Evolution - Chapter 24
Chapter 24
This New Year, Lingyun Peak was more bustling than ever before. The joy was so genuine it was infectious, making others smile involuntarily.
Chu Ci stood atop the peak where she usually practiced her sword. Even with her excellent eyesight, she couldn’t make out the expressions on the faces of those far away, but she could still sense a subtle difference in the atmosphere.
In previous years, everyone had been happy, but they lacked this sense of serene contentment, of a bright future and happiness within reach.
“See? This is the change brought about by escaping poverty and getting rich! The anxiety of struggling for survival is gone, replaced by the anticipation of imminent wealth.” Ji Changqing, who had been beaten all morning, stubbornly struggled to her feet and smugly summarized for her thoughtful Big Sister.
He Yi, who had long since given up and resigned herself to the abuse, couldn’t bear to watch and closed her eyes. Why are you so persistent about making your presence known to Big Sister?! Can’t you just be quiet as a mouse so she’ll forget about us sooner?
After Big Sister returned, she felt that everyone had been too lax in their cultivation recently. Furthermore, while these two junior sisters of hers had sharp minds, their spiritual root aptitude was lackluster, and they were easily distracted by worldly things instead of focusing on cultivation. As their Big Sister, and for the sake of that grand, captivating vision, she felt a deep responsibility to oversee their training. Forgetting everything else for a moment, she would at least strive to have them reach Foundation Establishment within twenty years.
Without a sufficiently long lifespan as a foundation, how could they ever realize their dreams?!
For those who didn’t know what was good for them and tried to protest, Big Sister mercilessly suppressed them with violence. As the Big Sister who had conquered a vast territory, she had always subscribed to the educational creed that if a junior brother or sister wouldn’t listen, a good beating would solve the problem. If they still wouldn’t listen, it just meant they hadn’t been beaten enough.
When the other members of the study group came to sit in on the lessons, Big Sister said nothing. Teaching two was the same as teaching six. The same went for anyone else—if they wanted to join, they could, provided they could stick with it.
As it turned out, not even the power of an idol could overcome the powerful inertia ingrained in human nature. There were over three thousand disciples below the Foundation Establishment stage on the peak. They were required to wake up early every day for sword practice, after which was a session personally supervised by Big Sister.
At the beginning, almost everyone stayed. Three days later, only about a thousand remained. A few days after that, the number dwindled to around a hundred. Now, not even a month had passed, and the only ones still stubbornly persisting were Luo Gengjiu and Luo Mingsheng.
Ji Changqing firmly believed that besides their heartfelt desire to become stronger, the biggest reason was that they weren’t short on money! They lacked neither determination nor resources. With perseverance and willpower, they were focused enough to dedicate themselves to their ideals.
Even so, they were sensible enough to frequently lower their profile, lest they attract Big Sister’s focused attention.
Appropriate attention and guidance could be immensely beneficial, but this humble servant was unworthy of such excessive favor.
Ji Changqing had an unusual fascination with martial arts. After teaching them for a month, Chu Ci discovered that while her comprehension was good and her talent for cultivation was decent, her aptitude for sword cultivation was mediocre. So, she had Ji Changqing focus on tempering her own body while Chu Ci observed, secretly pondering what cultivation methods would be more suitable for her.
It is said that time flows differently in the world of cultivation; once one steps onto that path, the perception of time’s passage becomes infinitely dulled. Thus, when changes came swiftly and intensely, the feeling of a new world dawning each day was all the more profound.
In just three short years, Lingyun Peak was completely transformed. Not to mention the cultivation levels of the disciples, their equipment had collectively leaped to a new tier. It was a massive upgrade, like swapping muskets for cannons, and their combat effectiveness naturally rose to a new level.
The greatest change, of course, was in the “Research Institute” established just three years prior. It had grown from six people to nearly six hundred. Some of these individuals initiated their own research projects, but most were assigned by He Yi and Ji Changqing to develop large-scale agricultural tools. The results over the three years were remarkable, with weeders, harvesters, and seeders making their debut one after another.
From this point on, Lingyun Peak’s resurgence within the Tianyi Sect began to accelerate.
First, they presented the research findings of the past three years to the sect in exchange for a batch of resources for late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators to break through to Core Formation, as well as resources for Core Formation cultivators.
Then, Lingyun Peak’s grand agricultural enterprise expanded beyond the protective mountain array, beginning to radiate outward from the main peak.
By the time the various peaks within the sect had finished their squabbling and transitioned from small-scale farming to large-scale cooperative planting and harvesting, Lingyun Peak’s infrastructure team had already developed all the land under its jurisdiction suitable for growing spirit rice, spirit herbs, and fruit trees, and was gradually entering the harvest period.
When Chu Ci broke through to the Nascent Soul stage at the age of eighty, the Tianyi Sect—which had been in gradual decline for several hundred years and had nearly lost its title as the world’s number one sect—had already regained its footing. Much like Lingyun Peak over twenty years ago, it was showing signs of returning to its former glory.
With Chu Ci’s breakthrough, she logically became the master of Lingyun Peak, ending the internal struggles and schemes within the sect to seize control of the now-wealthy peak.
This also meant that the second phase of the plan could begin.
He Yi presented her research on alternative energy. Using a spirit gathering array as a base, with modifications and conversions, plus a cultivation-version rechargeable battery that Ji Changqing had refined through countless trials to facilitate compressed energy storage, they could turn solar, wind, water, or even lightning into new sources of power.
The raw material cost for these cultivation-version batteries, based on original prices, was less than one high-grade spirit stone. When fully charged, they could hold the energy equivalent of five high-grade spirit stones and could be reused repeatedly. Although they couldn’t be used for cultivation, they were suitable for most other applications.
Despite the sect’s confusion, the amusement of other peaks, and the reluctance of most within Lingyun Peak itself, Chu Ci forcefully pushed the initiative through. The infrastructure team began a massive construction campaign across the world. They started by building bridges and paving roads in the borderlands where the cultivation and mortal worlds mingled. Soon after, Lingyun Peak’s armed forces and merchant caravans would follow, setting up shops to sell new modes of transportation and provide charging services to the cultivators and mortals living in these areas.
In just over a decade, everyone discovered that by using the five-elemental arts to build bridges and roads—carving through mountains and spanning rivers—their own understanding and application of spiritual energy became deeper and more thorough. Breakthroughs came more easily than they had through secluded cultivation back in the sect. From then on, a position on the infrastructure team, despite its hardships, became the most sought-after job in the sect.
A deep understanding of worldly affairs is its own form of knowledge, and a masterful grasp of human relationships is its own art. As interactions between the cultivation and mortal worlds became more frequent, many disciples, out of curiosity, would choose to travel through the mortal realm. Even though the mortal world’s scarce spiritual energy offered little benefit to their cultivation, it was excellent for tempering their character.
Mortals, who seemed fragile in the eyes of cultivators, could sometimes erupt with astonishing strength. The most outstanding among them possessed unwavering beliefs, a clear sense of right and wrong, and would rather die upholding their principles than bow their heads and compromise their integrity. This left a deep impression on the young disciples who had been cultivating since childhood.
Occasionally lending a hand to solve small problems for these mortals always earned them sincere gratitude.
These small experiences subtly influenced the character of this generation of young disciples. As they experienced more of the world, they sometimes wondered if the “survival of the fittest” mentality in the cultivation world was too cold and ruthless. They became a little more humane.
Of course, they never questioned the principle that “the strong are to be revered.”
Those with ability deserved to win sufficient respect and reverence. There was nothing wrong with that.
These changes were subtle and gradual, and for a time, no one paid them much mind. He Yi and Ji Changqing, who had indirectly brought about this change, hid their contributions and turned their attention to the third project—attempting to promote the growth of spiritual energy.
This project consumed more than a hundred years of their time. It involved a massive and complex amount of testing and analysis, from analyzing the composition of spiritual energy to studying the geological and vegetative makeup of areas with different concentrations of it. They compiled and compared the data, then conducted repeated experiments.
After more than a century of quiet work, coupled with their poor aptitude, their cultivation levels stagnated, and they were soon left far behind by others. Gradually, people’s attitudes toward them changed.
In the past, though their cultivation was low, they could always research new things that brought considerable benefits to everyone. For that, they were treated with great respect. But as time went on and they produced nothing new, their past contributions were slowly forgotten.
The Research Institute they had founded was flourishing, and countless people wanted to control it.
People… they always have a habit of attributing their own success to themselves and their failures to their environment, while attributing others’ success to the environment and their failures to the individuals themselves.
Throughout the sect, including most people on Lingyun Peak, they slowly forgot their past hardships and the immense contributions Ji Changqing and He Yi had made to their current prosperity. They subconsciously believed that they had always been formidable, and that Ji Changqing and He Yi had merely stumbled upon something that sparked their inspiration.
The admiration they once held turned into a slightly condescending, grudging respect, then to the belief that they were nothing special, and finally, to seeing them as an eyesore, believing their very existence encroached upon resources that should have belonged to them.
Even with their Big Sister—oh, she couldn’t be called that anymore; she was a sect elder now.
According to the rules of the Tianyi Sect, once every hundred years, the strongest male and female disciples were chosen to be called Big Brother and Big Sister, with authority over all disciples below the Nascent Soul stage. This meant that regardless of which peak one belonged to, the Big Brother and Big Sister had the responsibility to discipline and the right to punish. After a century passed, the Big Brother and Big Sister would naturally be promoted to elders, joining the Elder’s Hall to decide on sect matters.
Even with Chu Ci, now a sect elder, providing unwavering support and backing, this discontent continued to fester.
Hearts are fickle. Even with Chu Ci’s intimidating presence, those people didn’t dare to do anything overt. But even an elder couldn’t force others to treat the two with utmost reverence, could she?
The strong were revered, and it was a fact that their cultivation was low. In the eyes of others, if Chu Ci hadn’t protected them back then, what could two people with a bit of cleverness and a few minor inventions have possibly achieved? They would never have made a name for themselves; their creations would have been seized long ago.
One could only say they were lucky that Chu Ci, as if bewitched, had always protected them.
Luo Mingsheng, Luo Gengjiu, Gu Jiawen, and Shen Guiqing were angry, but if even Chu Ci couldn’t solve the problem, what could they do? They could only make a secret pact among themselves to never be on missions at the same time, ensuring that at least one of them was always with Ji Changqing and He Yi.
After all, their own spiritual root aptitudes were good, and thanks to Ji Changqing and He Yi’s stroke of genius back then, they had never lacked resources on their cultivation path. The four of them had never slacked in their training and were considered among the most outstanding disciples in the sect.
With them around, the others at least didn’t dare to be so brazen.
This atmosphere made staying in the sect awkward. Besides, a project like promoting the growth of spiritual energy couldn’t be accomplished by locking oneself away and just thinking about it. It was something no one had ever done before, so they had to see, investigate, and experiment for themselves.
Therefore, ever since they had dedicated their main efforts to this project, Ji Changqing and He Yi rarely returned to the sect, spending most of their time wandering outside.
Chu Ci specially assigned a team to them, ostensibly to assist them, but more so for their protection.
Of the other four from their original small group, only Shen Guiqing constantly roamed with them. Her reason was perfectly valid: as a culinary cultivator, shouldn’t she travel the world to taste all its delicacies and find all its ingredients? Following them on their travels made perfect sense.
Luo Mingsheng, Luo Gengjiu, and Gu Jiawen would join them from time to time, staying for a while as a sort of vacation, only leaving when they received a sect mission or needed to enter seclusion for a breakthrough.
Ji Changqing and her companion held shares in many of the products that came out of the Research Institute. They lacked neither spirit stones nor resources, and Big Sister always did her best to save anything useful for them.
With no shortage of resources and with Chu Ci trying every means to procure all sorts of spirit herbs to pour into the two of them, Ji Changqing and He Yi finally formed their Golden Cores nearly two hundred years after joining the sect.
By this time, even Shen Guiqing, the weakest in terms of cultivation, had already successfully reached the Nascent Soul stage.
Chu Ci, now at the peak of the mid-Spirit Transformation stage, breathed a sigh of relief. She thought that with the two of them having successfully formed their cores, they still had nearly four hundred years. That was enough time for her to continue finding ways to build up a foundation and try to brute-force them into the Nascent Soul stage.
And not long after Ji Changqing and He Yi formed their Golden Cores, their research into increasing spiritual energy had a breakthrough.
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