[Zhenhai Island, Founders' Hall.]
[Your gaze swept over the people below the hall. All were pillars of the Taihua Sect, the backbone of the sect.]
[Five years had passed. Under your careful guidance, Ying Yuan and Hong Tianyan had both advanced from the Perfected Dragon Court Stage into the Great Dao Golden Core realm.]
[Qing Lao was advanced in years, and his potential was spent. Seeing the Taihua Sect's foundations grow steadier, his drive had gradually faded. Though you wished to help him take another step, he remained trapped at the First Nine Heavenly Tribulation. The Second Nine Heavenly Tribulation was a trial of inner demons; given his present state of mind, he would likely struggle to survive it.]
[Over those five years, you had awakened the dormant spiritual veins beneath Zhenhai Island, bathing the entire Taihua Sect in rich vital energy. Its abundance nearly rivaled the Heavenly Emperor's Treasury.]
[While presiding over Zhenhai Island, you used Qi-Gazing to glimpse the flow of the sect's destiny and faintly touched upon the mysteries of fortune.]
[You brought forth the Nine-Yang Divine Void Axe to anchor the sect's fortune. When you observed it with the Jade Emperor Qi-Observing Art, the once pale-yellow aura had gradually deepened, its fortune growing ever more substantial.]
[The fortune gathered without leaking away. Even if outsiders plotted against the Taihua Sect, heaven's secrets would cast their reflection upon the lake of your heart.]
[You gradually understood: this was a sliver of the mystery of cause and effect that you had grasped after surviving the Second Nine Heavenly Tribulation.]
[It let you sense the flow of destiny through the unseen.]
[Only then did you understand why great sects guarded by Supreme Grandmasters saw their fortunes soar. The Heavenly Way favored them from beyond mortal sight.]
[Within the sect,