Once he finished explaining what happened after they parted, Ye Zhenji stared at Mo Tiange, humming and hawing, wanting to say something to her but he couldn’t say anything for a long time.

Mo Tiange was bewildered to see him like this. She said, “What? Is there something wrong? Why can’t you talk to Aunt?”

Ye Zhenji shot her an awkward look then said cautiously, “Auntie, since you’re back, I should come back with you too, according to reason. However, master’s been very kind to me—wouldn’t it be too inappropriate for me to leave him right after you came back?”

“So that’s it.” Mo Tiange smiled and said, “It’s good that you have such thoughts. You’re no longer a child; you’re now already a Foundation Building cultivator—it’s totally reasonable for you not to live in my small cave anymore. Furthermore, he’s your master. You ought to always attend to him.”

“But Auntie, you…” Ye Zhenji looked tangled. “I don’t want you to live alone.”

Mo Tiange shook her head then said, “Aunt’s not a child. Besides, I’m going to enter Closed Door Meditation soon to try to form my Gold Core. It’ll take me about twenty to thirty years at least, so even if you came back, I also couldn’t look after you.”

“This…”

“You don’t have to feel embarrassed. You can go back to your master,” Mo Tiange said faintly, “Since your master treats you well, you should do your best to be filial to him as his disciple. Aunt’s about to busy herself with core-formation; I cannot take care of you.”

“… Alright.” Ye Zhenji seemed as if he was caught between a rock and a hard place, but he eventually listened to her.

“That’ll do then. You’ve been here for a while now; it’s time to head back.”

“Got it, Auntie. You’ve just come back, so you should rest up. I’ll come visit you again when I’m free.”

Mo Tiange nodded with a smile then watched him leave.

Once she was the only one inside the room, Mo Tiange’s smile finally faded and she sat in silence for quite a while. All kinds of feelings flitted across her heart, but in the end, she just let out a sigh. Never mind. In fact, this was better for Zhenji. As for herself, she’d also have much fewer things to worry about.

Lord Daoist Jinghe had been waiting anxiously, and his head also perked up as he looked around. However, after looking for a long time and seeing that she still hadn’t appeared, he couldn’t help but mutter: “Strange… Why isn’t she coming?”

Mingxia, who was waiting upon him at the side, asked, “Grandmaster, what are you waiting for?”

“Waiting for that damn unfilial girl!” Lord Daoist Jinghe said while impatiently waving his hand. “She still hasn’t come—could it be that her character changed for real?”

“Martial Uncle Mo?” Mingxia was baffled. “Grandmaster, why would Martial Uncle Mo come here? Didn’t you tell her to go get some rest?”

“I made Zhenji go to that brat—she’s definitely going to be furious!” Lord Daoist Jinghe picked up his teacup, but his brows were wrinkled. “According to her personality, she’ll definitely run over and go ballistic when she’s angry. But today, why has she not come even though it’s been half a day already?”

“…” Mingxia was rendered speechless for a long time. Having waited upon this grandmaster for several dozens of years, she naturally knew what kind of temperament he had, but for him to wait like this for his own disciple to come and blast him off in anger was… Was this something a Nascent Soul cultivator would do?

“What does your expression mean?” Lord Daoist Jinghe glared at his maid.

Mingxia said, “Grandmaster, why do I always feel you actually want to infuriate Martial Uncle Mo? Will you benefit from making her angry?”

“Ay, you don’t understand!” Lord Daoist Jinghe said while shaking his head. “I’ve lived for almost a thousand years. If I don’t personally find my own entertainment, life would be dull! Besides, that girl’s also crazy about cultivating—I don’t want her to have the same virtues as our family’s stinky brat from my teaching. It’s enough for me to fail once. If my teaching still created such a disciple, then it’d be a grand failure!”

Mingxia blinked her eyes innocently a few times. “Why does Disciple feel… you actually want to be a matchmaker?”

Lord Daoist Jinghe, who was caught red-handed by Mingxia’s spot-on comment, couldn’t say anything for a long while.

Seeing as no one was around, Mingxia’s courage grew. She then asked, “Grandmaster, didn’t you previously say that for us people from Dao School, not performing Dual Cultivation also had its own benefits? That our mental states could be even calmer without any worries?”

Lord Daoist Jinghe stroked his nose and said, “Dual Cultivation also has its own benefits… Moreover, how you view this matter depends on each case. That stinky brat obviously has a knot in his heart, so I might as well help him accomplish his wishes.”

“A knot in his heart? Help him accomplish his wishes?” Mingxia obviously didn’t understand anything, but Lord Daoist Jinghe wasn’t about to answer. He just scratched his head then said, “That’ll do. Go and take a look—what’s that girl doing now? Could it be that she really isn’t angry at all?”

Am I angry? Mo Tiange asked herself. Of course, it was impossible not to be angry—this master of hers obviously wanted to include her in his plot after all. It was just that after giving the matter some thought, it’d be better to entrust Zhenji to someone else given her current situation. Right now, she was about to form her Gold Core, so she had a lot of things to do. Furthermore, Zhenji already built his foundation; there wasn’t much she could do for him.

That being the case, why should she get angry at that unruly master? She wouldn’t benefit, and she’d only make the other person happy.

She curbed her thoughts then plunged completely into several days of rest. During those days, the maids often came to probe into what she was doing, but she drove them off nonchalantly. After dealing with the matters at Bixuan Court, her thirst to make a realm-breakthrough and to become stronger had never been as strong as it was now.

Later, upon learning that she’d returned to the mountain, Ye Jingwen, Luo Fengxue, Han Qingyu, and even Kuang Zhu and the others all sent their greetings through Summoning Talismans. In return, Mo Tiange went to visit them one by one.

Ye Jingwen’s cultivation progressed smoothly; he had already advanced to the late stage. Luo Fengxue made no progress in her cultivation, but she was already the chief steward of Sweet Dew Peak, a job she took to like a duck to water. Han Qingyu and Kuang Zu were already in the peak stage of the Core Formation realm and were just waiting to form their Gold Cores. Zhan Bai failed to advance, and he was actually in Closed Door Meditation now. His two foster siblings, Xiaoguzi and Xiaocui, failed at building their foundation several times. Right now, they were forced to enter Closed Door Meditation by Kuang Zhu; they were forbidden to come out before they succeeded in building their foundations.

By the time she finished visiting everyone, she already had some understanding of the reason why all the Foundation Building disciples were called back to the school this time.

After Martial Uncle Xuanyin moved to Sweet Dew Peak, Luo Fengxue as his disciple, once again claimed management-related matters for herself and now, every affair at Sweet Dew Peak was under her management—she’d secretly passed on some information regarding that matter when she talked to Mo Tiange.

As it turned out, twenty years ago, right when the school held the major inner competition, a match between two Core Formation martial uncles accidentally caused a mountain wall to crumble. They then discovered there was actually a hidden, secret magic formation in the valley on the main peak. After a round of investigation, the school head and other Core Formation elders believed this magic formation was laid more than a hundred thousand years ago at least, so they immediately reported this matter to the grandmasters in each peak.

Xuanqing School had stood for dozens of thousands of years, and it had produced numerous magnificent, talented cultivators. Nevertheless, this formation existed deep within the main peak of Mount Taikang, and no one during those dozens of thousands of years knew about it—it was just too unfathomable.

Mo Tiange took a moment to ponder the matter then asked Luo Fengxue, “More than a hundred thousand years ago… Could it be that it was left behind from the Middle Ages period?”

Luo Fengxue nodded but immediately afterward, she shook her head. “Several martial uncles already went to check it, and they indeed thought so, but they weren’t sure.”

According to legend, after the long several million years of the Distant Past era, the immortals and devils waged war against each other, and the human world was practically destroyed in a day, leaving behind only a small number of human survivors. After the immortals and the devils were separated from the human realm and were assigned to their own world, there was finally a new human world. From that moment on, the era was known as the Middle Ages era.

Mo Tiange heard Lord Daoist Jinghe talking about this ancient legend before. He believed that from the very beginning of the world until now, the Gods constantly made adjustments to the rules of the human realm. During the Distant Past era, Gods were also in the human world. Later, however, they realized that the Gods better not meddle in the growth of the human world, so they left.

After that was the end of the Distant Past era. A war broke out between the immortals and the devils, leading to calamities. This period of time was known as the Extinction of Gods because the world was in total chaos and Godfiends ran amok, but the Gods remained completely unconcerned to the point that the human world practically perished. Eventually, those immortals and devils that cultivated to attain the Dao also left the human world.

The following era was the Middle Ages. In this era, there were neither Gods nor immortals, nor devils, but just like in the Distant Past era, there was an abundance of spiritual aura, resources, and materials. As a result, both righteous and devil cultivators advanced quickly, and a war once again broke out between the righteous and the devil cultivators. This time, however, the world changed—what was once the sea now changed into mulberry fields…

Later, the world finally started to stabilize, but there was no longer dense spiritual aura or precious treasures that could previously be seen everywhere. No matter whether it was righteous or devil cultivators, both struggled to survive. From that moment on, it was unheard of for people to ascend to become real immortals. Righteous and devil cultivators were still in a war against each other, but they no longer had the strength to destroy the world.

In the end, Lord Daoist Jinghe said, “Gods were the masters of the world. The immortals and the devils represented good and evil. From the beginning of time, good and evil couldn’t coexist, so they were innately against each other. Don’t think that the Gods no longer cared about the human world. In fact, everything in the human world has always been under their control. The power of the immortals and the devils was too strong, so they separated them into the immortal realm and the devil realm, regardless of the ruined world. The power of the righteous and the devil cultivators was too strong, so when the Middle Ages ended, the world changed—the world no longer had an abundance of spiritual aura. From the moment the world was created, if the development of the human realm wasn’t to their taste, it’d be destroyed and rebuilt. Hmph! We’re all just dolls in the Gods’ hands. Even if we succeed in our cultivation, we’d still be nothing but higher grade dolls.”

For a Foundation Building cultivator, what he said was indeed too shocking. After thinking for a long time, Mo Tiange asked him: “Then what are we cultivating for if we can’t achieve the Great Dao at the end of the day?”

Lord Daoist Jinghe said, “Stupid girl! Even if we’d only be higher grade dolls, we’d still be stronger than low grade dolls! Besides, reaching the Great Dao isn’t necessarily impossible—all of these are just Master’s deductions. You’ve met Deification cultivators before; did they get by alright?”

She recalled how Zhong Muling and Yuan Bao were then said hesitatingly, “They said… They were already equivalent to Gods in the human world.”

“Correct. The world will always be destroyed and rebuilt, but what does it have to do with us? The Distant Past era lasted for several million years while the Middle Ages lasted for hundreds of thousands of years—can we live for that long? We’re not Deification cultivators; how are we to know we won’t be able to attain the Great Dao? After advancing to the Deification realm, if we could ascend to become real immortals and reach the immortal realm, could we maybe strive for the next step? Would we eventually be able to cultivate until we become Gods?”

Finally, Lord Daoist Jinghe said, “As long as there’s hope, the road towards the Great Dao is worth fighting for. So what if the world changes? Does it have anything to do with us?”

“In the Middle Ages era, the spiritual aura was as abundant as in the Distant Past era, and many things were also things passed on from the Distant Past era, so their powers were enormous. Upon discovering this magic formation, several of our martial uncles immersed themselves in studying it for more than ten years. In the end, they finally discovered that this magic formation belonged to a certain cultivation group of the Middle Ages era and was used to let their disciples obtain some experience.”

Once Mo Tiange, whose wandering thoughts were pulled back by Luo Fengxue, heard this, she muttered to herself for a while then said, “What can we get inside?”

“Spiritual plants,” said Luo Fengxue.

Mo Tiange was dumbfounded. “So many years have passed; shouldn’t those spiritual plants have lost their efficacy already?”

Luo Fengxue unexpectedly laughed. “That’s absolutely not the case. In fact, what we’re looking for inside this magic formation isn’t spiritual plants, which should be disciples’ rewards—after more than a hundred thousand years, those things have long lost their efficacy. What we’re looking for is actually the spiritual plants that grew inside it. They might have been very ordinary at the time, but after more than a hundred thousand years, they’re now the most precious objects we could obtain.”

“I see…” Mo Tiange took some time to think before she asked again: “In the Distant Past era, there must’ve been countless high level cultivators—why does the school want us Foundation Building disciples to go first?”

Luo Fengxue said, “Tiange, don’t forget; the high level cultivators in that era were much more powerful than now. This magic formation is one that’ll automatically adjust the hardships each disciple faces according to their cultivation level. Several martial uncles have tried it out—those in the Nascent Soul and Core Formation realm couldn’t even pass a few tests. On the contrary, Foundation Building disciples unexpectedly managed to pass a bit more.”