Three bitter years on Outer Disciple Peak,
Five years standing watch on Yellow Bamboo Island.
Four autumns since returning from his posting,
Through trials of wind and rain, his ambitions drew closer to fulfillment.
Qing Chen sat cross-legged in his cave abode, spiritual energy swirling around him, his aura already stable at the seventh layer of Qi Refining.
He slowly opened his eyes. A sharp gleam flashed through them, then faded into calm.
Counting carefully, twelve years had passed since he first entered the Condensed Jade Sect.
This year, Qing Chen was not yet thirty-five.
Such a cultivation speed stood out even compared with cultivators who possessed high-grade spiritual roots.
With his breakthrough, he could clearly sense his lifespan increasing, from its original limit of a hundred years to a full hundred and twenty.
According to sect rules, anyone who reached the late Qi Refining stage before thirty-five would automatically be promoted to an Inner Sect disciple.
However, through the covert maneuvering of Xu Jiuling, deputy master of the General Affairs Hall, his path to promotion had already been tied to a mandatory assignment;
-go to Mysterious Mountain Island and deal with the matter of the Xu Household of Sea Prosperity Island.
Far from resisting this, Qing Chen felt a faint anticipation rising within him.
"A thief can keep stealing for a thousand days, but who can guard against a thief for a thousand days?" he murmured, a cold gleam shifting in his eyes.
Mo Qiuxian had repeatedly targeted him ever since he joined the sect, like an abscess clinging to the bone. He had long since had enough.
He believed the other man had likewise endured him for a long time.
For Mo Qiuxian, this trip to Mysterious Mountain Island was a good opportunity to strike.
But for Qing