Chapter 158: Foundation Establishment Stage Two

Five years!

It has been five years of rapid cultivation growth! Even without the aid of elixirs, his cultivation advanced swiftly, placing him among the top tier of dual spiritual root cultivators.

The dual placement slots alone accumulated 90,000 strands of spiritual energy, which translates to a full 90 drops of true essence. Additionally, his own diligent cultivation added another 12 drops.

It is now the sixth month of his fifth year as a deacon.

He has reached the second layer of Foundation Establishment, accumulating 132 drops of true essence. This indicates he has progressed a significant distance within this layer, well beyond its initial stage. He will be able to break through to the third layer of Foundation Establishment once he reaches 300 drops.

He will only face the first major hurdle of the Foundation Establishment stage, "Core Condensation," when he reaches 500 drops.

Currently, the placement slots are configured as follows:

Placement Slot 1: Heaven-Cold Yin Blood ArtPlacement Slot 2: Heaven-Cold Yin Blood Art'Heaven-Cold Yin Blood Art (33/100): 48 practices a day, achievable in 20 years.'

Placement Slot 3: Grand Yin Spirit Eyes (Tier 2)'Grand Yin Spirit Eyes (100/100): No further derivation possible.'

Placement Slot 4: Frost Moon Wings'Frost Moon Wings (20/100): 12 practices a day, achievable in 8 years.'

Placement Slot 5: Corpse Demon Secret Art (Completion in progress↑)'Corpse Demon Secret Art (50/100): 1,440 practices a day, achievable in 10 years.'

Regarding his cultivation techniques:

After *Cold Blood Spirit Ascension Art* reached perfection and activated its aptitude-enhancing effect, it became redundant.

As for *Heaven-Cold Yin Blood Art*, it is a Foundation Establishment cultivation method that only requires 30 years in a placement slot to reach perfection. Given its inherent profoundness, the placement slot should be able to boost it to Tier 3.

This alone indicates a higher return from the Heaven-Cold Yin Blood Art. In terms of cultivation speed, the minor boosts from perfecting other cultivation methods became negligible once he acquired his dual spiritual root aptitude.

It was worth switching to.

As for the Grand Yin Spirit Eyes in slot three, its 'Illusory Moon Realm' cultivation was just perfected today. Based on past experience, unlocking the next stage requires breaking through to the Core Formation realm to obtain it from the heritage jade slip.

After some thought, Wang Yu placed *Mountain Search Demon Hunt* into a slot. This secret art, derived from ancient soul heritage, was precisely the ability Wang Yu lacked and had practiced relatively little in recent years.

Placement Slot 3: Mountain Search Demon Hunt'Mountain Search Demon Hunt (10/100): 144 practices a day, achievable in 9 years.'

The placement slots could achieve one practice every ten minutes, truly reflecting the innate diligence of the 'Ox-Horse Saint Body.' According to his future plans, the 'Heavenly Soul One Qi,' 'Soul Shattering Finger,' and 'Mind-Controlling Demonic Sound' would all need to be scheduled.

Wang Yu estimated that his entire Foundation Establishment cultivation period would be dedicated to these inherited techniques.

After reviewing his gains over the past five years,

Wang Yu went out to purchase supplies, spending all the spirit stones he had accumulated. His main expenses were reserves of medicinal herbs, a Tier 2 alchemy furnace, a Tier 2 flying boat, Tier 2 formation flags, and other major expenditures.

Thus, ten days later, the day of departure arrived!

"Are you really planning to leave so soon?"

"Yes, a day earlier or later won't make much difference."

Wang Yu raised his hand, immediately stopping the Three Rebellious Spirits from saying more: "That's enough. Thank you for your protection during this time. I have my own path to follow."

Aside from their transactions, the three of them were actually decent people, and after spending this time together, they had come to understand each other better.

However, staying within the sect made many things difficult to manage.

Simply selling elixirs, for example, was impossible without going through the Alchemy Hall. There were too many restrictions. Once his spirit stones ran out, he would have to risk creating trouble again to gain sect benefits.

Doing such things too often could easily backfire; it was better to be free outside.

He also wanted to continue improving his spiritual root aptitude, which meant he had to look for opportunities outside. Most disciples within the sect had triple spiritual roots, which no longer provided him with any enhancement.

While there were also many with dual spiritual roots, most were taken as disciples by the master-disciple lineage, making them difficult to approach.

He only needed the Reverse Spirit Blood Sect as a backer to provide him with subsequent cultivation methods; he would naturally acquire other resources on his own.

Bowing to the three, Wang Yu released a small spirit boat-type flying artifact he had only recently refined, named the 'Flying Cloud Skiff'.

It could carry three to five people, fly for half an hour on one low-grade spirit stone, and its speed was comparable to a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Ranked as a mid-grade Tier 2 artifact, it was quite a fine piece.

"Fourth Brother, this is for you."

Just as he boarded the Flying Cloud Skiff, Zuoqiu Ming tossed him a jade slip.

"It contains information about Guiling City: the families within the city, surrounding forces, and past years' revenue information."

"It highlights several troublemakers and the situation of a few Core Formation cultivators. When you're out there, your primary reliance will be the mid-grade Tier 3 formation array the sect has set up in the City Lord's Mansion. You must be careful."

Wang Yu understood. He had also gathered some intelligence himself, but it was certainly not as detailed as what they provided. He could study it thoroughly during his journey.

"I understand. In that case, I will take my leave. Our next meeting might be a century from now."

With that, Wang Yu turned, controlled the skiff, and swiftly departed into the distance.

In places he couldn't see,

Situ Hong was in seclusion, nearing the final stage of his breakthrough, while Tantai Chan stood on the side of Cold Blood Peak, gazing into the distance in the direction he departed. Zhuo Shouqing and others watched for a long while before sighing and returning.

Their relationship was largely maintained by mutual benefit, but it also contained a faint thread of camaraderie, just enough to be considered friends. With his departure, the years would truly pass by...

Wang Yu flew eastward. Guiling City was located in Cloud Ridge Province, the smallest of the Reverse Spirit Blood Sect's four provinces and the only one that was vertically demarcated.

Its name was — Cloud Ridge Province!

With its verdant mountains and clear waters, layered peaks and ridges, forestland accounted for over eighty percent of its area. The scattered demonic beasts were almost as numerous as those in dangerous lands.

However, there were few strong cultivators, making it suitable for low-level cultivators to gain experience.

Moreover, the entire province was perpetually shrouded in thick mist. The cloud qi seemed to surge from underground, not only dense but also generally low-lying, causing Cloud Ridge Province to be covered in mist year-round with cold temperatures.

Yet, some people precisely enjoyed this 'ethereal' environment, delighting in the feeling of stirring up wisps of white mist with every step, as if living in a celestial realm. This was Cloud Ridge!

Wang Yu sat at the bow of the skiff, splitting his attention to control its direction while meticulously studying the information in the jade slip.

After reviewing the general situation of the province,

it was time for the main focus — Guiling City!

The city was built on a plain, comprising five districts. It had a permanent population of 500,000 and a floating population exceeding one million, with people from other regions arriving daily.

From this perspective alone, Guiling City was undoubtedly one of the most outstanding cities in the Scarlet Kite region; with such a large population, it couldn't be poor.

It boasted one mid-grade Tier 3 spirit vein, three high-grade Tier 2 spirit veins, and dozens of derived Tier 1 spiritual lands. Its environment was also top-notch.

Outside the city, there were 80,000 mu of spirit fields and 290,000 mu of ordinary farmland, half of which belonged to the City Lord's Mansion. The five districts within the city were divided into East, South, West, North, and Central, with the City Lord's Mansion located in the center.

Three of the four outer districts were controlled by cultivation families. They operated three market squares and also held law enforcement authority.

Only the Central and Northern districts were under the direct control of the City Lord's Mansion.

"The Bai, Guan, and Jiang families… Each of these three families has an ancestor at the peak of Foundation Establishment, typically five to eight Foundation Establishment cultivators within the clan, over a thousand practitioners per family, and they are proficient in various immortal cultivation arts."

This number was not small. For cultivators operating under a family structure, those with spiritual roots were effectively breeding stock; having three wives and four concubines was common, all to expand the family and, if a child with spiritual roots was born, they would certainly enter the cultivation path.

This was different from the spirit-testing days dominated by major powers.

Spirit slaves were a distinctive product of the demonic path, ranging from Qi Condensation to Core Formation cultivators. However, that was a feature of wartime; ordinarily, the highest were Foundation Establishment spirit slaves, who were all captured righteous cultivators.

As for clans, they had different arrangements for family members with low aptitudes. The simplest and most common was for them to become spirit farmers.

Cultivating spirit rice for the broader cultivation world, this method of exploitation was a unique feature of the Taihu Spirit Domain.

The Scarlet Kite people hadn't perfected this method; while the death rate was much lower than for spirit slaves, they couldn't achieve lifelong, lossless exploitation. Taihu had more experience in this regard.

They could firmly control the lives of spirit slaves through housing in cultivation market cities, ensuring they passed down their lineage there for generations, providing all support for their descendants' cultivation.

All for the sake of rising to prominence and producing one great Foundation Establishment cultivator.

The more Wang Yu read, the tighter his brows furrowed; he had a strong sense of déjà vu.

However,

while lessons could be learned, Taihu's methods could not be fully applied to the Scarlet Kite people.

The Taihu Spirit Domain operated with sects establishing numerous market cities as governors, exploiting resources from countless rogue cultivators and generations of practitioners.

The Scarlet Kite Demonic Domain, however, used cities as secondary administrative bodies, providing substantial support. Wang Yu held not only the Guiling City Lord's token but also the key artifact to control the mid-grade Tier 3 formation array.

As for how to earn spirit stones, that was left to the City Lord himself; he could do whatever he wished, as long as he ensured the normal proliferation of the population. The higher-ups did not interfere much.

Guiling City, acquired through the efforts of the Zhuo clan, was clearly more valuable than an average spirit vein city.

Looking back through the records, past City Lords were mostly Core Formation cultivators, with the lowest being inner disciples promoted from the late Foundation Establishment stage. Wang Yu was considered to have the lowest cultivation among all previous City Lords.

Under these circumstances, gaining complete control would be truly difficult.

However, with the authority of the higher sect and the city-protecting formation array as safeguards, the situation would gradually improve as his cultivation advanced. Once he could truly dominate the city, resources would naturally flow in continuously.

"It presents some difficulty, but it's still within the scope of a challenge."

And it would only get better.

The Three Rebellious Spirits had indeed gifted him a lucrative position, but whether he could maintain control depended entirely on his own methods.

After a long while,

putting down the spirit sense jade slip containing the information, Wang Yu pondered how to open up the situation. As a newcomer, he had a few choices:

1. Cultivate harmony for wealth: Share profits to stabilize the situation temporarily, but the other parties would become increasingly greedy, eventually leading to a collapse.2. Leverage sect influence: Use the sect's prestige to intimidate. Those with weak resolve might be deterred, but those with strong resolve might directly resort to fighting.3. Play coy and feign friendliness: Secretly find weaknesses to exploit, directly annihilating a clan and suppressing others through violent means.4. Deliver an immediate show of force…

After much deliberation, he concluded that if he could deliver an initial show of force to demonstrate his strength, and then offer a 'sweet date' (a gesture of goodwill), he could stabilize the situation temporarily. Once he broke through to the mid-Foundation Establishment stage, he would be confident in fully controlling Guiling City.

"Let's proceed with this for now; everything can be decided once I arrive."

Currently, Wang Yu's main focus was on matters within the city, though the troubles outside were actually more numerous.