Chapter 391: Ten Years in Firewood Town, A Mysterious Visitor!
[Year Forty-Nine, Age Seventy-Three.]
[You returned to the Firewood Sect, instructing Ma Bang to expand the sect’s membership and recruit more ordinary people for administrative work.]
[Subsequently, the Firewood Sect officially became a direct vassal of the Qiufeng Sect, taking over all territories formerly belonging to the Blood Iron Sect.]
[You left the matters of governance and development to the Firewood Sect folks to handle.]
[You settled down in Firewood Town, continuing to comprehend Divine Abilities.]
[“Divine Arts are indeed far more formidable than ordinary spells and killing moves. There’s also a rule-based suppression of Divine Abilities over regular techniques. No wonder even the shoddiest cultivation technique, once fused with a Divine Ability to become a Divine Art, guarantees at least third-grade status. The difference between having a Divine Ability and not having one is a qualitative leap. I wonder what the next Divine Ability I’ll comprehend will be?”]
The simulation continued.
For the next ten years, Chen Yi lived in Firewood Town, serving as the Sixth Elder of the Firewood Sect.
As the Firewood Sect grew, developing its Inner and Outer Sect systems, there was nothing that required his personal involvement.
All he had to do was use his more advanced ideas to guide the direction of the Firewood Sect’s development.
Although Chen Yi kept a low profile, his prestige among the Firewood Sect members was overwhelmingly dominant.
Ma Bang had repeatedly proposed that Chen Yi become Sect Master, insisting that Chen Yi could be an absentee leader, leaving all mundane affairs to him.
But Chen Yi still refused.
Empty fame was nothing but a fleeting dream to Chen Yi; only true strength mattered to him.
Although the area around Firewood Town had suffered the calamity of the Blood Iron Sect, the Firewood Sect members called the people back, and Firewood Town flourished once more.
Ten years, a generation had grown up.
Firewood Town and the surrounding villages had become populous and bustling again.
Coupled with the expansion of their governed territory, the Firewood Sect’s development speed had multiplied.
Now, in the surrounding region, this human sect’s humane management and philosophy of shared prosperity attracted many humans to migrate there.
It also caught the attention of some small and medium-sized forces.
Everyone suddenly discovered—could development really speed up this much without exploitation and oppression?
—In truth, those being oppressed were the captured alien bandits and outlaws, toiling away in the mines for reeducation through labor.
With the Qiufeng Sect backing them, the Firewood Sect had encountered no major troubles in recent years.
But the Qiufeng Sect was also an alien sect.
After years of political education from Chen Yi, the entire Firewood Sect was well aware: never hold illusions about the alien races; only one’s own strength was the hard truth.
Thus, any disciple who had the chance to cultivate had spent the past years slacking off not one bit, competing in diligence.
Their cultivation levels skyrocketed like rockets.
This was also related to the abundance of cultivation resources.
In the past, without resources, they had to train hard—though breakthroughs were slow, it was a process of “accumulating thickly.” Now, they were “bursting forth thinly.”
Over the decade, Chen Yi delved deeply into comprehending Divine Abilities.
The difficulty of comprehending the second Divine Ability was far greater than the first.
Shen Yifeng told Chen Yi this was normal.
With Divine Abilities, the more you mastered, the harder it was to comprehend new ones.
Unfortunately, in the face of “Mortal Bones,” all difficulties were reduced tenfold.
Thus, Chen Yi spent six years comprehending the second Divine Ability.
Divine March: Moving like the wind, far surpassing ordinary people, able to travel a thousand miles a day.
Actually, Chen Yi wanted to comprehend Wind-Riding, to soar freely once more.
But as he comprehended, he drifted off course.
He simply went with the flow and comprehended Divine March instead.
It was clear these two Divine Abilities had similarities, which was why Chen Yi had drifted.
Afterward, while Chen Yi was brainstorming how to adapt Divine March with little headway, he swapped back to the higher-level Innate Talent to boost his cultivation.
However, Chen Yi discovered that even with the boost from “You Get Stronger Just by Breathing!”, once his true realm entered Core Formation, his cultivation speed noticeably slowed down.
Even without asking Shen Yifeng, Chen Yi could guess—this was where the immortal root started kicking in.
If the immortal root quality was insufficient, the quality of the external environment had to be improved.
After all, Blazing Star was a Second-tier Star; Immortal Qi could only be described as “meager,” far inferior to a First-tier Star.
Transcendent Realm cultivators on the entire planet were few and far between.
Those who could cultivate to the Transcendent Realm on a Second-tier Star had high-level immortal roots to begin with.
Secondly, they basically all had channels to visit First-tier Stars.
Whenever they hit a cultivation bottleneck, they’d go into seclusion on a First-tier Star, break through, then come back.
So why not just stay on a First-tier Star?
Of course, many talents were siphoned off to First-tier Stars, or even Special-tier Stars.
But some chose to remain on Second-tier Stars.
First-tier Stars meant fiercer competition.
Everyone just chose different ecological niches for themselves.
For example, the Sect Masters of the Three Major Sects—they could be Sect Masters here, wielding supreme power and controlling the weather on an entire planet.
On a First-tier Star, they’d probably be reduced to working for major powers.
Seeing that under a Second-tier Star environment, even using “higher-level Innate Talent” couldn’t speed up cultivation much.
Chen Yi, outside the simulation, simply swapped back to “lower-level Innate Talent” and “Mortal Bones,” so that his simulated self could continue comprehending Divine Abilities and Divine Arts.
[Year Fifty-Nine, Age Eighty-Three.]
[Night.]
[In the old courtyard of the Firewood Sect, Firewood Town.]
[You sat atop a tree crown, gazing up at the countless stars.]
[“In this life, I am destined to sail the starry sea, seeking higher realms…”]
[You knew the day to bid farewell to your Firewood Sect brothers and sisters was drawing near.]
[Comprehending Divine Abilities would take longer and longer.]
[You couldn’t spend your entire life on this one matter; your cultivation still needed to advance.]
[So, you were planning a trip to a First-tier Star.]
[But there was no rush—since you had a long lifespan, you could plan things long-term.]
[Yet you also knew this was just an excuse you gave yourself; you were somewhat reluctant to leave these lovely people of the Firewood Sect.]
[They were now genuinely wealthy, yet still lived a simple life, even keeping the sect headquarters in this old courtyard, merely renovating some of the more dilapidated buildings.]
[Suddenly, your field of vision turned yellow.]
[This was the warning of “Traffic Light,” indicating potential danger in the vicinity, though it was still uncertain if it was targeting you.]
[You stood up on the tree crown, scanning Firewood Town.]
[The night was pitch black, everything shrouded in darkness.]
[“Old Wan, give me vision!”]
[You shook the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, unleashing Myriad Ghosts Go to Market.]
[One by one, the souls of the bull-headed men flew in all directions.]
[Whatever they saw or heard, you could see and hear.]
[The town and its surroundings showed no abnormality.]
[But there was a stranger in the Firewood Sect’s cellar.]
[This person was severely wounded, breathing faintly, covered in blood, and clutching in their arms a sleeping toddler boy, two or three years old.]
[From your sensing qi ability, you judged that their realm should be Extreme Terrain Realm!]
[You frowned slightly.]
[On Blazing Star, it was very difficult for humans to reach the Extreme Terrain Realm; this person likely came from another planet.]
[You saw Ma Bang and Shen Yifeng also in the cellar.]
[It seemed the two had no intention of telling you about the outsider.]
[“Let me hear what you’re saying…”]