Such Should Be the Spring Scenery of an Immortal Sect

That day, the sky was Lang and clear, and a gentle breeze blew pleasantly.

Mo Chen was teleported with thousands of other cultivators to just outside the gates of Emerging Cloud Peak.

As the dazzling radiance of the Teleportation Array faded, a towering hall came into view.

The hall soared into the clouds, its interlocking brackets, sweeping eaves, carved beams, and painted pillars displaying all the grandeur of an immortal abode.

Cloud patterns and crane silhouettes adorned its doors and windows. Dragons coiled and phoenixes perched among its beams and pillars, so lifelike they seemed ready to break free and soar into the sky.

Even a casually placed jade carving in a corner bore the unmistakable touch of a craftsman who had immersed himself in the art for decades. Its workmanship rivaled nature itself.

Even if the hundreds of arrivals emptied their coffers, they could not have afforded the spirit jade used for the foundations alone, let alone the carving and finishing.

Without vast quantities of spirit stones and resources, they could not have bought such things in ten lifetimes.

Holy shit...

This time, we really... stumbled into the celestial court!

Every cultivator emerging from the Teleportation Array had much the same thought upon seeing this spectacle.

Mo Chen looked around. There were four more Teleportation Arrays of equal size inside the hall, flashing with spiritual light from time to time as they brought in batch after batch of tournament entrants from across the land.

Suddenly, brilliant spiritual light flooded the hall.

A young woman abruptly appeared in the air thirty feet above them.

She wore a white dress, her dark hair cascading like a waterfall, her bearing cool and ethereal.

More alarming still was her cultivation.

At least at Mo Chen's current realm, he could not fathom its depths at all.

The young woman's eyes were slightly closed. Her crimson lips parted, and though her clear voice was not loud, every word reached everyone's ears distinctly.

"Please be quiet, fellow Daoists."

Her tone was calm, yet carried an authority that brooked no argument.

"Please register your names at the registration station outside the Welcoming Hall shortly. Our sect will assign your competition grounds and entrant numbers. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the Recruitment Tournament will officially begin in three days."

Without waiting for anyone to react, her figure dissolved into the air like a bubble, as though she had never appeared.

The cultivators filling the hall exchanged looks.

Well, damn. She left as soon as she finished, without even giving us a chance to ask questions.

Mo Chen grumbled inwardly.

After the woman vanished, the sandalwood doors on all four sides of the Welcoming Hall opened at once.

Outside, white marble stairs wound downward, broad enough for twenty people to walk abreast. Their surfaces were smooth as mirrors, with carved railings and jade balustrades on either side, disappearing into the clouds around the mountainside.

Mo Chen followed the crowd out of the hall and was about to descend when a cultivator wearing the robes of Emerging Cloud Peak called out from beside him, "Fellow Daoists participating in the tournament, please form an orderly line and descend in turn so that I may assign your numbers and distribute your tokens."

The disciples of Emerging Cloud Peak wore matching robes beneath crane-feather cloaks. Flowing cloud patterns embroidered their shoulders and cuffs, seeming to swirl as they moved, while a pair of Immortal Cranes was stitched in gold thread on their backs.

Before long, it was Mo Chen's turn.

The cultivator handling registration did not even look up. "You there, boy, what are you staring at? Give me your surname, given name, courtesy name, and age. Quickly."

Mo Chen cupped his hands. "My surname is Mo, my given name Chen—the Chen in 'deep lies the night in the courtyard of swings.' I'm... sixteen, and have yet to take a courtesy name."

The cultivator said nothing more. His fingers tapped a wooden token several times, then formed a spiritual hand seal.

The wooden token floated before Mo Chen. "Here. This is your Contest Token. Infuse it with Dharma Power or immerse your divine sense in it to see the details. Next."

Swift and efficient.

Mo Chen had still been considering making up a younger age to disguise himself...

Yet... they could not even be bothered to check...

Feeling somewhat speechless, Mo Chen took the wooden token and infused a thread of Dharma Power into it as instructed.

A gentle light rose from its surface, projecting a screen on which several lines of elegant little characters appeared.

Mo Chen, age sixteen, Darkening of the Light Group, No. 120.

A phantom image of his upper body appeared beside them.

Darkening of the Light Group?

Over the past two hundred-odd years, Mo Chen had discovered that he knew absolutely nothing about divination, but he did roughly understand the sixty-four hexagrams of the Book of Changes.

The Darkening of the Light hexagram signified light being obscured.

Does that mean I won't get in?

Mo Chen muttered inwardly. Since they were using the Book of Changes to organize entrants, there were presumably enough participants to fill sixty-four groups.

As he pondered, he spotted a graceful female disciple of Emerging Cloud Peak beside the path, greeting everyone with a smile. "Greetings, fellow Daoist. Cultivation cave abodes are available for rent at the foot of the mountain during the tournament, at just one-tenth the usual price. Numbers are limited, so rentals will close once they're all taken. Simply present your Immortal Alliance tournament Contest Token."

Cave Abodes? And at just one-tenth the price?

Mo Chen's interest was immediately piqued.

Compared with a noisy inn, a peaceful Cave Abode was clearly better suited to cultivation and regulating his breathing, so he quickened his pace down the mountain.

The weather at Emerging Cloud Peak was splendid in late spring.

Morning sunlight filtered through the thin mist, pleasantly warm without being scorching.

Not daring to fly recklessly within one of the Immortal Alliance's Transcendent Sects, Mo Chen descended the stairs on foot.

Looking out, he saw distant mountains steeped in green and nearby waters shimmering, with a gauzy veil draped over heaven and earth.

Better still, the terraces and towers of Emerging Cloud Peak were arranged with exquisite balance, while waterside pavilions and covered walkways wound toward secluded retreats.

Rare flowers and unusual plants, seldom seen in the outside world, grew everywhere. Some breathed faint spiritual radiance; others released delicate, refreshing fragrances.

Every vista was planned to perfection. A touch more would have felt crowded; a touch less, empty.

It truly was one of the Transcendent Sects, utterly beyond comparison with the Twin Crane Sect.

On the main peak alone, several more halls as magnificent as the Welcoming Hall stood at different points along the mountainside, imposing in their grandeur.

Many low hills clustered beneath the main peak. Cultivators had hollowed them out with Sword Qi to create cultivation Cave Abodes. From afar, the densely packed openings resembled honeycombs.

With his Contest Token, Mo Chen rented a small Cave Abode reserved for tournament participants.

Unfortunately, it lay in a busy area at the mountain's foot, surrounded by cultivators coming and going.

A little noisy.

Mo Chen shook his head and waved the token gently before the entrance. The heavy wooden door opened at once.

Inside, however, lay a world of its own.

Though excavated from the mountain, it had been fitted with intricately carved wooden brackets, decorative braces, and window lattices.

Elegant and antique, it did not look crude in the slightest.

A sweep of his Divine Sense revealed a front hall, study, practice room, spirit beast room, and washroom—everything he needed.

Mo Chen immediately activated the protective array to ensure that outsiders could not probe what went on within.

He then went to the spirit beast room and settled the still-sleeping spirit beast there.

Remembering the shopkeeper's advice when he bought the Spirit Beast Pouch—that without food, a spirit beast could still absorb spiritual energy to cultivate—he placed a few spirit stones beside it.

The python remained coiled up as though hibernating. No matter how Mo Chen called to it, it did not stir.

Mo Chen returned to the practice room, sat cross-legged, and emptied everything from the Storage Bag at his waist.

An hour later, he finally finished taking inventory.

He would never have known without counting. Once he did, he could not help being secretly startled.

Including the proceeds from the Spirit Artifacts he had just sold, he had 5,100 Low-Grade Spirit Stones. He had kept the three best Flying Swords and one array set.

As for miscellaneous items... there were over thirty volumes of low-level cultivation methods and miscellaneous records from the Twin Crane Sect's outer sect, along with dozens of jade bottles and boxes.

Of course, there was also the most valuable item: the jade bottle from that uncanny old man's Cave Abode, still bearing a Second Tier Soul-Calming Talisman.

As for the Ghost Cultivator he had killed in Southwater Village, Mo Chen had not examined his cultivation methods closely because they were far too obscure and difficult to understand.

Now, however, he finally had time to study them.

"Netherworld Qi Guiding Art."

Mo Chen sent his Divine Sense into the Jade Slip and discovered that this was an introductory cultivation method for the ghost path. Its strength lay in being balanced and gentle, making backlash unlikely, but its ceiling was low. It was mostly used by rogue cultivators or small sects.

Its accompanying spells were utter rubbish, but one technique, Ghost Shadow Step, was quite good.

Mo Chen recalled the eerie Evasion Technique that Ghost Cultivator had used to evade him, melding into a shadow in an instant.

"Turn the body into shadow, ghostlike and spectral; within ten paces, arrive in an instant..."

This Evasion Technique had no spiritual root restrictions. In theory, anyone could practice it, requiring only Yin Energy or Essence Blood to activate.

At minor mastery, it allowed a sudden advance resembling teleportation within ten paces, useful for both surprise attacks and escape in battle.

At major mastery, the practitioner could become a black shadow and dart within a hundred paces, making the technique all but impossible to guard against.

This is pretty practical.

Mo Chen grew interested.

I might not have Yin Energy, but Essence Blood...

In special circumstances, I can grit my teeth and spare some.

Mo Chen sat cross-legged and began trying it according to the instructions.

Cultivating Ghost Shadow Step involved three steps.

The first was sensing the shadow: finding the faint connection between one's shadow and body. The second was merging with the shadow: blending one's aura into it and briefly turning the body into a phantom. The third was becoming the shadow: transferring instantaneously between shadow and body.

Easy to describe, difficult to accomplish.

Mo Chen closed his eyes and tried sensing it for ages, but his shadow felt like an ordinary shadow. Where was this special connection?

He tried several more times, all without the slightest response.

"Could it be that I lack the talent?"

Mo Chen seemed to grasp something.

He immediately bit the tip of his tongue and spat out Essence Blood mixed with saliva...

At the same moment, Mo Chen suddenly felt a wondrous link form between himself and the shadow beneath his feet.

It was as though... his shadow had become an extension of his body.

With a thought, Mo Chen vanished from his spot.

In the blink of an eye, he appeared in the corner he had sprayed with bloody saliva.

"So that's how it works!"

Although Mo Chen lacked Yin Energy and could barely enter the technique's threshold by activating it with Essence Blood, spending blood and vitality with every use, this teleportation-like Evasion Technique was unquestionably a lifesaving trump card.

Mo Chen practiced a while longer, stopping to rest only once he could barely manage short-range flashes within six paces.

He was still short of the ten paces described in the method, but it was already enough to handle unexpected situations.

"This Ghost Shadow Step... isn't bad."

Next, Mo Chen picked up another secret manual titled "Three Baleful Stars Fate-Reversal Corpse Refining Method."

A cursory reading revealed a secret method that taught practitioners to refine corpses using a complete Eight Characters configuration, as well as people whose destinies bore certain special auspicious or baleful stars.

Fuck!

So that Ghost Cultivator had also been cultivating in the yin-gathering site where those Demonic Cultivators sank their corpses, and had stolen a suitable corpse to refine.

That explains it. No wonder the Yin Energy there was so dense.

Mo Chen skimmed further through the secret method. Its refining process was quite distinctive.

One either needed a corpse whose year pillar bore an unchecked Seven Killings star with no auspicious star to counteract it, or one whose destiny bore the Canopy star and a Goat Blade supporting the Killings star.

These terms were far too hard to understand.

Seriously?

Why does everything in this cultivation world require an Eight Characters Chart?

Even digging up graves and refining corpses involves divination...

Still, judging by the manual's descriptions, refined corpses were extremely powerful.

But Mo Chen did not consider himself some fiend, nor was his taste for the bizarre so revolting that he would take up corpse refining.

Thus, he simply treated it as something he had read and put it away.

Lean on a mountain, and it may collapse; lean on a person, and they may run.

Better to settle down, study properly, and prepare for the coming tournament of letters and arms.

In the days that followed, Mo Chen devoted himself to reading, turning a deaf ear to everything beyond his window.

On the day of the tournament, Mo Chen rose early and went to wait in the open area at the mountain's foot.

As the hour of the Snake began, a resonant voice like a great bell rang through the mountains, drawing echoes from every peak.

"All cultivators participating in the tournament, assemble at the Welcoming Hall at once!"