Chapter 6

"Hmph, ill-intentioned!" Qing Ling flicked her hand, as if trying to shake off the dirt from forcibly shaking hands with Wei Yuning, she took quick small steps and soon vanished from both of their sight.

"Wei Yuning, your taste is exactly the same as mine—Xiao Fei is the number one beauty of the Cloud Hidden Sect!" Man Niu slapped Wei Yuning's shoulder, looking like a kindred spirit.

"Could Wei Yuning say he was just flattering? But it seemed his flattery missed the mark, landing on the horse's leg instead, and it caused Qing Ling to misunderstand him."

"That's only natural—great minds think alike, so I say Niu Ge, you have good fortune; only Niu Sao's beauty can match your valor, you two are simply a match made in heaven, unparalleled on earth, the utmost in humanity!" Wei Yuning nodded.

Man Niu heard Wei Yuning directly call Xiao Fei "Niu Sao", and he was delighted to the point his eyes almost couldn't find themselves.

"Sigh, I must achieve Foundation Establishment before year's end, otherwise I'll really have to keep calling Xiao Fei Martial Uncle." Man Niu rarely showed a worried face.

"Why?" Wei Yuning asked strangely.

"In just another fifty years, the Cloud Hidden Sect will begin ordering the new generation of disciples; starting next year, new Foundation Establishment disciples can only be of the 'One' generation, one generation lower than the 'Clear' generation." Man Niu said.

Wei Yuning also became tense.

"I don't care about the level of cultivation, but seniority must not be lowered. If I still haven't achieved Foundation Establishment next year, wouldn't I have to call that little girl Qing Ling Grandmaster? Wait, why should I care about that little brat Qing Ling?"

"How much longer until year's end?" Wei Yuning asked.

"Less than half a year, why are you asking me?" Man Niu asked curiously.

"Just a moment of confusion, just a moment of confusion." Wei Yuning said guiltily, then he couldn't help advising: "If you only have this short time, you should consider taking a Foundation Establishment Pill."

"I really am about to achieve Foundation Establishment, I'm just missing a bit of opportunity! My master also said that." Man Niu said, but his tone obviously lacked confidence.

The two returned to the dormitory, and Man Niu immediately closed his eyes, sat cross-legged, and began cultivating.

Wei Yuning had nothing to do, so he casually flipped through a few books on Man Niu's desk. New disciples must cultivate under the guidance of a master in the Transmission Hall, otherwise if they go into qi deviation, no one will look after him. He today only received a cultivation manual from the Transmission Hall, but had not arranged a master, so he couldn't begin cultivating.

Although Man Niu had not achieved Foundation Establishment, he could already use spiritual power to perform some techniques, so his few books were all about techniques.

"Earth Loosening Technique," "Earth Shield Technique," "Lightning Chain Attack Technique"—he glanced at them briefly; inside were all about the use of spiritual power, but he lacked spiritual power, so naturally he had no interest in them and tossed the books aside.

"Record of the History of Nine Cloud Peaks, authored by Xuan Miaozi!"

Wei Yuning was delighted; among the few books he actually found one that introduced the sect, and the author was someone he knew—the senior who established the sect's rules.

Wei Yuning returned to his bed, raised his pillow, opened the glowstone lamp, lay down, and began reading. The glowstone lamp is a technique lamp; its energy source is spirit stones, and high‑end glowstone lamps have engraved spirit‑gathering arrays, allowing them to glow without spirit stones.

As expected, it was no surprise—the people of this world are not skilled at recording history, or simply don't care much about it; the book's content is very rough, aside from an extremely brief world map, it merely briefly describes the origins of Nine Cloud Peaks and the source of the current calendar.

Nevertheless, this is already quite good. This Xuan Miaozi has a very scientific cosmology, knowing the difference between stars and planets, and Wei Yuning suspects whether this old ancestor went to Earth to learn modern scientific knowledge.

The world Wei Yuning currently inhabits is called the Spirit Beast World; the Spirit Beast World is a medium‑sized world, vast and boundless, its total area nearly spanning half a star system.

The place where the Cloud Hidden Sect resides is called Nine Cloud Peaks; Nine Cloud Peaks lies on a huge island named Mythical Tortoise Dragon Island, and Mythical Tortoise Dragon Island is merely one of the countless islands in the Extreme Heaven Sea, far from the central continent, belonging to the edge of the Spirit Beast World. According to the book's description, Wei Yuning roughly estimated that the area of Mythical Tortoise Dragon Island is probably two to three times that of Earth. Therefore, if one is an ordinary person who does not cultivate, it is highly likely they will spend their whole life unable to leave this island.

According to the records, Mythical Tortoise Dragon Island's calendar has changed three times; the most recent was the Three‑Month Calendar over seven thousand years ago, which restarts calculation when three moons appear in the sky. Before the Three‑Month Calendar came the Yan Calendar, and before that the Han Calendar. During the Yan and Han Calendars, Mythical Tortoise Dragon Island and its surrounding areas were always in perpetual daylight, the sun never setting; however, during the Han Calendar the sun was far from the ground, while during the Yan Calendar it was much closer.

Regardless of whether it was the Yan Calendar or the Han Calendar, this region is not very suitable for ordinary humans to live in; only a few rogue cultivators have settled here.

More than seven thousand years ago, three planets suddenly appeared in the sky; the three planets moved regularly across the sky, blocking the sun's light, each time lasting twenty‑four hours, and from then on this region gained night.

According to the records, at the moment the moons appeared, massive volcanic eruptions were triggered, and eventually nine towering cloud‑piercing peaks emerged in the center of Mythical Tortoise Dragon Island—this is the present‑day location of the Cloud Hidden Sect.

The nine patriarchs of the Cloud Hidden Sect arrived at Nine Cloud Peaks three thousand years ago; back then this place was a paradise of all kinds of spirit beasts, the newly formed Nine Cloud Peaks brimmed with spiritual energy, gathering large numbers of rogue cultivators who came to train here, but because the birds and beasts were too powerful, the rogue cultivators could only stay on the outskirts of Nine Cloud Peaks.

The nine patriarchs of the Cloud Hidden Sect possessed profoundly deep cultivation; they came from the outer world into the Spirit Beast World. Under their leadership, everyone spent three hundred years clearing most of Nine Cloud Peaks, after which the nine patriarchs established the Cloud Hidden Sect.

Some rogue cultivators joined the Cloud Hidden Sect, while the remaining rogue cultivators trained in various secret realms beneath the mist, and the Nine Cloud Peaks above the mist entirely belong to the Cloud Hidden Sect's territory.

In fact, even to this day, Nine Cloud Peaks have not been completely cleared. Among the first‑generation patriarchs, only Dao Zhenren of Xuan Nü Peak still occasionally appears; the others have long vanished without a trace.

The records of Nine Cloud Peaks end here; Wei Yuning then glanced again at the world map—this is a vast world, and he could hardly believe that the enormous Mythical Tortoise Dragon Island appears on the map as merely a tiny symbolic dot.

Early the next morning, Man Niu woke Wei Yuning up. The air in this new world was excellent, and the night was very tranquil; Wei Yuning really wanted to sleep a little longer.

Sect disciples' daily work is not only cultivation; there are also fixed sect tasks that take up a lot of time. And as the lowest‑rank menial disciples of the sect, they are the busiest group of all.

Before the sun rose, Man Niu had to go work at the herb garden. The herb‑garden disciples' pre‑breakfast work mainly consists of two tasks: one is fetching water—that is, carrying the spring water from the Medicine Pill Peak Valley to the irrigation vats of the various herb gardens; the other is catching insects—literally, the insects on the spiritual herbs.