Li Ling learned of the upheaval in the North Sea immediately, but settling affairs on Goldsource Island and preparing to depart took time. It was quite a while before he made it back.
By then, more than a month had passed since the incident.
That was with the Merchant Association's emergency travel arrangements and Translocation Arrays. Otherwise, spending half a year or more than a year on the journey would have been nothing unusual.
With the second sect master, Nie Yingzhi, overseeing the Incense Accumulation Sect, Li Ling was not worried about the sect's safety for the moment. Yet the urgent reports from the North Sea that reached him repeatedly on his return journey brought home the urgency and danger of the situation.
When he returned to Floating Cloud Platform and summoned Nie Yingzhi, he learned that the Long Sea region had already fallen into utter chaos.
"Master, the shipping routes to the West Sea have been completely blocked these past few weeks. The Merchant Association has lost contact with Gathering Grotto Continent and Phoenix Qilin Continent, and spirit material prices are soaring everywhere. Fortunately, we signed a reasonably priced, stable supply agreement with Northsky Island earlier, so our sect can still maintain production and sales.
"But I'm afraid this won't last long. With waters everywhere falling into crisis, it will affect us sooner or later."
The first thing Nie Yingzhi brought up was the blocked shipping routes.
Li Ling said, "The shipping routes... yes, that is a problem."
The present cultivation world was unlike the medieval era, when a sect could live off a cave heaven world without concerning itself with outside affairs.
Besides, even in the medieval era, only sects with great cultivators overseeing them were qualified to control cave heaven worlds. Other factions and grassroots rogue cultivators