Li Changshou was quite perplexed right now.

Why!

Were there suddenly three Heavenly Immortal realm elderly Daoists above Little Qiong Peak?

Two were sect elders and one he didn’t recognize but had seen at Linhai Town’s entrance, with a somewhat familiar aura…

And why!

Were Ao Yi and Jiu Wu wandering around in the outer maze formation?

In front, a youth with dragon horns, behind him floated a short Daoist, the former walking anxiously, the latter smiling sinisterly…

And together following the wooden sign’s directions, heading toward the reception room he had set up…

How did these two end up together anyway?

It must have been a special karmic connection that brought you together, turning you both into troublemakers…

What in the world was this?

Was this arranged by Uncle Jiu Wu again?

That didn’t make sense – his relationship with Uncle Jiu Wu had grown deeper over these years, and the Great Dao oath was still in effect…

Hmm?

There were also many Heavenly Immortal realm immortals’ auras from the main peak’s direction, all gathered in the usually closed main hall…

Li Changshou quickly figured it out.

He had coincidentally encountered the Jie Jiao group in Linhai Town and overheard their conversation about finding an immortal sect for discussions and exchanges…

He never imagined the Jie Jiao group was looking for the Degree Immortal Sect for discussions!

Ao Yi and the Degree Immortal Sect did have some grievances;

After all, Ao Yi was the East Sea Dragon Palace’s second prince, and in recent decades, the East Sea Dragon Palace’s relationship with the East Divine Continent’s immortal sects had been somewhat tense…

Could it be that this time, the little dragon wanted to provoke conflict between the Human and Jie teachings?

That shouldn’t be it – Ao Yi didn’t seem that stupid. If he did that, the dragon tribe would be instantly overturned by the Jie Jiao Patriarch’s sword…

Though this little dragon did seem somewhat… not very bright…

Had drinking too much Beauty’s Charm wine damaged his dragon brain?

Li Changshou pondered deeply, initially completely confused by the situation, but quickly figured it out.

At this moment, he could vaguely feel that the entire Degree Immortal Sect’s attention was focused on Little Qiong Peak.

All those divine senses and spiritual senses were fixed on the area around the medicine room…

Among the Degree Immortal Sect disciples, his displayed cultivation should have been just above average excellence, there shouldn’t have been any problems in that aspect.

Every consequence has its cause.

He had encountered Ao Yi once before his tribulation, but that was a chance event;

He was certain Ao Yi hadn’t recognized him – throughout that encounter, he had maintained the same cold-faced elderly Daoist appearance, with simulated aura and body scent.

So, it must be about the competition at the East Sea demon-quelling gathering…

This…” Ao Yi stared with wide eyes, his whole body trembling.

Jiu Wu quickly caught up, smiling and saying: “Crown Prince, it’s getting late, why don’t we…? Eh?”

“I must break this formation!

I must break this formation!”

Ao Yi shouted with a trembling voice, raising his sword and continuing to rush forward, his whole body shaking.

…

In the medicine room, starlight covered the ground.

Li Changshou’s divine sense focused on the group of Heavenly and True Immortals in the sky who seemed eager to enter the formation…

Should he pack up his belongings and flee with his master and junior sister tonight?

Indeed, maybe they should flee.

This Degree Immortal Sect… was becoming impossible to stay in!

Of course, this was just a joke – he had painstakingly developed Little Qiong Peak for so many years, this was a relatively safe place.

Just then, suddenly a strand of divine sense fell from the sky, locking onto Li Changshou, lightly disturbing his spirit.

This disturbance was very slight;

Li Changshou understood this was a sect master waking him, yet afraid of affecting his mental state…

Being so considerate of a disciple showed they truly cared.

Li Changshou opened his bewildered eyes, looking exactly like someone awakened from cultivation…

Senior Wangqing’s voice then sounded in Li Changshou’s ear: “Stop cultivating now, let the people out of the formation.

That Ao Yi has come to compete with you again, he’s now at Element Immortal realm cultivation, though he might suppress his realm when facing you later.

You need not force a victory, but also must not lose too quickly within our immortal sect.”

Li Changshou quickly stood up and made a Daoist salute toward the sky, “Disciple obeys.”

Suppress his realm to compete with me?

He quickly walked to the medicine room door, making a show of looking forward little dragon, unable to deliberately lose to him last time, was unhappy, his thoughts weren’t clear, and after so many years, he had come from afar just to deliberately lose once?

Li Changshou sighed softly in the underground secret chamber…

“This dragon and that woman, brother will never understand how their minds work.”

How should he handle this now…

Li Changshou observed the paper puppet in the medicine room, seeing that the three sensing stones on the paper puppet were only flickering slightly – triggered by his divine sense.

After a brief hesitation, he transformed into a wisp of green smoke and snuck back to the medicine room;

In the medicine room, Li Changshou disappeared for an instant, then immediately reappeared.

He strode to the meditation cushion behind the pill furnace, sat down, and closed his eyes in concentration, first pretending to be absorbed in enlightenment as he had previously instructed his little junior sister…

Li Changshou thought that if he was in death seclusion breaking through a bottleneck, he should show some breakthrough, so he secretly adjusted the Turtle Breathing and Qi Settling Scripture.

Surface disguise: Returns to Void realm fifth stage;

Inner disguise: Returns to Void realm ninth stage;

Deep disguise: Element Immortal realm;

After doing this, Li Changshou began frantically self-checking, finally confirming there were no details on Little Qiong Peak that might expose his deck of cards…

Ling’e was also obediently hiding in her cottage at this time, pretending to cultivate.

This time, the junior sister’s performance was quite good.

He would praise her later.

Li Changshou knew he could only pretend to be in death seclusion seeking enlightenment, waiting for sect masters to wake him, or be disturbed by movement in the formation…

For what came next, he could only advance by retreating, finding opportunities to divert their attention!

In the formation.

Following the wooden sign’s guidance step by step to that ‘outdoor tea room,’ Ao Yi and Jiu Wu couldn’t help but exchange glances.

At this time, Ao Yi still had the form of a twelve or thirteen-year-old youth, counting his horns, he was six feet tall, a head taller than Jiu Wu.

After reading what was written on the wooden sign, he turned his head to look around, his gaze full of confusion.

Jiu Wu smiled and said, “Crown Prince Ao Yi, clearly this is another fork in the road.”

Ao Yi frowned and said, “I’ve found all the correct paths through these basic formations, why can’t I get out of here?”

“This is a chain formation, created by Nephew Changshou,” Jiu Wu said, “After one correct path comes the next formation. To break this formation requires profound attainment in formation techniques.

Crown Prince Ao Yi, don’t force yourself.”

“Hmph!”

Ao Yi snorted lightly and said calmly, “I don’t believe it, could I really be trapped here today!”

After speaking, he took out an ice-blue treasure pearl from his chest, which flickered with light, instantly blocking the spiritual energy flow within the formation.

Ao Yi smiled calmly, turned back toward the way they came, and quickly found a new path.

Jiu Wu hurriedly followed behind, but this short Daoist’s smile grew increasingly rich…

Back then, he and the Jiu Shi couple had worked together but were still made dizzy by this formation; today’s formation was more refined and perfect than when they had attempted to break through it…

Fundamentally, this chain formation was just some basic formations put together, but under Nephew Changshou’s careful design, it could truly be called ‘masterful flourishes.’

Half an hour later…

Ao Yi looked at the wooden sign before him, his mouth twitching.

[Lost your way?]

They had come back again!

“Damn it!”

Ao Yi’s delicate face twitched from clenching his teeth too hard, and then he shook his head and walked toward another path.

In the medicine room;

Li Changshou opened his left eye to a slit.

This little dragon seemed to have a formation-breaking treasure, but he kept going in circles in the outer area, clearly only knowing the superficial aspects of formation techniques.

After thinking, Li Changshou secretly removed several layers of formations within a hundred zhang of the medicine room, allowing those Heavenly Immortals to easily see his situation of sitting in seclusion if they looked carefully at the medicine room’s location.

This way, it would be more reasonable.

…

Another half hour later.

In the sky above Little Qiong Peak, the three Heavenly Immortals had different expressions – the Degree Immortal Sect elders naturally wore smiles, though they couldn’t smile too broadly;

Elder Yuan Ze also wore a smile, though his brows would occasionally furrow once or twice.

They could all roughly see the situation in the formation, watching Ao Yi turning randomly like a headless fly, making Elder Yuan Ze somewhat anxious inside.

In the formation.

Ao Yi’s eyes were bloodshot, his mental state quite unstable as he held a treasure sword and gripped a treasured pearl, moving quickly through the formation.

Jiu Wu floated unhurriedly behind him, guarding against Ao Yi using the spiritual treasure sword to break the formation by force…

Later, Jiu Wu would directly ask his master to intervene and fish the two of them out, letting this Dragon Palace crown prince admit defeat.

Nephew Changshou didn’t even need to come out of seclusion, everything had been handled!

Gradually, Ao Yi’s breathing became rapid…

But Ao Yi was still clear-headed at this time – though anxious inside, he hadn’t made any out-of-line moves.

Breaking through the formation was what he had agreed to, if he could break through it would count as victory!

The formations here were indeed all basic formations that Return to Void realm cultivators could set up, but he just couldn’t get out…

He couldn’t even find the formation’s base or eyes!

During his education at the Egg Teaching, he had learned so many formation principles… had the Dragon Tribe become so inadequate in formation techniques?

No, our Dragon Tribe can still rise again!

Jiu Wu said softly, “Crown Prince Ao Yi, why don’t we count this as…”

“I’m breaking the formation!”

Ao Yi turned his head and roared.

“Ah, please continue, please continue.”

Jiu Wu’s eyes immediately curved into smiles as he followed closely behind with his hands behind his back, also afraid of losing track of Ao Yi.

Outside the formation, in the clouds.

The two young women discussed briefly, and Hanzi said softly, “Master, you’ve taught me quite a bit about formations.

Why don’t Sister Rouruo and I go down and try too?

This has nothing to do with Uncle Ao Yi’s competition, disciple is purely interested in the challenge.”

Elder Yuan Ze looked at the two Degree Immortal Sect elders beside him, who naturally nodded in agreement.

They also wanted to see just how profound the chain of basic formations outside Little Qiong Peak’s medicine room was…

They had unexpectedly discovered a talent in formation techniques!

Later they should instruct the Hundred Mundane Hall to focus on cultivating Changshou in this aspect.

“Go ahead, go ahead,” Elder Yuan Ze waved his hand, and Hanzi and that young woman floated down hand in hand, entering the formation.

A moment later…

The two Element Immortal realm young women looked at that wooden sign, their foreheads covered in black lines.

[Lost your way?]

Hanzi said softly, “This formation setter is truly too arrogant!”

“There’s another wooden sign ahead.”

“Let’s see what tricks he has, let’s go look!”

Today’s ‘outdoor tea room’ had more guests than the previous ten years combined…

…

In the medicine room, watching all this with his divine sense, Li Changshou silently sighed and continued pretending to be in breakthrough seclusion.

Fortunately, he had already offered the key secrets of the chain formation to the sect through Jiu Wu earlier, even receiving a furnace as a reward from the sect.

This last hidden danger had also been preemptively eliminated.

However, after today, the formations around his medicine room would probably become one of the sect’s major attractions…

A true Little Qiong Peak preserved item – Maze Formation Trapping Formation Adventure!

And with this incident, plus various previous matters, he as an “excellent disciple” had drawn too much attention.

This truly gave Li Changshou a headache…

The persona of the excellent disciple was too thin and couldn’t hold up any more!

This time, he would take the opportunity to reveal power at the [Inferior Immortal Seedling] level, otherwise the various circumstances would be too abnormal and harder to explain.

Li Changshou thought rapidly.

Disguise relied on balance in all aspects, needing a “degree” that would make people feel they had seen through one’s bottom line at a glance – this was a higher realm of disguise.

The approach used with Jiu Wu back then was to expose a bit to him, making Jiu Wu think he knew everything about him…

This time dealing with the sect’s masters, he could only continue using this approach, and might even gain quite a few benefits from it…

Now, he could only reveal “quasi” Immortal Seedling level cultivation, attracting some of their attention to his cultivation level, thereby covering up other abnormalities.

Generally making them think [So his aptitude is quite good, no wonder he could cause so many things] to about that degree…

Then, Li Changshou would only need to stay stable for a few years, deliberately get stuck at a bottleneck, let his cultivation progress return to [excellent] disciple level, and the sect would no longer pay much attention to this Little Qiong Peak disciple.

Exposing a bit of his cultivation trump card could be made up for later;

If other trump cards were exposed, that would be quite troublesome…

In the future, he would have to be doubly careful.

The trump cards he had painstakingly hidden were for dealing with various dangers, for better survival;

Exposing part of them in this situation, even if that part was tiny, was still a loss.

Come to think of it, back then at the seafloor… he should have given this Ao Yi some mind-losing powder!

Guaranteeing just a tiny bit of dosage!

Another half hour passed…

The sunset glow covered the western sky, illuminating the chrysanthemum-like brilliant smiles on the wrinkled faces of the Degree Immortal Sect elders;

Two Golden Toad Island cultivators and three Degree Immortal Sect elders had arrived.

In their hearts, the Degree Immortal Sect elders praised Li Changshou and Jiu Jiu to the heavens, and also greatly appreciated Jiu Wu for coming up with this method to deal with Ao Yi.

Truly sharp enough.

A Degree Immortal Sect elder proactively offered a step-down, stroking his beard and smiling:

“The formations here were carefully designed by our Degree Immortal Sect disciple Li Changshou, using chain formation methods he researched for many years, and set up by True Immortal realm Nephew Jiu Jiu.

Although they are all basic formations, in reality, they require the True Immortal realm to set up.

Normally, Crown Prince Ao Yi and the two immortal ladies cannot break through.”

“Enough!”

Elder Yuan Ze sighed and said: “This old Daoist will go bring the three of them out. Brother Ao Yi has indeed lost another match this time.”

After speaking, Yuan Ze floated down toward the formation below with his hands behind his back.

With Heavenly Immortal methods, stirring immortal power could collapse the formation’s base, but doing so would be too lacking in dignity.

Elder Yuan Ze had been watching from outside for half a day and felt he had figured out how to break the formation, now full of confidence as he went to save face for the Golden Toad Island cultivators…

His two juniors and little brother had indeed lost face this time, nothing could be done about that.

However…

What Elder Yuan Ze hadn’t expected was…

A moment later…

[Lost your way?]

This Heavenly Immortal elder couldn’t help but sigh to the heavens – this formation truly had hidden mysteries.

Turning around, the elder frowned and continued trying to break the formation, while the several Heavenly Immortals in the clouds looked at each other, not knowing what to say at this point…

After Li Changshou returned from tribulation, he had indeed secretly adjusted the outer formations but had only changed a few formation bases.

It would be very easy for this Heavenly Immortal to forcefully break the formation, but Elder Yuan Ze had gotten somewhat stubborn now, determined to break through this chain formation that was a closed loop…

Theoretically, the only way to break this formation was to forcefully charge through, destroying one of the basic formations within.

But could this elder use brute force?

This concerned the formation technique standards of his Golden Toad Island cultivators!

It even concerned Elder Yuan Ze’s face!

So, who knows how many… half hours later…

Ao Yi and Jiu Wu, looking at the Heavenly Immortal elder pacing back and forth ahead, both froze in place.

“Senior Brother Yuan Ze!”

Ao Yi shouted, taking a step forward as the surroundings suddenly transformed;

Elder Yuan Ze heard the shout and raised his sleeve to cover his face, but as the formation shifted, his figure swiftly vanished from Ao Yi’s sight.

“This…” Ao Yi’s eyes widened, his entire body quivering.

Jiu Wu hurriedly caught up, smiling as he said: “Crown Prince, it’s getting late, shall we…? Eh?”

“I will break this formation!

I will break this formation!”

Ao Yi shouted with a trembling voice, sword raised as he continued rushing forward, his whole body shaking uncontrollably.

…

In the medicine room, starlight blanketed the ground.

Li Changshou’s divine sense focused on the group of Heavenly and True Immortals hovering in the sky, seemingly eager to enter the formation…

Maybe they should pack their belongings and flee with Master and Junior Sister tonight.

Yes, fleeing seemed like the right choice.

This Degree Immortal Sect… was becoming unlivable!

This was obviously a joke – he had spent so many years painstakingly developing Little Qiong Peak, which had become his relative safe haven.

Just then, a strand of divine sense suddenly descended from above, locking onto Li Changshou and gently disturbing his spirit.

The disturbance was extremely slight;

Li Changshou understood – a sect master was waking him while being careful not to disrupt his mental state…

Such consideration for a disciple showed real thoughtfulness.

Li Changshou opened confused eyes, perfectly mimicking someone just roused from meditation…

Senior Wangqing’s voice resonated beside his ear: “Stop your cultivation and release those trapped in the formation.

That Ao Yi has come seeking another match with you. He’s now in the Element Immortal realm, though he may suppress his realm when facing you.

You need not force a victory, but you also mustn’t lose too quickly within our sect.”

Li Changshou quickly stood and made a Daoist salute toward the sky, “Disciple obeys.”

Suppress his realm to fight me?

He strode quickly to the medicine room’s entrance, making a show of peering forward while steeling his resolve and clenching his fists!

Time to reveal everything!

The jade tablet turned gently, stirring up soft breezes throughout the forest;

Li Changshou rose on his cloud before the medicine room, slowly ascending into the air, unmistakably revealing Returns to Void realm seventh stage cultivation!

This realm seemed recently attained, still somewhat unstable…

From sky and forest, all eyes turned to him at once – the elders, Jie Jiao immortals, Jiu Wu, Ao Yi, the two Jie Jiao immortal maidens, and that elderly Heavenly Immortal…

From all corners of the sect, countless gazes seemed to converge upon Li Changshou.

Though this made him somewhat uncomfortable, he could only endure through this moment.

Then came Jiu Wu’s hurried voice transmission: “Your cultivation isn’t hidden!”

Li Changshou froze briefly, made a Daoist salute to Jiu Wu, and smoothly said:

“Little Qiong Peak disciple Li Changshou greets all elders, all uncles, and aunts, all seniors.”