Chapter 1296: Fleet Descends, The Cultivation World is in Danger

It has been over half a year since the cultivation world entered a state of readiness. News of cultivators breaking through cultivation stages has been arriving one after another. Terms like "Little Lu Yang" and "potential to rival Lu Yang" have become commonplace, making it seem as if every prodigious talent can now contend with the Lu Yang of yesteryear.

There are far fewer prodigies being called "Little Meng Jingzhou." After all, imitating Meng Jingzhou is too difficult; which prodigy doesn't harbor dreams of romantic encounters with saintesses and demonesses?

Initially, Lu Yang tried to stop this undesirable trend. However, his previous fame was too immense, and everyone aimed to emulate him. This led to such an overwhelming craze that it became impossible to halt. Faced with this, Lu Yang could only sigh. He spent his days at the newspaper office, reviewing intelligence. Over time, he developed the ability to automatically filter out the phrase "Little Lu Yang."

This also reflects the vibrant and thriving spirit currently present in the cultivation world. Everyone is striving to seize this great opportunity, cultivating with all their might. If they could distinguish themselves during the conflict with the Candletorch Civilization, that would be even better.

Nowadays, something newsworthy happens every moment in the cultivation world. Weekly newspapers could no longer meet the public's needs. Fortunately, the aid team brought by Dean Gao made a significant breakthrough in combining spiritual energy with technology. They could mass-produce quantum communicators, though the cost had not yet decreased. Typically, three to five households would pool their resources to buy one communicator. Communication efficiency improved dramatically. Consequently, the newspaper naturally transitioned from "Cultivation Weekly" to "Cultivation Daily."

"Strange, why haven't the Candletorch Civilization's warships arrived yet?" Emperor Xia and others wondered. It had been over half a year. It was worth noting that Lu Yang had returned to the cultivation world from the Interstellar Alliance in less than a month.

"Perhaps they encountered an unforeseen event along the way?" Zhu Tian speculated, as he chatted with Emperor Xia via a quantum communicator.

"Aren't they supposed to be cosmic overlords? What kind of accident could they possibly encounter?"

The advent of "Cultivation Daily" meant that newspapers had to be published every day, significantly increasing the workload. Lu Yang simply couldn't handle it and wanted to slip away. Yet, he was the one who had told the Innate Daoist and Gu Junye that he would handle newspaper matters from then on. It's hard to back down once you've made such a bold claim. Lu Yang had no choice but to claim that as a demigod, he had to undertake the duty of guarding the cultivation world, and thus went to the entrance of the cultivation world to enjoy some peace.

The cultivation world had established two defensive lines at its entrance. The first line of defense consisted of Body Fusion stage cultivators, and the second line of defense comprised Tribulation Transcending stage cultivators. They rotated periodically to prevent sneak attacks from the Candletorch Civilization. The Tribulation Transcending stage cultivators were all from the older generation, and Lu Yang wasn't familiar with them, so he blended in with the Body Fusion stage cultivators; at least there were familiar faces there.

Not far from the cultivation world, space twisted, and one fleshy fleet after another emerged through a wormhole. To reach the cultivation world sooner, Shi Wumian ordered his fleet to accelerate relentlessly, regardless of the consequences. They arrived at their destination in less than a year.

Immediately after completing the spatial jump, the spirit stone detection radar began beeping incessantly. The dial showed countless dense red dots, too many to count. Shi Wumian rubbed his hands in excitement; to him, the sound was incredibly pleasant. It meant that the cultivator named Lu Yang hadn't lied to the Interstellar Alliance: the cultivation world truly possessed countless spirit stones! Even in the Heavenly Emperor's homeland, the radar had never reacted so intensely! Perhaps even all 1,500 warships couldn't hold so many spirit stones! He could already envision returning laden with treasure and how the Heavenly Emperor would reward him.

Shi Wumian forced himself to calm down, magnified the radar display, and projected it onto the screen for all commanders to see. "You all see it, don't you? The cultivation world has vast quantities of spirit stones, but the largest amounts, and those of the highest quality, are in these five locations." Shi Wumian pointed his command baton at five unknown areas. The red dots were densest in these five places, and they glowed crimson, almost purple.

"Shortly, each of you will lead 200 warships through directed wormholes to these five locations to plunder spirit stones. Take as much as you can carry! I will report each of your performances to His Majesty the Heavenly Emperor upon our return." There was no need for rules in such an undeveloped place; simply plunder and be done with it.

"Yes, sir!" The commanders' eyes shone brightly, gleaming with excitement. They knew this was an excellent opportunity to achieve great deeds; if they performed well, they could compete for the position of Legion Commander in the future. This was Shi Wumian's philosophy of leadership: offer benefits to your subordinates, and they will fight for you. Assigning these five commanders separately would maximize their achievements.

Directed wormholes: a wormhole technology that even the Interstellar Alliance hadn't mastered. As long as a probe could pinpoint a location, there was no need to establish a signal receiver at the other end; a wormhole could be directly constructed to reach it. Five directed wormholes appeared before the fleet. The commanders led their warships into the wormholes; the wormholes closed, and the fleets vanished.

Shi Wumian's fleet consisted of 1,500 warships in total. He had dispatched 1,000, leaving 500. It would be undignified for a Legion Commander to personally engage in plunder. All he had to do was wait for the results here.

After a while, he grew puzzled. According to regulations, fleets were supposed to report their status after passing through a wormhole. Why had these five commanders gone silent after entering the wormholes?

"Fleet One, respond.""Fleet Two, respond.""Three...""Four...""Five..."

The communicators emitted static, with no response.

Shi Wumian frowned. Was the unique terrain of the cultivation world interfering with the signal? There had been precedents for this; normal communication would resume if they got closer. Shi Wumian disliked things being out of his control. He ordered the remaining 500 warships to approach the cultivation world.

Fleet One emerged from the wormhole, its radar nearly maxing out. The commander was extremely excited, thinking this might be the location with the most spirit stones among the five.

"Reporting, Commander. Below appears to be an undeveloped, remote mountainous region, with scattered buildings." The commander heard the report, looked down, and indeed, it was true. As far as the eye could see, there were mountains everywhere, with few signs of development. It seemed the people living here were quite primitive.

"Land."

A technician saluted and reported: "Reporting, Commander, an anomalous force field has been detected. Preliminary suspicion is that it's a natural field formed by an excessive and irregularly distributed quantity of local spirit stones. The fleet cannot land." The energy reconnaissance display showed anomalous data, a situation they had never encountered before.

The commander frowned; something had gone wrong at a critical moment. "How do we resolve this?"

"We can try to neutralize the force field with a maximum power energy beam."

"Granted."

*Boom—*

A long-charged, pure white energy beam descended from the sky, striking the Dao-Seeking Sect's protective formation and rippling gently. True Immortal Zhuiyue and Qinghe, who were drinking tea on the snowy mountain, and the River Spirit, who was bathing in the river, all simultaneously looked up at the bizarre, caterpillar-like fleet in the sky, somewhat bewildered.

Weren't two defensive lines established at the entrance? How did this fleet get in? And were they actually... attacking the Dao-Seeking Sect?

Inside Prison Peak, the prisoners heard the commotion and all witnessed the scene, dumbfounded. They had learned about the Candletorch Civilization through the newspapers, but they had never imagined the Candletorch Civilization would dare to attack the Dao-Seeking Sect. Guan Shanhai couldn't hold back and burst out laughing.