Chapter 126: Opportunity

After this crisis, the cultivators of Heavenly Origin City showed no trace of arrogance or complacency; instead, they came to understand even more clearly the importance of being prepared in times of peace. Su Chen gathered everyone, began to summarize the lessons learned from this crisis, and further improved the city's defense system and emergency mechanisms.

Su Chen decided to send outstanding disciples from the academy to neighboring cities and sects for exchange and study, to deepen friendship and cooperation on one hand, and to absorb others' strengths and make up for his own shortcomings on the other. At the same time, he arranged for specialists to conduct regular combat drills and crisis response training for all cultivators in the city, ensuring that everyone could react swiftly and unleash their full strength when faced with sudden situations.

Lin Jianran devoted herself to combining the Sound Illusion Array with the defensive shield, researching a new composite spiritual power formation. After countless trials and adjustments, she finally succeeded in creating the "Sound Spirit Guard Grand Formation." This formation not only creates powerful illusions to confuse the enemy when they attack, but also forms an indestructible spiritual power shield, providing all‑round protection for Heavenly Origin City.

Hei Mao, relying on his keen sense of smell and excellent intelligence‑gathering ability, established an intelligence network with extensive coverage, extending its reach to every corner of the cultivation world. Through this network, Heavenly Origin City can learn in advance of various potential threats and dangers, gaining precious time to respond to crises.

Ling Er focused on improving the practical adaptability of the academy's disciples. She simulated various combat scenarios and enemy types, letting the disciples constantly hone themselves in the drills. Under her careful guidance, batch after batch of young cultivators rapidly grew, becoming the new force of Heavenly Origin City.

Thanks to the efforts of Su Chen and others, Heavenly Origin City flourished ever more, becoming an unquestionable cornerstone of the cultivation world.

As Heavenly Origin City's fame spread far and wide, pleas for help poured in like snowflakes. A remote small town was ravaged by a mysterious demon beast, its people suffering greatly; a medium‑sized sect fell into a crisis of inheritance, its techniques lost and spiritual power in disorder, urgently needing aid. Su Chen realized that, as a newly risen pillar of the cultivation world, his responsibility grew heavier, and without hesitation he decided to lead Heavenly Origin City's elite forces out to render assistance.

Before setting out, Su Chen and Lin Jianran carefully discussed the plan. Lin Jianran used the power of sound to specially craft a batch of spirit‑sound magic treasures that could calm demon beasts and smooth spiritual power fluctuations, distributing them to everyone. Black Cat, relying on his intelligence network, grasped the detailed situation of each request site precisely, planning the fastest and safest route for the team. Ling Er busied herself selecting suitable academy disciples to join the expedition; hearing they would gain combat experience, these young cultivators were eager and ready to try.

Upon reaching the small town afflicted by the demon beast, Su Chen instantly saw the huge creature that blotted out the sky and exuded a violent aura. He made a swift decision, directing everyone to take formation. Lin Jianran stood on high ground and played the spirit‑sound treasure; the melodious notes flowed like a gentle stream toward the beast, attempting to soothe its frenzied heart. Su Chen, together with Black Cat, Ling Er and others, flanked from the sides, taking advantage of the beast being disturbed by the sound and its attention diverted, they unleashed their full power—streams of sharp sword qi, strange shadow force, and agile fist and foot techniques rained upon the beast. The academy disciples cooperated closely: some took charge of defense, raising spiritual power shields to protect the townspeople; others employed the techniques they had learned to restrain the beast's movements with clever spells.

After a heart‑pounding fierce battle, the demon beast, under the concerted encirclement of everyone, gradually fell short and was successfully subdued. Su Chen used spiritual power to cleanse the violent aura on the beast's body, resealing it deep in the mountains and restoring peace to the small town. The local townspeople cheered, feeling grateful to the cultivators of Heavenly Origin City, and brought out their treasured possessions to offer as gifts, but Su Chen politely declined each one, accepting only the sincere blessings of the people.

Right after that, the team hurried to the sect that was stuck in an inheritance crisis. Su Chen and the others went deep into the sect's interior, discussing with its elders and disciples to find the root of the problem. Ling Er, relying on her rich combat experience, discovered the key node of the sect's disordered spiritual power: an ancient spiritual power nexus had been damaged by an external force, causing the spiritual power to leak out and run wild. Su Chen and Lin Jianran joined forces, combining the array‑pattern techniques and sound‑spirit power control methods learned in Heavenly Origin City to repair and optimize the nexus, restoring its normal operation. The sect's inheritance of techniques also found new leads in the ancient manuscript fragments that Black Cat had tracked down, gradually becoming clear and complete.

This outward‑aid expedition not only helped others resolve their urgent crises but also gave the cultivators of Heavenly Origin City tremendous tempering and growth. After returning to Heavenly Origin City, they shared what they had seen, heard, learned, and understood with everyone, further broadening the horizons of the city's cultivators and enriching their knowledge reserves.

After returning to Heavenly Origin City, Su Chen immediately organized a grand experience‑sharing meeting, letting each participant of this trip go on stage to recount their experiences and insights. The cultivators in the audience listened attentively, their eyes full of longing and admiration; many silently made vows to train hard so that one day they could, like their predecessors, help others relieve their worries.

In order to better pass on the gains of this aid mission, Su Chen decided to add several special courses to the academy. One course is on the study of mysterious demon beasts, detailing the habits, weaknesses, and countermeasures of various kinds of demon beasts, taught jointly by disciples and instructors who have taken part in the demon‑beast battles. Another course combines array patterns and spiritual power control to repair spiritual power nexuses, with Lin Jianran, Su Chen and other experts in this field invited as lecturers. The third course is on ancient manuscript exploration, in which Black Cat shares how to extract valuable information from the vast sea of ancient manuscript fragments, thereby aiding the transmission of techniques.

Lin Jianran was not satisfied with her existing achievements; she further investigated the use of sound power in different scenarios. After repeated experiments, she found that by adjusting the rhythm and wavelength of sound, she could achieve long‑distance transmission and resonance of spiritual power, a discovery that offers Heavenly Origin City a completely new idea for future long‑range cooperative defense and attack. Consequently, she began to cultivate a batch of professional sound‑spirit power controllers, whose sole duty is to maintain spiritual power resonance with external teams at critical moments, thereby enhancing the overall combat strength.

Black Cat devoted himself to optimizing the intelligence network; he knew that the timeliness of information is crucial. By cooperating with cultivators skilled in spatial arts, Black Cat established a system capable of near‑real‑time information transmission, enabling Heavenly Origin City to react even more swiftly when faced with sudden situations. At the same time, he compiled the various oddities and anecdotes he had gathered from different places into a volume for the city's cultivators to read in their leisure, broadening everyone's horizons.

Ling Er continued to devote herself to practical combat instruction. Based on the various complex combat scenarios encountered during the external aid missions, she designed a series of high‑difficulty practical drills. These drills not only test the disciples' combat skills, but also focus on cultivating their teamwork spirit, adaptability, and decision‑making ability in dire situations. Under her strict training, the practical combat level of the academy's disciples is improving at a visible pace.

As Heavenly Origin City's strength kept growing, some weak neighboring forces one after another expressed their wish to join the Heavenly Origin City alliance. Su Chen knew that this was both an opportunity and a challenge. On the one hand, absorbing new forces would strengthen them and give Heavenly Origin City a greater say in the cultivation world; on the other hand, how to integrate various resources and coordinate the contradictions between different forces had become an urgent problem to solve. Su Chen and the city's core members, after repeated discussions, formulated a set of fair, open, and inclusive alliance rules covering resource allocation, task division, dispute settlement, and so on.

During the process of the alliance taking shape, Heavenly Origin City received an unexpected visitor. This person claimed to come from a distant mysterious sea area that holds endless treasures and mysterious cultivation methods, but is also fraught with danger; having heard of Heavenly Origin City's many legendary deeds, he came specially seeking cooperation, hoping to rely on Heavenly Origin City's power to jointly explore the mysterious sea. Upon hearing this, Su Chen felt moved, realizing that this might be another opportunity for Heavenly Origin City to ascend to a higher realm, yet he also knew the risks involved were enormous.