Chapter Summaries

Yuan Jinsheng revealed that the Origin-Stabilizing Treasure Pearl had merged with his Nascent Soul and might help him resist Execution Qi. The Lingxian Sect team began recruiting at its fake base, but only fifty people passed the Heart-Questioning Road, leaving the group baffled.

• Yuan Jinsheng told Mo Yuanjiao about the Origin-Stabilizing Treasure Pearl and planned to test it against Execution Stones after returning to the sect.
• The Yuan Household sent Yuan Jinsheng a congratulatory gift and information about the Green Jade Secret Realm, and the returning Foundation Establishment group congratulated him on his advancement.
• The eight-member summer camp team, accompanied by Yuan Zhiyun, left Liu Chun's courtyard to begin recruitment at the fake base.
• The Lingxian Sect team explained the assessment rules and sent the waiting Rogue Cultivators into Mo Yuanjiao's low-budget Heart-Questioning Road.
• After three days, only fifty candidates passed, prompting Xuanyuan Haoyue and Yuan Jinsheng to question whether Mo Yuanjiao had set the difficulty incorrectly.
• Han Weishu wondered whether people from the Immortal Cultivation Realm had worse aptitude than the team.

Zhang Xun, an aging Rogue Cultivator, joined the Lingxian Sect after passing its Heart-Questioning Road assessment and was astonished by Bai Zhu’s power and the sect’s generous contribution exchange list. The new disciples remained unsure how modest the sect was, but the valuable items on offer gave them reason to hope.

• Zhang Xun recalled his difficult life as a Rogue Cultivator and joined the Lingxian Sect’s recruitment assessment, hoping to find protection for himself and his family.
• Zhang Xun emerged from the Heart-Questioning Road with dozens of other candidates and heard Bai Zhu announce that they had passed and become disciples of the Lingxian Sect’s Yuanling City branch.
• Zhang Xun wondered whether Bai Zhu had reached Foundation Establishment and resolved to remember his name and get along with him.
• Bai Zhu toured the fifty newcomers around the modest sect and explained that they could earn contribution points through future tasks in its spirit fields, medicinal fields, and spirit beast garden.
• The newcomers saw the Affairs Hall’s exchange lists and were shocked by the many valuable items available for contribution points, along with the notice that the list was updated monthly.

Bai Zhu introduced fifty new recruits to the Lingxian Sect’s pseudo outpost in Yuanling City, showing them its exchange hall, cultivation room, and classroom. After the recruits began settling in, the founders debated whether sect authorization had made their outpost official, and Mo Yuanjiao insisted it had to remain pseudo.

• The eight founders invested their own supplies in the pseudo outpost, while the Yuan Household provided basic supplies in support.
• Bai Zhu led the recruits through the outpost and introduced its facilities, including the Affairs Hall and Four Arts Hall.
• The recruits were excited to discover that the cultivation room had twice the usual Spiritual Qi density and was free for sect members.
• Bai Zhu explained that the recruits would attend four classes a day for a month, then one class every three days, and that the outpost had permission to use some sect manuals.
• Xuanyuan Haoyue and Gu Yuxiao questioned whether the sect master's authorization made the pseudo outpost official, but Mo Yuanjiao argued that it remained pseudo because the recruits had not formally joined the sect.

The Lingxian Sect’s pseudo-compound began hosting fifty newcomers, who were surprised by its daily spirit rice and meal allowance. Mo Yuanjiao then offered failed applicants a chance to work as outside Spirit Plant farmers, and many considered staying.

• Mo Yuanjiao and Xuanyuan Haoyue agreed that the camp could not be called an official sect compound, so it remained a pseudo-compound.
• Bai Zhu explained that the fifty newcomers would receive two meals of spirit rice and a one-Spirit-Stone daily meal allowance, and they ate their first meal.
• The fifty newcomers settled into the pseudo-compound despite uncertainty about whether its promised benefits would last.
• Mo Yuanjiao offered those who failed the low-budget Heart-Questioning Road assessment long-term work as outside Spirit Plant farmers.
• Mo Yuanjiao said the Lingxian Sect planned to clear fields and build nearby villages, with defensive formations to protect the farmland.
• Many failed applicants were tempted by the prospect of steady work and safety, even though outside farmers could not join the sect or cultivate through its resources.

After touring the Lingxian Sect's pseudo-station, the fifty new members joined and were told they could bring their families to live under the sect's protection at the mountain's foot. Zhang Xun reunited with his family as Bai Zhu registered the households and distributed Xiushui City's rules.

• The crowd divided between those signing up as non-staff Spirit Plant farmers, those leaving, and those still undecided.
• After touring the pseudo-station, Zhang Xun and the other newcomers were reassured by its benefits and officially joined the Lingxian Sect.
• Bai Zhu told the new members they could go down the mountain, find their families, and register them for protection, provided they built their own houses within their allotted land.
• Mo Yuanjiao's barrier array enclosed the land at the mountain's foot, where residential plots and future Spirit Fields had been marked out.
• Zhang Xun found his waiting wife, children, and parents, and they rejoiced when he confirmed that he had passed the assessment.
• Bai Zhu registered the families and gave each household a booklet of rules governing life under the sect's jurisdiction.

The pseudo-base’s new residents settled in and began developing homes and spirit fields under its protection. When Spirit Plant farmers discovered the sect lacked enough fertilizer, Xuanyuan Haoyue called an emergency meeting, where the group began considering a breeding farm of their own.

• Zhang Xun agreed to let his family apply to become non-staff Spirit Plant farmers after a steward assured them they could qualify.
• The new families built simple homes while the non-staff farmers cleared land for spirit fields, and Xuanyuan Haoyue praised the Yuan Household stewards for helping manage the newcomers.
• The foot-of-mountain defensive formation unfolded, reassuring the residents as they continued building and clearing land.
• Experienced Spirit Plant farmers warned Xuanyuan Haoyue that the sect had too little spirit fertilizer for the planned fields.
• Xuanyuan Haoyue reassured the farmers, asked a Yuan Household steward to monitor their work, and summoned the eight-person group for an emergency meeting.
• Han Weishu and Bai Zhu argued that buying fertilizer from outside would be costly and unreliable, and Mo Yuanjiao proposed establishing a breeding farm.

Zhang Xunye told his family about the sect’s benefits and discovered that its contribution system could help him obtain medicine for his ailing mother. His family urged him to return to the sect the next day to claim tasks, leaving their plans for settling in at home unsettled.

• The Zhang family discussed moving and asked Zhang Xunye about his first day in the sect.
• Zhang Xunye told them the sect provided spirit rice and meal allowances, and that the Affairs Hall offered Jade Begonia Marrow-Replenishing Pills.
• Zhang Xunye explained that his mother needed the pills to recover from injuries and that they had been difficult to obtain.
• Zhang Xunye said the pills cost two hundred contribution points and routine sect tasks could earn several hundred or even a thousand points a month.
• Zhang Xunye promised to return to the sect after settling the family, but his wife urged him to go back the next day before the tasks were claimed.

Zhang Xun and the other new disciples settled into the benefits of joining Lingxian Sect, while Mo Yuanjiao and Ling Hui watched suspicious outsiders gather around its defensive array. After the observers finally attacked the array in the latter half of the night, the noise woke the newly arrived households.

• Zhang Xun agreed to return to work on sect tasks after his family urged him to secure a place among the new recruits.
• The fifty households appreciated the resources and protection Lingxian Sect offered them and their families.
• Mo Yuanjiao suggested staging a fake attack to give the sect an excuse to subdue the outsiders, but Ling Hui refused and followed Sister Yue's orders to watch.
• After the households went to sleep, outsiders attacked Lingxian Sect's outer defensive array with two or three loud blasts.
• The blasts woke the new households, whose members still remembered the need for caution from their lives before joining the sect.

A group of low-level cultivators attacked Lingxian Sect’s spirit fields, triggering Mo Yuanjiao’s warning formation and trapping them in an illusion. The newcomers saw the sect’s impressive defenses, while Ling Hui learned that Mo Yuanjiao had prepared a few fixed illusion templates for intruders.

• A gang of low-level cultivators attacked the sect’s defensive formation in the spirit field area, causing a thunderous explosion that startled them.
• Mo Yuanjiao explained to Ling Hui that he had designed the formation’s loud attack response as a warning called “Thunder Warning.”
• Zhang Xun and nearby newcomers found the attackers trapped in thick fog outside the formation, where they could neither escape nor be investigated.
• The newcomers realized the sect’s defensive formation incorporated an illusion formation and grew more confident in Lingxian Sect.
• Mo Yuanjiao showed Ling Hui the trapped attackers on his formation disk, and Ling Hui asked what frightened them in the illusion.

Ling Hui reflected on the cruelty of the illusion formation after its victims emerged, while the formation’s display convinced people at the Lingxian Sect’s fake base that they would be protected. Back at the sect, Zhang Xun found a wealth of safe tasks and learned that newcomers could not yet take on dangerous resource-gathering missions.

• Ling Hui called the illusion formation’s punishments a sin, and the onlookers became even more afraid to provoke the sect.
• At dawn, those released from the formation fled in terror or staggered out exhausted, and the people at the mountain’s foot praised the sect’s defenses.
• The fifty newcomers warned their relatives and friends against causing trouble, while many newcomers returned to the mountain the next morning.
• Zhang Xun hurried to the Affairs Hall but found plenty of tasks, mostly easy chores or work in nearby cities.
• Zhang Xun asked Bai Zhu why there were no tasks to gather Spirit Plants or capture Demon Beasts, and Bai Zhu said his cultivation was too low for them.

Zhang Xunye began his first sect mission, learning to use farming tools and teach Spirit Plant farmers under the Lingxian Sect’s careful cultivation rules. The farmers were surprised by the generous terms and the many tools the sect provided.

• Bai Zhu told Zhang Xunye he had to cultivate for a month before managing a shop, so Zhang Xunye accepted a mission distributing farming tools and seeds instead.
• Yuan Jinsheng and Han Weishu prepared the tools and seeds for the newcomers who returned to the mountain to take missions.
• Zhang Xunye traveled to his assigned Spirit Field area and taught five Spirit Plant farmers how to plant and use the tools.
• The farmers learned that the Lingxian Sect would take thirty percent of their harvest, enforce planting rules, and reward the farmer with the highest yield.
• The five farmers wondered why Zhang Xunye taught them so carefully and why the sect provided many different farming tools for free.