60: All in seclusion, striving for the Nascent Soul stage

Through Long Aotian's explanation, the ten Disciples finally understood the ins and outs of the whole situation.

It turned out that it wasn't Shi Gandang looking for trouble for no reason, but rather their Young Lord who used a Formation at Immortal Severing Mountain to kill Shi Gandang's third son, Shi Jing, as well as Lei Yunshan's grandson, Lei Ao, and others.

The Lei and Shi families investigated the culprit and eventually arrived at Thunder Dragon Royal City, and then at Immortal Severing Mountain.

Coincidentally, their Long Family ancestral land, Long Village, was backed against Immortal Severing Mountain, just over a hundred miles from the crime scene.

During that time, their Young Lord had just happened to leave a letter and disappeared. His mother missed her son dearly, and to find the Young Lord, the Family head mobilized the Clan Chief, the Guardian God, and even the Old Ancestor.

The Clan Chief happened to return to Feng Town while looking for the Young Lord. Because Long Village was close to the strange Formation the Young Lord had set up at Immortal Severing Mountain, the Formation was suspected by Lei Zhen, the Clan Chief of a Lei Family branch, to have been set up by a powerhouse of their Long Family.

Thus, the Clan Chief was coerced to Immortal Severing Mountain. The arrogant Shi Gandang, in order to step on the Lei Family for his own amusement, slapped the Clan Chief quite clamorously.

In the end! This slap successfully ignited the powder keg. The Long Family declared war on the Shi Family!

Those whose cultivation was below the Golden Core Realm and were not strong enough to fight the Shi Family were required to disperse and go into hiding...

Speaking of this matter, the initial cause was indeed related to Long Aotian. If he hadn't killed Shi Jing and the others, it would have been impossible to draw in Shi Gandang, thereby triggering the war between the two clans.

However, Long Aotian felt that even if he hadn't killed Shi Jing, there would inevitably have been a war between the two clans. Why?

Because, under the deterrence of Ao Zhan's Dragon Soul, Immortal Severing Mountain had been a Spirit Medicine garden filled with high-grade Spirit Medicine herbs that no human or Yao Beast had dared to set foot in for nearly ten thousand years.

How could Long Aotian allow others to steal his peaches? Whoever picked them would die!

Not to mention, there was a small, top-grade Spirit mineral vein beneath Immortal Severing Mountain. As long as Shi Jing, Lei Ao, and the others entered the core area, they would sense the dense, top-grade Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi and then suspect there was a top-grade Spirit mineral vein underground.

How could Long Aotian not kill them?

Of course, at the very beginning, Long Aotian only used his Divine Sense pressure to scare them off, drove them away, and then set up a Void Divine Sense isolation Formation.

But what made Long Aotian decide to kill them was that Shi Jing and Lei Ao actually wanted to report the situation at Immortal Severing Mountain to their families and request that they send powerhouses over.

Challenging Long Aotian's patience again and again—if they didn't die, Long Aotian felt he would be letting himself down.

"Hmph, Immortal Severing Mountain is not a place they should have come to. In short, they were the ones who provoked the Young Lord first, not the other way around. In this matter, we are in the right!"

Listening to the general account described by Long Aotian—who omitted important information such as Ao Zhan and the small, top-grade Spirit mineral vein—the ten Disciples were filled with righteous indignation. They angrily denounced the Shi Family for being too bullying and strongly supported the Family in going to war with the Shi Family, fighting to the very end, and letting the Five Great Cultivation Families of the Imperial City learn the might of the Royal City's cultivation families.

"It is no longer a question of who is in the right or wrong, but a matter of life and death. Furthermore, in a world where martial power is respected, who among outsiders would reason with us? Fists are the truth! Strength is everything!

You ten, work hard to Cultivate. Our Long Family is still too weak; the Shi Family is far more powerful than we imagined, more than ten times over.

At the border between the White Emperor Mountain Range and the Thunder Dragon Mountain Range, I beheaded thirty Nascent Soul Realm Elders, ninety-eight Guardian Gods, and six Ancestors of the Distraction Realm of the Shi Family. Can you imagine that the Shi Family still hides such terrifying power?

There are still four escaped Ancestors of the Distraction Realm. Adding the two on the surface, the Shi Family currently has at least six Ancestors of the Distraction Realm on the surface alone.

And this is not even the Shi Family's most terrifying power. The Shi Family's true foundation lies in their Mahayana Realm powerhouses—there are as many as three of them!"

"...The Shi Family actually has three Mahayana Realm powerhouses?!" The ten Disciples were stunned.

Afterward, their faces turned grave, and they felt deeply worried for the Family in their hearts.

Mahayana Realm powerhouses, after all; the two giant cultivation forces of the Eastern Wasteland, the Cloud Palace and the Imperial Family, only have Mahayana Realm experts as their strongest on the surface.

If the Cloud Palace and the Imperial Family do not have Tribulation Transcendence Realm powerhouses stronger than the Mahayana Realm, then the Shi Family could directly announce to the outside world that they are the third largest giant cultivation force of the Eastern Wasteland.

Just thinking about it made the ten Disciples feel their scalps tingle. What kind of terrifying existence was their Long Family facing?

However, Long Aotian's information bombardment continued: "When I went to save Sister Xue'er, I heard that our three Long Family Old Ancestors ambushed the Shi Family powerhouses but fell into their trap instead. The Great Ancestor was injured and escaped, and his life or death is currently unknown, while the Second Elder and Third Ancestor were captured alive. The other side has publicly announced that they will publicly execute the two Old Ancestors in Great Stone Town in the Imperial City in three months."

"What? The Second Elder and Third Ancestor were captured alive?"

"This... how is this possible? It's impossible. I don't believe that if the three Old Ancestors joined forces, the final result would be like this."

"Yeah, how could it be like this?"

"Damn Shi Family..."

"..."

The faces of the ten Disciples were extremely ugly. The three Old Ancestors were the strongest combat power currently in their Long Family, yet they had suffered such a heavy blow.

They felt as if the sky above their heads was about to collapse, and they were unwilling to believe that this matter was true. The ten Disciples looked dejected, and some of them even had eyes that started to turn red again...

In fact, the strongest combat power of the Long Family was no longer the three Old Ancestors, but Long Aotian. However, subconsciously, they still believed it to be the three Old Ancestors. Plus, because Long Aotian was their younger cousin and still so young, they had directly overlooked him.

As older brothers and sisters, they subconsciously did not want their younger brother to stand in front of them to shield them from the wind and rain. First, this showed they were useless! Second, it was also a protective instinct! And third, in their hearts, the younger brother should naturally be protected by his older brothers and sisters and grow up happily...

Long Aotian saw that the blow was about enough; he couldn't continue to strike them down. What he wanted was to turn grief and indignation into strength, to turn decay into magic, and to inspire their crazy desire to become stronger, their desire to save the Family's future and change the Family's future, not to erode their fighting spirit. That would be counterproductive and not good.

Glancing at each of them, Long Aotian said with a grave face: "Although I don't know if this news is true or false, some problems can be seen from it: our Long Family's current situation is very bad. We are either hiding, or being captured alive, or killed! We must Cultivate even harder to reverse the war situation and change the fate and future of the Family!

Now, I will go into seclusion here for two months! Two months later, this Young Lord will definitely Breakthrough to the Nascent Soul Realm! At that time, this Young Lord will personally make a trip to the Imperial City. If the news is true, then if there is a way to save the Second Elder and Third Ancestor, this Young Lord will definitely save them! If the information is false, or if it is impossible to rescue the two Old Ancestors, this Young Lord will definitely make the Imperial City Shi Family pay a painful price!"

"Young Lord!"

The ten Disciples looked at Long Aotian with very complex expressions. They longed to protect this younger cousin, but their strength was truly far inferior to his. They were moved by this younger cousin's actions, while at the same time feeling incomparably ashamed of their own uselessness...

"Everyone, go into seclusion and Cultivate! All we can do is constantly improve our cultivation! You all have massive amounts of Cultivation resources in your hands now; these resources are even enough for you to Cultivate and Breakthrough to the Out-of-Body Realm... The future of the Long Family is in our hands!"

"The future of the Long Family is in our hands!" The ten Disciples responded in unison. Immediately, each of them was filled with high fighting spirit, and they swished back to their respective Cultivation rooms to begin their seclusion and Cultivation.

Beneath Zuoqiu, they had excavated an Immortal Cave of five hundred square meters for Cultivation. For a cultivator, excavating such an Immortal Cave was nothing at all; with Long Aotian's current cultivation strength, he could get it done in less than a quarter of an hour.

It was the four of them, Mei, Lan, Zhu, and Ju, who spent two or three hours to finish it, especially since they were girls who loved beauty and liked to make it look a bit prettier.

Now there were eleven Cultivation rooms inside the Immortal Cave. Long Aotian had set up a concealment Formation, a defensive Formation, a Divine Sense isolation Formation, and a killing Formation here—a total of four ordinary Level 5 Formations. As for a Void Formation?

It wasn't that Long Aotian didn't want to reveal it to them, but that a Void Formation had no Formation Flag to control it and could only be controlled by him. If he left, none of the ten of them would be able to control the Void Formation, so Long Aotian only set up ordinary Level 5 Formations.

Of course, in his own Cultivation room, Long Aotian set up a Level 6 Void Divine Sense isolation Formation and a Level 6 Void defensive Formation. When he Cultivated, he naturally had to enter the Treasure Pagoda, and the Treasure Pagoda was his greatest secret, so he naturally could not let others know...