Floating Immortal Order

Chapter 47: Courtyard

Xu Disheng noticed that the higher they went, the more concentrated the spiritual energy was becoming. By the time they reached about 900 meters in altitude, the spiritual energy was comparable to a small-scale Spirit Gathering Formation in the Mortal Secret Realms. He wondered to himself what kind of cultivation speed he would be able to achieve if he stayed in one of these courtyards which had a miniature Spirit Gathering Formation while cultivating with a spirit stone in hand.

It was no surprise that there were so many Cleansed Meridians stage disciples here. Even Sea of Qi stage disciples could be seen everywhere, and they were all extremely young. In this place, even a pig might be able to slowly cultivate its way to the Sea of Qi stage given enough time.

Previously, Xu Disheng thought that the only advantage that the disciples from the Mortal Secret Realms had over the disciples who were native to the Human Realm was that they had cultivated the Shangqing Profound Laws beforehand, and thus had some foundation of cultivating profound qi. However, he now realized that this slight advantage was nothing in the face of this kind of cultivation environment.

In a case like Daoist Lord Qingxin in the Seventh Mortal Secret Realm, back when he first entered the Sea of Qi stage, he was only 30 years old, and full of spirit and mettle. But simply because he broke a sect rule, he was punished by being sent to the cage known as the Secret Realms for over 200 years, which was why he was still wasting his time away at the Sea of Qi stage. Since the rules in the Mortal Secret Realms were incomplete, there wasn’t enough spiritual energy, and unless he was able to break away from that cage, he still wouldn’t be able to break through even if another 200 years went by.

As he was contemplating these matters, they had already arrived at a point halfway up to the middle of the mountain, at an altitude of about 900 meters. Liu Santu landed the Spirit Cloud into the middle of a large group of courtyards and said, “Junior Martial Sister, Courtyard 2783 is in the middle of this group of courtyards, but you’ll need to carefully look for it yourself.” Then he turned and asked Xu Disheng, “What number is your courtyard?”

Xu Disheng looked at the key jade slip in his hand before replying, “Courtyard 3763.”

Liu Santu looked a bit shocked. “A middle-rank courtyard? Are you a Rank 6 Spiritual Root?”

Xu Disheng nodded his head.

Liu Santu cast an envious gaze at him and said, “Your courtyard is even higher up, so I’ll take you there. Those middle-rank courtyards are all mostly occupied by those Senior Martial Brothers and Sisters who are about to break through to the Sea of Qi stage, and belong to the middle class Spiritual Root Sequence.”

Chu Qing’er didn’t have much to say, and she only looked at Xu Disheng before saying, “Well then, I’m leaving now.” She didn’t wait for his reply before turning around and walking off towards the complex consisting of dozens of courtyards.

Liu Santu urged the Spirit Cloud back into the air, bringing Xu Disheng along with him to continue their journey. When they ascended another 300 or so meters, the spiritual energy started becoming so thick that it was on the brink of forming into mist.

There was a terraced clearing along the mountain, forming an extremely wide space upon which a few dozen courtyards were situated. Each of those courtyards was more spacious and refined than those belonging to the group of courtyards that Chu Qing’er was dropped off at. The outside of every courtyard was enveloped in a translucent barrier of light, which constantly emitted a faint halo.

Liu Santu landed the Spirit Cloud and took a look around at the few dozen courtyards around them. With a hint of envy and admiration in his tone, he said, “This is one of the small communities of the middle-rank courtyards. Is there anything else that Junior Martial Brother doesn’t understand? You can go ahead and ask, and I’ll consider it as part of the price of the 2 spirit stones that were paid.”

Xu Disheng replied, “Thank you, Senior Martial Brother. I see that the Outer Region of the Mingxin Mountain is a place of arduous cultivation. Is there anything that I should avoid while I am here?”

Liu Santu looked at Xu Disheng and said, “There isn’t much. You’ll understand everything when you enter your courtyard. But if I had to say one thing, absolutely do not violate any sect rules. Unless you are a part of one of those privileged social classes, the law is absolutely merciless. If you end up breaking a sect rule, it’ll be far too late to even regret it.”

Xu Disheng got off the Spirit Cloud, and after thanking Liu Santu, he walked directly towards the courtyards. As he walked among the courtyards, he noticed that the terraced ground was vast, with little slope to it. It was practically like flat ground, and between every courtyard, there were at least 30 meters between them, which was quite a generous amount of space.

As he continued along, he felt several gazes sweeping over him, all of them observing him carefully. From time to time, he even felt the sea of consciousness domains of Sea of Qi stage powerhouses spreading outwards and enveloping him. 𝒃𝒆𝙙𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝙤𝙢

He didn’t care about them, and was only paying attention to the stone steles in front of each courtyard.

“3761, 3762, 3763,” he muttered. When Xu Disheng finally arrived and saw the exquisite courtyard spread before him, a look of satisfaction surfaced in his eyes.

In front of the courtyard was a stone stele with the numbers ‘3763’ engraved on it, and the light barrier that enveloped the entire courtyard was originating from this stone stele. The two courtyards on both sides of his courtyard were very quiet, to the point that Xu Disheng didn’t even know if there was anyone inside them, but he didn’t bother to look. Xu Disheng took out the key jade slip and held it up to the stone stele.

A hole about 1 person wide opened up in the faint light barrier and Xu Disheng walked inside. Once he was in, the rift in the light barrier sealed back up seamlessly with a swirling shimmer of luminosity.

Only after entering the courtyard did Xu Disheng discover that the spiritual energy within was actually over 10 times richer than the outside. Earlier, when he was outside the courtyards, he had been probed by many Sea of Qi stage sea of consciousness domains, so the inside of the courtyard was clearly a lot safer than any place outside of the light barrier.

The courtyard was simple, with only 4 rooms. It wasn’t too decorated too lavishly, but everything was extremely well-made and refined. It was furnished with tables, beds, sofas, stone counters, a pill furnace, Dao platforms, and so on.

It was also possible to grow some low-grade spirit fruits and spiritual medicines in the courtyard, and there was even an Alchemy Room with an ordinary pill furnace that could be used to refine pills. It was small, but it had everything needed for pill refinement. However, it was a pity that Xu Disheng knew nothing about alchemy and spiritual plants, so it was totally unclear when these things would have any sort of use.

Suddenly, the key jade slip in Xu Disheng’s hands began to vibrate. He held it up, and a segment of information entered his mind.

“The Sect Rules of the Shangqing Sacred Sect.”

After a long while, Xu Disheng set down the jade slip with a pensive look upon his face. The Sect Rules of the Shangqing Sacred Sect was over several hundreds of lines long, and was extremely strict.

First and foremost was that the ranking of each mountain was extremely distinct. There were duties that the Mountain Ranges at the top of the ranking had to fulfill. For example, the Wenyuan Third Mountain Range had the Affairs Hall and the Directory Hall, which were in charge of the distribution of resources to all the disciples of the Eight Mountains, in addition to keeping records, rank examinations and so on.

In particular, the duties that the Affairs Hall were in charge of consisted of a great variety. Even though they were just one Hall, they had 3 Great Elders and 9 Deacons, and each of those 9 Deacons was in charge of a specific type of matter. For example, the admission of disciples from the Secret Realms was overseen by one of those Deacons, and Liu Xiangji was one of the Secret Realm Envoys under that Lord Deacon. And then there was Li Daoming on Cangming Peak who was the nephew of one of those 3 Great Elders and controlled the placement of disciples from the Secret Realms. The amount of authority he had was indisputable. If any proud sons of heaven who had Rank 5 Spiritual Root and above appeared in the 27 Mortal Secret Realms, he would try to bring them over to his side the moment he learned of their existence.

The Fourth Mountain was the Mountain of Law, and had the Disciplinary Hall and the Patrol Enforcement Hall, which were in charge of law enforcement, passing judgment regarding sentences, and patrolling the tens of thousands of li of land belonging to the Sacred Sect.

The several Mountains at the end of the ranking didn’t have as much wealth, authority, or special functions. Among the Eight Mountains, they had fairly ordinary lineage in comparison.

However, while the sect rules of the Shangqing Sacred Sect were strict, they placed very little restrictions upon the disciples of the Eight Mountains. Most of the restrictions were being placed upon those disciples who had already passed the Mountain Entry Examination and joined a Peak.

After all, a grand majority of the disciples in the Outer Region had only been recruited recently. The disciples in all eight of the Outer Regions amounted to a total somewhere in the tens of thousands, and in the future, they would serve as the fresh blood entering the sect. Almost all of the disciples belonging to the Outer Regions of the Mountains at the top of the ranking entered one of the Peaks in the Inner Region through recommendation, although there weren’t many of these kinds of disciples.

Most of the disciples that were recruited from the Human Realm and the Mortal Secret Realms were assigned to either the Outer Region of the Mingxin Sixth Mountain or the Outer Region of the Zhuri Eighth Mountain. Therefore, those two Mountains had far more outer disciples than the rest, even though the amount of resources allocated to them was less than the other Mountains.

As a Rank 6 Spiritual Root belonging to the middle class Spiritual Root Sequence, the treatment that Xu Disheng received wasn’t bad. At the very least, he had a middle-rank courtyard, which he was extremely satisfied with. With how concentrated the spiritual energy was here, his cultivation speed would be extremely fast. Plus, the Soul Force in his sea of consciousness had started growing at an explosive rate ever since he entered the Human Realm. After all, the essence of the sun and moon in the Seventh Mortal Secret Realm was pathetically sparse and lacking in spiritual nature, so the upper limit on the amount of Soul Force he had currently was the result of 10 years of slow accumulation.

This courtyard was located more than 1200 meters up the mountain. The sunlight that shone from the three suns in the sky within the Mortal Secret Realms was like the twinkling light of a firefly in comparison to the beaming radiance of the three great suns in the Human Realm.

Thus, when Xu Disheng even slightly revolved the Nourishing Soul Mantra of Soul Song, the essence of the sun and moon in the Human Realm, which was brimming with spiritual energy, would come rushing crazily into his sea of consciousness, and would be transformed into Soul Force at a rate tens of times faster than before.

His sea of consciousness in his Baihui meridian point was slowly expanding, and the ocean of black-colored Soul Force within was becoming even more resplendent. Xu Disheng felt that if he continued to cultivate like this for a few days, the ocean of Soul Force in his sea of consciousness would undergo its first fundamental transformation.