By the time Tang Jie returned to the West Bull Divine State, half a year had passed.
Even though Tang Jie was already an Immortal, the Vast Wilderness Continent was so vast that it took Tang Jie quite some time to get here.
Fortunately, a cultivator war could easily take hundreds of years. Tang Jie was in no rush and casually took his time with Xu Miaoran.
When they arrived at the country of Shangyuan, Tang Jie pointed into the distance and said, “Fifty kilometers from here is Cloudfront Mountain. When I was waiting for Reverend Yellow Heaven, I took up residence there for one hundred years. Alas, while I managed to find Reverend Yellow Heaven, I still haven’t found a way to undo demonification.”
He shook his head and sighed.
Xu Miaoran soothed him, “There are some things that you can’t force. And Sister Ice Phoenix seems to be doing fine in the Yellow Court World.”
Tang Jie grumbled, “Of course she’s doing fine. I have ten whole Wuxing watching her in rotation for fear that she causes trouble. In these years, she’s attempted to secretly cause trouble for me at least one hundred times. If I weren’t the Domain Lord, I might have actually fallen for it a few times.”
Xu Miaoran covered her mouth and giggled. “Husband, you insisted on bringing this trouble on yourself, so what can you do? In any case, she can’t beat you, so just consider it something to stimulate your boredom.”
“The problem is that she’s playing with her life!” Tang Jie angrily said.
After countless failed schemes, Ice Phoenix found that she had no way of disturbing Tang Jie too much, so she impulsively decided to do something risky: break through to Violet Palace.
The usual ten percent chance to succeed was only true if one prepared to a certain extent.
But Ice Phoenix did no preparations whatsoever, ignoring all the plentiful resources available in the Yellow Court World and simply charging in.
Fortunately, Tang Jie had always been watching, and when he found out what she was doing, he hastily applied protection to her. This method of breaking through naturally wouldn’t succeed, but thanks to Tang Jie’s protection, she managed to survive.
But Ice Phoenix had found a way to deal with Tang Jie.
I’m in a good mood today, so what should I do? Break through to Violet Palace!
I’m in a bad mood today, so what should I do? Break through to Violet Palace!
Just like that, Ice Phoenix made the charge to Violet Palace whenever she had the time, leaving Tang Jie with his hands full and cursing this woman for her recklessness.
Ice Phoenix was also rather sharp. Whenever he was about to reach his breaking point and give up on her, she would stop being reckless and become extremely obedient. Once Tang Jie had been properly softened up, she would go back to her suicidal ways.
Only later on, when Ice Phoenix accidentally succeeded, did this form of trouble-making finally come to an end.
From then on, Ice Phoenix lost a way to use her life to threaten Tang Jie, but she simply started to think of new ways to cause trouble for Tang Jie, which Tang Jie could do nothing about.
Xu Miaoran and Yiyi watched this all in amusement, but they didn’t do anything.
They didn’t have any hard feelings against Ice Phoenix. In the end, she was just a poor girl who had once fallen for Tang Jie. If not for Immortal Ji Yao, she might still be happily living her life. Thus, everyone felt a little guilty about her, and if conditions permitted, they let her do as she wished. In any case, while Ice Phoenix was throwing fits, she knew that Tang Jie was someone who could harden his heart at critical moments, so she never tried to cause trouble whenever anything important was at stake. Thus, they had let her be until now.
The mention of Ice Phoenix had Tang Jie feeling rather helpless.
After two days of chatting and traveling, Tang Jie finally arrived at the base of the Star Radiant Gate.
As they approached, Tang Jie saw that the name placard of the Star Radiant Gate had been replaced by that of the White Bone Gate.
Tang Jie knew of the White Bone Gate. It was one of the upper sects of Shangyuan, its status second to the Star Radiant Gate.
When had the base of the Star Radiant Gate become the White Bone Gate’s?
Alarmed, Tang Jie knew that something serious had happened to the Star Radiant Gate.
He exchanged looks with Xu Miaoran and Yiyi and sternly said, “For some reason, the Star Radiant Gate has experienced a major incident. This probably has to do with what happened at the Court of Myriad Domains.”
When Tang Jie had killed two Earth Immortals in the tomb, Huang Wuji had taken part. As the Heaven’s Equal Sect and Stellar Net Gate both had means of identifying the culprit, there was a chance that they would know of Huang Wuji. If this was the case, it wouldn’t be strange for the Star Radiant Gate to suffer disaster. But someone of Huang Wuji’s cultivation wasn’t so easy to find, and he also understood the two major sects more. There was no reason for him to have not taken precautions, so how did the Star Radiant Gate still get found out?
Whatever the case, he needed to go over and take a look.
Tang Jie didn’t want to expose himself, so he used Thousand Faces to change his appearance into a yellow-faced man. He then waved his hand at Xu Miaoran, turning her into a middle-aged woman, and then made Yiyi appear more ordinary. After that, the three flew toward the White Bone Gate.
As they approached, several cultivators flew out of the sect’s mountain range. They were all low-level Mortal Shedding Realm cultivators, wearing mourning clothes and giving off a ghostly aura, their faces pale.
They flew over to Tang Jie, and their leader asked, “Might I ask who you are and why you have come to our White Bone Gate?”
“‘White Bone Gate’?” Tang Jie chuckled. “Isn’t this the base of the Star Radiant Gate? When did it become the White Bone Gate?”
The disciples of the White Bone Gate scowled. “So you came looking for the Star Radiant Gate.”
Their tone immediately changed.
Tang Jie politely said, “Yes. This one is Shen Tianyang. I am old friends with Senior Brother Lin Kuhai of the Star Radiant Gate. I came today to visit him, not realizing that this had already become the base of the White Bone Gate.”
A White Bone Gate disciple proudly said, “The Star Radiant Gate was defeated by my White Bone Gate and has already lost its status as a country-level sect. This precious land naturally belongs to our White Bone Gate now. As for Lin Kuhai, I haven’t heard of him, so he probably died in the territory battle a hundred years ago.”
Lin Kuhai wasn’t made up by Tang Jie. He was an elder of the Star Radiant Gate, and when Tang Jie was waiting for Reverend Yellow Heaven, he had interacted frequently with the people of the Star Radiant Gate. Lin Kuhai was one of the people he had been on good terms with. But now this Deification cultivator was being mocked as a nobody by a mere Mortal Shedding cultivator.
Tang Jie didn’t push the issue, simply frowning and saying, “The Star Radiant Gate lost? That Reverend Yellow Heaven was quite strong among Earth Immortals. While the White Bone Gate’s White Bone Divine Lord is also an Earth Immortal, in terms of cultivation, he wouldn’t necessarily be stronger than Reverend Yellow Heaven, no?”
“Such arrogance! You dare to insult the ancestor!?” the White Bone Gate disciples shouted, summoning their Ghost Guards and having them attack Tang Jie.
These Ghost Guards were the specialty of the White Bone Gate and were not at all inferior to the one that Tang Jie had made. To be more precise, this was probably the source of the first Ghost Guard art. While the ancestor of the Ghost Raising Sect had claimed that he had created it himself, he had initially learned it from this White Bone Gate and then modified it using his own experience. This was why the Ghost Guards of the two sects, despite being created in two different ways, had essentially the same result, though the White Bone Gate’s Ghost Guard could be considered a little stronger.
But there was a limitation in materials, and the White Bone Gate wasn’t able to get stronger corpses, so these Ghost Guards were actually inferior.
As the Ghost Guards lunged, Tang Jie sowed a few beans.
These beans turned into soldiers and charged at the Ghost Guards.
Now that Tang Jie had become an Immortal, many of his previous tricks were no longer able to meet his needs, with the bean soldiers being one of them. But Tang Jie was thinking of ways to improve the beans and make them stronger. Currently, there was a piece of land in the Yellow Court World specifically for planting these beans, and the beans had begun to evolve in this environment and gain some abilities of the Wuxing.
The five beans he had just sowed belonged to this special type of bean.
Each bean represented an element, one bean soldier for each color charging into the fray. Bean soldiers were originally used en masse, but now there were only five. Nevertheless, they managed to hold off seven Nine Revolutions–level Ghost Guards.
But to this impressive performance, Tang Jie shook his head, still finding them too weak.
Even if they had numbers and formations, they were individually still too weak to participate in Tang Jie’s battles. They would have to be at least half-step Celestial Heart and enhanced by special formations and treasures to be useful.
Right now, they could only be used when he was too lazy.
The White Bone Gate disciples realized that they had encountered someone powerful, but since this was their home base, they couldn’t just retreat. After exchanging looks, one of them took out a bone whistle and blew on it.
As the sound of the whistle reverberated, countless people flew out of the White Bone Gate.
This time, they were led by several Celestial Heart cultivators, one of them shouting as they approached, “Who dares to intrude upon my White Bone Gate?”
He sent over a blast of corrosive wind.
Tang Jie was inwardly enraged. Had these people no thought for the lives of others, attacking without even asking what was going on? They had to realize that he was far stronger than them and was merely showing restraint, but they only used that fact to take advantage of him.
His face darkened, and he grunted, “Yiyi, show them a little of your power.”
Yiyi laughed and pointed a finger, which transformed into a vine that swept toward the cultivator who had spoken.
The Celestial Heart cultivators immediately swung their weapons to cut down this vine, but the vine seemed to easily absorb their hits. In the middle of their shock, the vine curled around them and tightly bound them together, and no matter what those cultivators did, they couldn’t escape.
At this point, they finally realized just how strong this adversary was. But it seemed like the cultivators of the White Bone Gate had bones for brains, as rather than trying to seek peace, they decided to keep calling for reinforcements. Thus, a third wave of cultivators emerged from the White Bone Gate.
At this time, a solemn voice rang out. “Who dares to intrude upon the sacred grounds of my sect?”
A finger emerged from the heavens and stabbed at Yiyi.