He immediately shared the plan he had discussed with Gu Ningyun and the others, calling everyone to gather and face the enemy together.
Having experienced the power of cooperation over the past few days of the team competition—where groups of five or six successfully killed rank one peak demon beasts—the disciples naturally understood the strength of working together.
Once someone stepped up to lead, they felt as if they had found their pillar of support. Without delay, they rushed toward Fu Mingzhi throughout the night.
Considering the demon beasts in the forest were almost wiped out and the situation in the north was unclear, he knew the sooner they gathered, the safer they would be, so he did not stop them.
Ling Hanbai's side also sent word that they would head over as soon as they recovered their spirit energy.
Under the silent night sky, the sounds of suppressed footsteps, rustling clothes, and snapping branches were hidden.
As they hurried, time flew by. The moon shifted east, and dawn approached.
As the last sliver of moonlight vanished and the morning sun rose, Gu Ningyun, who had played «Zongjiao» all through the second half of the night, swallowed her fifteenth Spirit-Replenishing Pill and put away her zither.
The disciples in the rock pile recovered from their injuries and woke up.
"It's our sect-mates! We're saved!"
"Senior Brother Zhu, Senior Sister Gu, Senior Sister Xi!"
"Senior Brother Zhu found Senior Sister Gu to treat us!"
"They say surviving a great disaster brings good fortune. Does that mean the rest of our time in the secret realm will be safe?"
Although Mu Chenze had returned to the treetop to stand guard, his divine sense had been monitoring the situation below.
Seeing everyone awake, he flew down, his peach blossom eyes filled with seriousness. "Leave here first."
Noticing Mu Chenze's grave expression and Gu Ningyun's pale face, the group realized the urgency and hurried out of their hiding spot in the rocks.
Not long after they left the rock pile, a shockwave suddenly swept in from the north of the secret realm.
Within this wave was a faint, lingering evil qi.
Mu Chenze's expression shifted. Setting aside etiquette, he gripped Gu Ningyun's arm through her sleeve and activated his movement technique to carry her along.
"Use your Swift-Walk Talismans! We need to regroup with Jun Luo and the others first."
Hearing Mu Chenze's urgent command, the disciples moved their short legs as fast as they could, increasing their speed significantly.
Gu Ningyun had used her spirit energy and divine sense to purify evil qi for a long time. Even with the «Record of Primordial Stars» driving the «Xiaoyao Wind Records» to automatically absorb spirit energy...
...the spirit energy in her dantian and meridians had been in a constant cycle of consumption, depletion, and replenishment.
Despite having tempered her dantian and meridians, she had only been cultivating for a short year. Her cultivation was too low, and her meridians were struggling under the strain.
As she put away her zither and began to run using spirit energy, a sharp pain shot through her meridians.
Mu Chenze's assistance once again arrived just in time.
Mu Chenze had practiced movement techniques and possessed considerable strength. He was a trusted partner she had cultivated with since joining the sect.
Gu Ningyun simply closed her eyes and let Mu Chenze lead her.
She took this time to focus on her cultivation technique, absorbing spirit energy to nourish her meridians and restore the depletion in her dantian.
After some time, sensing Mu Chenze stop, Gu Ningyun opened her eyes.
She immediately saw the worried faces of Wen Xuan and the other two.
She instinctively managed a smile. "I'm fine. We didn't run into any danger on the way."
Jun Luo noticed her erratic breathing. "Meditate first."
Sensing the unusual fluctuations in the air, Gu Ningyun nodded and followed Wen Xuan back to the fire they had used at Ruiyu Pavilion, focusing entirely on recovering her spirit energy.
While being carried, she had already nourished her meridians. Her spirit energy was also partially restored.
Perhaps due to the repeated strain, her meridians seemed slightly wider and more resilient than before once they were healed.
She had a feeling that if she were to experience another night of such intense consumption, her meridians wouldn't react so poorly.
While Gu Ningyun and the hundred-plus disciples meditated to recover after their long journey, Jun Luo, Si Puyu, and the others weren't idle.
More and more disciples gathered at the small hill, their numbers exceeding four hundred.
They followed Gu Ningyun's previous arrangement, organizing the disciples into batches of one hundred.
Each batch was divided into five teams, with about twenty people per team.
That meant four groups made up one team.
When Ling Hanbai arrived with her group, they were organized in the same manner.
The fluctuations in the air grew stronger. Many disciples had gathered on the hill and at its base; though they were young, none of them acted out of turn at this critical moment.
Having been nourished by spirit roots since childhood and carefully trained by the Xiaoyao Immortal Sect for over a year, none of them were foolish or unable to grasp the situation.
Scattered disciples were still arriving from across the secret realm, while those already organized quietly adjusted their spirit energy and states.
They watched the north warily, occasionally glancing at the stronger senior brothers and sisters, waiting for the next set of instructions.
The secret realm was large for these Qi Refining disciples, but it was ultimately a low-level minor secret realm.
As the black figure's breathing grew heavier, the evil qi surrounding it kicked up shockwaves that spread from the north throughout the secret realm.
This was the source of the unusual fluctuations the disciples felt.
At this moment, the disciples clearly realized they had to cooperate.
With the arrival of the last group of disciples, the gathering point finally fell silent.
Everyone was waiting for the decisions of the powerful senior brothers and sisters who had first discovered the anomaly with the demon beasts.
Under the rising sun, no one spoke.
Aside from the unusual fluctuations in the air, all they could hear was the steady "thump-thump" of their own heartbeats.
Fu Mingzhi, Si Puyu, and Ling Hanbai remained silent.
They were waiting—waiting for Gu Ningyun to finish recovering her spirit energy.
After this individual competition, they had truly come to understand Gu Ningyun's strength.
Whether it was her intelligence and foresight in setting up the deceptive chess match, or her wind-attribute sword qi that was impossible to guard against and overwhelmed everyone.
Whether it was her music cultivation methods—healing, defense, and putting people to sleep—or her wind-attribute techniques that could kill two rows of demon beasts in a single move.
Intelligent, patient, and powerful.
This time, facing the unknown, awakening danger in the north, they wanted to hear Gu Ningyun's opinion.
It wouldn't even be out of the question to follow her command.
Gu Ningyun, currently meditating, was unaware of what her peers were thinking.
Had she known, she likely would have laughed to herself. If they had lived for twenty-two years on Blue Star as she had...
...and spent their childhood without parents, passing the time by reading in various libraries, they would have the same foresight and intelligence.
After all, with five thousand years of Huaxia's history, there was simply too much to learn.
She had always believed that knowledge is interconnected.
In cultivation, she was a novice, starting from nothing and knowing nothing.
But the knowledge she had gained in her past life in Huaxia—whatever could be used, she would use.
By combining it with what she learned in the cultivation world in this life and applying it flexibly, she could walk the path of immortality faster and more steadily than others.
"Roar!"
As the final layer of air fluctuations shattered, a massive beast roar echoed from the north.
Everyone's expression changed.
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