Ji Liuli emerged from the house with a tea caddy carved from a Purple Green Veluriyam Dragon Jade in her hands. She then followed True Lord Yan Shi out of the courtyard. As they left, the young Daoist turned back to look at the tea bowl on the table. The lid was exactly where he had left it. It had not turned back to its original position, cracked, or become covered in shadows.

Feeling as if there was a spring in his step, the young Daoist took a step forward. Heaven and earth changed, and he suddenly appeared in front of True Lord Xuan Yue.

At the moment, the True Lord was holding a piece of jade paper with one hand and a brush with the other. Occasionally muttering under his breath, he seemed to be fully focused on some sort of calculation. Suffice to say, he wasn’t expecting True Lord Yan Shi to appear out of nowhere and give his old heart a scare. What a rude man!

True Lord Xuan Yue calmly tucked away two pieces of jade paper—both were completely covered in numbers—before saying gravely, “Why have you barged into my residence without so much as a notice? Has the Skyblue Hall offended you as of late?”

The young Daoist replied smilingly, “I calculated the time and determined that now is the best time to enjoy this tea with you. It would go bad if we waited too long!”

As he spoke, True Lord Yan Shi walked over to True Lord Xuan Yue’s table with a swagger and took his seat, showing no restraint whatsoever. When he waved his arm, Ji Liuli came over to set down the tea caddy she was carrying and a tea set that was no less valuable than it. Then, she began brewing tea for the two True Lords.

Before True Lord Yan Shi did anything, he looked at the space above Xuan Yue’s head first. As expected, he saw a thick, black cloud like a mini thunderstorm would fall at any moment. When he shifted his gaze downward, he saw black qi entrenched in the True Lord’s forehead as well.

True Lord Yan Shi instantly felt as if he had drunk three cups of immortal tea. His Dao Heart felt much clearer as well. Now, it was Ji Liuli’s turn to perform.

Ji Liuli grabbed the tea caddy and shook it once, twice, three times in total before she finally managed to shake out the tea leaves. The next moment, the True Lords’ faces turned as stiff as statues!

True Lord Xuan Yue’s breathing was so heavy that his white beard was visibly heaving. He stared at the tea leaves like he wanted to snatch them right there and then, but he could not because of his status.

On the other hand, True Lord Yan Shi was furrowing his brow slightly with a stiff smile. It was because Ji Liuli had used too much strength and shaken off three tea leaves in total.

“Hahaha!” True Lord Yan Shi let out a few dry laughs before saying, “It’s just a few tea leaves. Since it fell to the floor, just leave it! You should be more careful in the future, however. You don’t want to be rude to True Lord Xuan Yue, do you?”

True Lord Xuan Yue let out a heavy grunt before saying coldly, “Just spit it out already!”

By now, the young Daoist’s expression had returned to normal. He began, “I heard that you’ve been under a dark cloud, with a gloomy aura hanging around your forehead lately. Though you are resilient and will not face any mortal danger, your grand endeavors are certainly not going to be smooth-sailing. Fearing that the rumors might be unfounded, I decided to come see for myself. Now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes, my mind finally is at ease. This is the first reason.”

Surprisingly, Xuan Yue did not explode on the spot. Although everyone in the Skyblue Hall possessed foul tempers and stubborn personalities, they were patient toward their patron, twice as patient toward their creditor, and thrice as patient toward someone who was both their sponsor and patron. True Lord Yan Shi was both.

True Lord Xuan Yue asked sullenly, “And the second reason?”

“My second reason for coming here is to offer you my apology, Dao Brother Xuan Yue. Back then, my foolish Liuli had taken it upon herself to refine Wei Yuan’s foundation. However, why would a peerless Dao Foundation require any refinement? It is like attempting to lay tiles across an entire continent—a laughable endeavor! Ha, haha, hahaha!” 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

However, True Lord Xuan Yue relaxed his long eyebrows when he heard this. “You’ve only taken a look in the Myriad Manifestations Hall, haven’t you? Allow me to show you the true form of Wei Yuan’s Dao Foundation then, Dao Brother Yan Shi!”

He waved his hand, and Wei Yuan’s Dao Foundation appeared before both of them. Of course, the room was nowhere big enough to fully display Wei Yuan’s Dao Foundation. Instead, only a scaled model of the jade hill and the surrounding area was displayed.

“It would be folly to lay tiles across an entire continent, yes, but to refine a small corner of the world a thousand times over—that is perfectly acceptable, yes? Did you know that this jade hill contains many miracles? One thing for certain, our time and effort did not go to waste! Not a single drop!”

This time, it was True Lord Yan Shi who lost.

The True Lords both rested their gazes on the dead branch beside the jade hill, but neither of them could tell what it was. No one was alarmed, however. Dao Foundations came in all shapes or sizes. It wasn’t surprising for something extra to appear in Wei Yuan’s.

The young Daoist looked a little unhappy when he exited the Skyblue Hall. So far, his clash with Xuan Yue had ended in a draw—they both had one win and one loss. However, he had also lost three tea leaves. The money wasn’t the issue; it was the fact that he had lost three leaves.

In the Skyblue Hall, True Lord Xuan Yue carefully picked up the three tea leaves with Wood Dao energy and blew away the non-existent dust covering them. Then, he instructed a few disciples to seal up the tea leaves carefully. To this end, he had even brought out a box containing his senior’s Dao essence.

When all three tea leaves had been sealed separately, he wrote, “This immortal tea is authenticated by True Lord Yan Shi,” on each box. Then, he instructed the disciples to take it to the Trading Hall for sale. Each leaf was priced at a whopping one million taels.

In reality, each leaf was worth far more than a million taels. True Lord Xuan Yue simply wanted to sell them as quickly as possible. Barring any accident, he was sure that the three tea leaves would return to the Heavenly Mysteries Hall at light speed.

He absolutely could have priced the tea leaves at several million taels each, yes. Yan Shi would be miffed, but he would likely buy them in the end. However, True Lord Xuan Yue also knew that relentless pressure should be reserved for one’s enemies. When dealing with one’s patron and creditor, one must know when to stop and show thoughtful consideration.

The first thing Wei Yuan did after returning to his residence was to research the dead branch carefully. However, he couldn’t figure out anything. When he entered his own sea of consciousness and gave it a tentative pull, it came free from the soil without any resistance whatsoever. Startled, he hurriedly shoved it back inside.

Although he wasn’t sure what functions the dead branch possessed, it had been fished out by the immortal lord himself. It was said to belong to a Bay Laurel Immortal Tree as well. It was obvious at first hear that it was an impressive tree.

It was at this moment Wei Yuan recalled the odd reaction he had received from the merits ranking booklet during the meeting. So, he withdrew from his sea of consciousness and opened it. As it turned out, the merits ranking had changed once more. First, Bao Yun’s total merits had reached a whopping sixteen thousand and officially surpassed his record. This was not the most shocking news, however. It was the fact that Xiao Chonglou had surpassed everyone with an unbelievable total of eighteen thousand!

The trio weren’t the only ones who were catching up. For example, the third runner-up had a total merit of over seven thousand.

Wei Yuan recalled how the merits ranking had updated less than a breath after Pei Tinghai had flung the dead branch into his sea of consciousness.

An immortal lord did not speak or act carelessly. Wei Yuan was sure that there was some sort of meaning behind the gesture. However, he also knew he wouldn’t be able to figure it out at this juncture, so he stopped wasting time on it.

Next, Wei Yuan probed his spirit vein. To his disappointment, it was dry, meaning that the spirit gathering array wasn’t fixed yet.

Luckily, it wasn’t a problem for now. He had already constructed his Supreme Yin full moon. Thus, he could use it to slowly absorb worldly origin qi; a type of qi that was a level higher than spirit qi. Besides that, he had one more important task he needed to do: rewriting Outlawed by Heaven and Earth and creating a Dao Foundation Chapter.

Zhang Sheng was the creator of Outlawed by Heaven and Earth. He was the one who established the foundation and the framework of the secret technique. However, he had only written the basics. After forging his Dao Foundation, Wei Yuan’s primordial spirit experienced a massive boost, so much so that the original Outlawed by Heaven and Earth could no longer bring out his power fully. That was why it needed a revision. Unfortunately, Zhang Sheng could not use Outlawed by Heaven and Earth, so Wei Yuan had to perform the revision himself.

The good news was that his master had already established the framework and completed eighty percent of the work for him. All he needed to do was to wrap up the last twenty percent.

Moreover, Zhang Sheng had taught him how to write the Dao Foundation Chapter of Outlawed by Heaven and Earth a long time ago—during his three-year initiation to be exact.