Chapter 99 - 63: 300 Years of Cultivation

Chapter 99: Chapter 63: 300 Years of Cultivation

Inside the central bamboo house at the Shouyi Temple’s camp on Bamboo Forest Peak.

With the roof gone, Steward Xu and Vice Temple Master Zhao could see Li Yinsheng in the sky simply by looking up.

The two exchanged a glance, both seeing the shock and panic in the other’s eyes.

They had been right in the middle of their conversation when the roof vanished without warning. They had absolutely no idea what had just happened.

They wondered what kind of magic this was and whether it would be impossible to defend against if used to ambush a fellow cultivator.

"Fellow Daoist... Li!" Steward Xu recovered his wits and frowned, berating him. "This is Shouyi Temple’s temporary camp. What is the meaning of destroying our buildings out of the blue without a word?"

Despite his bold reprimand, as he spoke, he slapped his Qiankun Bag and drew out over a dozen yellow talismans. They circled his body, forming a shimmering, golden layer of protection.

The Vice Temple Master beside him was even more exaggerated. An uncountable number of yellow talismans were plastered all over his body, making his Daoist robe look as if it were woven entirely from them.

"You are Fellow Daoist Li from Xuanzhen Temple, aren’t you?" Vice Temple Master Zhao’s red beard trembled with anger. "Aren’t you being far too insolent?"

"I was merely greeting you two Fellow Daoists. How is that insolent?"

Li Yinsheng chuckled and tossed a figure down from the sky.

"If you want to talk about insolence, you two secretly ordered your disciples to target and bully my Xuanzhen Temple’s steward. Who could possibly be more insolent than you?"

The figure Li Yinsheng dropped slammed heavily onto the floor of the bamboo house. She twitched twice; though not dead, she was barely clinging to life.

"This is..." Vice Temple Master Zhao stared at the blood-stained face, taking a moment to recognize her. "Fu Shuo?"

This person was the direct lineage disciple of his junior sister surnamed Yang. He had some impression of her, though he greatly disliked her harsh and domineering personality.

Seeing her tossed down and hearing Li Yinsheng’s words, Vice Temple Master Zhao instantly realized what had happened.

This useless fool, who only ever ruined things, must have gone to test the female cultivator from Xuanzhen Temple. Blind to the danger, she had fallen into Li Yinsheng’s hands, been tortured, and sold them out.

Otherwise, why would Li Yinsheng’s opening words accuse them of "secretly ordering disciples"?

But even if their plot was exposed, he absolutely could not admit to it, or else they would lose their standing.

The situation would immediately shift from "the narrow-minded and overprotective Li Yinsheng coming to cause trouble over a minor conflict between juniors" to "Shouyi Temple deliberately targeting a small Daoist temple and having justice demanded at their door."

Vice Temple Master Zhao immediately retorted, "Fellow Daoist Li, stop making baseless accusations and slandering us!"

"When she confessed beside the cultivation fruit stall at Huang Bamboo Temple, apart from the stall owner, there were many other cultivators watching the spectacle. Many people must have heard her," Li Yinsheng said.

Vice Temple Master Zhao looked at Fu Shuo, his face turning an ashen gray.

He thought furiously, "It’s one thing to confess, but how could you do it in public?!"

He wanted to continue denying it, but Li Yinsheng shook his head and cut him off.

"Forget it. I’m not here to present evidence and reason with you anyway. The proof is already irrefutable, so why bother arguing?"

With Li Yinsheng passing judgment so conclusively, Vice Temple Master Zhao naturally wanted to retort. However, he was shocked to find that Li Yinsheng’s voice seemed to carry some strange power of divine sense, making him completely unable to interrupt. He had no choice but to listen in silence.

He wondered in dismay, "What the hell? He’s stopping me from speaking? What kind of magic is this?!"

Vice Temple Master Zhao was filled with doubt and apprehension.

"Did you come here so insolently today just to smear my Shouyi Temple? Our Shouyi Temple will remember this..."

Vice Temple Master Zhao was cut off by Li Yinsheng halfway through his sentence.

"I am here today to demand an explanation from all of you."

Li Yinsheng couldn’t be bothered to waste words. When he arrived earlier, he had overheard these two plotting against him in the house, openly coveting the Xuanzhen Temple’s spirit vein.

Naturally, there was no need to reason with such people.

Coincidentally, he had previously obtained two netting magical artifacts from the Vice Temple Master of Yellow Crane Temple. After refining them, he had never found a chance to use them.

With a hint of anticipation, Li Yinsheng took the two nets from his Qiankun Bag and tossed them down.

The moment the handkerchief-sized nets left his hand, they suddenly unfurled in the air, transforming into two massive nets several dozen feet wide that fell right over their heads!

The two from Shouyi Temple were horrified. Countless yellow talismans flew from their hands, exploding against the descending nets, erupting into clusters of roaring flames, or attempting to slice the mesh open with sharp, icy gleams.

However, the moment these talisman attacks landed on the nets, they immediately dissolved into nothingness.

Seeing that their talismans were useless, both men opted to flee. But the nets accelerated, scooping them up and wrapping them inside.

The instant they were ensnared, the two felt the magical power in their bodies become sluggish and found themselves unable to deploy their divine sense. Even their protective talismans instantly lost their luster and crumbled into ash upon contact.

At this moment, let alone circulating their cultivation to fight back, their limbs felt weak and limp. Wrapped in the mesh, even moving a finger was an extravagant hope.

"Not bad," Li Yinsheng nodded in satisfaction.

Although he had thrown out two nets, he only needed one to capture the two of them. The other was pulled back into his palm.

He didn’t put the second net away, though. Instead, he looked at the rest of the Shouyi Temple’s camp.

The Vice Temple Master and the Steward were in the center, surrounded on all sides by the living quarters of the Shouyi Temple disciples.

The commotion had drawn quite a few out of their rooms to investigate. But when they opened their doors, they were greeted by the sight of their own Steward and Vice Temple Master caught in a single net.

Li Yinsheng flicked his finger, sending the net flying out. Instead of spreading wide, it shot out countless fine threads that tightly coiled around the Shouyi Temple disciples—whether they had reacted or were still frozen in shock. One by one, they were dragged over and scooped into the net.

Even though official disciples only yielded one year of cultivation, direct disciples three years, and direct lineage disciples ten years, no matter how small a mosquito’s leg is, it’s still meat. Li Yinsheng wasn’t picky.

Of course, the reward for each tier could only be claimed once. Theoretically, he only needed to capture one disciple from each level.

However, since people resent inequality more than scarcity, it was better to treat them all equally.

In the blink of an eye, the massive Shouyi Temple camp was emptied. One large net held the Steward and Vice Temple Master, while the other—stretched far larger than the central bamboo house—trapped all the Shouyi Temple disciples.

Standing behind Li Yinsheng all along, Mu Xiaoyu’s eyes sparkled repeatedly.

She was a bit afraid they were blowing things out of proportion, yet she couldn’t help but feel excited.

She thought, "Senior Brother is so amazing! He easily defeated so many people all by himself!"

The talisman crane landed, and Li Yinsheng led Mu Xiaoyu down.

Steward Xu and Vice Temple Master Zhao were both shrewd old foxes. After only a short moment in the net, their eyes had cleared considerably, completely unlike the trapped disciples who were screaming in panic.

"Senior, Senior!" Vice Temple Master Zhao sprawled on the ground and shouted at Li Yinsheng. "This junior had eyes but failed to recognize a formidable master! I offer you my deepest apologies, Senior!"

"Yes, yes, Senior! My senior brother and I apologize to you!" Steward Xu chimed in. "Please be magnanimous and let us go this once!"

"You shouldn’t be apologizing to me, you should be apologizing to my junior sister." Li Yinsheng shook his head. "Thanks to you two, my junior sister suffered quite a lot of bullying."

The Vice Temple Master grumbled inwardly, "Wasn’t it just Fu Shuo? I only arrived this evening and just gave the order."

No matter what he thought in his heart, he naturally didn’t dare talk back openly and hurriedly apologized to Mu Xiaoyu.

Even though apologizing to a teenage girl was utterly humiliating, the man before him had unfathomably deep cultivation. He didn’t have the guts to use his Shouyi Temple background to threaten Li Yinsheng into letting him go.

It was a joke—did Li Yinsheng not know they were from Shouyi Temple before attacking?

If the reputation of Shouyi Temple could scare this reckless youth, would he have struck so directly?

Faced with two pitiful old men apologizing to her, Mu Xiaoyu felt conflicted.

Steward Xu and Vice Temple Master Zhao had their cultivation sealed and their movements restricted. Looking extremely wretched right now, they appeared to be nothing more than two ordinary mortal elders.

Even knowing that neither of them were good people, Mu Xiaoyu couldn’t bring herself to be ruthless.

"Senior Brother?" She tugged at Li Yinsheng’s sleeve. "What do you think we should do with them?"

"In my opinion, a light punishment to serve as a strong warning."

Li Yinsheng took a thunder talisman from his Qiankun Bag and handed it to Mu Xiaoyu. "Here. Throw this thunder talisman at them and those Shouyi Temple disciples. Consider it teaching them a lesson."

Vice Temple Master Zhao’s face instantly filled with terror as he wriggled and struggled in the net. "You can’t, Senior! You can’t! We’ll die! Our cultivation is suppressed, and we have absolutely no way to defend ourselves! We will definitely die if this thunder talisman strikes us!"

"Don’t worry, it’s just a low-grade thunder talisman. You won’t die," Li Yinsheng consoled him kindly in a burst of generosity.

The Dharma Vein had strict precepts. If he killed anyone, things would get quite troublesome.

Mainly, the blame lay with the people from Yellow Crane Temple; they didn’t even know how to buy better talismans.

Mu Xiaoyu was a little hesitant. "Senior Brother, isn’t a thunder talisman going too far? I see that these people are a bit bad, but they don’t seem to be entirely evil..."

She pursed her lips, her face full of inner conflict. For a noble’s daughter who had grown up in the mortal world, throwing a thunder talisman at a group of people was simply too intense.

Li Yinsheng smiled, bent over slightly, and whispered into Mu Xiaoyu’s ear, "Junior Sister, they are the bad people who want to steal our Xuanzhen Peak."

Mu Xiaoyu’s expression changed. Sending a streak of magical power to activate the thunder talisman in her palm, she hurled it right into Vice Temple Master Zhao’s despairing gaze.

BOOM—

Countless bright blue snakes of lightning slithered along the threads of the net. In an instant, all the Shouyi Temple cultivators trapped inside were bathed in a pool of lightning.

Screams of agony rang out one after another.

At the same time, the resounding chimes of Huang Zhong and Da Lv echoed in Li Yinsheng’s mind.

[Congratulations to the Master of the Cave Heaven! Through arduous effort in less than three years, you have partially completed your revenge. You have defeated the official disciples, direct disciples, direct lineage disciples, Steward, and Vice Temple Master of Shouyi Temple. The reward for this is ninety-four years of cultivation. Please cultivate to claim it.]

Standing on the white jade platform in the center of the Grotto Heaven Lake, Li Yinsheng took a light breath.

Ninety-four years. This was his longest solitary cultivation session yet.

His cultivation was already just over two hundred years. With these additional ninety-four years, he would break through the three-hundred-year mark!

Three hundred years of cultivation.

He figured there shouldn’t be many among the Daoists who could reach three hundred years of cultivation.

Moreover, during this period of seclusion, the Chess Soul should be able to nearly finish deducing all the dozen or so arrays attached to the Yin Yang Cave Profound Array.

When he went out again, he would have to find Fellow Daoist Meng to figure out a way to get more array-related books and stock up on more array knowledge.