The Gong Sisters spent peaceful few days, wondering why they did not see other members of the group.

“Are they secretly doing something fun without telling us?”

Gong Cui finally could not hold in her curiosity as she asked Butler Bang. There was a growing suspicion in her mind that told her that the group was doing something very fun in secret.

“Hahaha, they are only cultivating”

Butler Bang lightly chuckled, truthfully replying to her as her expression turned to that of surprise.

“Eh? Cultivating? Here? Is it not deficient in Spiritual Qi?”

“Indeed it might be but they have their own methods”

Butler Bang skillfully navigated the conversation as Gong Cui smiled with the words “Is that so? What~, that’s boring~, I was thinking they were doing something fun” with a pleased expression that she was not left out of fun activities, while Gong Liwei had a pondering expression.

‘Their own methods? Cultivating in a place so not suitable should be very inefficient, what metho-…”

*gasp*

She then remembered that Wu Long was a Dual Cultivator and her eyes flew wide open as she gasped.

“What is it, Sister?”

“Ah? No… hahahaha, nothing at all”

Gong Liwei laughed a little sillily as a bead of sweat went down the side of her forehead while her cheeks flushed red.

After some time Wu Long and his ladies finally showed up and Gong Cui was shocked to see that Wu Long has reached the 7th level of the Qi Manifestation Realm, which of itself was not usually a big achievement for a very talented person, but in a place lacking in Spiritual Qi like this it was an incredible phenomenon, especially since he crossed a watershed barrier.

And yet, his aura shown no instability, indicating that he completely stabilized his foundation in a place like this.

Hua Ziyan shocked both sisters even more, even if Gong Liwei knew they were Dual Cultivating, as her cultivation rose all the way to the 1st level of Foundation Building Realm. She benefited the most from this cultivation since she was a Dual Cultivator as her main path too, and his incredibly potent Yang Qi allowed her to rise continuously, while the connection between their Yin and Yang Roots stabilized her foundation as well.

At this time, Ye Ling and Wei Lan stabilized at the 9th level of Foundation Building Realm while the rest were in the early levels.

Ye Ling could advance further in principle since her comprehension of the sword allowed her to, but the Spiritual Qi was too deficient, delaying her advancement, though cultivating with Wu Long gave her a boost that dramatically shortened the time needed, and she would soon hit her bottleneck.

Wu Long was also already feeling the first bottleneck of his cultivation when he would need to break past his limits. It was never a smooth road in cultivation for him as he constantly broke one glass ceiling after another.

They were all starting to come close to the boundaries the limitations of this small world allowed people to cultivate to.

—

The group traveled further north as they changed carriages, not explicitly stating their final destination to anyone since the Gugong Kingdom was in conflict with the Yen Kingdom, and stating it as their goal would just attract unnecessary attention.

“Stop!”

A shout resounded as the carriages passed through a canyon not far from the borders between Yen Kingdom and the Gugong Kingdom.

“This is as far as we can take you”

The carriage driver who was hired to bring them to the border said as he looked ahead at the camp of the Gugong Kingdom soldiers not far in the distance, the guard in front of the camp was the one who shouted earlier as more soldiers were coming out of the camp. The other carriage drivers similarly did not intend to continue any further.

“That is quite alright, thank you”

Wu Long chuckled as he came out of the carriage, and his ladies followed as the eyes of the soldiers started to widen in astonishment and glisten.

The carriage drivers left two large and spacious carriages which the group bought instead of renting, and retreated while the soldiers were looking at the group of beauties with unblinking eyes.

“Hehe-…”

“Stop”

One of them already started smiling and opened his mouth while leaning to step forward when a hand was placed on his chest from beside him and he was pushed backward, a young man coming forth with a cautious look.

“… Captain Kwon…”

“Be silent if you want to live, learn who you are messing with”

The man called Captain Kwon shut the one he pushed as the latter tried to grumble and turned back to look at Wu Long’s group.

Wu Long smiled, a little impressed by the intuition of the man, as the latter felt slightly uneasy at being looked at.

“Please state your purpose in approaching the zone of military conflict”

Captain Kwon said, carefully choosing his words and tone.

“We are passing through to the Yen Kingdom”

Old Yen answered as he came forward.

“… the border is closed, I would advice not to move past this point as…”

“The border can always become open, like a ‘gate’ is it not? I heard there was a famous one around here, how was it called… Red Sparrow?”

Old Yen said with a smile, emphasizing the ‘gate’ and a light flashed in Captain Kwon’s eyes as his soldiers slightly changed in face.

“All gates have their tolls”

“Indeed, that is something known”

“Come in, dear customers”

Captain Kwon’s gaze became slightly more relaxed as he welcomingly smiled and gestured to the inside of the camp.

“Take the carriages inside”

Captain Kwon gave out the order as Wu Long and the others went past him to the depths of the encampment and he followed closely behind them, lightly running to go ahead of the group and arrive next to Old Yen.

“Thirteen people, and two carriages led by four horses each, would that be all?”

“Yes, there is no separate group”

Old Yen nodded as Captain Kwon nodded as he took out an abacus and started sliding the beads as he mumbled.

“Heh, you even count how many horses drive the carriages separately?”

“Of course, we can’t be slacking with the details”

The man smiled with a glint in his eyes, and Gong Cui whispered to her older sister.

“Sister, sister, I think I saw a money sign in that man’s eyes”

“Stop speaking gibberish, Cui’er”

Gong Liwei only shook her head while Wu Long chuckled. This was the type of man who would first think of what loot could be picked up when any kind of plan was discussed, and always propose to add the detailed calculations of how to get said loot in the plan lest it would be overlooked.

His troops were stationed in the rear which implied they were part of the supply chain, and Wu Long was certain that this man’s hand went into everything transported through him, all the while taking money for leading contraband traders through the zone of conflict.

They arrived in front of the captain’s tent as Captain Kwon showed them in, calculating the price for the passage.

“Here”

Old Yen placed a few pouches he took out of the spatial ring on the crudely-made wooden table, the pouches making loud thudding noises as they arrived.

“Heh, we know the prices”

He then chuckled as he noticed a look of ‘should have charged them more’ on Captain Kwon’s face since there were no complaints about the price.

“Hehe”

The man scratched the back of his head with a wry smile as he busted.

“Where’re you going to spend so much money anyway? It seems you’ve got enough for several lifetimes”

Old Yen chuckled as Gong Cui was looking around with a curious look in the background, being in an army tent for the first time in her life.

“Heh! There’s never enough! I have a dream…”

Captain Kwon grinned and proudly puffed out his chest as Gong Cui stumbled upon a pole with a flag, taking it out of the basket with spears and valiantly holding it up as if on a battlefield while Gong Liwei rolled her eyes and the other ladies chuckled at the sight. 𝙡𝒊𝒃𝒆𝒂𝓭.𝙘𝓸𝓶

“…when this war is over…”

Captain Kwon continued on as Gong Cui raised the flag high up with the intention to stick it into the ground as if proclaiming victory.

“… I will…”

“Can we go now already?”

“Huh?”

*Clank*

Wu Long who did not talk with the ambitious captain of the kingdom troops until here raised his voice and as Captain Kwon turned with a surprised look, a clank resounded behind him and everyone turned to Gong Cui with two halves of a flag in her hands.

“Oops, sorry, it broke”