Aspiring to the Immortal Path

The entire island was like a volcano. Large amounts of red light spewed from the summit, appearing like rolling waves of lava.

Bizarrely, Tang Jie felt like something in his body was throbbing and roaring.

This was an effect of the Blood Refining Spirit spell. It made the power within the mountain feel very familiar…

As expected, the little tiger was involved.

Tang Jie was basically certain of this the moment he sensed that energy.

As for why the little tiger wasn’t willing to see him, Tang Jie could guess why.

Since it was able to steal away the Beast Garden, the little tiger had presumably reached Mind Opening.

Once its bloodline awakened, its ancestral memories would reemerge, and its hatred for the Basking Moon Sect would be enough for it to decide to leave.

He could understand this, but it was precisely because of this that he felt sincere sorrow.

In Tang Jie’s eyes, the little tiger had always been his own child.

Gazing up at the red light spewing from the summit, Tang Jie muttered, “You are my son. No matter what decision you make, I will always support you!”

And then he shouted, “Bao’er, did you hear that? No matter what decision you make, I will always support you!”

His roar resounded through the world.

Xu Miaoran suddenly turned her head and looked down the mountain, tears welling up in her eyes. She shouted, “Tang Jie, you bastard, you finally knew to come! If you were any later, I would have gone to find you!”

All the apprehensions she had felt guarding Yiyi these last two days had really scared her stiff.

But what she found strange was that, despite Yiyi’s incredible value, those fiends didn’t try to harass her. Even so, those numerous fiends refused to leave, so what ended up happening was that a large number of fiends gathered around Yiyi’s location.

They greedily stared at her as if they were waiting for an order.

Occasionally, a restless fiend would charge out. Fortunately, there weren’t many of them, so Xu Miaoran had been able to kill them all.

Even so, as more and more fiends gathered, Xu Miaoran grew increasingly concerned. When she heard Tang Jie’s voice, she felt as if a great burden had been lifted from her heart.

In truth, she didn’t know that Tang Jie had the powerful ghost guard, but she believed that if Tang Jie was around, there was no problem that couldn’t be solved.

When she spoke, she saw all the fiends staring at her, and her heart tightened as she swiftly shut up.

Inside the mountain, as the little tiger stood upon the three Transformation great fiends that he had beaten black and blue, tears welled up in his eyes.

“Father…” he muttered.

Just when he wanted to reply, a wave of blood erupted from the pool.

“Not good! Why is it coming now?” The little tiger paled, and he threw aside everything else and threw himself into the blood pool.

This was the final and most critical moment for absorbing the true blood, and he couldn’t afford any distractions.

On the path to the summit, the two Feng Buzhis, who were in the middle of undoing a seal, also heard this voice.

As Feng Buzhi looked down the mountain, his eyes brimmed with killing intent.

Helian Hu shouted, “Seventh Master, it’s Tang Jie. He’s come.”

“I know,” the black and white Feng Buzhis replied in unison. They shared a look, and then the white Feng Buzhi turned and made his way down the mountain.

“Seventh Master, you are only sending one avatar?” a Beast Refining Gate disciple asked.

“Our first priority is to break the seal and go up the mountain. The Wolf Lord is still waiting for us,” the white Feng Buzhi replied. “As for Tang Jie… one of me is enough.”

Standing at the base of the mountain, Tang Jie couldn’t help but laugh when he heard Xu Miaoran’s voice.

He wasn’t worried about Xu Miaoran. After all, this was the territory of Horizon Ocean Pavilion, and nobody could recklessly hurt her. But he had to consider safety, and there was also one other important reason: he missed her.

Tang Jie was just about to reply when he heard another person shout, “Is the one speaking Senior Sister Xu Miaoran? This one is Yun Danqi, a disciple of Horizon Ocean Pavilion. Senior Sister, please assist us…”

Unexpectedly, it was Yun Danqi’s group. These guys had also been on the island, and from their heavy breathing, it seemed that they were in the middle of combat.

Hearing this, Tang Jie flew in Yun Danqi’s direction. Meanwhile, he turned his appearance into that of Qiu Zheng and adjusted his voice so that it sounded hoarse.

He arrived at a valley, where he saw Yun Danqi, Shen Ningming, and their companions fighting against a large pack of fiends.

Several dozen fiends had grouped together, including the Faceless Serpent. After ten days, this guy was even larger than when it first appeared, and it was also fiercer.

Even more surprising was that there were some members of the Wandering Palace with them. These people had all been sent by the Wandering Palace to protect Shen Qingdan, and while their levels weren’t high, all at around Nine Revolutions, they couldn’t be considered weak, and they even had a combination formation. Alas, as they lacked the manpower, they couldn’t use the full power of the formation. Even so, they were still able to form an impenetrable wall.

Without these people from the Wandering Palace, Yun Danqi’s group would have been wiped out long ago.

Still, it didn’t seem like they would last for long, which was why Yun Danqi had called for help.

But Xu Miaoran herself was looking for a savior. There was no way she could help them out.

When Tang Jie arrived and saw the situation, he turned and nodded at the ghost guard, upon which the ghost guard charged out and started slaughtering the fiends.

In truth, if Tang Jie had gone himself, his status alone would have made the fiends back away.

But this was bound to expose his connection with the Beast Garden, and to be frank, now that the ghost guard was back, he no longer wanted these fiends to give way. This only robbed him of hunting targets. After all, fiends were resources!

The moment the ghost guard appeared, the Faceless Serpent instantly screeched, and then it once more turned its tail into its head and scampered off.

It ran!

Compared to the Faceless Sperent, those fiends who had not seen the ghost guard before were very unfortunate, for the ghost guard charged in and killed them all.

Yun Danqi’s group all cheered when they saw the ghost guard.

Yun Danqi shouted, “True Person Gui, you’re finally here!”

The ghost guard’s appearance raised everyone’s morale, and their strength rose with it. With a howl, they charged at the fiends and instantly turned the tables.

To prevent the fiends from escaping, Tang Jie waited until the fiends were almost all killed off and in full retreat before charging out and joining everyone else in the pursuit.

But this action was bound to cause some misunderstanding.

As Tang Jie had not made any particular preparations beforehand, everyone had actually seen him come with the ghost guard.

But while “True Person Gui” came to save them, this “Qiu Zheng” shrank back like a turtle, only striking when the battle was already decided.

This “bravery” and “loyalty” drew everyone’s contempt. Even Shen Ningming, who was on pretty good terms with him, wasn’t willing to look at him, and he couldn’t help but wonder when this person had become so cowardly. He hadn’t been this way when he was defending the island.

But then he recalled how Qiu Zheng had said that he needed to “take a piss”. While he had come back, True Person Gui had subsequently appeared. Thus, he “realized” that Qiu Zheng had planned to leave but saw that a True Person was coming to the rescue, so he had changed his mind and come back.

He had never imagined this person to be so incapable and greedy. He couldn’t believe that he had wasted so much time trying to form a relationship with this person.

He voiced his thoughts to Yun Danqi, and everyone else felt like it made sense. They cast looks of contempt at Tang Jie.

Tang Jie had no idea that he had already become a gutless, greedy, underhanded, and incompetent fellow in their eyes, as he was busy dismantling the fiend corpses. The ghost guard had killed several dozen fiends just now, and all of them were of decent grade and level. The harvest from the Beast Garden would have required much more work on the outside.

Holding a deer fiend, Tang Jie used his hands to get a measure of its size and see if there was enough to make scarves for Yiyi and Xu Miaoran. The ghost guard hadn’t picked a particularly good spot for its Ghost Slice, making it difficult to divide. He had to make sure the ghost guard paid more attention to this aspect in the future. Hides like this were rather hard to come by, and it was important to keep them intact.

As he was thinking to himself, one of Yun Danqi’s juniors came over and said, “Put that down right now!”

“Hm?” Tang Jie looked at this person in shock. He recognized this person as one of Yun Danqi’s juniors, and his name was Xian Shaoyu.

Xian Shaoyu shouted, “It was True Person Gui who killed the fiends. Do you not understand the rule of the spoils going to whoever killed them? Since you didn’t fight, you don’t have the right to any of the spoils!”

Tang Jie got what was going on, and he looked behind him to see everyone looking at him with disgusted looks. He smiled and said, “This isn’t for me. I’m helping True Person Gui gather them up.”

“Still trying to argue?” Xian Shaoyu’s face twisted in anger. He had clearly seen this guy shoving those fiend corpses into his own Mustard Seed Bag just now.

Tang Jie turned to the ghost guard, which said, “He’s helping me out.”

Everyone was instantly silenced.

Tang Jie shrugged. “All of you heard it, so I’ll help myself. Oh, right. If I recall, it was True Person Gui who killed that sea snake in your hand, no?”

Xian Shaoyu froze, and then he saw Tang Jie reach out and take the sea snake, even saying “Thank you.” Xian Shaoyu was inwardly furious, but all he could manage to say was, “A dog using its master’s power.”

Tang Jie found this rather amusing, but he didn’t try to argue, continuing to dismantle the fiends.

Once all the fiends had been gathered, Tang Jie said, “Right, I heard that there is a colleague from Horizon Ocean Pavilion up on the mountain?”

Although Yun Danqi wasn’t willing to give him the time of day, he finally said, “It should be Senior Sister Xu of my lowly sect. If she hadn’t shouted the name ‘Tang Jie’, I wouldn’t have dared to be sure it was her. I didn’t think that they would also come, but I don’t know why she said those words. I hope that she’s alright.”

The relationship between Xu Miaoran and Tang Jie wasn’t some big secret, so Yun Danqi hadn’t needed much time to guess who she was.

But he would have never imagined that the Tang Jie she had called for was this Qiu Zheng standing right next to him.

Tang Jie was somewhat worried about Xu Miaoran. Although she hadn’t explained her situation, from her tone, she seemed to be in danger. If Tang Jie hadn’t judged from her tone that she wasn’t in a state of absolute peril, he would have never come to rescue Yun Danqi’s group. In truth, he had saved them so that he could add to his combat power.

He hadn’t forgotten that the Beast Refining Gate still had a True Person.

Although he had the ghost guard and wasn’t afraid of that True Person, Lin Baicang had said before that one of the Beast Refining Gate’s three True Persons was at the Heart Demon Period. If this was true, then the ghost guard might not be enough.

If one wanted to put a numerical value to the gaps between cultivation tiers, the difference from tier to tier was about five times, and from the top tier to the next realm was about ten times.

In other words, in normal circumstances, a Cognitive Creation cultivator could handle about five Nine Revolutions cultivators together, and a Spirit Ring True Person could handle ten Cognitive Creation cultivators.

Tang Jie’s overall strength was comparable to that of a Cognitive Creation cultivator, or even a little stronger. Chang Baimei’s strength had been average among Spirit Ring True Persons, so he was equivalent to seven or eight Cognitive Creation cultivators.

In these circumstances, Tang Jie had used a formation, the recommendation placard, the Heavenbane Lightning Pearl, and even the help of Shen Qingdan, and all of this was barely enough to let him fight a battle with Chang Baimei.

Even then, he hadn’t been able to win.

Thus, this unknown Heart Demon True Person was bound to be even scarier. He was probably 35 to 40 times his strength.

This gap wasn’t something the ghost guard could compensate for. This was why Tang Jie needed the help of others.

Hearing Yun Danqi say this, Tang Jie went with the flow and said, “If that’s the case, what are we waiting for? Let’s go and take a look.”

“Naturally.” Yun Danqi thought to himself, While this guy might be a coward, at least he can read the situation.

The ten-some Wandering Palace cultivators weren’t particularly happy to hear that they were going to find Xu Miaoran. A muscular man among them said, “My apologies, but we can’t go with you. We still need to wait for our young palace lord.”

Tang Jie smiled. “Is this Big Brother Xu Tian of the Wandering Palace’s 18 Ironguards?”

The big man was startled. “How did you know?”

“If you don’t mind, let us step over to the side and talk.” Tang Jie pulled Xu Tian away.

A few moments later, the two of them returned, with the Wandering Palace group agreeing to go with them.

The Joymount Island group saw how easily Tang Jie had convinced them and were very curious as to how he had done it. They couldn’t help but raise their opinion of him.

Everyone started to head up the mountain in the direction of Xu Miaoran’s voice.

Xu Miaoran’s location wasn’t far away, and considering that most of the seals on the lower part of the mountain had been undone, the group quickly got to her.

This was a somewhat gradual slope. Xu Miaoran was seated on a large boulder.

Next to her, a green rose bloomed in the wind, and not far from her, hundreds of fiends hungrily stared at Xu Miaoran.

Everyone was scared out of their wits by all these fiends.

But a moment later, these fiends saw Tang Jie and instantly scattered.

This sudden development left everyone gobsmacked. A Horizon Ocean Pavilion disciple laughed, “These fiends are rather clever. They knew that they couldn’t beat our numbers, so they decided to run.”

“You think they were scared because there were a lot of us? No, this was clearly because of True Person Gui’s intimidating aura!” One of them didn’t forget to compliment the ghost guard.

Yun Danqi rushed over to Xu Miaoran and bowed. “It really is Senior Sister Xu. Nothing could be better than meeting you here.”

Xu Miaoran didn’t reply, her eyes looking toward Tang Jie in the distance.

Although she didn’t recognize the face, for some reason, when she looked at him, she felt like she knew this person.

Tang Jie was just about to say something when a voice suddenly spoke up behind him. “Where is Tang Jie?”

Turning around, he saw a white-robed man standing on a tree branch, his hands held behind his back.

Alas, it seems like there’s no avoiding disaster for Yun Danqi and company. Can they survive the main character tribulation? Or will they suffer the fate of the Green Hill crew?