Chapter 136
At this moment.
Qinglian Sect, Sect Master’s Hall.
Xu Qingyao, her violet hair adorned with a jade hairpin, took a slow sip of tea. Her slender waist swayed slightly as she leaned to the right, gracefully placing the teacup on the table beside her.
Her gaze drifted toward the direction of the Demon-Sealing Pagoda, her lips parting lightly as she teased, “The Sect Master is truly extravagant—promoting thirty-six disciples all at once.”
“If the competition had allowed two hundred, would there be two hundred today?”
Though her tone carried its usual sarcasm, Xu Qingyao meant no real malice.
After all, strengthening the sect’s power was only natural. Her real concern was something else entirely.
Thirty-six people—one needing seven days, another five, one more three, seven for a single day, and the rest just a few hours each…
If they all took their turns, it would take over a month! And what if she had needs during that time?
Cutting in line?
Hmm.
Xu Qingyao nodded to herself, already scheming.
A fine idea indeed. As for whether it would damage her dignity as an elder?
Pfft. How much is dignity worth per pound, anyway?
It wasn’t like anyone would spread the news. The insiders would find out eventually—why bother hiding it?
Across from her, Ji Zhiqing, her elegant emerald-green hair cascading down, wore an equally troubled expression.
“Indeed,” she agreed softly. “The materials for the Qinglian Chongyang Pills won’t last much longer. What should we do?”
If she had to personally… request the scriptures?
Ji Zhiqing inwardly shook her head.
No. Absolutely not.
She could never bring herself to do it. Even teaming up with Xiao Qin was awkward enough—let alone with so many people inside the Demon-Sealing Pagoda now.
Looking up at Xu Qingyao’s eager expression, Ji Zhiqing could already guess what the other woman was thinking.
With a hopeful note in her voice, she made a gentle request:
“Elder Xu, might I trouble you to… collect some of the Young Master’s ‘nectar’ for me when the time comes?”
That way, she wouldn’t have to scurry around during this period. As long as she didn’t use it for personal purposes, she could surely endure until things stabilized.
Xu Qingyao responded with a smile.
“Elder Ji, if I recall correctly, during the initial experiments, you only needed a single drop of A’Chen’s ‘nectar’—diluted—to refine a batch of Qinglian Chongyang Pills.”
“Yet these past two years, you’ve been coming almost daily. I assumed you were stockpiling for emergencies.”
“How did you burn through it so quickly?” Her words carried a pointed implication.
Ji Zhiqing’s face flushed instantly.
This was practically an outright accusation.
But could she admit to such an embarrassing thing?
Of course not!
“Ahem…” She coughed lightly, hiding behind her sleeve to mask her discomfort before mustering a weak defense.
“Elder Xu, you may not be aware, but that was merely a prototype. The formula has since been upgraded, requiring more raw materials.”
“Not to mention the need to tailor different grades of the pill based on cultivation levels… It’s truly… insufficient.”
Her voice grew increasingly uncertain.
As a spirit artifact, she was a terrible liar.
The moment the words left her mouth, she instinctively raised her teacup to her lips—a futile attempt to hide her embarrassment.
Spirit artifacts didn’t even need to drink.
“Oh?” Xu Qingyao’s eyes widened in exaggerated realization.
“I see! I thought perhaps Elder Ji had been… sampling the goods—oh dear, my mistake!”
She feigned remorse, lightly tapping her lips twice before smirking again.
“Of course, Elder Ji is devoted to the sect. She’d never engage in such… unsavory hoarding. How foolish of me to suspect her!”
Watching the green-haired woman shrink into herself like a frightened quail, abandoning her request entirely, the voluptuous beauty’s grin widened.
Trying to outmaneuver me? Please.
With so many people competing, she wasn’t even sure she could get her fill—let alone play delivery girl for someone else.
Not a chance.
At the head of the hall, Liu Ruyan observed their exchange with silent exasperation.
Leading this sect is like herding cats.
She tapped the armrest of her seat, the crisp sound cutting through the tension.
Once the two women fell silent, she spoke, her tone grave.
“I called you here for an urgent matter.”
“The Hundred Dynasties War has been moved up.”
Ji Zhiqing blinked in confusion, while Xu Qingyao’s face paled.
“What?!” the latter exclaimed. “The Hundred Dynasties War only occurs once every five hundred years! It hasn’t even been three hundred yet!”
The Hundred Dynasties War—as the name suggested—was a battle involving nearly every top-tier cultivation force across the Southern Domain’s dynasties.
The battleground? The ancient ruins at the domain’s heart.
Each dynasty would send a thousand cultivators to slaughter one another, with rankings determined by survival rates.
Far deadlier than the Space-Time Rift, this conflict saw over a hundred thousand participants—all at minimum Nascent Soul or Spirit Severing realm.
For any dynasty, gathering a thousand such cultivators meant mustering nearly its entire elite force.
This meant that whether it was her, Liu Ruyan, or every female cultivator in the sect at or above Nascent Soul—none could escape conscription.
The brutality of this war dwarfed anything the Space-Time Rift had posed.
Liu Ruyan sighed.
“The Great Xia Dynasty only just received this confidential notice. Even their imperial family was caught off-guard—likely, even their secluded Spirit Severing experts will be forced to participate.”
The true arbiters of the Hundred Dynasties War were never the dynasties themselves, but the Outer-Clan Families beyond the Southern Domain.
She had once naively assumed reaching Spirit Severing would allow a smooth path to the Void Refinement realm with Ning Chen’s… assistance.
But only upon reaching such heights did she learn the truth.
The Southern Domain’s very laws had degraded. The highest attainable cultivation here was Spirit Severing.
For eons, this land had been a gilded cage—its cultivators nothing more than livestock, forever trapped.