The lofty Qishan Sect Master Liao Cunfang was dead—his four limbs severed, his flesh carved off. The process of death was slow and extremely painful.
Cruel? Cruel!
But this was also the price that must be paid for killing Tiegu Sect disciples!
Jun Changxiao sheathed his blade. The killing intent emanating from his gaze gradually dissipated. He came before Xiao Ziji and the other person, feeding each a healing pill.
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
In an instant, the two jumped up full of vigor and vitality.
When they saw Liao Cunfang with his four limbs severed and subjected to death by a thousand cuts, the shock in their hearts was still difficult to dispel.
A Second-Rank Wuzong, a big shot of a sixth-tier sect, had been so easily brutally slaughtered—it was simply too terrifying!
At that moment, Xiao Ziji also finally realized that although the Sect Master rarely took action normally, his strength was truly formidable.
It wasn’t just Liao Cunfang who died.
There were also those martial artists from various sects who’d gone to chase the Xiyu Hall members—they all died miserably at the hands of Li Qingyang, Su Xiaomo, and the others.
Among them were quite a few Second and Third-Rank Wushi, but before a group of monstrous genius disciples, they couldn’t escape death either.
Old rule—loot the bodies.
After looting, they piled the corpses together and burned them to ashes with flames.
The martial artists from various sects weren’t wealthy, but Liao Cunfang was. His spatial ring stored quite a few martial techniques and spirit stones, along with two or three million in silver.
There were also crystal cores—a hundred mid-grade ones and over a dozen high-grade ones.
Jun Changxiao collected them, thinking to himself, “Throwing all of these into the incubation machine should increase the contribution value by one or two points, right?”
After everything was settled, they burned Liao Cunfang’s corpse and led the disciples back to Tiegu Sect.
The killed Xiyu Hall member was carried by Xiao Ziji, his gaze showing grief, anger, and self-blame.
If he hadn’t been too careless and gotten trapped in the valley by Heyang Commandery’s various sect martial artists, junior brother wouldn’t have died because of him.
…
After returning to Tiegu Sect, Jun Changxiao selected a suitable burial site with good feng shui in the back mountain, then excavated a grave.
On the day of burial, the sky was overcast with fine drizzling rain.
All Tiegu Sect disciples stood beside the grave, seeing off this fallen fellow disciple.
“I’m sorry…”
Standing before the tombstone, Xiao Ziji lowered his head, the self-blame on his face even heavier: “I implicated junior brother.”
Jun Changxiao patted his shoulder and said, “Qin Li died because of you, so you should live well and continuously grow stronger to repay him.”
Finishing his words, he turned and left.
Words of comfort, no matter how many were spoken, had no meaning. Only when the person involved truly came to terms with it would it matter.
Moreover, with one disciple fallen, Jun Changxiao’s heart wasn’t feeling good either. Who could come comfort him?
Xiao Ziji didn’t come to terms with it, continuing to stand before the tombstone.
Not until a day and night later did he clench his fists tightly and murmur, “Junior brother, I will live well, I will work hard to grow stronger, use my own life to guard Tiegu Sect, to defend my fellow disciples!”
He’d come to terms with it.
He came to terms with it, but Jun Changxiao hadn’t.
Sitting alone in his study, self-blame still remained in his heart.
If he hadn’t sent disciples to participate in sect tournaments, there wouldn’t have been disciple casualties.
Disciple deaths had happened before on Black Wind Mountain.
But that disciple was cowardly and afraid of death, willing to betray the sect and defect to Zhou Tianba just to survive. So when he died, Jun Changxiao had no psychological burden at all.
However, Qin Li died saving a fellow disciple—he was truly the first disciple to die in battle for the sect, which made Jun Changxiao’s heart very uncomfortable.
“What are you thinking about? Not even presiding over morning exercises.” Li Luoqiu was leaning against the study door at some unknown time, a charming smile hanging at the corner of her mouth.
Jun Changxiao shook his head and said, “Your Xiyu Hall lost a member. Aren’t you sad?”
Li Luoqiu walked over and sat before him, hands clasped together, questioning in tone: “The dead cannot be brought back to life. Is being sad useful?”
Jun Changxiao was stunned.
That’s right—the person was already dead. Was being sad useful?
Li Luoqiu continued, “Since we live in this cruel world, what we should do is not reminisce about the deceased, but continuously grow stronger to comfort their spirits in heaven.”
These words were similar to what he’d said yesterday to comfort Xiao Ziji. Jun Changxiao hoped his disciple could come to terms with it, but he himself couldn’t.
“Them?”
Jun Changxiao shook his head and said, “That plural isn’t auspicious.”
Li Luoqiu said gravely, “For our Tiegu Sect to become stronger in this cruel world, there will be more conflicts, grievances, and even deaths.”
Jun Changxiao knew this woman was telling him that Qin Li’s death was just the beginning. To continue walking in this cruel world, there would be more disciple deaths.
He didn’t want his cultivated disciples to perish, but once a person entered the jianghu, life and death were beyond their control.
Jun Changxiao leaned back in his chair and said, “I will work hard to improve my disciples’ strength, letting them continuously grow stronger rather than walk toward death.”
Li Luoqiu stood up and said, “I’ll also go train the members, letting them have sufficient strength to face all dangers.”
…
Jun Changxiao temporarily abandoned the idea of having disciples continue participating in sect tournaments, instead having them cultivate well within the sect.
Several days later.
The third month since various tests had been established, a small sect competition was held.
Because disciples entered at different times and had different realm levels, different tiers of combat were divided.
Many disciples eagerly signed up. After a day of heated competition, the three different tier small competitions ended. The disciples who won first place obtained generous resource rewards.
Although this small competition wasn’t high-level, with rewards present, it would motivate disciples to become stronger.
Of course.
Sect tests and small sect competitions were merely appetizers.
What truly mattered was still the annual major sect tournament, because winning the championship meant becoming an inner sect disciple.
Tiegu Sect currently only had seven inner sect disciples. Naturally, many capable outer sect disciples hoped to occupy an inner sect seat through the major competition.
Currently speaking, those most likely to become inner sect disciples were Long Ziyang and Yang Yuhua.
Next were Zhang Wei and the other ten who’d been elevated through aptitude transformation liquid.
In sixth or seventh-tier sects, as long as one had high-grade spiritual roots, not only would they be promoted to inner sect disciple, they might even become personal disciples. At Tiegu Sect, they still had to prove themselves through the major sect tournament—this was quite impressive.
No choice.
Who told them to have so many supreme-grade spiritual root disciples?
Case in point—when Li Fei drank the supreme-grade aptitude transformation liquid obtained from completing a branch mission, his spiritual roots upgraded to supreme-grade, and his realm advanced from Eighth-Rank to Ninth-Rank Wutu.
Calculating it this way, among Tiegu Sect’s inner sect disciples, only Tian Qi temporarily had high-grade spiritual roots—the rest all had supreme-grade spiritual roots!
An eighth-tier sect, not counting Jun Changxiao, not counting Lu Qianqian, had a total of five supreme-grade spiritual root disciples and over ten high-grade spiritual root disciples. This was an extremely terrifying thing that, if spread, would definitely shock the entire Xingyun Continent.
“Thank you for the medicine bestowed by the Sect Master!”
After his aptitude and realm improved, Li Fei said excitedly.
“You may go.”
Jun Changxiao waved his hand.
After the disciple left, he went to the study and poured the crystal cores obtained from Liao Cunfang one by one into the incubation machine.
With so many mid and high-grade crystal cores all fused in, the mutation rate only increased from 85 points to 87 points.
As expected, one needed to be super incredibly wealthy to afford burning through this.
…
Time flowed by, and over ten days quickly passed.
Jun Changxiao cultivated on one hand and taught disciples on the other, also checking the incubation machine every day.
“Ding!”
One day, the incubation time displayed on the screen changed to 15/15 days.
“Whoosh!”
The sea-wave crystal core energy permeating the incubation machine was frantically stirred up, then gradually changed from dense to diluted, as if being absorbed and assimilated by the dragon egg.
“Crack!”
A shattering sound rang out.
The dragon egg standing in the incubation machine cracked open with fine fissures that rapidly spread outward, forming piece after piece.
“Swoosh!”
Red light shot out from the cracks, then a piece of eggshell fell off.
The young beast was about to emerge!
Jun Changxiao watched intently without blinking, secretly praying, “It must mutate, it must mutate!”