***
One year later.
Azure Pillar Sect.
Li Shen walked out of the sect's main building. The appearance of the sect is much better than before, where the disciples of the Forest Leaf sect worked hard to make this place beautiful. They used celestial level spirit stone resources to purchase many construction materials.
They still held quite a lot of low level spirit stones, Li Shen told them to buy anything related to the sect with those spirit stones. Chen Yi understood Li Shen's words.
Today, Hao Ziyue and Xiao Bai were ordered by Li Shen to go to the Ghost Mist Forest to practice their technique, as well as obtain the beast essences of the roaming monsters.
The tiers of the monsters were diverse and scattered across the cultivators' appointed locations. With their cultivation level —Foundation Establishment Mid Stage.
They were suited to hunt in the Ghost Mist Forest because the monsters living in the forest were only level 1-3 monsters.
The higher the level of a monster, the stronger it was. According to historical records, the highest level of monster that practitioners had fought was level 9, located in the Fallen Sky Emerald Palace.
It had been a month since they left, there was no sign of them coming back. Li Shen wasn't too worried, as they had been given emergency slips that were useful for calling Li Shen in case something happened that endangered their lives.
He stood right on the front yard of the sect, occasionally taking a deep breath of the fresh air in the sect. Li Shen looked up, the celestial level spirit stone he used to restore spiritual energy was still floating actively.
Such a celestial level spirit stone was also used as a spiritual energy recovery method, it would last for 100 years, no matter how many sect disciples used it.
Li Shen turned his head, four of the five pavilions were tidy and ready to use. In fact, they didn't hesitate to beautify the place with other decorations, such as restoring the polluted lake to clean, then making a pavilion building above the lake, and so on.
Only a few of them were assigned to decorate the completed pavilions, Chen Yi seemed to focus his companions on repairing the fifth pavilion, the last one.
'Hmm... looks like they're really persistent in wanting to become my disciples,' Li Shen remarked, smiling faintly.
From outside the sect, Li Shen squinted his eyes. Through aura detection, he sensed that someone was approaching, just one person.
Quickly, Li Shen left the front yard of the sect in a flash of blue light, startling the Forest Leaf sect disciples.
It had been several months since Li Shen had acted aggressively like earlier, it certainly caught the disciples' attention.
Arriving at the outer area of the Pillar Azure sect, the man smiled while gasping in surprise. That person was Ye Fa.
"Senior," greeted Ye Fa, wearing a blue uniform with dragon patterns, the signature uniform of the Pillar Azure sect.
"Ye Fa," Li Shen greeted back.
Ye Fa's journey came to an end. She had already visited 500 villages in her year-long exploration. True to her word, the woman would return with potential disciples for the Azure Pillar Sect.
As Ye Fa had said, Li Shen saw that there were 178 8-year-old children who could potentially become Pillar Azure disciples. Consisting of 120 boys and 58 girls, they wore the best clothes they had as they climbed up the long stairs to the Pillar Azure Sect.
"Welcome to the Pillar Azure Sect. I am Li Shen, your sect leader," Li Shen explained.
"As a first introduction, please take a look at this," Li Shen said.
He brought up a ball of qi energy in his hand, then pointed it at the children. Li Shen clenched his fist, making the qi energy accumulated in the energy ball break apart and be absorbed into their bodies.
It wasn't a technique to smooth the meridians or anything. It was just active qi energy that Li Shen gave them so that they could enter and leave the sect easily.
All those children felt their bodies light, also glowing bright blue. Ye Fa turned around, clearly telling them that the qi energy was not something bad for them.
"Lead them inside, Ye Fa," Li Shen ordered, Ye Fa cleared her throat nodding obediently.
Li Shen smiled as he watched them neatly march into the sect. The disciples of the Forest Leaf sect were shocked, then grew more jealous of the presence of the children who would become disciples of the Pillar Azure sect.
With the insights from Li Shen and the abundant spiritual energy in the sect, they were extremely fortunate to be able to enter the Pillar Azure sect.
"Come on! Move your bodies. We must complete the fifth pavilion to join the sect!" shouted Chen Yi, making his fellow practitioners nod and get back to work.
Li Shen heard Chen Yi's shout. It was a good sign, at least if they finished the repair of the pavilion early, Li Shen probably wouldn't mind accepting them as sect disciples.
When Li Shen was about to walk inside, his steps were halted when he heard someone calling his name from the back of the sect. Li Shen turned his head, the person calling him was Xiang Wu.
Xiang Wu came with three elders of the Mountain Goose Sect, one of whom was Gu Mei. Li Shen flew gently toward them, then greeted them kindly.
The man was surprised, as were the three elders who came with him. Years ago, the Azure Pillar Sect was just an outcast sect with a building that was about to collapse into disrepair. However, under Li Shen's control, it seemed that there would be a new sect ruling the Qing Yan Kingdom.
"HAHA! What an accomplishment, Fellow Daoist Li Shen. You turned the Azure Pillar Sect back to its prime," explained Xiang Wu, still flying above the Azure hill sky.
"Fellow Daoist Xiang Wu is overreacting. I only did a small thing to restore the honor of my sect."
Li Shen invited them in after permission was granted. The man flew into the sect's front yard with Xiang Wu following behind, their three sect elders also tagging along.
Gu Mei looked startled when she looked to the side. She saw that hundreds of Forest Leaf sect disciples were working hard to build the damaged fifth pavilion. Xiang Wu saw that as well.
In the past few months, rumors were rife regarding the destruction of the Forest Leaf Sect. Six of its elders fell in cultivation to become Core Formation practitioners, while its sect leader fell to become an early Nascent Soul practitioner.
The reason they fell in cultivation must have been caused by Li Shen, it was due to the presence of hundreds of Forest Leaf sect practitioners working for Li Shen.
'He was able to defeat the Forest Leaf sect and force them to negotiate, then destroy the cultivation of the sect leader and his elders.Actually, what is this guy's background?' asked Xiang Wu, both amazed and afraid.
'It's lucky he didn't destroy the Mountain Goose sect the other day.If he did, we would have met the same fate as that sect,' chimed in one of the elders.
'It's a wise choice to establish a good relationship with him.He can help us later,' said another elder.
Gu Mei was silent. She knew the exact reason why Li Shen could be so powerful over the Forest Leaf Sect, which was only a 2nd-level sect, was because Li Shen's cultivation couldn't be matched by them.
"Does Fellow Dao Xiang Wu have the purpose of coming to my humble sect?" asked Li Shen, walking into the main building of the Pillar Azure sect.
"That's right, Fellow Dao Li Shen."
"Soon, there will be the Huang Valley Trials to select Royal practitioners for the Qing Palace Tournament," explained Xiang Wu, bowing his head.
"What's that?" asked Li Shen, never having heard of it.
"The Qing Palace Tournament is a big tournament to select great practitioners under Nascent Soul. The winner will be given the title of Master under Nascent Soul and will be eligible to receive many high-level cultivation items," explained Xiang Wu.
"Not just the name, but the sect that the practitioner belongs to will also level up by one level without exception," the man revealed.
"Only Foundation Establishment level practitioners are allowed to join."
Li Shen nodded. The Qing Palace Tournament could be one of the best ways for a sect to promote to level two without having to qualify and so on.
The Azure Pillar Sect had two disciples who were currently at the Foundation Establishment stage. Li Shen confidently sent them.
"When does the Trials start?" asked Li Shen, sitting in the sect leader's chair.
"Three months from now."
The man cleared his throat and was silent. He patted his magic pouch and pointed the celestial-level spirit stone forward, it floated right in front of Xiang Wu, startling him and the other elders.
"Thank you for your information. You can keep that thing for your sect," Li Shen explained.
"S-Spirit stone of celestial level?" asked Xiang Wu, receiving the item.
"Are you sure?" asked Gu Mei.
Li Shen nodded. He said that the information from Xiang Wu was valuable to him. With it, Li Shen at least could have a way to raise his sect level status from level 1 to level 2 without any conditions.
"Then what about you? Do you have any disciples that you would bring along?" asked Gu Mei, Li Shen cleared his throat.
"I have. Right now, they are practicing outside."
"Soon, they'll be back."