The next morning…
As usual, Ning Qingxue arrived outside Mo Wudu’s residence early in the morning and knelt before his door. Although Mo Wudu had told her yesterday that she no longer needed to kneel, everything that had happened still felt too unreal to her.
Mo Wudu knew nothing about this. At the moment, he was still asleep in bed.
However, his dream was rather strange.
In the dream, he successfully escaped his original fate of being killed by the protagonist. Unfortunately, his fate merely changed from being killed by the protagonist to being hunted down by Ning Qingxue.
Just as Ning Qingxue’s blade was about to strike him, Mo Wudu jolted awake.
Cold sweat covered his entire body. He immediately sat upright in bed, and only then did he realize that everything had merely been a dream.
“No. My fate is in my own hands! My dear disciple, from now on, I’ll do anything for you. All I ask is that you let me live this life in peace.”
Mo Wudu climbed out of bed, his mind already racing as he considered how to completely change Ning Qingxue’s opinion of him. He stretched lazily, pushed open the door, and stepped outside.
The moment the door opened, he saw Ning Qingxue kneeling on the ground.
Mo Wudu was so startled that he nearly dropped to his knees as well.
He hurriedly helped Ning Qingxue up and said, “Qingxue, I already told you that you don’t need to kneel anymore. You also don’t have to come here and wait for me every morning. Just come find me whenever you need something. Oh, right. Take this.”
Mo Wudu reached into his spatial ring and pulled out a cultivation technique.
He handed it to Ning Qingxue and said, “Qingxue, you’ve been on this mountain for three years, yet I haven’t taught you anything. That was my failure as your master. This is our Jade Flower Sect’s exclusive cultivation technique, the Jade Flower Art. Take it and cultivate properly. If there’s anything you don’t understand, come ask me. All right, you can go back now.”
Ning Qingxue accepted the cultivation technique with disbelief written all over her face.
She had never expected this.
Still, now that she finally had a proper cultivation technique, her cultivation speed would undoubtedly increase. That meant the day she could avenge her family was one step closer.
Since her master had already told her to leave, Ning Qingxue had no intention of lingering. Her heart was already burning with impatience to return and begin cultivating the Jade Flower Art.
“Wait.”
Ning Qingxue had barely turned around when Mo Wudu suddenly stopped her.
She immediately thought he had changed his mind.
Instead, Mo Wudu pulled out several more items and placed them in her hands.
“Here, these are supreme-grade Qi Refining Pills. They can accelerate your cultivation without any side effects. This is the flying sword I used before. It might not look particularly impressive, but it’s still a magical artifact. You’re only in the early stage of the Qi Refining Realm right now, so it should suit you perfectly. And there’s this, a Substitute Puppet. It can transfer one instance of fatal damage from an attack below the Nascent Soul Realm. Take them. Take them all.”
Ning Qingxue stared blankly at the pile of treasures that had suddenly appeared in her arms.
She did not even know how she eventually made it back to her residence.
“Has Master… really changed?”
He was suddenly treating her far too well.
Looking at the cultivation technique, pills, and flying sword in her hands, Ning Qingxue found herself completely unaccustomed to it…
Meanwhile, Mo Wudu sat beneath the peach blossom tree, thinking carefully.
He had already treated Ning Qingxue this well. Surely her opinion of him had improved at least a little.
‘No. It’s still not enough. Not even close!’
That dream had felt far too real.
It had to be a warning.
He needed to treat Ning Qingxue even better.
Mo Wudu’s mind raced.
Then an idea suddenly struck him.
According to the setting of the novel, every peak of the Jade Flower Sect received a monthly allotment of cultivation resources.
However, because Mo Wudu had spent the past several years wasting away in despair, he had never bothered collecting Jade Radiance Peak’s cultivation resources.
In other words, the Provision Hall should still have a considerable amount of spirit stones waiting for him.
Perfect.
Mo Wudu also wanted to see what the Jade Flower Sect actually looked like. He could explore the sect while collecting the spirit stones and then give them to Ning Qingxue as cultivation resources.
According to his memories, the Provision Hall was located on Jade Mystic Peak, the main peak of the Jade Flower Sect.
Jade Mystic Peak was quite some distance from Jade Radiance Peak.
Of course, that distance only mattered to mortals.
For a powerful Golden Core Realm cultivator like Mo Wudu, flying there on a sword would take only one or two minutes.
Mo Wudu took his own flying sword from his spatial ring.
His master had given him this sword. It was a mid-grade spiritual artifact called the Starlight Cloud Sword. According to the memories in his mind, his master had once used this sword personally before passing it down to him.
Mo Wudu stepped onto the Starlight Cloud Sword.
With a thought, the sword shot into the sky.
Although the original Mo Wudu had flown on this sword countless times, the current Mo Wudu was still somewhat frightened.
They were extremely high in the air.
Of course, he was already a Golden Core Realm cultivator, so even if he fell, the impact certainly would not kill him.
But knowing that did not stop him from being afraid.
Fortunately, after spending some time in the air, his fear gradually faded. Before long, he became completely comfortable controlling the Starlight Cloud Sword.
It did not take long for him to reach Jade Mystic Peak.
Unlike the nearly deserted Jade Radiance Peak, Jade Mystic Peak was bustling with people. Even while still flying through the air, Mo Wudu could already see numerous sect disciples moving around the mountain.
After all, the Provision Hall was located here, and many disciples needed to personally collect their cultivation resources.
Jade Radiance Peak, meanwhile, had only Mo Wudu and Ning Qingxue. Naturally, Mo Wudu had to collect their cultivation resources himself.
Mo Wudu descended and landed on the ground.
Most of the surrounding disciples had never seen him before. However, anyone capable of flying on a sword had to possess at least Foundation Establishment Realm cultivation.
More importantly, the robes Mo Wudu wore were clearly reserved for Peak Masters.
The disciples could not help feeling puzzled.
Peak Masters usually appeared during the disciple recruitment ceremony, so why had they never seen him?
The explanation was simple.
At the time of the ceremony, Mo Wudu had been in no mood to accept disciples. He had simply selected Ning Qingxue, taken her away, and immediately returned to Jade Radiance Peak.
It was perfectly normal that most ordinary disciples had no impression of him.
Following the memories in his mind, Mo Wudu entered the Provision Hall.
Unlike the disciples outside, the people working inside recognized him.
However, they were equally confused.
Hadn’t they heard that Peak Master Mo of Jade Radiance Peak had been abandoned by his cultivation partner and had spent every day drowning his sorrows in alcohol ever since?
Yet the man standing before them showed none of the exhaustion or decadence they had expected.
If anything, he somehow seemed even more handsome than before.
A female attendant from the Provision Hall approached him and asked, “Peak Master Mo, what brings you here today?”
As she spoke, she repeatedly cast flirtatious glances at Mo Wudu.
Perhaps because immortal cultivation gradually removed impurities from the body, genuinely unattractive cultivators were rare. Even so, someone as strikingly handsome as Mo Wudu was still difficult to find.
Mo Wudu felt absolutely nothing toward the woman before him.
His own disciple was 10,000 times more beautiful than her.
“I’m here to collect Jade Radiance Peak’s cultivation resources.”
“Cultivation resources? Oh… Of course.”
The female attendant checked the records.
Jade Radiance Peak had accumulated five years of cultivation resources, which came to approximately one supreme-grade spirit stone.
That might sound like only a single spirit stone, but one supreme-grade spirit stone was equivalent to 100 high-grade spirit stones.
Spirit stones followed a conversion ratio of 100 between each grade.
In other words, one supreme-grade spirit stone was equivalent to 1 million low-grade spirit stones.
Put that way, the amount suddenly sounded far more astonishing.
The number of spirit stones each peak received was not determined by how many people lived there.
Instead, the allocation was based on the strength rankings of each peak’s newest generation of disciples.