Who Let Him Cultivate?! (WX)

Murong You had built the Tiger Roar Martial Arts School with his own two hands. He was familiar with every brick and tile.

It looks exactly the same as before, so why does it just feel off?

Forget it. Murong You had reached the Golden Core Stage precisely because of his easygoing nature. If he couldn’t figure something out, he would just forget about it and not torture himself.

“Mister, Old Meng and I have talked it over. We think it’s about time for us to leave.” Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou came to say their goodbyes to Murong You.

Although they would like to continue teaching at the martial arts school, with such a massive event in Muxue City, it was only proper for them to report back to the sect. They were the only ones who were privy to the full story.

Furthermore, now that everyone in Muxue City knew their identities, staying would only cause trouble for Murong You.

“Ah, you’re leaving already?” Murong You felt a pang of melancholy. Even after learning the two’s true identities, what left the deepest impression on him was still their time as Teacher Little Lu and Teacher Little Meng.

“We’ll come back to visit you.”

Murong You shook his head with a wry smile, taking it in stride. “What’s there to visit? You two are busy people. It’s the thought that counts.”

He could already imagine the looks on his students’ faces when they returned after the New Year to find their teachers gone. I will have to find a way to comfort them. Finding teachers of the same caliber will be difficult. If worse comes to worst, I’ll just be their teacher.

What Murong You didn’t know was that Lu Yang, Meng Jingzhou, and Xue Shilou had slipped into their students’ dreams that night, saying goodbye to every one of them. They urged the students to keep training and not slack off just because their teachers were gone. The lessons they taught would serve them for a lifetime.

The students wept in their sleep, waking with red, swollen eyes. Only then did they realize it wasn’t a dream.

Gong Che, Shi Yi, Fang Zhige, and Su Yuan were the most mature of the group. They had suspected it would come to this the moment they learned that Teacher Lu was Lu Yang, but they still found it hard to accept the outcome.

“The Snow Emperor is no more, but you can still be considered my successor. Are you willing to cultivate under me?” the Snow Emperor asked seriously. He hadn’t found a successor in eighty thousand years. Now that he had come across someone as promising as Xue Shilou, he could nurture him properly.

“I’m willing!” Xue Shilou immediately kowtowed three times and offered tea to the Snow Emperor, who laughed heartily.

Lu Yang remembered something and went to the backyard, where he saw the old horse standing upright, packing up dried frozen grass. Once they left the Extreme North, he wouldn’t be able to eat this kind of grass anymore.

But what Lu Yang remembered wasn’t the old horse—it was the tree outside his room.

Beneath the tree, he found Yang Kongtong’s corpse, but it was being gnawed at or perhaps digested by the tree roots.

Lu Yang was startled. How has this tree become so sinister? I simply fed it Luo Shi and the Carefree Wanderer—one Foundation Establishment corpse and one Divine Transfiguration corpse.

“Leng Ningxiang’s obsession probably took root in this tree after dispersing,” the Everlasting Immortal Fairy analyzed. “In a way, she and Yang Kongtong will now be together forever. Although it looks a bit eerie, once it has finished consuming Yang Kongtong’s corpse, there won’t be any more issues.”

The more professional Fate Arbiter also provided his analysis. “This tree’s sentience has already been awakened, or rather, this is a form of reincarnation, one completely unrelated to its previous life. When this tree develops true spirit intelligence, it will be an entirely new being.”

Lu Yang roughly understood the situation, but he was more concerned about another question. “Does it pose any threat to the martial arts school?”

The Fate Arbiter shook his head. “No. If the martial arts school cares for this tree properly until it grows legs and takes form, it will always protect the school.”

“That’s good then.”

~~~

“An earthquake occurred in the Extreme North?” Dai Bufan was utterly bewildered upon receiving the newest intelligence report.

As the Extreme North was vast, sparsely populated, and relatively isolated, he rarely paid attention to its matters. Even so, he knew that the Extreme North had never experienced an earthquake.

“Senior Brother Dai, we’re back!”

Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou, two meritorious officials, returned in triumph. The old horse had pulled them and a carriage of immortals back at breakneck speed.

Although they had tremendous gains in the Extreme North, they were still disciples of the Dao-Seeking Sect and Dai Bufan’s junior brothers. When they discovered something in the outside world, they had to report it to him.

“You two are back from the Extreme North?” Dai Bufan was surprised. Seeing the joyous smiles on their faces reminded him of Gan Tian when she had returned from the Demon Region. The expression meant that she had made significant progress and gained a lot there. “It looks like you two had quite the gain in the Extreme North?”

“Your foresight is incredible, Senior Brother Dai!” Lu Yang exclaimed in admiration and gave a thumbs-up.

“Tell me, what did you all do in the Extreme North?”

Listening to others’ experiences tempering themselves in the mundane world was beneficial to one’s own cultivation. This was a lesson Dai Bufan had learned back when he was at the Void Refinement Stage, and it remained applicable.

“Senior Brother Dai, as you know, we’ve always advocated keeping a low profile when cultivating and tempering ourselves in the mundane world, so Old Meng and I chose to be teachers at a martial arts school, teaching the students fist techniques...

“The head of the martial arts school was only at the Basic Golden Cultivation Stage and didn’t know who we were. The students were all ordinary people, though of course, a few of them were special...”

Dai Bufan nodded along. Everything sounds plausible. Big Senior Sister said that Junior Brother Lu had gone to the Extreme North to temper himself, but it seems even she could be wrong. He’d simply gone there to live as an ordinary mortal.

Lu Yang continued, “Then the Heartless Creed Leader Yang Kongtong started fighting Creed Leader Mu and Creed Leader Chi...”

Dai Bufan was just about to nod when his head jerked to a halt. He leaned forward, fixing the two brothers with an intense stare.

“What did you just say?!”

Weren’t you just talking about the parent-teacher meeting? How did the conversation jump to the Heartless Creed Leader?!

“We have no idea either.” Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou looked at Dai Bufan innocently. They really couldn’t figure out how Yang Kongtong had ended up fighting Mu Baiyi.

“Maybe it was an internal strife between the diabolic creeds?” Meng Jingzhou guessed.

This was precisely why they had come to Dai Bufan to report their experiences in the Extreme North. As righteous cultivators who had witnessed an internal strife between diabolic creeds and the conflict between the righteous and diabolic paths, they couldn’t keep such events to themselves.

“Continue.”

“And so, Old Lu and I faced Yang Kongtong. Then my cultivation dropped, while Old Lu shot up to the Apex Transcendent Tribulation Stage and kept fighting him...

“Then the Fate Arbiter of the Great Qian Dynasty started fighting the Nine-Layers Immortal. The battle was absolutely cataclysmic.”

Dai Bufan fell into deep thought. He couldn’t help but feel like he had missed a section somewhere.

How did it go from teaching mortals fist techniques to immortal battles?

Other Void Refinement cultivators either temper themselves in the mundane world or through battles. How are you two tempering yourselves through battles in the mundane world?

“Junior Brother Lu defeated Yang Kongtong? Where is he now?”

Lu Yang looked a little embarrassed. “If I told you that a tree ate his corpse, would you believe me?”

Dai Bufan. “...”

Lu Yang smacked his fist into his palm. “I knew you wouldn’t believe it, Senior Brother, so we brought the person involved here.”

“Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy convincing him to come; even Big Senior Sister had to take action.”

“Person involved?”

Lu Yang turned and opened the door, ushering in the Nine-Layers Immortal.

“This is the first immortal in ancient times—Immortal Venerable Nine-Layers!”

The Nine-Layers Immortal was very courteous. He understood that the cultivation world was enormous and customs varied from place to place. When I visit the Dao-Seeking Sect, I should follow its rules, and when staying here for a while, I should register.

He walked into the room with a gentle smile. “You can call me the Nine-Layers Immortal—hey, why did he faint?”