Several more months quickly passed, and successive groups of survivors arrived, all of whom were properly settled.
The sect was now at a critical juncture in its campaign in the East Sea, yet Nie Yingzhi, its sect master, still devoted most of his energy to this matter.
He, too, understood exactly what these survivors joining the sect meant.
Other sects and factions in the North Sea also caught on and began competing for talent everywhere, but they were already too late.
The Incense Accumulation Sect had brought back the vast majority of the survivors. There were precious few left for the others, merely some unexpected gains from being close enough to the water to catch the moon first.
By this point, however, Li Ling had already begun planning another important undertaking: finding a way to resurrect the mortal people who had perished!
"I mastered the art of resurrection long ago, but I am not particularly proficient in the Dao of Life, so what I can accomplish is extremely limited.
"I only have the ability to resurrect mortals. Once someone has embarked on the path of cultivation, bringing back even one or two requires paying a certain price.
"Therefore, this round of resurrection can only be offered to mortal people."
He left the sect and arrived at his first destination, the Bamboo Step Kingdom.
Standing on a sea cliff east of the royal capital, Li Ling gazed westward. The city, once a thriving port, had become a city of corpses, a realm of ghosts.
The remains of pedestrians lay everywhere in its streets and alleys. After days of natural decay with no one to tend to them, they were too ghastly to behold.
To any mortal or low-level cultivator, this scene would have been hell on earth.
Yet there was not