Translator: AL_Squad Editor: Chrissy

  "Uncle Sect Leader, you specially came to see me, is there anything important?"

  After Feng Yin untied the knot in his heart, the atmosphere in the room became much more relaxed. Wang Lu offered another cup of tea to Daoist Master Feng Yin and asked him his purpose.

  Feng Yin took the cup and enjoyed the fine tea of the House of Fragrant Tea, and then said in a soft voice, "There are two things. One is that you need to make some changes to the current list of participants by adding a few people in."

  "What?"

  Feng Yin said, "Hua Yun had refined the quality of her nascent soul numerous times, and now it has reached the nine-colored nascent soul. She could also become the main force in many of the events in Yuanying Stage group. In addition, Liu Li has also unexpectedly advanced to high-level Jindan, and thus could have a spot in your fighting group."

  Hearing this, Wang Lu could not help but gawk. "Aunt Hua Yun began refining her nascent soul many years ago, trying to upgrade her seven-colored nascent soul to nine-colored nascent soul, so her success is not a surprise, but what happened to Liu Li? I remember that Fourth Uncle didn't intend to encourage her to advance too fast because of this Grand Competition and thus spoiling things through excessive enthusiasm."

  Daoist Master Feng Yin said, "It was purely due to her having a sudden enlightenment while cultivating in seclusion, not induced by external force. As a result of that, her cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds…"

  "Sudden enlightenment? Liu Li?" Wang Lu was stunned. On the immortal cultivation path, having a sudden enlightenment was nothing new, but the conditions for attaining such an enlightenment were very harsh, an opportunity that could be discovered but not sought… Wang Lu himself, after many years of cultivation, had never experienced such a thing called enlightenment.

  "Not only Liu Li, but also Yao'Er. After her fight with you a few days ago, she also somewhat became aware. Now, she is in a closed-door training at Spirit Sword Mountain. It's likely that there would be a transformation after that training. In addition, recently, the elite disciples of major sects also had such enlightenments after a rare encounter, either by accidentally discovering ancient ruins, or picking up precious treasures, and some inexplicably broke through the bottleneck that had troubled them for many years."

  Wang Lu gradually frowned. "Something is not right here. What do you think, Uncle Sect Leader? Is there any conspiracy behind this? For example, is this all because the Earth Immortals are using genetically modified products to extinguish the cultivators of Nine Regions…"

  Feng Yin said, "I have tried to use Stellar Diffraction Technique many times but didn't see any conspiracy behind all this. I only saw that these people have such a strong providence as if they were chosen by heaven."

  Strong providence, chosen by heaven? When Wang Lu heard this, his face gradually sank.

  Sure enough, everything in this world had a cause. It was alright if one or two people have a rare encounter, but this rare encounter was now like a wholesale product… It seemed like Nine Regions couldn't bear the loneliness.

  It was undoubtedly a good thing to have the blessing of the Nine Regions. The world was boundless that even a strong cultivator was incomparably small. With the blessing of Nine Regions, things would naturally go smoothly…


  However, after the deep sorrow that he had experienced one hundred and fifty years ago, Wang Lu knew that the providence of Nine Regions was not always reliable and might even become a weapon in the hands of the enemy.

  The Fallen Immortal could manipulate the providence of Nine Regions, and those who succeeded because of providence would eventually lose because of providence. Previously, the more than one hundred people of the golden generation were like chickens and dogs in front of a seriously dying Mr. Feng Yue—being encumbered by their own providence was undoubtedly an important cause.

  This extended to one of the reasons why his original soul traveled through the worlds, due to the one word "providence"—it seemed to him that a body that was not contaminated by the providence of Nine Regions would likely be the key to the decisive battle in the future.

  As his train of thoughts drifted him far away, it took some time for Wang Lu to get back his thought and said to Feng Yin, "It's not difficult to adjust the list. In any case, with the training getting more intensive, there will be several big changes in the list. Those who could not adapt with the training would be kicked out, while the best performers in the reserve team would come in as substitutes, so I have no problem adding a few people in it. Then, what is the second thing, Uncle?"

  When it came to the second thing, Feng Yin took a long sigh and then put on a very serious posture.

  "As for the second thing…" As Feng Yin spoke, his voice became particularly light. "Recently, because the current chef of Misty Peak Cafeteria is on a business trip, the cafeteria temporarily invited a chef from Heavenly Fragrant Kitchen… The food of this temporary chef is highly praised. The inner court disciples all said that the previous chef does need to come back, and even Junior Brother Liu Xian strongly agreed to this. I think since you have a close relationship with her, it's better for you to say it to her."

  After he listened to this, Wang Lu looked incredulously at Feng Yin. "Sect Leader, please make words through your brain before you speak, okay? You knew I have a close relationship with Aya, yet you want me to say such hurtful words to her, do you think her psychological trauma is not deep enough?"

  Feng Yin said, "Um, I'm worried that if other people say it, they would be hacked by her… Previously when she came back with you from the Western Continent, she already has the tyrannical strength of an Earth Immortal, so not many people on Spirit Sword Mountain could resist her sword attack."

  "Then don't take this path to one's own doom! The mighty Knight King of Brettonia with Supreme level strength willing to be a chef for you guys, what else is not satisfying with that? Do you know that with her power level, even her excrement is an elixir for ordinary people?"

  "Moreover, you knew that people couldn't resist her sword of victory, yet you still want to provoke her?"

  Feng Yin wryly smiled. "Because we are more unable to resist her Western delicious cuisine. If she cooks some local Nine Regions dishes according to the recipes, that would be fine. However, she just got obsessed with optimizing it with local Brettonia food. It's simply… In addition, recently, she has made many great achievements in the poison group. When the news of this reached Spirit Sword Mountain, it sent the inner court disciples into a panic. Some of them even considered leaving the inner court and running to Carefree Peak to become outer court disciples."

  "…"

  "This time, you lied to her using the term of food development, right? Saying that everyone has a good response, right? Then, have you ever wondered what would happen when she returns to Spirit Sword Mountain?"

  Wang Lu looked up and his mind couldn't help but conjure the smug face of Aya.

  She said, "After a long period of training, I have mastered the essence of cooking. This time, I set up a feast of more than five hundred dishes of Brettonia for you all, please enjoy!"

  Then, the Spirit Sword Sect that Feng Yin and others spent more than one hundred years rebuilding would be destroyed at a time.

  Daoist Master Feng Yin earnestly persuaded, "Therefore, as the lead disciple, you, Wang Lu, must bravely shoulder this responsibility."

  "As the Sect Leader, please shoulder this responsibility first!"

  "Alas, you young people are like the sun in the morning…"

  "Therefore, I still have a bright future ahead of me that's why I don't want to die! The seal that confirmed her contract was the sect's seal, and as the Sect Leader, you were the one who was authorized to sign the contract. So if someone has to break the contract, it should be you!"

  Feng Yin was silent for a while. "Very well, I will go and tell her. By the way, while I'm at it, I will also explain to her about you and the poison development in the name of food development thing."

  Wang Lu was shocked, Uncle Sect Leader, could you be a bit more shameless than that?

  "For the sake of the sect, I can sacrifice all my personal honor."

  Wang Lu had to take a deep breath. "Then there is only a low way to do it. Tell Uncle Liu Xian to build a new cafeteria on Misty Peak and make it more beautiful than the other one. And then inform Aya to go to work in the new cafeteria. Tell her that, after working hard for many years, she has now been promoted to a higher rank—the Kitchen King."

  "… What if nobody goes to eat there?"

  "Tell that the new cafeteria is the responsibility of the Kitchen King, so it's a very high standard place. Ordinary people are not allowed to enter, and only the elites of the inner court disciples are qualified to enter. After that, tell Liu Xian to send a few sacrifices from those who don't work hard in their cultivation training during some days. And that's it."

  Feng Yin pondered over for a moment, and then slowly nodded. "Very well, let's do it as you said…"

  —


  After ending the conversation with Sect Leader Feng Yin, Wang Lu finally felt totally released in his room.

  Aya's matter was second in terms of importance to him. Now that such a thing was settled, he no longer had to think hard about how to face his previous Junior Brothers and Sisters as well as the present sect Elders. After talking with Feng Yin, the two sides had reached a tacit understanding. They would completely let go of the person who had died. The world needed the new Wang Lu, not a resurrected Ouyang Shang.

  Only by letting go of the past could they move on.

  After clearly thinking about this, Wang Lu stretched out his joints, and the two hundred and six sword bones made a chorus of crisp sound, which evaporated the fatigue.

  After that, he lowered his head and proceeded to draft a new manuscript.

  Whether it was the providence of Nine Regions or the future of Spirit Sword Sect, it was all good. Because ultimately, it was a long-term strategy. After nearly a month of intensive training, the 2,000-personnel team that the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals had placed great hopes on had made amazing progress, especially for the Jindan and Yuanying Stage… But now, it seemed that it was still not enough.

  Previously, Wang Lu had seen with his own eyes the Jindan Stage fight between Bai Ze and his Master. In that fight, Wang Wu won it beautifully. However, in the entire Nine Regions, a Jindan Stage like Wang Wu was unique.

  Let alone in order to play into the advantage of Nine Regions, the competition had been made so that all the event was based on group competition. Even in the Jindan Stage one-on-one fight, it was in the best of five format. Thus, relying on Wang Wu alone was far from enough.

  Fortunately, there was still another month to go before the competition. Moreover, the competition would begin with the events from the literary category first, so there was still some buffer time before the fighting events.

  As for how to make good use of this time, his master plan was to let these two thousand people have as much success as possible.

  According to the previous month's monthly report, the training strategy was adjusted to optimize the arrangement of trainers and team members in each event group; the resources of the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals were allocated carefully according to the weighted score of the competition event and group's chance of winning.

  In theory, these tasks required the support from an entire team of staff to accurately arrange so that there would be no errors. However, Wang Lu knew that there was no time to organize any team of staff, and there were not so many people in Nine Regions who could keep up with his own thinking…


  Therefore, all these heavy burdens were shouldered by Wang Lu, who drafted the plan and submitted to the leader of the Organizing Committee for approval. Previously, as the leader, Supreme He Tu had never rejected any of Wang Lu's plans.

  Wang Lu continued to work in his room until late at night before he finally looked up and sighed somewhat wearily.

  "From now on, the training of peace and friendship is over. Everyone, prepare to experience the taste of hell."