Chapter 3669: Why Wait Until Next Year?===GLOSSARY===

Ye Chen had no certainty whether the teleportation array could bring others in and out, but after instructing Lin Waner and letting her prepare herself mentally, he took her hand and silently activated the teleportation array's heart method mantra.

Light and shadow flashed by, vision vanished for a moment, but touch remained constant; Ye Chen felt he had never released Lin Waner's hand, and her hand had never left his.

Before vision returned, Ye Chen immediately realized he could bring others to use this teleportation array here, even if they had no ring or even no cultivation.

When vision returned, Ye Chen and Lin Waner were already together, reaching out on the underground city's square, before them stood the very four-cornered treasure tower.

Seeing the scene before her, Lin Waner was utterly shocked; in her nearly four hundred years of life, she had experienced her father and Ye Chen teleporting to her side, but had never personally undergone teleportation.

In the blink of an eye, her surroundings were no longer the bitterly cold Antarctic under perpetual polar night, but replaced by this warm, spring-like underground ancient city that made every pore feel bathed in spring breeze.

Lin Waner stared at Ye Chen with a horrified expression and asked: "Young Master, where are we?"

Ye Chen explained: "This is the place where the last batch of cultivators lived before the end of the Dharma Age, an underground city."

Lin Waner asked again: "Are we still in Antarctica now?"

"Yes." Ye Chen explained: "Our actual location is just beneath the ice cap; Wu Bolin somehow found this place using some unknown method, digging upward through thousands of meters of ice, but was blocked at the entrance by a formation; however, I seem to be outside the formation's blocking range, so I easily entered here."

Lin Waner looked around in awe and exclaimed: "Such a vast underground city actually lies over a thousand meters deep beneath the Antarctic continent—I cannot imagine how this was achieved; moreover, though there are no plants here, I feel a vibrant vitality, as if every breath I take carries powerful energy, like the tea broth of the Mother of Universal Tea, yet far richer in energy than that broth!"

Ye Chen nodded and smiled: "This place is filled with extremely rich spiritual energy; there must be a vast formation constantly operating, endlessly providing inexhaustible spiritual energy to this place."

Lin Waner, having not attained the Dao, could not fathom how rich the spiritual energy here truly was, so she asked Ye Chen: "Young Master, is the spiritual energy here truly inexhaustible?"

Ye Chen smiled: "This city's scale can at least sustain tens of thousands of people living simultaneously, so its spiritual energy formation must have been designed and built according to the needs of tens of thousands of cultivators; those cultivators each had strength far exceeding mine by a hundred times or more; doing a simple calculation, the spiritual energy here could at least sustain a million low-level cultivators like me; thus, for me, it is absolutely inexhaustible."

Lin Waner could not help but exclaim in delight to Ye Chen: "Then your future cultivation will not only accelerate manyfold, but you will no longer need to worry about spiritual energy! Since this is the case, Young Master, you might as well retreat into seclusion here!"

Ye Chen smiled: "Retreating into seclusion here is naturally beneficial for cultivation, but the richer the spiritual energy, the faster the cultivation speed during seclusion, and the less one feels the passage of time; I fear that if I sink into seclusion here for years or decades, the outside world will have passed tens or even hundreds of years."

One major difference between cultivators and ordinary people lies in their perception of time.

An ordinary person's lifetime is basically a hundred years, but for cultivators, two hundred years is merely the beginning, three to five hundred years is just the entry level, and even a thousand or several thousand years are only the start of the path to longevity.

During secluded cultivation, the better the conditions, the deeper the immersion; Ye Chen differs utterly from someone like Meng Changsheng: Meng Changsheng can cast aside everything for cultivation, but Ye Chen has too many worldly attachments he cannot sever—family, friends, and those red-painted confidantes are all deeply cherished existences in his life; he cannot bear the thought that after secluding himself for years or decades, upon emerging he would find everything changed and people gone.

Lin Waner fully understood Ye Chen's concern; she had long seen that Ye Chen values affection and righteousness, is flesh and blood, certainly not the kind of fanatic who would sacrifice everything for cultivation, even to the point of abandoning all; how could he be willing to waste his prime years in endless cultivation?

Thus she smiled and said to Ye Chen: "Young Master, if you worry about secluding yourself too long alone, then each year during Antarctica's winter, I can come here to accompany you in seclusion for several months; after the Antarctic winter passes, I will wake you."

Ye Chen smiled and nodded: "That is indeed a good idea."

However, Ye Chen soon felt it improper and said: "But this place is truly too shocking and unconventional; besides Lin Waner, I dare not let a third person know of it; if only the two of us know, and I am in seclusion, Lin Waner would have to live here alone for several months, which would surely be lonely."

Upon hearing Ye Chen say he would not let a third person know of this place's secret besides himself, Lin Waner's heart filled with extraordinary surprise and emotion; she knew Ye Chen trusted her, but had not expected such deep trust; her maiden heart, which had first stirred because of Ye Chen, now swelled with joy as her beloved acknowledged her so fully.

The shy Lin Waner lowered her head, unable to meet Ye Chen's eyes, only staring at her own toes as she whispered softly: "Young Master, you overthink; I have endured four hundred years, so what are a few months?"

Ye Chen gently nodded, smiling: "What Lin Waner says also makes sense; if we truly need to retreat into seclusion in the future, then let Lin Waner come with me."

Lin Waner smiled: "Young Master, you may retreat into seclusion here this time; I will guard you; Antarctica's winter still has one and a half months left; I can wake you in forty days, then we return to the research station, meet up with Miss Yun and Miss Song, and leave Antarctica together."

Ye Chen smiled: "How could that work? Forty days—what would you eat? There is no food here at all."

Lin Waner then realized, blushing: "Young Master's reminder is correct; I was negligent."

Ye Chen smiled: "I mainly wanted to bring you to see this place; there are still many wonders here I have not had time to explore, nor to let you experience."

Lin Waner lightly nodded, then suddenly asked Ye Chen: "By the way, Young Master, if in the future we have the opportunity to transplant the Mother of Universal Tea here, given how rich the spiritual energy is, would her growth speed not become astonishingly fast?"

Ye Chen pondered for a moment, then agreed: "That must be the case; she inherently possesses spirituality, likely having cultivated herself since before the end of the Dharma Age, which is why she could withstand the heavenly tribulation at Tianchi a few hundred years ago; but now, after rebirth post-tribulation, she is fully in the end of the Dharma Age and finds it extremely difficult to draw spiritual energy from heaven and earth; if left unattended, even if she lived tens of thousands of years in this life, she would hardly reach tribulation-transcending strength; but if transplanted here, her cultivation speed would also increase geometrically."

Lin Waner exclaimed delightedly: "Then I dare to implore Young Master to bring me back to Antarctica next year, so I may bring the Mother of Universal Tea here to live!"

Ye Chen suddenly had an inspiration, smiling: "Why wait until next year? Let's go back now and transplant her over!"