179: Chapter 179 Each on Their Own Path!

...

Outside the Immortal Cave.

Daoist Yun Du watched the clouds filling the sky, his body frozen in place.

He said nothing.

He could say nothing.

He merely sat on that mountain rock, head tilted back, watching those clouds drift apart and fall bit by bit.

A wisp of cloud fell onto his shoulder, warm, carrying a familiar scent.

Daoist Yun Du reached out to catch it.

The moment his fingertips touched it, the cloud dissipated.

Nothing remained.

Shi Jian hung high in the sky, the reflections of the clouds filling the sky in his Thunder Pupils.

He did not make a sound.

At times like this, anything said would be superfluous.

...

Ten miles away.

The three thousand Disciples of White Cloud Temple saw those clouds.

First, silence—a deathly silence.

Then, it was unclear who cried out first.

"Grand Elder —!"

The weeping was contagious.

One, two, ten, a hundred.

The weeping of the many Disciples merged into one.

Those young Outer Sect Disciples might not have spoken many words to Great Elder Yun Tianfan, but they all knew that White Cloud Temple's current state was largely due to this Grand Elder...

Every rule in the Sect, every policy.

The fairness of every resource allocation was managed by this white-haired old man behind the scenes.

Sun Mao stood in the crowd, ultimately letting out only a sigh.

Zhao Yanshan's eyes also reddened, but he turned his head away, not letting anyone see; Great Elder Yun Tianfan could be considered his elder, after all...

To have him fall like this truly made one's heart heavy.

Sun Chengzhu's hand gripping his sword hilt was trembling.

He remembered the words Great Elder Yun Tianfan had spoken when he first entered the Sect: "Kid, Cultivate your sword well; don't waste that good aptitude of yours."

Finally, he bowed towards the distance.

Although Lu Xun was a Disciple under Sun Lin and didn't have much interaction with Great Elder Yun Tianfan, he was still an elder he was familiar with, and to see him dissipate into Dao Transformation right before his eyes...

It ultimately made him sigh, feeling a chill.

...

That day.

White banners were hung throughout White Cloud Temple.

White mourning clothes stretched from the Main Peak of the southern mountain range all the way down to White Cloud Immortal City at the foot of the mountain.

The three thousand Disciples in the temple were all dressed in white.

There was no coffin, no body.

Those who undergo Dao Transformation leave no corpse behind.

In the Meeting Hall on the Main Peak, Daoist Yun Du set up a spirit tablet for Great Elder Yun Tianfan.

Eight characters were written on the tablet:

Grand Elder of White Cloud Temple, Yun Tianfan.

No life story, no list of achievements.

Daoist Yun Du said that everything Tianfan did in this life was remembered by everyone in White Cloud Temple; it didn't need to be written on a plaque...

Some people live, yet are like dead things, as light as a feather.

Some people die, yet their Legacy continues, as heavy as Mount Tai.

...

The third day after Great Elder Yun Tianfan's Dao Transformation.

Sun Yao walked out of her closed-door meditation room; her complexion was poor.

It wasn't that something had gone wrong with her Cultivation, but rather that she had sensed it—when the clouds fell across the sky that day, a wisp had drifted into her room and landed on her palm.

It was warm, carrying the distinct, gentle aura of an elder.

She knew then.

The Grand Elder had passed away, ascending to the Dao.

Sun Yao did not cry. She sat in the meditation room for three days and three nights without shedding a single tear, calming her heart and cultivating her nature daily...

But in these three days, she figured out many things.

Why did Great Elder Yun Tianfan die?

Because there was no heaven and earth qi.

The Cloud Dao Blessed Land at Baifeng Cloud Gorge had not yet formed and could not give birth to Cloud Dao heaven and earth qi.

And Great Elder Yun Tianfan could not wait.

His two-hundred-year Lifespan forced him to gamble on that one-in-ten-thousand chance.

The result: he lost.

He lost completely.

"If only he had waited another three hundred years..."

Sun Yao stood by the window, looking at the mountain peak in the distance that was still draped in white banners.

In three hundred years, perhaps Baifeng Cloud Gorge could give birth to its first wisp of Cloud Dao heaven and earth qi.

But in three hundred years, she, Sun Yao, would long be dead.

The Lifespan of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator is, at most, four sixty-year cycles—two hundred and forty years—and she was already a hundred years old now...

Half of her life had passed; could she afford to wait?

She could not.

So what then?

Like Great Elder Yun Tianfan, force a breakthrough without heaven and earth qi?

Sun Yao clenched her fists.

She wasn't afraid of death, but she was afraid of dying without meaning...

Great Elder Yun Tianfan's death at least let everyone in White Cloud Temple see one thing clearly: without heaven and earth qi, Core Formation is just throwing one's life away.

This wasn't a question of courage; it was a question of rules.

It was the rules of this world!

"The Old Ancestor back then..."

Sun Yao thought of Shi Jian. How did the Old Ancestor form his Core back then?

Thunder Pool Blessed Land, Purple Cloud Golden Lightning Qi.

The Old Ancestor had heaven and earth qi, and even a nascent Blessed Land to provide the best environment to assist in his Core Formation...

That was why the Old Ancestor succeeded.

"If I want to reach Core Formation, I must find this heaven and earth qi!"

Sun Yao turned and walked back to her meditation cushion, sitting cross-legged again. Her cultivation was already at the Late Foundation Establishment Stage, and although it would still be some time before she reached Perfection.

According to normal progress, she could touch the threshold of Perfection within twenty years.

But what about after Perfection?

Without heaven and earth qi, even reaching Perfection would be in vain.

Unless —

She could find a wisp of Cloud Dao heaven and earth qi in her lifetime.

Or —

Wait for the Blessed Land at Baifeng Cloud Gorge to take form.

Or perhaps, find another path.

Sun Yao closed her eyes, and the image of the clouds filling the sky that day appeared in her mind. When Great Elder Yun Tianfan underwent Dao Transformation, his spiritual power fed back into the entire White Cloud Temple.

When those clouds fell onto Baifeng Cloud Gorge, the concentration of the sea of clouds in the gorge suddenly increased significantly.

What did this mean?

It meant that Great Elder Yun Tianfan had used his own Dao cultivation to add fuel to the formation of the Blessed Land at Baifeng Cloud Gorge.

He died, but his Dao did not break.

"Grand Elder..."

Sun Yao opened her eyes, and there was something new in her gaze.

It was not sadness, nor anger.

It was a determination that was extremely pure, unmixed with any Impurities.

"I will not follow your old path."

"I will not wait."

"Thirty years from now, the Kunyuan Secret Realm, which opens once every hundred years, will open again. My cultivation was still shallow last time; this time, even if I fall inside, I must fight for that sliver of survival!"

Thinking of this, Sun Yao closed her eyes again, and the Spiritual Qi around her body began to circulate slowly.

From this moment on, the stone door of Sun Yao's meditation room never opened again. This time, in her closed-door meditation, she would not only bring her cultivation to its peak.

She would also organize her Cultivation Technique and study several secret arts, preparing in advance for her future trip to the Kunyuan Secret Realm...