Chapter 217
Xia Si left.
Lin Hui remained where he was, unmoving. After a short while, a figure in black appeared in the distance and dropped to one knee.
"Master." It was Tao Xuehai, who had been waiting for so ti.
"Your aura has grown stronger again," Lin Hui noted, his expression darkening slightly as he glanced at him. He knew exactly what such a drastic, sudden increase in strength entailed.
"Master, ti waits for no man," Tao Xuehai replied calmly.
"Forget it. Just—know what you're doing. I called you here to impart a special secret art available to all core disciples of our sect: the Righteous Body Law Seal." Lin Hui explained the seal's effects, and Tao Xuehai's eyes lit up, his breathing instantly growing heavy.
An instant fifty-percent boost to overall physical constitution—with no side effects?
Had anyone other than Lin Hui made such a claim, he would have dismissed them as a fraud. But recalling Xia Si's recent appearance, he knew in his heart that this seal thod was real.
"What does this disciple need to do?"
"Nothing. The only prerequisite is a deep, genuine sense of identification with the Clear Wind Temple—and with . You must acknowledge yourself as a true mber of the Clear Wind Temple; only then can you inherit the seal's power," Lin Hui said indifferently.
"That is no problem for this disciple!" Tao Xuehai bowed his head and answered solemnly.
Lin Hui didn't waste words. He reached out and tapped the center of the man's brow. Instantly, a white light flashed, and a seal mark glead for a fleeting mont.
In under a second, Tao Xuehai's body expanded rapidly. His muscles bulged wildly, thick veins surfacing across his skin. In the blink of an eye, he had grown into a burly near-giant over two and a half ters tall.
"This power—!" Tao Xuehai sensed the changes inside his body in disbelief. Far stronger than anything he had imagined.
"Go back and get used to it," Lin Hui said, turning away.
"Your disciple obeys… Thank you for your nurturing, Master." Tao Xuehai bowed again.
By the ti Lin Hui looked back, the man had already vanished.
Now that everything is handled, it's ti to deal with the base...
Lin Hui took stock of his newly acquired precious dicines. Tao Xuehai had delivered a batch, adding to his existing reserves. He now had twenty-six stalks of Purple Cloud Reishi, and his stock of Spirit-Enriching Reishi had returned to fifty-three.
Should be enough to evolve the herb garden.
But before starting, there was one more matter to handle—at Lin Hongzhen's ho. His older cousin had been in a coma for several years. Her once-strong body had withered to bone, and she relied on her maid to wipe her down daily just to stave off bedsores.
Lin Hui's figure slipped silently into Lin Hongzhen's brightly lit room. He reached out and gently tapped her brow, activating the Blood Seal appraisal.
[Lin Hongzhen: Human. Daughter of the Lin family's first branch. Comatose for many years due to head trauma. Status: Weak.]
[Cultivation thod: Nine Flowers Divine thod, Ethereal ntal thod, Body Strengthening Art.]
[Evolvable Branches: 2.]
Lin Hui wasn't surprised. He took out a bottle of dicinal pills designed specifically for head trauma—the Baoning Pill—and turned the Blood Seal's focus upon them. Evolving a dicine to treat brain trauma to indirectly cure his eldest cousin was the single best thod he could devise.
So ten minutes later, Lin Hui vanished from the room. On the bed, Lin Hongzhen's throat bobbed slightly, and her eyelids fluttered. There was finally a trace of improvent.
Xia Si joined the Rain Palace. Lin Hui taught Yun Xiazi the Wild Wind Sword Technique.
With those matters settled, the Clear Wind Temple returned to its previous peace. After the Wanhua Sect was thoroughly purged, the eldest brother's faction gradually went quiet as well. Liu Xiao returned to the Rain Palace to resu her duties, and Liu Wujun followed his teacher back, occupied with who-knew-what.
Lin Hui focused wholeheartedly on constructing the new stronghold. Inside the maze ruins, he steadily transported and stockpiled easily stored dry rations. Using his connections, he purchased a set of condensation equipnt designed to collect moisture from the air. After spending a modest amount of precious dicine to evolve it with the Blood Seal, he successfully integrated the crude assembly of cans and pipes into the maze stronghold, turning it into a self-sustaining system capable of producing condensed water each day.
Following that, he consulted several architectural experts from the Inner City and, piece by piece, manually constructed a sewage system inside the stronghold.
Finally, with all other miscellaneous tasks complete, he buried the Purple Snow Jade underground in the designated areas, watered it with specific dicinal potions, and waited for the Purple Cloud Reishi herb garden to take shape.
According to the herbal experts from the Inner City, establishing a Purple Cloud Reishi garden required the Purple Snow Jade to successfully take root underground, grow actively, and enter a reproductive state. Aside from the necessary dicines, this process demanded a wait of at least one year.
Lin Hui was in no rush. The garden was built and the foundation laid; he simply had to wait a year for it to mature, then evolve it with the Blood Seal. The future held real promise.
During that year, he didn't let the Blood Seal sit idle. He used it to evolve various energy-boosting aphrodisiacs—though the results proved frustrating. Every evolved product turned out to be an ultra-long-duration lifespan-extending dicine. Aphrodisiacs, when evolved, invariably transford into longevity pills and often required decades of evolution ti. If his lifespan were nearing its end, he could use them to extend it, but he hadn't reached that point yet. So he evolved only one serving and kept it as an insurance policy for Tao Xuehai.
Ti passed, bit by bit.
In the blink of an eye, another year was gone.
The Clear Wind Temple's power had expanded once more. With the Bestowal Seal and the addition of Xia Si, the sect's influence now faintly rivaled that of the New Martial Alliance. Ostensibly just a large martial hall in the Outer City, its reach was expanding rapidly in all directions, driven by the ever-growing strength of its mbers and disciples.
The Clear Wind Temple's third path—dual cultivation of Body Tempering and Internal Force—had also beco widely known following Xia Si's rise to fa.
In the midst of this settled life, Lin Hui's Typhoon Sword Technique finally reached the eighth rank of Body Tempering. He was only one rank away from achieving Perfected mastery and beginning his cultivation of the Star Breath Sword Canon.
It was then that a massive crisis erupted during the new cohort's Called One seedling entrance exams in the city.
…
Clear Wind Temple. Council Hall.
"Normally, all Called One seedlings from the Outer City are gathered for a preliminary assessnt before being screened and admitted into the Three Great Powers of the Inner City—just to confirm the Outer City isn't falsifying anything," Wang Hongshi reported to Lin Hui, who sat in the master's seat, his expression grave. "But this ti, hidden assassins erged from among the examinees. In an extrely short span of ti, they slaughtered every examining official sent by the Three Great Powers. Then, using the officials' tokens, they called for backup, luring in the reinforcent teams and wiping those experts out as well."
Wang Hongshi let out a breath, his face etched with disbelief.
"One link in the chain after another—they killed nearly forty people in a single sweep. Five were High Divine Officers; twenty-two were Divine Officers. In one stroke, they gutted nearly half the entire combat division of the Three Great Powers. Now the Three Great Powers are left with only one or two High Divine Officers in their senior fighting force; above them are only the Vice Palace Masters and Palace Masters themselves. The mid-tier of High Divine Officers has been nearly wiped out. As for Divine Officers, they've been reduced to a third of recent years' strength."
"According to the latest investigation reports, this attack was preditated, with preparations dating back over a year. The communications personnel, the tokens, the participating Called One geniuses, and even the Pacification Corps responsible for maintaining basic security—all had been silently infiltrated by a hidden faction."
"With losses of this scale, the Moon Tower is furious. The mid and upper-tier fighting forces are in desperate need of replenishnt, so a new round of grand selections has begun. Opportunities have opened up for High Divine Officers outside the Three Great Powers."
"What a ss," Lin Hui sighed.
Over the past year, he had essentially been running a steady cycle with the Blood Seal, evolving various life-cycle systems for the maze ruins. The place could now sustain an internal loop of water usage and crop cultivation—in large part thanks to the experts he had consulted from the Benevolent Heart Sect, who had prior experience in this area and whose guidance had proved invaluable.
The most crucial piece, however, was the herb garden. After spending more than half his stock of precious dicine, the Purple Cloud Reishi herb garden had been successfully established and had undergone significant refinent and evolution. As a result, Lin Hui had increasingly shifted the center of his daily life to the maze.
"The current shortage of mid-to-high-tier High Divine Officers and Divine Officers will inevitably lead to deteriorating public order across the Inner City—more unrest, a rising cri rate," Wang Hongshi said, frowning.
"Chain reactions have already appeared in the Outer City districts. Recently, many wealthy households and large clans from various towns have moved to Xinyu Town, seeking the protection of the Clear Wind Temple. Land and housing prices in the surrounding area have skyrocketed," Chen Sui, standing to the side, said with a deep frown.
"My family owns a fair amount of real estate—we made a tidy profit alongside it," Chen Xiangzhi, one of the top ten core disciples, chuckled.
"My family's business made a fair bit as well. Prices have been surging wildly," Little Hu chid in with a laugh.
He was noticeably more mature and taller than before; the boyishness of his early days was long gone.
"It seems everyone has avoided any negative fallout—good. Next, I have an announcent." Lin Hui amplified his voice with Internal Force so everyone could hear clearly.
"Starting tomorrow, the Clear Wind Temple will be renad the Clear Wind Dao. The word 'Temple' has beco impractical—we have dozens of branches, and our Internal Force martial artists exceed fifty. Keeping the na 'Clear Wind Temple' too easily leads to confusion when dividing responsibilities. All local branches will fall under the na of the Clear Wind Dao. The Clear Wind Dao will have one Dao Master—the forr Temple Master—and the rest of the roles will remain essentially the sa as before. Only the titles at headquarters need to change from 'Temple' to 'Dao'."
"True enough. We've had no end of trouble over this; it's long past ti to clearly distinguish primary from secondary roles," Huang Shan was the first to nod in agreent.
By now, within the Clear Wind Temple, it was the top ten core disciples—not the elders—who held the real say. That was the primary change to erge from the battle in which Xia Si had revealed herself. During that event, more than half the participating elders had been so afraid of dying that they'd fled outright. From that mont on, the position of elder within the sect held no sway.
Instead, it was the top ten disciples who, after receiving the Bestowal Seal and seeing their strength skyrocket, had stepped directly into the sect's managent. A year on, the prototype of ten small factions had gradually taken shape. Outsiders had taken to calling them the Ten Great True Inheritors, each having gathered followers and properties under their na.
After the discussion, the crowd dispersed. Lin Hui returned to the rear courtyard mansion, checked Lin Xiaoliu's sword practice progress, and then went to the small garden alone.
A black-robed figure had been waiting there for so ti. As Lin Hui entered, the figure turned—a black eagle mask obscuring his face.
"Master, I haven't seen you in a few months, and you seem even more powerful than before…" ca Tao Xuehai's voice from beneath the mask.
"You said last ti you were going to do sothing big. I heard—it was indeed a big deal," Lin Hui sighed.
He watched this increasingly gloomy disciple in silence. He had seen it happen step by step: the man who had once been sunny, confident, and proud had slowly transford into sothing sinister and suppressed. Life was unpredictable. Perhaps that was simply what it ant.
"It isn't enough. Master, I ca here to warn you. For the ti being, please do not go near the Chen clan. Do not get close to anyone from the Chen clan—not a single person," Tao Xuehai said softly.
"You're moving against the Chen clan!?" Lin Hui's eyes narrowed. "Tell
the truth—what level of power can you actually mobilize? Enough to make a direct move on the Chen clan?"
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