Floating Immortal Order

Chapter 38: Descending Amidst the Tempest

The next day arrived in the Grand Chu Imperial City. If one looked down from a bird’s eye view upon the Imperial Palace, they would be able to see the orderly, continuous arrangement of palace halls. The entire network of palace halls was part of one massive Spirit Gathering Formation, with the heart of the formation being the Heavenly Heart Palace where Emperor Chu resided.

In the main hall of the Heavenly Heart Palace, Emperor Chu was seated on high, his face as expressionless as it was half a year ago. He sat there silently cultivating, focusing on the vortex of spiritual energy around him.

The sound of footsteps could be heard outside the hall from time to time as groups of two or three Daoists would come in, bringing young girls or young boys with them into the hall. When they entered the palace hall, none of them dared to talk loudly or make a racket. Once they saluted to Emperor Chu, they would all stand there quietly.

After a while, the 19 Daoist Lords from each of the 10 Dao Palaces of each Province, excluding the Central Imperial Province, had all arrived in the hall. They had brought with them a total of 14 youths, which were the disciples that had been temporarily accepted into the Dao Palaces of each of the 10 Provinces on behalf of the sect.

Emperor Chu stopped cultivating and looked around at the people gathered in the hall. “Since everyone has arrived, we shall go to the Sky Platform of the Imperial Court to welcome the Secret Realm Envoy from the Affairs Hall of Wenyuan Mountain,” he announced in a flat tone.

The Third Mountain of the Shangqing Sacred Sect was Wenyuan Mountain, and there were 12 Halls and hundreds of peaks belonging to it. The sect’s various miscellaneous jobs like keeping record of the directory, writing down records of the missions and their rankings were all matters that were taken care of by each of the Halls on Wenyuan Mountain.

Each Hall was under the management of a different Elder. All of the matters related to the disciple admissions from the 27 Secret Mortal Realms fell under the unified jurisdiction of the Affairs Hall.

Every Daoist Lord saluted and replied in unison, “Understood, Martial Uncle.”

Xu Disheng was among the crowd, his gaze slightly lowered as he sized up the Daoist Lords in the palace hall. He found that a large majority of them had deep auras. From the profound qi that was aggregating and dissipating around their bodies, their cultivations were clearly at the Sea of Qi stage.

There were 2 of them that were only at the Cleansed Meridians stage. To his surprise, someone of the same cultivation realm as him could become a Daoist Lord of a Dao Palace.

He shook his head and didn’t say anything. Needless to say, these were outer disciples of the Sacred Sect, and they had no initiative of their own. They could bribe the disciples of the Disciplinary Hall of Mountain of Law to give them a fake punishment so they could enter the Secret Realms and drag out an ignoble existence.

Emperor Chu said, “At ease. Come this way now.”

He walked down the stairs and made his way out of the palace hall, followed by dozens of people.

When they came out from the Heavenly Heart Palace, there were two young men and a young lady waiting outside of the gate. When they saw Emperor Chu coming out, they bowed respectfully to him. “Greetings to Great-Grandpa.”

These three people were those that belonged to the Chu Clan and had already changed their name back to their ancestral surname of Chu.

Emperor Chu nodded at them. With a flick of his sleeves, he directly headed towards the Imperial Court in the outer palace.

When they arrived on top of the Imperial Court’s Sky Platform, there were several hundred guards standing on all sides keeping watch. A breeze blew over the lofty Sky Platform which gradually strengthened into a gale that caused peoples’ sleeves to flutter in the wind.

Emperor Chu turned to the side and asked, “What time is it now?”

The golden-armored guard standing respectfully by his side lowered his head and replied, “Your Imperial Majesty, it just passed 9 o’ clock.”

In the crowd of people behind him, a young Daoist Lord who was clearly from the Chu Clan stepped forward and said, “Old Ancestor, those Secret Realm Envoys are so overconfident in their own authority over the Mortal Secret Realms’ affairs, and they’ve never showed up on time before. This time, they must be putting on airs once again.” 𝚋𝚎𝚍𝚗𝚘𝚟𝚎ｌ.𝚘ｒｇ

When the other Daoist Lords heard what he said, each of them looked at this Daoist Lord from the Chu Clan with a different look in their eyes, but none of them said anything.

A look of annoyance appeared on Emperor Chu’s expressionless face as he cast a cold sideways glance at the young Daoist Lord.

The young Daoist Lord, aware of his slip of the tongue, retreated into the crowd with a resentful expression. In the Chu Clan, people like this particular Daoist Lord weren’t here in the Secret Realm due to punishment. They were born into the Chu Clan with Profound Meridians on the Spirit Root Sequence. At the same time, they weren’t willing to leave for the Human Realm, so they would stay here and cultivate smoothly to the Sea of Qi stage without running into a single obstacle. Then, they could become a Daoist Lord and wield great authority. And yet, as a member of the Imperial Family, they always felt that they were never quite able to exhibit the authority of their own position.

The sound of the wind grew louder as the wind gradually became a wild, fierce gale. High in the sky above the Sky Platform, a stormy vortex approximately 3 meters wide took form.

In a short time after the vortex formed, it expanded rapidly outwards to a size of 30 meters. A wooden boat appeared from the center of the tempestuous vortex, entering into the airspace where it floated high above the Sky Platform.

Emperor Chu revealed a hint of a smile and said, “Junior Martial Brother Liu, how come this time there are only you and these 2 Junior Martial Brothers? Did the Deacon not come?”

He was clearly talking to the person in the front, who he had been acquainted with.

The numerous Daoist Lords behind Emperor Chu greeted respectfully, “We offer a respectful welcome to the Secret Realm Envoy of Affairs Hall.”

The wooden boat landed on the Sky Platform, and the middle-aged person in charge stepped down. He didn’t even spare a glance at the numerous Sea of Qi stage Daoist Lords. He just waved his hand and replied to Emperor Chu with a smile, “I’d like to congratulate Senior Martial Brother for advancing another step in these past few decades we haven’t seen each other. The Deacon has recently been busy with making preparations for the placements of these new disciples from the Secret Mortal Realms. I was a bit late because I’ve already been to 4 or 5 Secret Realms within the last few days, so please don’t blame me too much, Senior Martial Brother Chu.”

This Secret Realm Envoy Liu was at the Dao Foundation stage, and even though the two disciples behind him from the Affairs Hall were only at the Sea of Qi stage, they had haughty, arrogant expressions on their faces. They were only somewhat respectful towards Emperor Chu, but they didn’t spare any glances at the Sea of Qi stage Daoist Lords behind him.

It was clearly impossible to get such a well-earning, high-ranking position like theirs without a strong family status backing. Thus, they couldn’t even be bothered to look at these disciples who had violated sect rules and were sent to the Secret Realms as punishment.

Emperor Chu shook his head lightly and said, “Junior Martial Brother Liu is being far too polite. I have already arranged a spiritual feast to welcome my three Junior Martial Brothers here.”

Secret Realm Envoy Liu’s eyes lit up, but his words betrayed the look in his eyes. “Senior Martial Brother Chu, this… this is too much for us.”

The two disciples from the Affairs Hall behind him also revealed a hint of a cheerful expression.

Emperor Chu merely smiled and replied, “It’s nothing to worry about. Junior Martial Brother Liu, we haven’t seen each other for decades. A mere spiritual feast like this is the least I could offer.”

A ‘spiritual feast’ was a meal made from a bunch of spiritual medicines and fruits of the Human Realm, meaning it was abundant in spiritual energy and brought great benefits to one’s cultivation.

In the Shangqing Sacred Sect, the costs of even the least expensive spiritual feast boasted a price of about 150 spirit stones, which spoke volumes about how costly it could actually end up being.

However, the Chu Clan owned an entire realm, so they were wealthy. On paper, even though they were managing the realm “on behalf of the sect”, the sect never actually interfered. As long as they occasionally provided the sect with fresh disciples, that was enough for them. With the Chu Clan’s wealth, it was obvious that a spiritual feast wasn’t much to them.

A spiritual feast was something that normal Sea of Qi disciples couldn’t even dare to imagine. Even for a Dao Foundation powerhouse, there was no need for them to be so extravagant as to spend a minimum of 150 spirit stones to host a spiritual feast. It would be far more cost-effective for them to just buy Medicinal Pills of an equivalent value. Therefore, a spiritual feast was usually only held to treat guests.

Secret Realm Envoy Liu smiled. “Then I must thank you for your magnificent hospitality, Senior Martial Brother Chu. It would be impolite for me to refuse.” After he finished speaking, he formed a hand seal and the stormy vortex in the air gradually faded away, returning the air to calmness. He looked at the wooden boat and continued, “Senior Martial Brother Chu, this Realm-Crossing Wooden Boat that was given to me by the sect is too heavy and cumbersome. I don’t have enough room in my Storage Spirit Tool for it, so I’ll leave it here for now.”

Emperor Chu nodded, leading the three people from the Affairs Hall down from the Sky Platform. From beginning to end, those three didn’t even look at any of the people there.

The Daoist Lords shared glances with each other and laughed bitterly before bringing their respective disciples to follow after them.