Rebuilding the Immortal Cultivator Clan

Chapter 73: Routine Meeting

”Recently, the Li family has been consolidating their population. According to statistics, in just one short month, the Li family has taken away at least fifty thousand young men and women from Yunping State.”

At nearly the same time, all the forces within the territory of Yunping State received similar news.

”Does the Li family find the number of their clan members unsatisfying and want to expand their lineage in great numbers, producing more cultivators?”

In fact, by today, the major powers of Yunping State had already guessed the origins of the Li family. Although itʼs still unclear to them that the Li family was once a vassal to the Beast Taming Sect thousands of miles away, they knew that the Li family had abandoned their original clan lands and fled with some clan members to Yunping State, merging with the Li branch on Da Rong Island.

Thatʼs why the Li family, formerly mysterious and seclusive, suddenly emerged a few years ago, displaying shockingly formidable strength.

They then rapidly established two major industries, securing a stable foothold in Yunping State.

During this period, there was no lack of power moves targeting and attacking the Li family, but little did they know, the strength of the Li family was far greater than they had imagined.

Beast-Taming Family!

Every Foundation Establishment cultivator had raised a second-order Spirit Beast!

With this, given the strength of the Li family, unless the Yuanming Sect intervened, other families were simply no match for them.

A few months ago, the Li family saw the emergence of a new Foundation Establishment and he became the acting clan leader of the Li family.

The other forces were envious of this, but the thought of targeting the Li family had vanished, as the gap between them grew wider, and they no longer dared to offend the Li family lightly.

Take for instance the Zheng and Zhang families; they were now quite fearful, worried that the Li family would dredge up old grievances and use it as a pretext to annihilate them.

As for the He and Qin families, with the former having the promised protection of the Yuanming Sect and the latter being closely related to a Golden Core cultivator, they were uneasy but not overly worried.

And the recent actions of the Li family were clear as day, undisguised for all to see. But even knowing the Li familyʼs intentions, what could they do?

Now in Yunping State, the only force that could threaten the Li family was the Yuanming Sect alone. But as the sect master of the Li family and a faction with a Golden Core master present, it didnʼt feel threatened by the Li family.

Even though the Li family released news that the previous clan leader was approaching the end of his lifespan and was in closed-door cultivation attempting a Golden Core breakthrough, the Yuanming Sect remained unconcerned.

After all, if attaining Golden Core was so easy, then the Yuanming Sect wouldnʼt have been able to pass down its legacy for hundreds of years, producing only one Golden Core cultivator like Jiang Tianming.

Besides, the Yuanming Sect now didnʼt have the leisure to bother with these trivial matters because, after nearly several decades of Jiang Tianmingʼs breakthrough, the Yuanming Sect was about to see the birth of a second Golden Core cultivator!

This was also why the Yuanming Sect was so confident and didnʼt regard the Li family seriously because even if the Li family produced a Golden Core cultivator, it wouldnʼt threaten the Yuanming Sectʼs ruling position in Yunping State.

Of course, this was still a secret, even within the Yuanming Sect, known to no more than three people!

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Da Rong Island.

Thanks to the multiple reforms implemented by Li Zhirui, the familyʼs rate of development accelerated once more. Although the cultivations of the clan members hadnʼt shown significant improvement in the short term, in a year or two, the overall strength of the family would certainly see a considerable rise.

However, Li Zhiruiʼs habit of slacking off hadnʼt changed; he still didnʼt like dealing with those trivial and secular matters.

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Fortunately, with Elders such as Li Shile present, they were handling all sorts of family affairs in an orderly manner, which gave Li Zhirui, the Acting Clan Leader, plenty of time to attend to his own matters.

But it should be said that Li Zhirui was indeed very busy now!

Because Li Zhirui had made a breakthrough in Foundation Establishment, Da Qing received feedback through the contract and officially advanced to the eighth level of Qi Cultivation. Moreover, Da Qing only needed to accumulate for another year or two to take another step forward.

To shorten the time for Da Qingʼs breakthrough, Li Zhirui refined a large number of Jade Spirit Pills for him and, of course, it was more important to earn more Spirit Stones to facilitate the ripening of Spiritual Medicines.

Then there was learning the second-tier spells; although Li Zhirui probably wouldnʼt be able to go out to gain experience for the upcoming years, he still needed to learn spells. He couldnʼt always wait until just before departure to start learning, right?

The most important was to comprehend the Pill Recipe of the Consolidating Yuan Pill and to start refining it.

Because second-tier Spiritual Medicines were expensive, Li Zhirui only started refining in earnest a few days ago. All the materials he had purchased, along with those ripened, totaling over thirty sets, had all been used up by him.

As for the results, itʼs not that there were none. Although he hadnʼt refined any Consolidating Yuan Pills yet, Li Zhirui had gained many insights. The errors he made were increasingly occurring later in the process, and perhaps with another twenty or thirty practices, he would succeed.

However, now Li Zhirui had run out of Spirit Stones and Spiritual Medicines, so he could only refine some Jade Spirit Pills first to sell for money.

The next morning, Li Zhirui glanced at the calendar and discovered that today was the day of the monthly meeting, so he had no choice but to leave his small courtyard.

”How did last monthʼs affairs go?” Taking advantage of the time before the meeting, Li Zhirui hurriedly asked Li Zhizhun, who was handling these things, as he was most familiar with them.

”Everything has been managed quite well,” Li Zhizhun hesitated for a moment before saying, ”but there is one thing. Elder Shizhong brought back too many mortals from Yunping State. Weʼve now exceeded the number of Secular Clansmen. Should we limit that?”

After all, as a Cultivating Family rooted in blood ties, although having too many external mortals wasnʼt a threat, if not managed correctly, it could be troublesome.

”Hmm, you are right, elder brother. We indeed need to restrict the number of outsiders,” Li Zhirui nodded. He hadnʼt considered every aspect thoroughly, but fortunately, there hadnʼt been any negative consequences yet so it could be dealt with in a timely manner.

Before long, one Elder after another entered the main hall, leaving only four empty chairs. Their owners were Li Shize, Li Shilian, Li Shiren, and Li Shiting.

The former was out collecting information and seldom returned to Da Rong Island. As for the latter three, as Li Zhirui had secured his position as Clan Leader and they were no longer involved in these matters, they attended the meetings less frequently.

”The development of our family is growing better and better, and this is all thanks to the unwavering efforts and contributions of all the Elders. I, on behalf of all our clan members, express our sincere gratitude to you all.”

After delivering the formalities, Li Zhirui began to discuss business, ”Elder Shizhong, we now have enough mortals on the island, and thereʼs no need to bring more people back from Yunping State for the time being.”

”Next, you will still have the arduous task of settling those mortals properly. Itʼs best to scatter all of them, assigning some to the north to prevent them from clustering together.”

Since the three Spirit Veins on the island were all closer to the south, the ancestors who developed Da Rong Island naturally arranged for the Secular Clansmen to stay in the south for better protection. However, as the population increased, developing the north was an inevitable task.

Besides, the plains were abundant in the north, unlike the hilly south covered with tall banyans, which made development a bit easier.

”Understood, Clan Leader. I will handle this matter well,” said Elder Shizhong, a bit disappointed yet eager to comply immediately. After all, the better he handled the task, the more likely he was to be reused by Li Zhirui.

Li Zhirui nodded and turned his gaze to Li Shijing, saying, ”Since the family has decided to develop the north side, the guard team will need to take the lead in clearing out the dangers from the northern forests.”

Li Zhirui proceeded to discuss some minor matters, looked over the list from the Internal Affairs Elder, and checked the ledger with the Miscellaneous Affairs Elder to confirm there were no issues. Then, he concluded the meeting.

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