One month later.
The martial drill ground in the northern outskirts of Suining Prefecture.
Normally used by the Heaven Patrol Office to train new recruits in the qi-blood realm, the grounds had been thoroughly cleaned today.
The yellow earth had been compacted three times, brand-new Black Banners hung from the flagpoles, and raised platforms had been erected at all four corners to seat honored guests.
Three rings of people now surrounded the drill ground.
The first consisted of Patrol Guards and Patrol Captains from the Heaven Patrol Office's various departments, dressed in matching gray uniforms, straight-backed and carrying straight sabers at their waists.
The second consisted of attendants and guards from the various factions.
The third consisted of rogue cultivators and martial artists who had come to watch after hearing the news, standing on tiptoe to peer inside.
This was a rare three-hundredth-anniversary Grand Celebration.
The Heaven Patrol Office had been established three hundred years ago, and this was Suining Prefecture's greatest event in a decade.
Yi Yang stood near the rear of the Nether Spring Office's ranks.
He wore the Dark Gray Official Uniform of a Candidate Chief Inspector, with Tiger Roar strapped to his back.
His Wood-Nurturing Astral Force lay hidden in the deepest reaches of his qi sea, while the Concealed Breath Formless Art kept his outward aura steady at third inner qi completion.
His month of secluded cultivation had not been wasted.
He remembered the figures on his panel clearly.
[Wood-Nurturing Longevity Art · True Astral Realm · Hundred-Forged Body (512000/1000000)] [Four Symbols Six Directions Saber (Minor Accomplishment) 2640/150000]
His early true astral "hundred-forged body" had reached sixty percent progress. His strength had improved again, and his true astral force had grown another degree more concentrated.
With the Four Symbols Six Directions Saber successfully