***
The next day.
Azure Pillar Sect.
Li Shen relaxed on his wooden chair, feeling the tranquility of the place after yesterday he had been involved in a small fight.
But today was different, he would relax all day while watching over the training of his disciples.
Hao Ziyue and Xiao Bai returned to the front yard of the sect. They sat facing each other in the lotus sitting position, focused on increasing the absorption of the exclusive spiritual energy emitted by the Celestial-level spirit stone above their heads.
They had taken the Cultivation Star Pill, so they should be able to overcome the bottlenecks in stages three and five and reach the peak of Qi Condensation in a short time.
The clean, pure, dense, and abundant spiritual energy intake from the Celestial spirit stones made their cultivation run smoothly.
Every now and then, Li Shen looked over and saw that the flow of qi energy in their bodies was going well and as expected.
"Regulate the flow of your breathing, throw away all the thoughts that bother you," Li Shen explained, continuing to shake the chair while fanning himself, completely at ease.
When Li Shen was still in the Immortal Palace, his life was busy cultivating and seeking enlightenment.
Over 10,000 years, he managed to break through to the True Immortal stage but found it difficult to gain enlightenment to the Celestial Emperor.
Instead, when Li Shen was in the mortal world, he gained the enlightenment to break through to the Celestial Emperor. To Li Shen, cultivators who kept glorifying the Immortal Palace were fools.
'There are three boundary fields holding me back from reaching the Celestial Emperor gate. What exactly does the heavens seek for me?' Li Shen asked.
"Uhuk!"
When the man was watching Hao Ziyue and Xiao Bai's training, he heard a coughing sound from inside the sect building. The coughing sound came from Ye Fa.
Li Shen rushed away in a flash of light and wind to fully appear in Ye Fa's room. Today, Ye Fa could not keep his two disciples company because of his deteriorating condition.
Ye Fa opened her eyes, then turned her head to the side and smiled faintly. He saw Li Shen's presence in her room, coming with a strong magic momentum worthy of someone at the Immortal Ascension stage.
"Senior," Ye Fa greeted, softly.
"Ye Fa? What happened to you?" asked Li Shen.
Li Shen sat on the wooden chair and looked at Ye Fa, then his hand held the old woman's wrinkled wrist. Li Shen began to check Ye Fa's cultivation vein and meridian conditions, something was odd.
'Her mortal body is fine, I did not find a single illness. However, it's different with her cultivation meridians,' Li Shen explained.
The man looked back at Ye Fa, staring at the girl that had lowered her cultivation to survive all this time.
All cultivators knew, lowering one's cultivation stage would cause qi turmoil in the cultivator's body.
Lowering the cultivation stage is different from hiding one's cultivation stage. Hiding one's cultivation stage does not have any impact on the cultivator personally, unlike lowering one's cultivation stage which was dangerous, even though it could prolong the cultivator's life.
'Is it possible that there was a big war in the past that forced her to lower her cultivation?' asked Li Shen.
"Ye Fa?" asked Li Shen, Ye Fa opened her eyes again.
"What happened?" asked Li Shen.
Ye Fa was silent for a moment, then began to bravely tell what happened to her. Li Shen was still there, listening to Ye Fa's words.
6,000 years ago, Ye Fa managed to reach the highest cultivation realm in her life. She broke out of closed cultivation and found she managed to break through to the Early Void Tribulation stage.
At that time, she became one of the three strongest cultivators on planet Azure, becoming the only strongest under Void Tribulation.
Everyone began to take interest in Ye Fa's life, they flocked to join Pillar Azure just for the sake of being able to see and learn from Ye Fa.
It was beautiful, impressive, and touching. Pillar Azure Sect became an 8th level sect, which made Qing Kingdom rise in status to a 3rd level Cultivation Kingdom.
Even so, there were some people who disliked Pillar Azure's glory. The Imperial court considered Pillar Azure's power to be capable of overthrowing the throne and controlling the kingdom.
The palace chose to discard the status of a 3rd level cultivation kingdom just for the sake of destroying the dominating sect.
It was better for them to lower their status than for their dignity as the ruler of the kingdom to be degraded by a sect.
3,000 years after Ye Fa broke through the Void Tribulation, a great war raged. People knew the war's name as the Azure Pillar War.
All Pillar Azure sect disciples were hunted down and killed, even the cruelest thing was being used as pill-making materials.
The elders were captured and enslaved, their cultivation was destroyed and they now lived as mortals.
The Sect Leader was killed, his head was cut off and was still displayed in the Qing Emperor's Palace as proof of the Emperor's indisputable power.
Ye Fa fought with many Soul Ascension stage cultivators. They forced Ye Fa to fight so hard that she lost her cultivation several times.
"Someone named Du Liang planted a strong curse on me. Every time I tried to cultivate, I would get injured and fall unconscious," Ye Fa replied.
"Until the Qing Emperor stopped the search on you and you could go back to build this sect?" asked Li Shen.
"To Qing Yan City, they never considered the Azure Pillar sect to exist. They only see this place as a useless ruin."
Li Shen heard it all. His heart was so painful watching Ye Fa having to suffer so much for the sake of defending the sect, even her life was threatened as her cultivation continued to erode.
From Li Shen's eyes, Ye Fa was at the Early Nascent Soul stage, whereas before she was at the mid-stage.
It proved that these few times, Ye Fa tried to cultivate but failed due to the curse that befell her.
With Li Shen in this place, also with his high cultivation level, Ye Fa no longer needed to feel afraid.
Li Shen helped Ye Fa to rise up. He sat Ye Fa on the bed while asking her to do lotus meditation, Ye Fa understood and nodded.
The man in front of Ye Fa could be seen starting to form a hand formation, bringing up magic runes spinning in the room.
Ye Fa saw the momentum. She did not expect that she, at her age, could see the cultivation formation runes again.
The formation runes were created as Li Shen continued to form complicated hand formations. The curse was visible to Li Shen, at least it was a high-level curse that could only be released by someone at the Soul Ascension stage.
Li Shen opened his eyes and looked towards Ye Fa. He watched as five cultivation formation runes formed and continued to rotate clockwise with Ye Fa as the axis.
[Curse Breaking Formation Active!]
Blue magic light emitted from the formation runes, where the runes got smaller and smaller until they entered Ye Fa's body.
From Li Shen's cultivation eyes, he saw the five formation runes began to capture Ye Fa's spiritual roots which were contaminated with green qi energy.
"Seal shattered!"
Magic turmoil was felt in Ye Fa's body as Li Shen attempted to break the curse. Ye Fa took the initiative to start meditating and channeled her magic energy through the meridians in her body, focusing on helping Li Shen recover her spiritual root.
Li Shen smiled, the presence of Ye Fa's qi energy was enough to help him maintain Ye Fa's spiritual root as the man focused on breaking the curse.
Soon, the curse shattered and sent huge qi energy fluctuations all over the Azure Pillar hill, even to the point of shaking the branches and foliage of the trees.
Hao Ziyue and Xiao Bai gasped, their practice halted when they felt the thump. The two rushed into the sect building to see what was happening there.
In Li Shen's eyes, Ye Fa had already recovered from that dangerous curse. She could return to cultivating and recover her cultivation.
By starting cultivation, the wrinkles on Ye Fa's face slowly disappeared, her hair blackened and her back turned straight.
She returned to being a beautiful woman with long hair and flawless white skin, Li Shen smiled.
"Congratulations, you have been freed from the curse," Li Shen explained.
Ye Fa felt her body become energized and lively again. When she started channeling her qi energy into her dantian, she no longer felt any turmoil.
"I ... can cultivate again?" asked Ye Fa, Li Shen nodded.
The door to Ye Fa's room was opened, Hao Ziyue and Xiao Bai were shocked to see that their master had returned young, beautiful and charming.
"Master?" asked Hao Ziyue.
"You've finally recovered, Master," she said again, deeply touched.
"This is all thanks to Senior Li Shen. He helped me," stated Ye Fa, pointing at Li Shen.
Hao Ziyue and Xiao Bai thanked him by kowtowing, the help from Li Shen was of great help to them in the Azure Pillar Sect.
"Ye Fa is my friend. It's only right for me to help her," Li Shen explained.
"Senior? How about you take the position of sect leader?" asked Ye Fa, surprising Li Shen.
Hao Ziyue and Xiao Bai didn't mind at all. Instead, they thought that if Li Shen led the sect, the Azure Pillar Sect could reach the peak of its former glory.
"I can't take it if—"
"Take it. I'll help you with everything. I think that only you can protect us."