Chapter 625 431: Shortcoming

"Huh!?"

Bear Wind looked awkward. Only after Fang Qingyuan's reminder did he realize that his current Cultivation Realm was merely the Fifth-Layer Golden Core.

After witnessing Fang Qingyuan's methods and Divine Techniques, he had subconsciously overestimated him to the point that he had started strategizing how Fang Qingyuan could defeat Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators.

"But you're right. I do need more trump cards. What I lack most right now is a truly decisive technique."

Fang Qingyuan thought back to their bout and realized most of his Divine Techniques had been ineffective against Bear Wind.

And that was when Bear Wind was at his most suppressed by the Celestial Essence Array. Moreover, he hadn't even activated his own True Meaning Domain of the Great Dao.

If Bear Wind had activated his domain, Fang Qingyuan wouldn't have been able to get close, let alone unleash five consecutive Godslaying Needles.

Right now, the five-shot volley of the Godslaying Needle was the strongest offensive tool at his disposal. Besides that Divine Technique, his other abilities, like the Four Spirits Dharma Aspect and the Five-Colored Divine Light, were quite powerless against Bear Wind.

As for the Five-Colored Divine Light, it was his trump card for escaping, so he wouldn't use it lightly.

As for his Lifebound Magical Treasure—which usually provides the greatest boost to a Golden Core Cultivator—Fang Qingyuan hadn't nourished his Eight Sceneries Red Dust Palace Lantern for long enough. Furthermore, the artifact was inherently unsuited for direct combat, so it didn't offer him much help in that regard.

Ultimately, there was only one main reason for all this: after reaching the Golden Core realm, his Cultivation Realm had advanced so rapidly that his foundation had yet to catch up.

In just five or six years, Fang Qingyuan had gone from being a Late-stage Foundation Establishment Cultivator to a Fifth-Layer Golden Core Cultivator. Such a cultivation speed was remarkable, even in the context of the entire Cultivation Realm.

When he had first leaped to the Third-Layer Golden Core, he had used the excuse of a sudden breakthrough after long accumulation. Such leaps across multiple minor realms weren't unheard of among true geniuses.

But advancing another two layers in such a short time was much harder to explain. Thus, Fang Qingyuan couldn't be sure if his rapid progress would attract malicious schemes from others.

Therefore, for the next few decades, right up until the start of the next War of Expansion, Fang Qingyuan decided he would hide his true realm while doing everything he could to strengthen his foundation.

The ultimate goal of these actions was to eliminate any inconsistencies that defied the common understanding of Cultivators, allowing him to once again blend in and become inconspicuous.

That way, he wouldn't have to worry about being targeted by some Divinity Transformation being, who might abduct him, intent on discovering the secret of his Cultivation Technique.

'But... has Tu Wuzhao already targeted me?'

The thought flashed through his mind, and Fang Qingyuan shook his head, subconsciously pushing it down. He then turned to Bear Wind and asked:

"I feel that even now, while suppressed by the Celestial Essence Array, you're stronger than Han Tianqing of the Pill Alliance. He's a Nascent Soul Cultivator who broke through over sixty years ago and is currently cultivating on White Mountain."

"I personally saw him in action over twenty years ago, during the first great war between the Pill Alliance and the Spirit Wood Alliance. My overall impression is that he's not even as strong as you are now, while suppressed."

Hearing Fang Qingyuan's words, a look of pride spread across Bear Wind's face. The Ancient Beasts of the Wilderness never bothered to hide their emotions, and intelligent ones like Bear Wind were a rarity.

"To be honest, the most difficult thing to deal with when facing a Nascent Soul Cultivator is their Nascent Soul Domain. I suggest you find an offensive technique that isn't affected by a Nascent Soul Domain to use as a trump card."

"What you say makes sense, Brother Xiong. But such techniques are rare even among Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators. As a mere Golden Core, I'm afraid I won't be able to find one."

"Then there's nothing to be done. The only real danger to you right now comes from Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators. You don't need to worry about your peers, and you don't need to worry about Divinity Transformation Cultivators either."

Fang Qingyuan understood Bear Wind's meaning. Golden Core Cultivators posed no fatal threat to him, and if a Divinity Transformation Cultivator personally made a move against him, struggling would be pointless.

"We'll see. There's still time. Brother Xiong, shall we go back and continue drinking?"

"That suits me just fine! Let's go!"

When Fang Qingyuan and Bear Wind reappeared at the unfinished banquet, a certain tipsy, black-and-white roly-poly was so startled that it dropped the wine jug in its hand.

...

「One month later.」

The Qingyuan Sect moved past the initial commotion, and the overall atmosphere gradually settled down.

The thousand-odd Qi Refining Bear Beasts were mostly housed in the Qingyuan Sect's newly built Thousand Bear Garden. Any disciple of the Qingyuan Sect could claim a Bear Beast as their Companion Beast by using their sect contribution points and passing a sect evaluation.

As for the other sects within the Qingyuan Alliance, if their disciples wanted to claim a Qi Refining Bear Beast, the evaluation they had to undergo was much stricter than that for the Qingyuan Sect's own disciples.

Even so, a constant stream of disciples from the various sects of the Qingyuan Alliance came, hoping to claim one of these Bear Beasts.

There were many reasons for this, but a few common motivations stood out.

First, these Bear Beasts all had excellent potential. The very fact that Bear Wind was willing to bring them out of the Barbaric Wilderness, rather than leave them to fend for themselves, and that they had once appeared on a list from the Beast Taming Sect, was proof of how promising their futures were.

With demon beasts from elsewhere, you might see only one successful advancement to Foundation Establishment for every several dozen or even a hundred at the Qi Refining Realm. But among the Bear Beasts in the Thousand Bear Garden, roughly one in every ten was capable of becoming a Foundation Establishment Demon Beast.

This was a frighteningly high ratio. How could a one-in-ten chance of obtaining Foundation Establishment Battle Power not make everyone eager to participate?

Second, these Qi Refining Bear Beasts in the Thousand Bear Garden weren't just born from the wild, popping out of a crack in a rock. They had their own relatives and elders, and those elders were currently the Companion Beasts of the Qingyuan Sect's elite disciples.

As the saying goes, "the pavilion closest to the water sees the moon first." If one had a Bear Beast as their Companion Beast, they could use that as a pretext to visit their Companion Beast's elders during festivals. After a few such visits, wouldn't they be able to build a connection with a disciple of the Qingyuan Sect?

One had to understand that the Qingyuan Sect disciples who received a Foundation Establishment Bear Beast were all Core Disciples. There had only been about thirty spots for the Masters of these Foundation Establishment Bear Beasts. In a sect with over six hundred Cultivators, these thirty-odd individuals were true elites, chosen at a ratio of nearly twenty to one. They were also the reserve Peak Masters, highly likely to take control of the sect's various influential departments in the future.

There were third and fourth reasons as well, but no need to list them all. The bottom line, as Fang Qingyuan saw it, was that this batch of bear cubs was incredibly popular.

Fang Qingyuan decided that every year, several dozen Bear Beasts from the Thousand Bear Garden would be made available as rewards for disciples who had made outstanding contributions to the Qingyuan Alliance.

He would also collect various Bear Beast bloodlines from other regions and introduce them to the Thousand Bear Garden to prevent severe degradation of the bloodline.

With Bear Wind's arrival, the strength of both the Qingyuan Alliance and the Qingyuan Sect began to expand at an accelerated rate.

Correspondingly, Fang Qingyuan felt that the Qingyuan Alliance's territory was becoming rather crowded.

But for now, Fang Qingyuan suppressed the thought. The timing wasn't right, and he didn't want to get involved in the massive free-for-all that was brewing.

Besides, his trip to the Black River Daoist Palace for the three-month agreement was about to begin. No matter how much he looked down on a spoiled young master like Chunyu Hua, he couldn't afford to be careless.

After all, if Chunyu Hua ran back to his family, cried to his father or grandfather—who were likely Nascent Soul Cultivators—and came back armed with a pile of trump cards that only Nascent Soul Cultivators could create, wouldn't Fang Qingyuan suffer a humiliating defeat?

Fang Qingyuan loathed risk. So, in the two months he had left, he planned to follow Bear Wind's advice and do his best to shore up his weaknesses.

As for the offensive technique against a Nascent Soul Cultivator's domain that Bear Wind had mentioned, Fang Qingyuan now had a lead.

Swords!

Many Cultivators in this world used swords, but most couldn't be called Sword Cultivators. They simply wielded a Magic Sword as they would any other Magical Artifact, failing to display the true prowess of a Sword Cultivator.

True Sword Cultivators were renowned for being able to "break ten thousand techniques with a single sword," and those "ten thousand techniques" referred to the various Nascent Soul Domains.

Bear Wind's advice had been to find a Divine Technique that would allow him to maneuver at will within a Nascent Soul Domain, or at the very least, a method to avoid being suppressed by it.

After much thought, Fang Qingyuan finally set his sights on the way of the Sword Cultivator.

Of course, it was impossible for him to master any Sword Dao Divine Techniques in such a short time. His plan to shore up his weaknesses was a multi-stage process, and he had given himself a deadline of nearly forty years.

He just needed to completely fix his weaknesses within those forty years, before the next War of Expansion began. By then, he would have at least some confidence even if he had to face a Nascent Soul Ancient Beast alone.

But life is often unpredictable. Fang Qingyuan had no expectation of obtaining a Sword Dao Technique anytime soon, but then, following a major counteroffensive by the Thick Earth Alliance's front line in the distant Southern White Mountain, the Illusion Sword Alliance began to crumble.

Thus, envoys seeking aid were once again dispatched to the Hehuan Sect and the Qingyuan Alliance. This time, the envoy who arrived at the Qingyuan Alliance carried immense weight—it was none other than the next Alliance Leader of the Illusion Sword Alliance, Cui Dong City, also known as the Phantom City Divine Sword.

...

Inside the Qingyuan Sect's secret reception hall, Cui Dong City sat waiting with his eyes closed. His current state was not as composed as his outward appearance suggested.

As the heir apparent of the Illusion Sword Alliance, he had already lost count of the number of joint assassination attempts he had suffered from the Thick Earth and Sharp Gold Alliances.

By coming here, he had left the protection of the Illusion Sword Alliance. If the Thick Earth and Sharp Gold Alliances found out—or even if the Spirit Wood and Li Huo Alliances got wind of it—he would have to be prepared to die here.

But even so, Cui Dong City had come to the Qingyuan Sect without a second thought, rather than sending a Foundation Establishment Cultivator as they had last time.

This was because the price the Illusion Sword Alliance was prepared to offer the Qingyuan Sect was something only he, the Crown Prince, was qualified to name.

For this reason, Cui Dong City could only suppress the bitterness and anxiety in his heart and hope that the Qingyuan Sect would be satisfied with his offer.

As for why the Illusion Sword Alliance was going to such lengths, the reason lay on White Mountain. Because on that fog-shrouded mountain, the physical body of the Illusion Sword Alliance's Old Ancestor had been shattered!