The Quest for Immortality

The tribal alliance laws, declared under Mo Hua’s name as the Shaman, stipulate: no insults, no theft, no private fighting, no indiscriminate killing between tribes and allied groups.

Children must be protected, and elders respected.

The female practitioners of the tribes must not be violated casually, and so forth.

If violated, punishments range from death penalty, torture, flogging, to imprisonment, determined based on the crime.

These laws were strictly implemented under Mo Hua’s name as a Shaman.

The unhealthy trend and evil qi were temporarily curbed.

But Mo Hua knew that these measures only addressed the symptoms, not the root cause.

Fundamentally speaking, Barbarian Cultivators are a group of ’immoral’ cultivators.

Some have character, but they are extremely few.

Like Elder Zamu, who studied in a large tribe, learned witchcraft, and had an enlightened mind, such Barbarian Cultivators are exceedingly rare.

Most Barbarian Cultivators are either thieves from Wotu, or killers from Wulu.

To them, there’s nothing besides eating, drinking, killing, and mating.

Such ethics make these Barbarian Cultivators incapable of success.

Mo Hua genuinely didn’t want to be the Shaman to this group of morally corrupt Barbarian Cultivators, fearing his own reputation would be harmed in the future.

For the first time in Mo Hua’s life, he felt the importance of ’education’.

Without educating them, many of the Barbarian Cultivators under his command were simply ’beasts’ that could speak human language.

Possibly even greedier, more selfish, and crueler than beasts.

Thus, Mo Hua, as a Shaman, told them to ’unite with the tribe’, ’be friendly with allies’, ’cultivate heart’, ’cultivate self’, ’restrain oneself’, ’be self-reliant’, to ’pursue tribal survival and long-term development’...

However, these words seemed like mere nonsense.

Many Barbarian Cultivators looked at Mo Hua as if he were an idiot, completely oblivious to what he was talking about.

Even Mo Hua felt himself like a ’fool’.

Thus, he gave up and deeply realized the truth that ’uneducated people cannot be enlightened’.

At that moment, Mo Hua even doubted whether his plan to unify the Great Wilderness was correct.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The innate flaws in these Barbarian Cultivators were too deep.

Could they really have a heart seeking the Dao and be used by him?

Was helping them truly practicing the Heavenly Dao, or merely raising ”pigs” that would become a problem?

With great ambitions just starting, Mo Hua involuntarily fell into a preliminary self-doubt.

However, he was not someone who easily gave up.

Every task has its difficulties, and they must be overcome step by step.

If rectifying the Great Wilderness were truly easy, someone would have done it long ago; it wouldn’t be his turn.

Because it’s difficult, it possesses value.

Mo Hua nodded slightly, solidifying his Taoist Heart.

But the internal tribal conflicts, ultimately, must be resolved.

After careful contemplation, Mo Hua realized that under the current circumstances, the tribal internal conflicts, based on belief system confusion and moral corruption at the Divine Sense level, are fundamentally irreconcilable.

Unless all these Barbarian Cultivators were killed, completely eliminating the conflicts.

Only by reeducating the next batch of Barbarian children, reshaping their minds at the Divine Sense level, could the situation be completely changed.

But this approach is also impossible.

Mo Hua pondered for a long time and concluded there was only one feasible solution:

External warfare, shifting the conflicts.

Send these Barbarian Cultivators to other Mountain Realms, to conquer other tribes.

This way, with a common enemy and opponents to battle, these Barbarian Cultivators will no longer focus on internal strife and infighting.

’External expansion’ was originally part of Mo Hua’s plan.

But in his previous calculations, it would take some time, waiting for the Wutu Mountain Realm to completely stabilize, internal conflicts to be resolved, and Barbarian Cultivators to be reorganized and trained before continuing to expand outward.

First secure the internal before dealing with external threats.

However, in light of the current situation, this plan must be expedited.

If external threats are not suppressed, internal conflicts cannot be reconciled.

Instead of letting these Barbarian Cultivators continually fight internally, leading to mutual slaughter.

It’s better to let them expand externally and slaughter enemies.

Even if they die, they should die on the path of conquest, as warriors, not within the tribe for petty theft.

Thus, ten days later, Mo Hua organized a force of eight hundred Barbarian Cultivators, starting their dusty journey towards the southern Mountain Realm.

Among these eight hundred, the majority were Barbarian Cultivators from the Wulu Tribe.

Wulu Tribe, within Mo Hua’s current command of Wutu Mountain forces, was still the strongest.

And the Wulu Tribe cultivators were also the most bloodthirsty.

Mo Hua did not trust leaving Wulu Tribe cultivators on Wutu Mountain for fear they would incite riots.

Thus, for this expedition, he pulled out all the core forces of the Wulu Tribe.

Including the Wulu Tribe Chieftain, two Upper Elders, over ten Foundation Building Cultivators, and six hundred robust Qi-refining Realm Wulu Barbarian Cultivators.

Leaving Wutu Mountain, the group headed south, crossing perilous mountains into a pitch-black forest.

The miasma was heavy in the forest, with dense Monster Qi.

Mo Hua, using Divine Sense to locate, found a tribal settlement at a corner of the mountain.

This was also a small tribe, not very powerful, with only five to six hundred Barbarian Cultivators.

Yet, to Mo Hua’s surprise, these Barbarian Cultivators wore leather and bone armor, with some Monster Patterns drawn on them to enhance the armor and resist blades and arrows.

This tribe was named ’Black Horn Tribe’.

This was the first time Mo Hua had seen Barbarian Cultivators resembling ’Barbarian Soldiers’ in the Three Thousand Wilderness.

The war between the two sides was about to erupt.

The Wulu Tribe held the advantage of cultivation.

But the Black Horn Barbarian Tribe had the advantage of armor.

In the fight, Mo Hua didn’t stand on the sidelines; he timely threw several fireballs, suppressing the Black Horn Tribe’s Chieftain.