"YES, SECT LEADER!!!"

The crowd's voices echoed loudly across the meadow.

Aotian stood beside Rihai at that moment, while Tian Zhu finished his speech, and even joined in the shouts with the crowd — despite not having competed. That, of course, drew some strange looks from the surrounding disciples.

Even Rihai looked at him, helpless yet amused.

"What?" He looked at her, feigning confusion, then shrugged, slipped his arm around her shoulders, and pulled her close. She playfully patted his chest before leaning affectionately against him.

Smiling softly, his gaze wandered to the side, where Mu Luyin and Lei Yun stood — both of whom unconsciously glanced his way.

Aotian merely gave them a casual nod before looking away.

But inwardly, he wasn't so casual, for he had looked on purpose.

'The look Mu Luyin gave Rihai is completely normal. It seems they've never seen each other outside of the sect, or perhaps she simply hasn't connected Rihai to the daughter of her family's overlord.'

He pondered for a moment but didn't find that strange.

'The Mu Family, even as a force under the Liu Family's power, was merely a small, insignificant faction — more like a mouthpiece for the Liu Family in the Beiyan Continent.'

'So it's only natural that they wouldn't even know what the Liu Family's leader looks like, let alone his daughter.'

Confirming his reasoning, he dropped the matter and turned to leave with his wife.

As they walked away, Lei Yun curiously watched the couple's backs — the pair considered the strongest in the sect.

Mu Luyin followed his gaze but didn't seem to care much.

["Brother Yun, if you and I had participated, we would've become the strongest couple in the sect instead of them. Wouldn't that be fun?"]

She transmitted teasingly.

Lei Yun looked at her and shook his head.

["Doing that wouldn't bring many benefits. It's better to keep a low profile for now, since we just joined the sect."]

He replied calmly, turning to leave with her. Yet at no point did he deny that they were stronger than that couple.

If Aotian knew what those two were thinking, he would have found it amusing.

They might have higher realms, but they didn't command hundreds of synthesized spells custom-made for themselves, nor did they have thousands of minds with unique talents assisting them in combat — and most importantly, they didn't have the feedback of experience from all disciples, including themselves.

Others could grow stronger, but Aotian never stopped evolving. He was confident that even if he fought those two, he would still emerge victorious in the end.

And that's not even counting Rihai.

Back in his cave, Aotian sat in his room while Rihai returned to hers to cultivate.

Her progress over the past four months had been no joke — in fact, even he found it frightening.

Ever since she restored her roots, she had risen from the 1st to the 7th level of the Golden Core Realm, breaking through that last level just days ago.

If not for the need to stabilize her cultivation, she would likely already be at the 9th level.

But the stabilization process was taking longer each time. Even with Aotian's help, creating life-and-death situations within the Soul Challenge, Rihai knew that world was fake — and so was death — which greatly reduced the emotional impact needed to unleash potential and adapt quickly to the realm.

Without that true sense of desperation and real danger, she could only rely on time to adjust.

Aotian was thrilled for his wife, who grew more confident and powerful by the day, but he also felt a bit pressured. He didn't want to be surpassed in realm by her, so he began cultivating even more seriously.

In truth, he had a shortcut — one that didn't rely on external items — which he had been preparing to use in the coming days and that would greatly accelerate his progress.

And that shortcut was… dual cultivation.

With the dual cultivation technique Aotian had created and continuously refined, he could equalize his roots with hers, allowing both to cultivate at the average speed between their roots.

But there was a problem: dual cultivation lasted only as long as both of them could endure the act — and well… Rihai wasn't particularly resistant in that regard. Afterward, she always slept for several hours.

That's why Aotian preferred letting her advance through her cultivation realm over the past months, and even when they practiced dual cultivation, he focused on letting her cultivate at her own pace. As her cultivation realm increased, so did her endurance.

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The main issue, however, wasn't just her endurance — it was that the technique he had created still wasn't strong enough to fully equalize a divine root with a low-grade one.

It's worth remembering that even half the speed of a divine root was equivalent to that of a sacred root. After Rihai had repaired her roots, if Aotian could truly equalize their roots, he would reach the level of an absolute genius — but, unfortunately, nothing in the world was ever that simple.

Four months ago, he had tested it and could only increase his cultivation speed to the level of a perfect-grade root while lowering Rihai's to a spiritual-grade one — which was terrible. The limitations came both from the incomplete technique and the low quality of his own root.

He didn't want to harm her because of his selfishness or lack of skill.

But now, after four months studying some rather indecent manuals he found outside and improving his dual cultivation technique, coupled with the fact that he was about to strengthen his roots — and that Rihai's higher realm granted her greater endurance — he could finally make use of the "cheat" he had created.

Aotian also considered that Rihai was currently in a cultivation stabilization period, so dual cultivation wouldn't hinder her progress. On the contrary, he could use it as a bridge to help her stabilize faster, since he had extensive experience with that realm through his avatars.

Excited for the days to come, he took out the Transcendent Sky-Lotus of Nascent-Tier with a smile, handed to him by Bao Wuji, who was hiding in the void around him.

The progress he made in the past few days after the sect's level increase was not small. Now each pavilion, if distributed equally, could have ten outer elders. Aotian didn't assign them all, but for the Alchemy Pavilion, where outer elders were extremely useful, he didn't hesitate to do so.

Thus, when the sect was upgraded and he received so many new elders, Aotian directly assigned six former outer elders at the perfected Nascent Soul realm — elders he hadn't distributed since the previous upgrade — to that pavilion.

Along with the increase in the number of daily uses of outer elders' abilities, which went from four to eight per day, Aotian was simply swimming in Transcendent Sky-Lotus.

Each daily use of the Accelerated Growth skill for a Nascent Soul avatar jumped from the original hundred years of the Golden Core realm to a thousand years in this realm. Along with the level multiplier, a 9th-level Nascent Soul elder could, with a single use, age a plant by nine thousand years.

Each day, he could create around 350 Nascent-Tier lotuses, or about only 14 Formation-Tier ones, since there was a tenfold reduction in herbs one realm above the avatars.

In the first two days after the sect upgrade, he directly created 700 Nascent-Tier lotuses, distributed them among the new avatars, and had them use one each, carefully recording the results to improve his absorption technique.

In the following nine days — the current day marking the end of the competition — he created 126 Formation-Tier lotuses and followed the same process.

Looking at the lotus in his hand, he took a deep breath and hesitated.

'With my current speed, for all 664 avatars to upgrade their roots to high-grade roots, I'd only need to wait one month and nine days… by then, my absorption technique will be much more advanced. Even though it seems that the effect of the second herb replaces the first, who knows if that's really the case.'

He bit his lip, struggling fiercely inside, but in the end, he closed his eyes and controlled Bao Wuji to store the lotus away.

'I've already waited this long, a little more won't hurt. It'll be worth it…'

…

And so, the days passed, and slowly, the sect became a juggernaut on that continent, with over ten thousand disciples reaching the Golden Core realm, allowing Aotian to silently conquer more domains.

But despite the external changes, inside Aotian's cave, there weren't many.

The only difference was that the terrifying Rihai had not only stabilized her cultivation in just over a month but had also, the day before, advanced to the 8th level of the Golden Core realm — leaving Aotian completely speechless.

Fortunately, his days of anxiety had come to an end, for that very day, one month and nine days after the sect competition, his main body was the only one left that hadn't upgraded its roots.

But that was about to change.

Luckily, in compensation, he possessed an excellent Lotus absorption technique.

Pulling out a Nascent-Tier Transcendent Sky-Lotus for the second time, he took a deep breath, his heart trembling, his emotions a little chaotic.

"Finally! I've waited so long. I can finally take this step…" he exhaled, looking a bit dazed at the beautiful lotus in his hand as he murmured.

Closing his eyes and calming his mind, he took a deep breath before slowly letting it out.

Once his breathing found its rhythm, he didn't hesitate any longer and steadily wrapped the lotus with his energy.

Fragments of the plant began to loosen and float toward various parts of Aotian's body, but suddenly, a powerful force of attraction pulled them directly into his dantian.

There, Aotian drew in the entire decomposing lotus and compressed it into a solid yet illusory orb within his Golden Core, while countless minds worked precisely to prevent the energy from spreading and causing problems inside the dantian.

He compressed it, and under the bath of spiritual energy, refined it, expelling impurities under his control, leaving behind energy that was smaller, yet deeper and more potent.

Aotian was using his body as a pill cauldron to refine that energy internally. Doing it this way, not a single drop of medicinal energy was wasted, as would happen in an ordinary cauldron.

With everything ready, using several parallel mental processes, he released the concentrated energy in a burst and forced it to follow the desired paths, refining his roots from the inside out like a perfectly controlled vortex.

Aotian's body trembled, but it wasn't pain — it was pleasure. A sensation of evolution, of becoming something greater.

His roots became sturdier, his inner space expanded, and some kind of invisible law seemed to elevate them into something more… perfect.

Slowly, all the energy decomposed, filling every part of his roots and pushing them to a new level.

Minutes passed, and finally, with a deep breath, Aotian opened his eyes, a renewed glow within them and a smile on his lips.

Checking his status, his smile grew even wider.

[Host: Long Aotian Cultivation: 2nd Level Golden Core Body Cultivation: 2nd Level Golden Core Physique: Mortal Qualifications: Mid-Grade (Superior) Five Element Spiritual Root]

Looking at the mid-grade qualification with the additional "superior" tag, his heart filled with excitement.

The reason for that tag was simple.

If the speed of a mid-grade root was 2, and that of a high-grade root was 4, compared to the cultivation speed of a low-grade root, then Aotian's root, even though it was mid-grade, reached the value of 3.

It had escaped the limitations of a mid-grade root and reached an unknown point between mid and high grade.

Feeling extremely satisfied with the result, Aotian's smile didn't fade for even a moment.

Closing his eyes, he began summarizing the absorption experience with his many minds, and several minutes later, after mentally reviewing every detail and theory, he used Tian Zhu's synthesize ability to further enhance his self-created technique.

When he opened his eyes, Bao Wuji, who was in the cave, pulled out a second lotus — this one larger and even more beautiful — and handed it over carefully.

Aotian's lips curved into a smile, and his excited voice echoed through the cave.

"Time for the second round."

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