Wang Juemie lost.

It was both a surprise and not a surprise.

Having walked the path of strength this whole time, he truly did surpass Tang Jie when it came to pure power, but his fighting methods were too monotone and lacking in variety. In the end, Tang Jie managed to seize this weakness and hammer away at it.

Of course, only Tang Jie was capable enough to counter him. Anyone else would have been flattened by Wang Juemie’s storm of punches before they could even realize this weakness.

After the battle, it was basically obligatory to hold a feast to celebrate both combatants.

During the feast, everyone tacitly chose to avoid bringing up the second Dao Art.

Not only that, Ji Qingfeng had some disciples spread the explanation that Tang Jie had used his duplicates to deceive Wang Juemie and attain victory over him.

The duel was too large-scale to cover up, so all he could do was create some fake information. Tang Jie’s duplicates had stopped being a secret many years ago, so this form of cover-up both kept Tang Jie’s Reflections of Floating Life a secret and would also make everyone underestimate Wang Juemie, thinking that he couldn’t even deal with some simple illusions.

After the feast was over, Ji Qingfeng invited Tang Jie to have a talk about Godhead Palace.

On the matter of decision-making, Ji Qingfeng finally ceded ground.

This was an extremely secretive conversation, and nobody knew its contents outside of Ji Qingfeng and Tang Jie.

Not long afterward, Tang Jie left the Seven Absolutions Sect to return to the Basking Moon Sect. Of course, he took Hong Shenji’s two Eight Gate Banners with him. Thus, he now had five of eight, only missing three from the set.

But Tang Jie didn’t care much about finding them. After all, each banner had its own unique properties and could work on its own. It wasn’t as if gathering all eight would let him summon a divine dragon.

The day he returned to the Basking Moon Sect, a grandiose welcoming ceremony was held for him.

The news of Tang Jie’s battle with Wang Juemie had already reached the sect, and the results were earthshaking.

While Tang Jie had been in the Verdant Cloud Domain, Wang Juemie had dominated the headlines of the Rosecloud Domain, achieving countless shocking feats in battle. But now, someone had finally defeated him, and he was from the Basking Moon Sect! How could everyone not be excited?

Normally, he should have been richly rewarded, but Tang Jie was already the Young Lord, and had many other privileges besides that, even being able to meet the sect ancestor whenever he wanted, so Ling Xiao had no idea how to reward him. In the end, he took up Tang Jie’s suggestion and gave Er Hu, Xi Canhen, Wei Tianchong, Cai Junyang, and the others the opportunity to enter the Water Moon Paradise. Of course, they would have to pay the required contribution points on their own, just like when Tang Jie had gone into the Water Moon Paradise that first time.

Tang Jie took up residence in the back mountain of Starsnatch Peak.

Sect Master Ling Xiao had seven disciples in all, with Tang Jie being the youngest of the seven. Of these, the third and fifth disciples had died in battle with the Beast Refining Gate, leaving him with three senior brothers and one senior sister.

But while they were his senior sister and senior brothers, even the youngest of them had been cultivating for five hundred years. They spent most of their time in seclusion, going out so rarely that it was hard to meet them. It was only when Ling Xiao had a ceremony to welcome his new disciple that they all came out at once, and they were neither warm nor cold to Tang Jie.

The path of the Great Dao was so difficult that one always felt like there wasn’t enough time, even if one spent the whole day cultivating. Nobody had time to go around intentionally excluding other people. Their master could take as many disciples as he wanted so long as he continued to give them all the same amount of resources.

The life of being the sect master’s disciple was surprisingly simple and quiet, but it was also rather lonely and cold, which took Tang Jie some time to adapt to.

But then he realized: wasn’t this the life a cultivator was after in the first place?

Cultivating in peace and quiet in pursuit of Immortality, leaving all the other business to others, was why a sect existed. When one reached the upper echelons, one could just sit back and enjoy the benefits.

This was why, at this point, there was nothing that Tang Jie needed to worry about. If he needed anything, he could just issue a command.

Thus, Tang Jie began to live a peaceful and simple life.

As Tang Jie’s Divine Soul was damaged and couldn’t cultivate, Tang Jie put most of his energy into comprehending the Great Daos.

Heavenly Balance Mountain had already been handed over to the Basking Moon Sect, and Ling Xiao had given it over to Tang Jie to serve as his private land. Tang Jie began to spend his days weaving a Web of Fate, trying to turn the place into his home court. He had already comprehended the paths one could take on the Dao of Fate, and he had already made his choice: creating his own Web of Fate. Although this was the most difficult path and the one most unacceptable to the principles of the world, Tang Jie didn’t care. He would do whatever he set his mind to, without care for whatever that Heavenly Dao that might not even exist thought.

Besides that, he also collected questions from the Cloud Ancestor, and when he gathered enough questions, he took the teleportation formation to the Verdant Cloud Domain to pass them on to Immortal Ji Yao. The Verdant Cloud Domain was the same as ever. Immortal Ji Yao was still sealed, Lin Xin still slept every day while her Divine Soul matured, and only Shentu and the others came by occasionally to visit these two Titans, bringing with them their own questions on cultivation.

Immortal Ji Yao treated them rather well, answering any questions they had, even passing on to Ice Phoenix the Jade Lady Iceheart Mantra.

This mantra was an Immortal art that Immortal Ji Yao had cultivated while in the Myriad Court. Once she successfully cultivated this mantra, Ice Phoenix would have a smooth path. Tang Jie had asked for this art and had the Cloud Ancestor take a look at it. He confirmed that it was an Immortal art, but alas, it could only be learned by females, and it also required one to sever one’s emotions or else suffer backlash. As for what this backlash entailed, it was difficult to say. Ice Phoenix was a very aloof and cold person who had never fallen in love with a man before, so she was a perfect match for this art, much to Tang Jie’s relief.

Tang Jie also went into the valley to battle with the Vermillion Bird.

This time, he used all of his strength: the Infinite Palace, the Reflections of Floating Life, and also the Ten Extinctions Blade. Ultimately, as the Vermillion Bird gradually ramped up in power, he lost, but he was able to last for longer, allowing him to pick ten-some herbs from the valley and hand them over to the Seven Absolutions Sect.

The Seven Absolutions Sect sent over the resources Tang Jie had asked for, all of which were dumped into the Mountain River State Diagram. When He Chong saw those mountains of seeds, he was utterly speechless.

Just how long was this going to take?

It seemed like Tang Jie wasn’t treating He Chong like an outsider at all.

Not only that, resources were also coming in from the Blood River Domain side, plants and materials unique to this domain constantly flowing in thanks to the inter-domain trade.

As every plant had a different growing environment, it was He Chong’s job to use the resources he had on hand and create the various environments in the diagram world.

This man-made nature was bound to be very different from reality, making it somewhat alien and strange.

But regardless, the Mountain River State Diagram’s world was greatly enriched. Thanks to He Chong, mountains and rivers began to appear, and the diagram world was now a world bursting with colors, not a vast stretch of lifeless black soil.

The weather started to change, developing into four seasons.

This was a change of immense importance. The presence of four seasons meant that life could develop in more directions, and some shifting of terrain allowed for further adjustment of the climate.

The world gradually started to operate on its own rather than entirely relying on formations.

It was at this time that He Chong noticed some problems.

He found that when the world was operating on its own, strange things began to happen. Occasionally, powerful storms would form, and vicious beasts would appear.

These natural disasters had serious effects on the diagram world.

The creatures on the central island were scared out of their wits. They prayed up to the skies for a solution, but they received no response.

He Chong told Tang Jie about this problem, but Tang Jie was also perplexed.

Logically, as he invested more and more resources, the world would be more and more perfected. Why was something like this happening?

He couldn’t understand.

Unable to find an answer, Tang Jie could only put the problem to the side for now and tell He Chong to keep an eye out to minimize the damage.

Fortunately, the world was in a closed state, so all the losses were simply a form of energy conversion, with no energy being lost. It just made future development rather problematic.

While Tang Jie was the one investing all the resources into the small world, it was He Chong’s trio that was putting all the time and effort into building the world. They weren’t happy to see such things ruining their work, so they did their best to minimize the damage.

But until they found the root of the problem, the world’s development would be stalled. Additional investment would only increase the energy and the scale of the disasters rather than improve the world.

Thus, once the Seven Absolutions Sect finished supplying its side of the resources, Tang Jie had Xu Miaoran stop sending him resources as well. He would stop throwing resources into the Mountain River State Diagram until he could find out why this was happening.

His current priority was to heal up and prepare to break into Violet Palace.

His Divine Soul recovered faster than he had expected.

After only thirty-two years, Tang Jie’s Divine Soul was completely healed.

Since he had extra time, Tang Jie used the Peaceful Abode Classic to practice forming the Violet Palace several times, familiarizing himself with the process. Of course, he only needed to test the waters, not go all-out as he had done the first time. Thus, he only needed a few months to recover after each test.

He spent eighteen years doing this, and soon, the fifty-year time limit he had set for himself was up.

It was time for Tang Jie to break through into Violet Palace.

Heavenly Balance Mountain, the Valley of the Eight Wilds.

This was a valley completely encircled by the mountain, a mountain made entirely from violet gold.

Tang Jie sat in the valley.

Outside the valley, atop the mountain, several thousand disciples of the Basking Moon Sect’s Combat Department were assembled in a large formation that locked down Heavenly Balance Mountain.

The Basking Moon Sect viewed Tang Jie’s breakthrough with extreme importance. At least six chiefs had appeared here, along with Ling Xiao, Xiao Biehan, and Ming Yekong.

If Tang Jie ascended to Violet Palace, the Basking Moon Sect would have six Violet Palace True Lords.

The Basking Moon Sect would instantly jump to being the strongest of the six major sects, so they would not permit any mishaps in this charge at Violet Palace.