In early August, in the Misty Wave Kingdom.
Three streaks of flying light traversed the void, crossing the sea unseen and arriving above the islands here, where the mortal settlements and cultivation market wards came into view.
It was another market day. Bustling prosperity filled every corner, a golden age blazing like oil poured onto a roaring fire.
This was the overseas foundation the Incense Accumulation Sect had devoted immense effort to establishing and maintaining, as well as its first step beyond the North Sea.
With Li Ling personally overseeing matters and Yao Lingxian governing, everything from the secular world to the cultivation world, local magnates, and merchant associations had been brought into good order. The government ran smoothly, the people lived in harmony, goods were plentiful, and the populace prospered. By now, the sect had successfully spread its teachings here.
Three human figures appeared above Tulin Harbor near Horsehead Island.
The one in the middle was a white-robed cultivator with the bearing of an immortal, imposing in presence and extraordinary in appearance.
He was none other than Chi Yun-Zi, the renowned Great Cultivator of the Skycloud Sect.
Chi Yun-Zi ranked first among the Skycloud Seven Disciples and was one of the acknowledged leaders of the Immortal Sects of this age. His name was known to all.
Beside Chi Yun-Zi was True Person Qingyu of the Ascending Immortal Sect, a beautiful, noble-looking woman wearing a phoenix coronet and ceremonial robes. Yet she possessed none of the gaudy vulgarity of the mortal world, only gracious dignity.
Among Nascent Soul Great Cultivators, she was considered young, with a cultivation age of only three thousand years. But the fact that she had reached the nascent soul stage made it clear that she, too, had a substantial foundation behind her.
The other was True