A Loose Cultivator's Path to Longevity

With everything arranged.

At dawn, Lü Zhong rose and glanced at the sleeping Yu Feng’Er. A handmaiden helped him dress quickly. He then left the room and boarded a carriage that had been waiting for some time. Once outside Changchun Immortal City, he transformed into a streak of rainbow light.

The streak of light shot northward at extreme speed, vanishing into the pitch-black night.

For an Early-stage Core Formation Cultivator, a journey of over ten thousand li would take merely three ancient hours.

Poisonous Insect Valley was as peaceful as ever.

The occasional cultivator who explored this far would usually leave after just a few glances, seeing the valley crawling with Poisonous Insects. Some, coveting the Spirit Medicine within, would try their luck. But after several fruitless and costly attempts, they too would depart in disappointment.

With a flip of his hand, Lü Zhong produced three Insect Bags, each filled with an Insect Swarm.

He had chosen them specifically.

They were impossible to tame, had no value if killed, and were astonishingly aggressive.

Furthermore, they carried a strong contamination.

Before long, Poisonous Insect Valley would become a land of toxic miasma.

Spirit Medicine would never be able to grow there again.

He released these Insect Swarms to turn the area into a worthless, dangerous place. This would prevent cultivators from coming by every so often and discovering the Transmission Array he had hidden here.

Although Lü Zhong was confident he had hidden the Transmission Array extremely well, it was always best to be cautious.

He selected three of the native Insect Swarms and crippled them before releasing the ones he’d brought. This was to ensure his new swarms could win the territory and that he hadn’t wasted his Spirit Stones.

After doing all this, he made one more patrol of the area.

Once certain that no one had discovered the secret of the Transmission Array, he stepped into it and vanished.

...

The skies of the Western Realm were still a dark crimson.

As time passed, the concentration of Crimson Spiritual Qi in the air grew higher with each passing day.

In these conditions, the mutation of the plant life grew ever more severe.

From a distance, they looked like a horde of monsters baring their fangs and brandishing their claws.

After traveling in stealth for several days.

Lü Zhong realized his caution was entirely unnecessary.

With the world’s bizarre transformation growing more severe, even he—who possessed the Purple Nether Extreme Fire and could purify the corrosion of the Crimson Spiritual Qi—had to move with extreme caution.

Let alone the low-level cultivators?

’They’re probably all hiding in their Arrays, too scared to come out.’

’At this point, I could probably beat gongs and drums and still not attract anyone’s attention.’

Shaking his head, Lü Zhong didn’t let his guard down.

Along the way, he witnessed a shocking sight: a Flying Ship as massive as a mountain came soaring through the rolling, Crimson Cloud Qi. As the vessel passed over his head, it felt as though an entire mountain peak were flying by.

The light from the Prohibitions on its underside was a dense, twinkling field, like a river of stars, exuding an immense pressure.

The two words ”True Central” were particularly conspicuous on the hull, revealing the Flying Ship’s origin.

’So this is a Mountain Shaking Ship?’

Lü Zhong couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy.

Only Central Earth could produce a Mountain Shaking Ship; the Southern Barbarians had yet to master the technology to create such a colossal Flying Ship. After all, its incredibly complex Composite Array was far beyond the capabilities of a single Sect. Building such a behemoth typically required the joint effort of dozens, even hundreds, of allied sects and families.

His gaze swept over the densely packed cannon ports lining the ship’s sides.

Although he disdained such a primitive design, he knew they were armed with immensely powerful Primordial Cannons. The might of a single cannon was equivalent to a full-powered strike from a veteran Golden Core Master. With its dozens of Primordial Cannons and a defensive shield rivaling a Sect’s Grand Mountain-Protection Array...

...a Mountain Shaking Ship could truly contend with even a Nascent Soul True Monarch!

Lü Zhong stood on the ground, watching the Mountain Shaking Ship depart. ’When will I be able to get one of those?’ he wondered, already scheming how he could acquire one for himself.

’I probably won’t get a chance until after I reach Nascent Soul Formation.’

He promptly pushed the thought aside and continued on his journey.

Lü Zhong was currently in the Ye Ling Domain, the location of the Transmission Array.

His destination, Liluo Immortal City, was quite far—a hundred thousand li away.

He had found this information in the Storage Bag of a yellow-robed Female Cultivator. It contained a log of her and her partner’s movements—or, to be more precise, a killing log. In addition to listing their victims, it also documented the places they had passed through.

The log mentioned a place called Liluo Immortal City, where tens of thousands of cultivators had gathered.

The brief entries revealed it to be a bustling place.

Another half a month passed. Once he was a considerable distance from the Transmission Array, Lü Zhong began using Escape Skills to speed up his travel. He saw few other cultivators on his journey, and whenever he did, both parties would proactively avoid each other.

During his travels, he came across several cultivator gathering spots.

He resisted the urge to enter and rest in any of them.

Otherwise, if an observant person were to take notice, they could easily deduce his trajectory with a little analysis.

From there, they could backtrack.

It wouldn’t be impossible for them to find the location of his Transmission Array.

As he hurried along, he acquired a dozen more Storage Bags.

Killing for treasure was an all-too-common occurrence in the increasingly chaotic Western Realm.

Faced with such ”enthusiastic” Evil Cultivators, Lü Zhong, despite his reluctance, had no choice but to accept their ”gifts.”

Unfortunately, it was all ”trash”—not a single item was worth a second glance.

If sold, it would all fetch around ten thousand Spirit Stones.

...

「A desolate, mountainous wilderness.」

Within, a hidden cave.

Lü Zhong stopped, preparing to rest here for the night.

Three Arrays were embedded into the cave wall.

They worked to purify the Crimson Spiritual Qi within the cave, leaving only pure nature’s spiritual energy and creating a safe, corrosion-free place to rest.

Lü Zhong had bought them from the Moshi Secret Market.

A ”Spirit Suppression Array.”

Lü Zhong had previously analyzed how the Spirit Suppression Array purified the Crimson Spiritual Qi. Its principle was to use a material called ”Seven-Aperture Stone” to absorb the free-floating Crimson Spiritual Qi, thereby cleansing the air.

The Array itself was essentially just a Wind Absorption Array.