The smile on Yang Chen’s face wasn’t hidden from everyone. All of them stopped what they were doing and looked at Yang Chen. Senior apprentice sister Gongsun Ling even asked immediately:
“Something good happened? You seem pretty excited!”
“I discovered something good, however, it is of no use to you guys for the time being.”
Yang Chen didn’t give a clear explanation but it was not to the point where he didn’t even say a word. He only gave them a general idea and then smiled without saying anything.
Since they couldn’t use it right now, everyone completely lost interest. One could not be overly ambitious in cultivation. Taking firm steps one by one was the only genuine path. Even if they currently obtained something at the level of the Immortal World, it wouldn’t be of any use to them.
“Check your belongings, we return to the sect now!”
Seeing that everyone was ready to go, Yang Chen didn’t stay here for long. With one wave of his hand, everyone quickly collected their things and followed after him to return back to the main hall.
Walking out was much easier compared to entering. In any case, this cave dwelling was under Yang Chen’s complete control. With only some simple tricks, they easily exited the cave dwelling.
The vast ocean was still there like before with the empty island devoid of any signs of human existence. When they were sitting on Yang Chen’s flying shuttle, Yang Chen marked the location for master and senior apprentice sister. As the controls of this place were in his hands, he had to teach them ways of entering and exiting so that they could come here freely.
This was a good place to gain battle experience with the only flaw being that the location was too far. If he could completely collect it and place it at some other location, then it would certainly attract the envy of many sects.
“For the time being, this matter must not be told to the sect.”
Gao Yue first gave a reminder to everyone:
“The sect had just witnessed great upheaval. If we provide it something like this again, then people would certainly think of malicious ideas.”
The heart of a person could not be easily understood, all of them were clear about this fact so they all nodded their heads in agreement. Yang Chen also didn’t say much, this was a conclusion acceptable to him for this matter.
After travelling for three months, everyone returned back to the MeiQing Mountain. In the two years they weren’t here, the MeiQing Mountain had undergone a great transformation.
Using the opportunity of rebuilding the destroyed sect area, the Palace Master and a few other elders designed a new sect area for the Pure Yang Palace. Since they had become majestic compared to before, even the distribution of the underground veins were considered, including the underground vein of Second Fierce Yang Courtyard.
Compared to before, the present Pure Yang Palace had grown by almost three times. A huge building spanning over a perimeter of 200 miles was built within the sect area, this was the Second Fierce Yang Courtyard. If not for the immense grandeur of main palace hall, Yang Chen and others wouldn’t necessarily be able to find its location.
Let alone mention other things, even the temperament of Palace Master had undergone great changes. During the two years time, they had tightened their grasp on the Hundred Thousand Mountains. The huge earnings from the Hundred Thousand Mountains had given him the confidence to hold the ambition of fighting for supremacy with other sects.
Although they knew that the earnings from Hundred Thousand Mountains would be astonishing, no one had expected that the profits would be so enormous. The earnings of just the first year when they had gained complete control were enough to easily support the Pure Yang Palace for more than ten years. The profits of second year doubled.
This was only a portion of the total earnings after dividing between Green Jade Immortal Islands, Clear Sky Sect and Beast Taming Sect, so the wealth acc.u.mulated by those few experts of the backstage organization in the past years could be clearly imagined.
Unfortunately, it was reported that those few people had spent the enormous wealth to buy the highest quality pills and elixirs to the attack the boundary of their current realm. Even then, the four sects had made a killing just from the spoils of war.
The four sects were already pleased beyond expectation with this outcome and started paying more attention to the Hundred Thousand Mountains. Furthermore, after the four sects had established the rule that there won’t be any killing and robbing in the Hundred Thousand Mountains, even more cultivators of the devil and demon path flocked over, thus increasing the earnings even more.
After becoming the palace master who had ushered the Pure Yang Palace into a new era, the Palace Master naturally had to appear more majestic. The backs of the few other elders also similarly straightened. Brilliance shone on their faces since their situation had changed compared to before, when the sect was tediously struggling at the edge of second rate sects.
Not to mention the upper echelons, even the ordinary disciples would proudly announce the name of Pure Yang Palace when adventuring outside, which gained more face for the sect. Even the number of new recruits in the previous two years had grown by many folds. Seeing everything moving in a better direction, Yang Chen was pleased.
But when he visited the Palace Master to pay his respects, he was left complaining when he came outside. In the previous two years, when Yang Chen’s group went to adventure outside, the Palace Master and great master w.a.n.g Yong had been anxious to death without any news of them. Fortunately, they had returned back quickly, otherwise, maybe the Palace Master would have offered a bounty to find Yang Chen.
“Disciple requests Palace Master to forgive disciple for his impoliteness.”
Yang Chen had to show his respect in front of the care and concern shown by Palace Master, only then did he begin to explain:
“If the sect become so protective of this disciple, then it wouldn’t have any genuine benefits towards disciple.”
The seedlings grown within a greenhouse without experiencing many things couldn’t compare to the trees growing in wilderness. Everyone understood this principle, but when it came to the sect’s most important disciple, all of them seemed to have a tacit understanding to forget this fact.
In Yang Chen’s opinion, the sect should never been so protective of him. After pondering for a short moment, Palace Master finally nodded his head. Which sect doesn’t want a talented disciple and they shouldn’t make him useless by being overprotective.
With Palace Master’s approval, other elders were easier to convince, even great master w.a.n.g Yang couldn’t say anything. With this, Yang Chen finally got the permission to adventure outside again.
Yang Chen had two motives of returning to sect this time. The first was to allow the people of the sect to feel relieved and the second was to fight for the opportunity to adventure outside. Actually, Yang Chen had never experienced the issue of security before, let alone mention the domed palace hall’s protection, he also had Mo Qian and her disciples. Furthermore, with two other YuanYing experts, he would never face any problems.
Not to mention his ultimate trump card, the blood river. He had decided to use this trick only at the most critical and desperate moment.
“Adventuring outside is good. When you go out this time, take that girl from the Clear Sky Sect with you so the Clear Sky Sect doesn’t start complaining again.”
Although the Palace Master had nodded his head, he still reminded Yang Chen about the matter regarding Sun Qingxue before he left.
Presently, Yang Chen dreaded to hear about this matter. Last time when this matter was raised, his master Gao Yue had surprisingly started playing matchmaker between him and Gongsun Ling. After hearing Palace Master’s reminder, he hastily agreed and rushed outside without daring to turn back his head.
Although he had just returned back, Yang Chen wasn’t planning on staying in the sect for long as the bloodline in Heavenly Roar had been completely aroused. Yang Chen was growing impatient and wanted to take him to the Dragon King’s Palace in the east side ocean and check whether Yazi’s bloodline would help him opening some of the barriers.
After gaining battle experience for two years, they had returned at the perfect time to digest that battle experience and peacefully cultivate. All of them returned to their residences and began to cultivate.
Yang Chen didn’t have the intention of taking anyone along. The Palace of Dragon King was of great importance to him and he didn’t plan to let anyone know about that legendary place.
If his master and them wanted to gain more experience, he had told them about the method of entering and exiting so they could go there whenever they wanted, without the need of him to bring them along. In any case, Yang Chen had only remained in one of the palace halls cultivating and reading jade slips as there wasn’t any need for him to go and battle with demon beasts.
Naturally, Yang Chen didn’t stop cultivating, he still insisted on cultivating a complete cycle once a day. However, others still thought that cultivating one full cycle per day was quite lazy. But everyone also knew that Yang Chen was a pill concocting master so no one urged him to be more diligent in cultivation.
When he returned to the sect this time, the sect had prepared a small surprise for him. During the two years he had been away, the sect had collected more than two hundred flames and all of them were different from the ones he had absorbed previously. This time, there weren’t only first and second grade flames, there were also two flames that were third grade.
Someone even wanted to use a fourth grade flame to exchange for a heart questioning pill, however, this price was clearly too low so the Palace Master directly refused. A heart questioning pill, even if it could be exchanged, would require at least a fifth grade flame like the Real Sun Fire or Real Moon Fire, a fourth grade flame wasn’t even worth counting.
Yang Chen wasn’t polite and directly collected all the flames. These were his rewards for his service to sect, so he didn’t feel uncomfortable collecting them. Naturally, there was no one among the elders who had any problem.
When he took his leave from his master, he only told her that he was going out to find some secret place to absorb the flames. Gao Yue thought that Yang Chen wouldn’t want the sect to worry about such a trifling matters and so didn’t obstruct him. She knew Yang Chen was extremely strong and after cultivating the Huangjin Strongman Body Refining Technique, his strength had been boosted greatly, so there wasn’t any need to worry about his safety. But she still warned him repeatedly to be cautious.
Speaking of Huangjin Body Refining Technique, when Yang Chen returned back to the sect with his body full of muscles, even the Palace Master and the elders were surprised. Although the body becoming full of muscles wasn’t any shocking matter, only one thought flickered within everyone’s mind, that Yang Chen wanted to use this figure to chase away Shi Shanshan and Sun Qingxue.
But when all was said and done, this was just a far fetched guess. However, no one could comprehend what Yang Chen was thinking. Regardless of whether it was Fairy Shi of Green Jade Immortal Islands or Sun Qingxue of Clear Sky Sect, each had greater background than the other, each was more beautiful than the other, each was more talented in cultivation than the other, but even such a sweet deal was insufficient for him.
When he leaving his master’s place, she gave him another set of clothes. She and Gongsun Ling had st.i.tched these clothes while waiting for Yang Chen. The demon beasts used to sew the previous set of clothes were too low grade and weren’t worthy of being refined properly. This time, Gao Yue had rummaged through She Kui and Xie Sha’s spoils of war to find the skin and furs of some YuanYing stage demon beast and used them to properly refine some good clothes.
When Yang Chen came out of Pure Yang Palace, he didn’t directly leave on his flying shuttle, rather, he first went to the market street at the MeiQing Mountain to check up on Shangguan Feng.
Shangguan Feng was completely infatuated with business but his cultivation had increased again compared to the last time when Yang Chen saw him. This caused Yang Chen to sigh in admiration, Shangguan Feng sure was completely suitable for business.
Scarface had returned with some good things last time he returned, due to which, Shangguan Feng’s business had soared like rising water and wind.
Seeing that everything was on thhe right track, Yang Chen was also happy. After a brief conversation with Shangguan Feng, Yang Chen walked out of the market and used his flying sword to fly towards the East Sea.
Yang Chen didn’t want to cause uproar in the market street and thus hadn’t used his flying shuttle. But soon, a bitter smile made its way on his face.
In the direction Yang Chen was flying, a group of people had suddenly appeared. Most of them were at the foundation stage, with at least two being at JieDan stage. All of them had a scholarly aura and seemed quite refined. With just one look, anyone could make out that they were all chosens and seemed to know that he was going in this direction and had thus blocked his path.
Yang Chen nimbly controlled his flying sword and slowly descended to the ground. After collecting his flying sword, he looked at the group of people who had surrounded him and calmly asked:
“Fellow daoists, how can myself help you?”
A person jumped out from the group of people and fixed his gaze on Yang Chen as if trying to confirm something. Suddenly, he greeted Yang Chen and asked:
“Could fellow daoist be Yang Chen of Pure Yang Palace?”
“That is myself!”
Since the opponent had greeted him properly, Yang Chen also wouldn’t be rude. He knew why the opponent couldn’t confirm without asking, his appearance had changed greatly, so no one would dare to believe that he was Yang Chen.
“Myself, x.x.x, issue a challenge towards fellow daoist Yang!”
“Myself, xyz, invite fellow daoist Yang to compare pointers!”
……
Once they were certain of Yang Chen’s ident.i.ty, the group suddenly started to talk together leaving Yang Chen stunned. He had indeed heard correctly, these people had come to issue a challenge and pit themselves against him.
Yang Chen immediately frowned. So many people issuing challenge to him, what’s the reason? Furthermore, he wasn’t very excited towards these kind of challenges, so he could only restrain his temper for the time being and cupped his hands before asking:
“What kind of misunderstanding is there between fellow daoists and this Yang?”
“No misunderstanding!”
Said that youngster who had jumped out earlier. After coming the ident.i.ty of Yang Chen, his att.i.tude had completely transformed:
“Fairy Shi certainly couldn’t agree to be your dao companion, myself issue a challenge to you. If you lose, then you absolutely mustn’t bother Fairy Shi from this moment forth!”
Wew, it was the admirers of Shi Shanshan again, Yang Chen was even more annoyed. He didn’t say much, only yelled loudly:
“Myself isn’t skilled enough to compare pointers with fellow daoists, so myself admits defeat!”
When the group of chosens heard Yang Chen’s words, they were instantly astonished. Initially, they had planned to confront Yang Chen head on and beat him so that he loses all face, but they had never expected that Yang Chen surprisingly would admit defeat, what could they do now?
“You! You! Our Fairy Shi who is clear is ice and jade had surprisingly been swindled by a gutless person like you!”
Immediately, someone started shouting loudly:
“How can you admit defeat without battling?”
“My skills are insufficient, can’t I just admit defeat?”
Yang Chen faintly smiled towards these ‘elites’ who were trying to provoke him and stepped forward, wanting to leave:
“Since myself has already admitted defeat, myself requests everyone to clear the path!”
“Can’t do!”
The youngster who had jumped out in the beginning yelled loudly:
“I had long ago heard that Pure Yang Palace’s Yang Chen doesn’t agree to challenges. Myself today has finally experienced this personally. Since this is the case, then Yang Chen, I issue a life and death challenge towards you!”