It was a new day in the Infinite Dao Sect and its surroundings.
The sect was lively, with disciples moving back and forth, clearly busy with their tasks.
And indeed, they were.
With the arrival of the new recruitment, the sect had been sending more and more requests to the Missions Pavilion, and the disciples would not miss the opportunity to earn as many contribution points as they could with this undertaking.
In the Infinite Dao Sect, if there was something disciples could complain about out loud, it was something that didn't differ much from one person to another. It would be: "We have insufficient contribution points. It's never enough! Please, give me more work!"
Contribution points could buy high-level materials not found on the continent, buy spells, buy the extremely expensive cultivation techniques, or buy special access to certain places in the sect that required contribution points, such as the Hundred Thousand Beasts Tower, the Physical Refinement Hall, and the Hall of Wisdom.
The last two were actually new areas in the sect — two distinct places opened only once a month, for two days.
In those two places, the first allowed disciples and the sect's beasts to refine their physical bodies much more quickly with the energy present there. And the second allowed them to gain insights much more easily, with their minds operating more swiftly and without getting tired, almost like a mini-epiphany.
With these two new places appearing, the disciples became extremely excited, and their reverence for the sect only increased. Even Lei Yun, a former Mahayana, had to take a deep breath when faced with those two miraculous locations and struggled to understand how they worked.
What they didn't know was that the halls themselves were just regular places. The extraordinary part lay in the two new ancestors now present in the sect — one from the Body Refinement Pavilion and the other from the Heritage Pavilion.
Since both had the ability to generate a special energy that benefited themselves and their allies, Aotian didn't think twice before providing that to the disciples, after all, with their growth, he also profited greatly — whether through feedback or through their improvements, which slowly brought him closer to completing the system's tasks.
The only problem was that the ancestors needed to be present in the halls for their energy to function there, but since they were very important to Aotian, he couldn't confine them to a single place. So he could only, reluctantly, restrict them to that location once a month, for two days.
At other times, when these two ancestors didn't have tasks, he allowed all his avatars that were available to gather and enjoy the benefits of those two energies while cultivating in an isolated place that Aotian had designated.
Back to the present, the sect was extremely busy — and this didn't only apply to the disciples, for the elders were also extremely occupied with preparations.
And why such a rush for a simple recruitment? The reason lay outside the sect mountain, in the enormous number of people gathered there, waiting.
There were more than a billion people spread across several miles of land, making the hearts of everyone present tremble before the overwhelming presence of such a massive crowd.
It was as if the entire population of India or China from Aotian's past life had gathered in a single place to participate in one event.
And they weren't just ordinary mortals. All those who had been invited and brought on the sect's floating ships had been pre-evaluated to determine whether they possessed spiritual roots.
Although Aotian intended to allow the sect's disciples to buy Transcendent Sky-Lotus to enhance their talents — and for that reason had removed root-quality requirements from the recruitment — it was still necessary that they possessed spiritual roots, and that they were innate, not acquired.
The Transcendent Sky-Lotus only enhanced existing energy pathways in a body; it did not create them. Mortals would not gain roots by using it. In fact, they couldn't even use it without spiritual energy.
As for martial artists who had created sparse roots, they could use it, but the herb would only strengthen the existing pathways, without complementing the broken sections. Thus, they would remain sparse and limited.
It was not easy to break one's birth destiny and transcend mortality to attain immortality. The heavens seemed to make that particularly harder than it already was.
If not for his golden finger, Aotian would also have failed such an imposed destiny — after all, the conditions to cultivate a complete spiritual root were extremely harsh.
Even under such requirements, the fame and influence of the Infinite Dao Sect, as the new ruler of the Beixu continent, were enough to bring more than a billion people with spiritual roots to participate.
And in this moment of agitation, with disciples and elders running in all directions, a certain person — or rather, the main body of a certain person — was in a completely different atmosphere.
Aotian slowly opened his eyes and blinked lazily.
In front of him, the bare, smooth, white back of a beautiful figure filled his vision.
At the top was a blonde head, with long hair passing under her neck and falling forward, exposing her lovely collarbone to his gaze.
Smiling softly, he leaned in and tenderly kissed her neck.
Then, extending his arm, he wrapped it around her waist and pulled her fragrant body closer, nestling her into his arms and chest.
Pressing his nose into her blonde hair, he breathed in her scent with peace and contentment.
A few moments passed, and then a delicate hand came from behind and rested on his shoulder, while a warm, soft body pressed against his back, hugging him from behind.
Aotian felt those soft peaks pressing against his back and smiled comfortably.
"I'm going to get jealous of myself like this." A sweet voice purred in his ear from behind, while he was trapped in a sandwich between the two curvy bodies of his wife.
"No need, I'm going to love you and you equally." He chuckled softly, returning to kiss the neck of his blonde wife, who opened her beautiful blue eyes with a smile.
Quickly, something down below began to stir in Aotian, making him completely forget his earlier plan to rest a little longer.
In truth, Aotian no longer slept. With so many avatars, it was very hard to disconnect from the world to sleep, and since his cultivator body no longer felt exhaustion, the need was even smaller, which made everything harder.
In this way, even when he allowed himself a few days each month to sleep with his beloved wife, he only pretended to sleep while relaxing his main body. His mind, however, continued operating at full speed, and not even his cultivation stopped.
It was basically cultivating while lying down.
Rihai was unaware of this fact, but something she clearly noticed was that something was rising in the lower part of her husband at that moment, and she could only roll her eyes.
"We still have to leave, the recruitment will start soon. Don't fool around…" she said helplessly.
"Don't worry, there's still plenty of time."
Aotian laughed it off. Rihai was just being playful; she wasn't actually refusing.
Thus, indescribable things soon began happening in that room.
Two hours later, the couple left the room arm in arm, both wearing satisfied smiles.
But as soon as they stepped out, at a farther doorway, they saw an old man with red hair and narrow eyes staring at them.
Rihai froze, and her face turned red with embarrassment. After all, that was her great-grandfather.
As for Aotian, he rolled his eyes in irritation as he looked at the old man. Even though he had allowed him to live in his cave, he didn't trust him blindly.
Previously, he hadn't even intended to let old Liu into the mountain, but in the end, he had to pacify him when the man was about to start a war over his great-granddaughter. To avoid having to do something that would make his wife sad, he begrudgingly accepted the old man living there.
And yes, Aotian did not fear Liu Taixuan. He had his trump cards against the man, proven effective by the Missions Pavilion's ability.
But that didn't make him blindly confident with a ticking time bomb living in the room next door. He had even left two ancestors at the entrance of his own room, hidden, ready to stop the old man at any moment.
Only like that could he have intimacy with his wife in peace, with a stranger living next door.
"Grumpy old man," Aotian began, his tone slightly annoyed. "You don't need to ruin my and my wife's good mood by staring at us like that." He made sure to complain.
"I can assure you, seeing your face puts me in an even worse mood," Liu Taixuan snorted, equally irritated.
Earlier, seeing the two leave the room with slightly flushed, happy faces, his mouth couldn't help twitching. It was easy to guess what they had been up to.
And knowing that a stray dog was doing indescribable things with his precious great-granddaughter, blood of his blood, only made the old man want to curse Aotian and his eighteen generations.
But Aotian didn't care about the thoughts of a grumpy old man and simply rolled his eyes at him, even as his wife discreetly nudged him to be polite.
"Well, your bad mood caused by my presence is good news for me. I'll try to be more proactive from now on in showing up in front of you." He mocked. "Now, you'd better call your disciple, the recruitment is about to begin. Just be prepared, old man. If he has a good heart, he can stay in the sect; if not, he'll have to leave, with or without you." He didn't forget to give his ultimatum, finishing the job of ruining the old man's mood.
Aotian and Liu Taixuan had been at odds since they met, a month ago. And since the old man didn't treat him nicely, he didn't bother pretending to be polite either.
But right now, he wasn't joking. Aotian worked hard to maintain a good environment in the sect and wouldn't let it be polluted for any reason. If the boy, Shen He, had a bad heart, even if he hadn't done anything, he still wouldn't be allowed to stay.
As for Liu Taixuan, Aotian had already probed him subtly during their conversation on the first day they met, with Lie Zheng listening in the background, and he knew the stubborn and irritating old man actually had a very good heart.
"You don't need to tell me that." Liu Taixuan frowned, but didn't deny it.
If Shen He were evil, he, as his master, would have known long ago. So he wasn't worried.
His only concern was whether the Infinite Dao Sect would play fair during the recruitment, but he believed they would.
Old Liu had been observing what this sect had been doing for a year, and they even helped mortals expecting nothing in return, whether during epidemics or natural disasters. So the character of this sect, even if he wouldn't admit it aloud, still seemed very trustworthy to him.
But he would keep an eye on the process just to be sure.
Seeing that the old man understood, Aotian nodded, internally sighing in relief.
"Well, then let's go," he said, beginning to head out with his wife, without waiting for the irritated old man behind them.
The recruitment was about to begin, and Aotian was interested in knowing how many would pass his test.