Although Phantom Sect and Great Green Mountain, where Li Yan's hometown lay, both belonged to the Hundred Thousand Mountains, their actual distance apart was a million li. The name "Hundred Thousand Mountains" merely came from those of the Mortal Realm who often entered the mountains to hunt. Generation after generation had explored the great mountains without ever reaching their end. In their minds, a hundred thousand li was already the limit, and thus this name came to be.
Li Yan's group of three traveled for three days. During those days, they passed through six cultivation sects and four cultivation lineages. Wherever they went, once the cultivators there saw the Phantom Sect token the three presented and sensed that their cultivation had reached the level of elders—or even patriarchs—within their own lineages or sects, their attitudes became exceedingly respectful. Smiling faces welcomed them everywhere, and even the spirit stones for teleportation were waived. In particular, when the young talents of certain sects saw Gong and Zhao's peerless beauty and the bewitching, demonic figures shaped by the Qiongqi Purgatory Art, they were stunned as though beholding immortals. In private, they sighed that such women truly existed in this world. Many became utterly bewitched, admiring them to the extreme, while casting envious—even jealous—looks at Li Yan beside them. Yet how could they dare let such feelings show upon their faces?
With Li Yan's group's cultivation, even the hushed voices of those young talents were heard with perfect clarity. The two women could not help frowning, while Li Yan's attitude gradually turned cold. The behavior of their disciples enraged the patriarchs of those lineages and sects, who secretly ordered their disciples not to approach them, with severe punishment awaiting violators. They knew well the terror of Phantom Sect. Should one of their lower disciples