Chapter 342 - 164: When the Time is Right, Heaven and Earth Lend Their Strength; If It’s Not in Your Fate, Don’t Force It! Ten Thousand Laws True Inheritance, Chi Jing Daoist

Chapter 342: Chapter 164: When the Time is Right, Heaven and Earth Lend Their Strength; If It’s Not in Your Fate, Don’t Force It! Ten Thousand Laws True Inheritance, Chi Jing Daoist

The Purple Mist School, outside Jiangyin Prefecture.

It was a Flowing Island, surrounded on all four sides by the sea, with waterfalls cascading from its cliffs. A thin veil of Spiritual Mechanism, faintly suffused with a purple aura, enveloped the entire island.

As a prefecture renowned for its maritime trade under the Vassal Town of Cangdu, Jiangyin’s dozens of schools had waxed and waned. With the decline of the Three Yang Sect and the quiescence of the Celestial Blade School, one would fall as another rose to take its place.

Now, among the martial establishments presided over by a Dragon Tiger Expert, the Purple Mist School reigned supreme!

The Purple Mist Sect Leader cultivated the sect’s Qi Dao True Skill, a technique of extraordinary grade. His True Qi was profound, and it was rumored that he was on the verge of attaining a Title, which would make him one of the very few Martial Saint Level experts to emerge from Jiangyin Prefecture in the last hundred years. His prestige was immense.

Within the Purple Mist Sect.

After being announced, Zhou Changming, from Daoist School Street in the Prefecture City, made his way straight to the grand hall atop the mountain.

This was where the Purple Mist Sect Leader spent years meditating on the path to a Title. The hall was perpetually shrouded in a faint purple mist and was rumored to have been modeled after the Thunderfire Refining Hall, the Enlightenment Court on the Celestial Pillar Level True Martial Mountain.

Of course, it could not compare to the awe-inspiring spectacle on True Martial Mountain, which could summon Celestial Thunder and Earth Fire, allowing disciples to comprehend the nature of Heaven and Earth and thereby grasp profound Daoist Divine Techniques and Martial Arts Concepts.

However, as generation after generation of Purple Mist School disciples refined the Purple Mist Secret Manual, they channeled the True Qi nurtured within it back into the school.

Over time, this caused the sect’s Spiritual Mechanism and spiritual fortune to converge here. Decades later, the place had been transformed into something akin to a Blessed Land—a rarity in all of Jiangyin Prefecture.

Inside the mountain hall, a great cauldron was wreathed in purple Qi. The hall itself had an open-air design, revealing the churning sea of clouds and soaring seagulls in the distance.

On all sides, arranged on high seats, sat numerous school Grandmasters. They were dressed in robes of purple and gold, their eyes closed in meditation as their Qi Mechanisms circulated around them.

For Martial Artists who had reached the rank of Qi Cultivation Grandmaster, making progress through cultivation in an ordinary Prefecture or County was all but impossible without the aid of Spirit Grade Pills or Earth Treasures.

Only by cultivating near Blessed Lands—such as this Purple Mist Hall, the Celestial Blade School’s Golden Turtle Island, or the Cold Pool in the Beicang Marquis’s Mansion—could their Qi Seas continue to evolve, giving them a chance to achieve a Leakless body and reach the Dragon and Tiger realm.

"Senior Brother, I thought you’d grown too old and given up any ambition of advancing further. Didn’t you volunteer to leave your post and oversee the Daoist School in the Prefecture City, to send new blood to our sect while living out your final years in peace?"

As Zhou Changming was led into the grand hall by a Purple Mist Disciple, one of the Grandmasters occupying a seat at the end of the row opened his eyes. He gazed at Zhou Changming, his curiosity piqued.

「At the same time.」

In the Purple Mist Hall, perched on the island’s steep cliffs, from behind the great cauldron that stood at the far end—

—a young man, who was absorbing and releasing Qi Mechanism with faint purple wisps of energy flowing through his hair, slowly opened his eyes.

He appeared to be only twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, far younger than any of the ten-odd Grandmasters in purple robes present in the hall.

Yet when these figures—some elderly, some radiating authority, almost all of them Chief Seats or elders who either commanded a mountain peak or wielded true power—looked his way, their eyes filled with reverence. Not one of them dared to be disrespectful.

The lifelong goal of a Martial Artist’s cultivation is to become a Human Immortal.

But throughout all of history, among the countless, brilliant, and astonishingly talented Martial Artists, almost none have ever reached the legendary state of opening the body’s Nine Great Limits and 48,000 apertures, a level of greatness where a single drop of their blood is comparable to a Martial Saint.

Even reaching the halfway point—performing the Red Dragon Subdues White Tiger and cultivating to become a Leakless Grandmaster—was enough to dominate a vast Prefecture and become the leader of a school.

Upon reaching this step, a Martial Artist could reverse the aging process to return to their innate state, permanently fixing their appearance!

If they so wished, their appearance would be fixed at the age they were when they achieved the Leakless realm, never to grow old again!

Therefore, the man who stood above all these Grandmasters in their purple and gold robes, seated unshakably upon the main seat like Mount Tai... could be none other than the Purple Mist Sect Leader himself. He was one of the six great pillars of Jiangyin Prefecture to have reached the Dragon and Tiger realm, had cultivated the Purple Mist Secret Manual to the state of Great Success, and was said to be able to "manifest his Qi Sea externally, summoning auspicious purple Qi from the east"!

Weii Changkong opened his eyes, and all the Purple Mist Grandmasters fell silent, their attention fixed on him.

Seeing this, Zhou Changming immediately prostrated himself and said:

"Sect Leader, this time... I, Changming, simply cannot stomach this humiliation!"

"Twenty years ago, an apprentice you personally trained was sent to oversee the Daoist School, only to be slaughtered by Duan Chenzhou."

"More than a decade passed, and Duan Chenzhou finally died. But now his apprentice has appeared, rising to prominence and grinding the reputation of our Purple Mist Lineage into the dust!"

"The boy has incredible luck. He’s managed to curry favor with the Northern Garrison Command and the Garrison Mansion. Even the crippled Young Lady Heir of the Beicang Marquis’s Mansion looks upon him favorably."

"I’ve tried everything in my power, but I can’t touch him."

"The Celestial Blade School has been weak for a long time. We finally had a chance to make them give up Golden Turtle Island—the one Wang Xuanyang seized from the remnants of the Three Yang Sect—but then this prodigy had to appear out of thin air..."

"If he isn’t cut down prematurely, and in the future this boy becomes a Grandmaster and reaches the Dragon and Tiger realm, won’t we have another Wang Xuanyang on our hands?"

"At that point, all our hopes of obtaining the Secret Treasure left by Wang Xuanyang and the Three Yang Sect’s Blessed Land, Golden Turtle Island, will have been for nothing."

"If we don’t put up a fight, our Purple Mist School’s ambition of laying a Dao Foundation to become a True Sect, and your own path to a Title, venerable Sect Leader..."

"...how many more setbacks will we suffer?!"

The many Grandmasters exchanged glances.

Even though they rarely left the school for the Prefecture City, they were all vaguely aware of the swirling conflicts, grudges, and rivalries involved.

Therefore, after hearing Zhou Changming’s words, most remained silent, their expressions showing tacit agreement.

This Sect Leader of theirs had reached the Dragon and Tiger realm more than a Jiazi—a full sixty-year cycle—ago.