"Tian'er… the event is about to begin. We have to go."
Hearing his wife's voice coming from the door, Aotian, who had just closed his eyes, opened them helplessly and stood up.
'Ugh… it's still a little early. Rihai is getting anxious again,' Aotian thought as he walked to the door and opened it, coming face-to-face with his beautiful blonde wife, who stared at him silently.
Others might not know, but as her husband, seeing her like that, he knew she was feeling anxious inside.
Rihai actually suffered from anxiety, and she often wanted to be one of the first to arrive at events or became extremely focused on anything that required timing.
Aotian knew these symptoms came from a painful part of her past, and he had been trying to help her deal with it and improve, mainly using cultivation-related motivations to encourage her to control herself better.
And there had been some effectiveness in this approach.
Since they joined the sect and her roots had started showing signs of improvement, giving her hope of recovery, Rihai managed to focus more on cultivation and try to ignore these distractions and anxieties.
Occasionally it still happened, but it was much better now. So much so that there were certain events within the sect where she managed to wait until Aotian called her, something he believed happened because she felt safer within the sect environment.
But in particular, events or situations that occurred outside the sect usually triggered this anxiety in her again, so Aotian wasn't surprised. He was still working on this with her.
Seeing her silent gaze, he sighed and gently stroked her golden hair, giving her a quick kiss.
"Haah… let's go." He didn't argue and nodded to leave.
Refusing her now would only make her more anxious, and it didn't cost anything to head out a little earlier and spend some quality time with her.
"Thank you…" she murmured, slightly lowering her head.
A playful smile appeared on Aotian's lips as he took her hand and squeezed her interlaced fingers firmly and comfortingly.
"You know you don't need to say that to me. If I complain, it's only to help you. I'd never mind leaving early or going anywhere with you," he gently consoled her.
"Hum…" she murmured and hugged his arm as they left, a relieved and happy smile appearing on her face.
Leaving their cave, without wasting time, they took off toward the sect's exit.
On the way, they didn't see many disciples departing yet, since it was early, but some had already left for various reasons.
Aotian and his wife had friends in the sect, but they didn't intend to call or disturb them so early, and continued forward first to ease Rihai's anxiety.
Arriving at the sect's gates, looking down, they found themselves facing a massive city stretching like a giant at the foot of the mountain.
'Five Elements City… it's turning out really well.' Aotian nodded inwardly with satisfaction.
That immense city, capable of hosting nearly 100 million people, had been built in just five months, showing how terrifyingly productive cultivators could be.
Even more so when a sect assigned over ten thousand Golden Core disciples to work in an organized fashion on the project, along with several elders of even higher realms and the assistance of an entire continent under their control.
It was only natural that the construction had been so fast.
Although it hadn't been built to the tiniest detail—since disciples couldn't dedicate their entire day to the project—the city that stretched nearly 50 miles was still extremely impressive for that continent and could enter the Guinness Book as the fastest-created city of that size… at least in the desert continent.
In the central continent, there were probably better records.
Shaking his head subtly to dismiss these thoughts, he took Rihai's hand and continued descending toward the bustling city.
…
Shen He had already arrived at the city gates at that moment and was finishing answering the guard's questions so he could enter.
Since there would be a tournament there, and that city had apparently been created to host people coming from afar without causing chaos and problems in the other 18 cities, the questions were quick and direct, and there were several guards doing the same, greatly speeding up entry.
"Do you intend to stay in the mortals' area or the cultivators' area? Or do you not intend to spend the night in the city?" the guard asked, raising his eyes to him.
Cities created under the Infinite Dao Sect usually had this division. Not because there was forced segregation, but because mortals still had physiological needs, and so their areas were built with that in mind, having various formations such as waste-elimination formations, shower formations, and others.
Rental residences needed beds, and nearby street shops had to offer meals, while on the cultivators' side everything was simpler. According to Aotian's words: "Just give them a safe stone to sit on, and they'll be satisfied."
Of course, that was just a joke; it wasn't actually that simple, and there were energy-condensation formations, alchemy areas, forging areas, spiritual material shops, auctions, and more.
That way, the two sides of the world coexisted within the same city.
"On the cultivators' side."
Shen He answered seriously while looking thoughtfully at the guard.
'4th level of Qi Refinement… even the city guards of the Infinite Dao Sect have a realm not very different from mine,' he thought, impressed and shocked at once.
["That's nothing. In the cities under my Liu family, even the weakest guard of the worst village must at least be at the Golden Core."]
His master's boastful voice sounded in his mind, bringing him back to reality.
'Ugh… well, master, but this is a desert continent,' he reminded him, making the arrogant Grandpa Liu freeze slightly.
["You, boy… sometimes you're perceptive to the point of being irritating. But you're right. A few months ago these guards began progressing rapidly in their cultivation, just like those disciples of that sect, though not as fast. Otherwise they wouldn't be as impressive as they are now. That sect must have a great secret…"]
The old man muttered, a little confused.
In the months they lived there, they truly had seen the frightening progress of the Infinite Dao Sect's disciples.
Before, he thought they were taking crooked paths, cultivating at a speed even faster than a divine physique, something extremely unnatural, and because of that he believed their future was doomed.
But two years had passed since he first saw them, and far from the doomed future he imagined, they had actually reached the Golden Core and continued their frightening progress, maintaining firm and spectacular foundations.
He didn't explore deeply, only sensing a little from the outside, since his disciple had begged him to spare his energy. And considering the operation he would soon perform, he felt it was indeed worth saving every drop of strength, as it could be essential at the decisive moment.
Unfortunately, doing so prevented him from noticing that the boy had condensed a Supreme Golden Core; otherwise, things might have been different.
Another thing the master and disciple pair observed were the righteous and benevolent actions of that sect over the past year, such as preventing disasters among mortals, mediating between cultivators, eliminating evil cultivators, and more.
Forget being a Demonic sect — they were even more saintly and pure than the image the so-called righteous sects tried to portray to the public about themselves.
Not even in books were there sects as pure as this one, which, despite himself, made the old man admire it.
But even so… his plans only underwent slight changes. Now he didn't intend to have an implacable hand against that sect when he took the girl, and in fact he didn't intend to kill or harm anyone. After all, after seeing that sect's actions, there was a real possibility they didn't intend to harm the girl.
According to his plans, he still hadn't changed his goal of sending her to his grandson in the Liu family, because there his grandson would discover the girl's past. Then he would come to investigate, and if that really was a good sect, he might even protect it. He trusted the justice and kindness of the grandson he had personally raised.
In a sense, in his opinion, doing this wasn't harming that sect.
The girl was far too dangerous to be in the hands of the weak, and if the Infinite Dao Sect really didn't want to harm her, Grandpa Liu's actions were, in truth, also serving to protect the sect.
If the girl were discovered by those great powers of the central continent, they would undoubtedly come in the blink of an eye, kill all witnesses, and take the girl. So by sending her away, he was doing that sect a favor.
'Master! Look over there!!'
While the old man inside the necklace was lost in thought, he suddenly heard the boy calling him and quickly turned his attention outward, where he saw a couple flying above them and entering the city, receiving deep bows from the guards as they went in.
'It's them!' Even the old man was startled when he saw the couple pass before his eyes.
The girl he had been thinking about had truly appeared right in front of him.
But before the couple passed completely, the old man felt a chill and saw the black-haired boy cast an emotionless glance directly at the necklace where he resided, before the two disappeared, entering the city.
'... Master! Master! Are you alright?!'
His disciple's anxious voice reached him, pulling him out of his daze.
["Sorry, Xiao He, Master got distracted in thought."]
The old man replied after calming down a little.
'Master, they're here, outside the Infinite Dao Sect. Could we rescue her without you burning your soul?!' the boy asked excitedly.
He didn't even look at the beauty of the girl who had passed by quickly. His focus was on the possibility of his master not dying.
But his words were met with harsh reality.
["Haah… it won't be possible, Xiao He. If I want to send you both directly to the Liu family, I can only do it by burning my soul, otherwise you couldn't be sent far with my current strength. And besides… we must have been discovered."]
The old man spoke seriously after sighing at the boy's concern.
But his words frightened and discouraged his disciple, who fell silent. As for being discovered, they had already expected this possibility, since Bao Wuji had seen them before and somehow found the old man in the necklace when they first met.
While his disciple, now silent, finished talking to the guard, the old man was lost in thought.
'The girl seems stronger than before, just from the aura she unconsciously emits. Fortunately and unfortunately, the heavens conceal divine roots, preventing anyone from seeing them. I could see them if I used brute force—but that would alert her and raise suspicions about me and the Liu family, even if I were to save her. Besides, there's hardly any advantage in spying on her roots.'
But his thoughts were not on that; they were on a far more frightening realization.
'More importantly… where the hell did those two late-stage Void Refiners hiding beside them come from?! Where does this Infinite Dao Sect really come from?!'
Others might not have noticed them, but with the powerful divine sense of a Tribulation Transcender, how could he fail to perceive the two powerful figures hiding there?
But what confused him the most was where those two people came from, and what the true origin of the Infinite Dao Sect was.
Could it be a force hidden for thousands of years, one that escaped the perception of his Liu family?
With these questions spinning frantically in his mind, master and disciple entered the city, following the steps of Aotian and Rihai.