Two hours later, six nascent soul realm cultivators and eight core formation realm cultivators arrived in Tianqi City.
These fourteen cultivators were Duan Quan and his close fellows.
"Duan Quan, have you lost your mind?" Shang Yan questioned.
However, Duan Quan didnāt answer; but only looked at him with a blank expression.
"Whatās wrong with him?" Xu Ling asked.
"Itās not just him. Look at their eyes."
At this point, everyone noticed the new arrivals had dull and blank eyes.
"What..." Tang Shu started, but a voice interrupted her.
"We are to stay in Tianqi city and resist the sea beasts until the tide is over. After that, we are to report to the border guard arena and immediately head to the foreign devilsā battlefield. We are to live or die for the Cangxing world from now on." Duan Quan stated in a flat voice.
Hearing this, everyone fell silent, and several trembled in fear.
These several included Tang Shu, Wang Bin, and Bai Feng.
After all, they were almost tricked into becoming traitors.
When they saw what happened to Duan Quan and the rest, they couldnāt help but be simultaneously horrified and relieved.
āFortunately, I escaped in time.ā Tang Shu thought.
"What happened to the rest?" Shang Yan asked, but Duan Quan and the rest didnāt react. Instead, they stared into space and didnāt seem to understand the question.
Seeing this, Shang Yan sighed and removed his communication jade pendant.
āI have to inform the sect master.ā He thought.
Shangguang Hu fell silent when he received the message.
āAs expected of senior Yu and senior Jiang.ā He thought.
If he was placed in a similar position, Shangguang Hu didnāt think he would spare the traitors.
Unexpectedly, senior Yu and senior Jiang didnāt kill the traitors but instead found a way to drive them for the sake of the Cangxing world.
"Itās no wonder their names rank first on the list of Cangxing heroes." Shangguang Hu muttered and quickly replied to the message.
.....
Five years passed in the blink of an eye.
Over the five years, a lot changed in the Zhenyue Archipelago.
First, Ying Liu self-created a poison-repelling talisman.
After this talisman became available, the death toll from sea beastsā poisoning dramatically reduced.
Although some poison could not be repelled, most could be so this talisman was extremely useful.
As a reward for creating the poison-repelling talisman, Jiang Yue and Yu Nianzhen gave Ying Liu a treasure and allowed him to cultivate in the time cave for one year.
Because of this, Ying Liu became the first Zhenyue person to advance to the origin tempering realm and break through to the second level of the origin tempering realm.
After the first, many followed.
Nine Ying guards, Tang Xiao, Qian Chen, Jiang Han, Jiang Xing, Yu Chang, Lin Feng...
Five years later, there were more than one hundred origin tempering realm cultivators in the Zhenyue archipelago.
However, excluding Ying Liu, all were in the first level of the origin tempering realm.
Seeing this, Jiang Yue looked at Yu Nianzhen.
"Azhen, should we give them some benefits?" He asked, and Yu Nianzhen nodded.
"We still have many leftover treasures from the Nine Treasures secret realm, Treasure Island, and the Reincarnation World. We can let our people buy them with points."
"Thatās what I thought." Jiang Yue nodded and quickly continued.
"We can take out two hundred or so appropriate treasures."
"Good." Yu Nianzhen agreed.
Besides the cultivation level of the Zhenyue people, other things also changed.
During the five years, Jiang Yue chose an island and created a formation forest.
The formation forest had more than ten thousand formations, ranging from level one to level seven.
Unfortunately, Jiang Yue lacked adequate resources hence more than half the arrangements were illusions rather than actual formations.
Similarly, Yu Nianzhen chose an island and built a sword arts tower.
The Sword Arts Tower was a ten-storey building, but only the first seven floors were complete.
All in all, everyone accomplished a lot, but the sea beastsā tide still showed no sign of slowing down.
Most importantly, Ao Tian had yet to return from the bottom of the sea.
However, the beast contract was normal so the two didnāt worry.
In this way, another five years passed.
As before, no one slacked.
Ying Liu advanced to the third level of the origin tempering realm, more than fifty cultivators broke through to the second realm, and hundreds advanced to the first level.
Similarly, Jiang Yue built a soul training tower, Yu Nianzhen built a sword intent, and both worked on a puppet dungeon.
Unfortunately, the sea beastsā tide was still going on.
Even more frightening, level-five sea beasts had long begun to appear, and the Zhenyue cultivators were frequently in danger.
However, ten years of resisting the sea beastsā tide were not in vain.
After ten years, everyone had become a veteran and knew how to advance and retreat.
Although the situation was dire, the Zhenyue family was still in good spirits.
On this day, Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue were drinking wine while watching the sea.
"These sea beasts are too fertile." Jiang Yue complained.
After all, their Zhenyue family and other cultivators had been killing sea beasts for ten years, but the quantity never seemed to diminish.
"More and more level five sea beasts are beginning to appear." Yu Nianzhen said, his brows creased in a frown.
"We may have to let Xiaolan take an active role." Jiang Yue said, and Yu Nianzhen nodded.
"Azhen, itās been more than ten years since Tianāer went to the sea bottom. I am worried even if the beast contract is still normal." Jiang Yue couldnāt help but worry.
After all, they hadnāt heard from Ao Tian in more than ten years.
"Azhen, letās go to the bottom of the sea."
"Okay." Yu Nianzhen agreed and was about to say something else but instead frowned.
"Why do I..." Jiang Yue started but didnāt finish his words before he suddenly collapsed.
Beside him, Yu Nianzhen also fainted.