's top brass might not realize that their former allies had now become "competitors."

Apart from these three, there were even fewer in the jianghu capable of threatening the Mount Hua Sect. The arrogant Mount Song Sect from the Smiling Proud Wanderer was still a well-behaved little brother to the Mount Hua Sect, showing not the slightest ambition.

Against this backdrop, even if the sect wanted to use external enemies to divert internal conflicts, there was no room to maneuver. They couldn't just stir up another righteous-demonic war, could they?

That would truly be acting like a fool.

Don't look at the martial arts landscape as a four-legged stool; if one were to truly compare comprehensive strength, the Demonic Cult, which could contend with more than half the jianghu on its own, was the most powerful force in the martial arts world, while the Five Mountains Alliance was at the very bottom.

If not for the support of the various righteous sects, the meager assets of the Five Mountains Alliance would never have been able to withstand the pressure from the Demonic Cult.

Unlike the righteous sects, which took ten or twenty years to cultivate a single disciple, the Demonic Cult gathered people from all walks of life. Their quality might not be great, but they were absolutely sufficient in number.

Except for a small number of elite members they cultivated themselves, the rest were desperate criminals recruited along the way, and they didn't feel the slightest heartache when they died.

If they were truly pushed to the edge, they wouldn't engage in a head-on confrontation, but would instead launch raids against your sect's industries and lone disciples, wearing you down until you were exhausted.

Unless their own interests were at stake, no one was willing to fight to the death with these barefooted fanatics. The Five Mountains Alliance, pushed to the front as the vanguard against the demons, was no exception.

Therefore, in most cases, the righteous-demonic wars were initiated by the Demonic Cult. Unless forced into a corner, the righteous sects rarely took the initiative to attack.

As the Double Ninth Festival approached, many people from the jianghu had already gathered in the Huayin region. Various conflicts and disputes followed one after another, and for a time, the Mount Hua disciples responsible for maintaining order were under immense pressure.

Li Mu also had to emerge from his seclusion. Thanks to the perfect compatibility of his cultivation method, his cultivation had taken another step forward after half a year of retreat.

Although he had not yet broken through to the first-rate realm, he was already completely incomparable to how he had been half a year ago. His progress in sword techniques, in particular, exceeded Li Mu's own expectations.

Not only had his basic sword techniques reached their peak, but even the most difficult-to-master Sword Sect legacies, the "Thirteen Styles of Gentle Breeze" and the "Life-Taking Three Immortals Sword," had reached great completion.

However, Li Mu's favorite was still the "Nurturing Self Sword Technique." Although it didn't seem particularly eye-catching among the many legacies of the Mount Hua Sect, the underlying concept of the sword technique was profound!

To integrate "Haoran Zhengqi" (the noble spirit) into a sword technique—the person who created this must have been a genius with an extremely deep mastery of swordsmanship.

He didn't know if it was an illusion, but while practicing the Nurturing Self Sword Technique, Li Mu felt a faint, elusive trace of "sword intent."

This was truly remarkable. There were many people in the jianghu who used swords, but those who could sense sword intent were few and far between.

In the vast Mount Hua Sect, only Feng Qingyang had touched upon this realm so far. Once one crossed that threshold, it would be a whole new world.

Given Li Mu's cultivation, he was naturally not qualified to truly comprehend sword intent, but even this faint, elusive sensation had benefited him immensely in his sword practice.

Just how powerful he was, he had no concrete benchmark, and Li Mu himself couldn't quite figure it out.

He estimated that standing out among his peers shouldn't be difficult, but as for comparing himself to the senior brothers ahead of him, that was hard to say.

Fighting wasn't just about the level of one's martial arts; jianghu experience was equally important.

His fellow disciples of the same generation were all rookies lacking experience; at most, they had only sparred among themselves, so everyone was more or less on the same level.

The senior brothers above were different. As the backbone of the Mount Hua Sect, they often traveled in the jianghu; who among them didn't have a few lives on their hands?

Arriving at his master's courtyard once again, it was much livelier than last time. Li Mu counted roughly thirteen senior and junior brothers present.

This wasn't even all of them. As far as Li Mu knew, his master Zhou Qingyun had over thirty disciples; excluding those who had already "received their lunch boxes," there were twenty-seven left. If nothing unexpected happened, this number would continue to increase in the future.

It seemed like a large number, but in reality, if you stretched the timeline, they only took in three or four disciples per generation on average.

Taking on disciples was also the responsibility and duty of the sect elders. Among the elders, with the exception of Feng Qingyang, who was the youngest and had yet to take on any disciples, the others all had a large group of disciples.

With so many disciples, it was naturally impossible for everyone to participate in the grand competition. Especially with outsiders present, the threshold was even higher.

Li Mu sensed the room roughly; the lowest cultivation among those present was at the peak of the third-rate, and the highest had even reached the peak of the second-rate.

With the strength of his master's lineage alone, they could almost rival the Mount Hua Sect at the start of the Smiling Proud Wanderer, so it was no wonder Yue Buqun would go mad in the later stages.

Geniuses are always the center of attention. Even though Li Mu had tried his best to lower his presence, as the youngest disciple on the scene, his appearance still attracted everyone's gaze.

The jianghu believes in the strong.

When it comes to the second-rate realm, a second-rate expert in their thirties and a second-rate expert under twenty are two completely different concepts.

The former only has a chance to break through to the first-rate, while the latter is almost guaranteed to do so, and even has a significant chance to go further.

Martial arts cultivation is also limited; except for those who specialize in health-preserving methods like the "Mount Hua Mental Method," the fastest period for most martial arts progress is between the ages of twenty and thirty.

"Greetings, senior brothers!"