64: Chapter 64 Paving the Way

Time flies like a fleeting shadow.

For Mortal, five hundred years is a long span of time, witnessing the rise and fall of dynasties and the changing of seas into mulberry fields.

But for a cultivation family with spiritual veins as its foundation,

five hundred years is merely a period for consolidation and expansion.

In the blink of an eye, five hundred years passed.

Within the borders of the Yue Kingdom, Tianyun Market.

This place is no longer the trading hub it once was, with only a few streets and scattered shops.

After five full centuries of management and expansion by the Qianlong Su Family.

The entire Luoyun Mountain range, along with the surrounding plains spanning hundreds of miles, has completely merged into an extremely massive cluster of cities.

On the outskirts are tens of millions of Mortal.

They live in the towering cities that have risen from the ground, providing the Su Family with massive amounts of supplies, labor, and most importantly, fresh bloodlines day and night.

The inner city is the domain of cultivators.

The third-grade low-tier spiritual vein of Luoyun Mountain has been continuously groomed and reinforced by generations of the Su Family's formation masters, ensuring spiritual energy never dissipates year-round.

Under the accumulation of an extremely large population base, combined with the Su Family's near-manic strategies for marriage and reproduction,

the number of Su Family members has now reached a terrifying figure.

Quantitative change has led to qualitative change.

In the past, the appearance of a single Seventh-grade Spirit Root would cause the entire clan to celebrate.

But now, in the Qianlong Su Family's inner sect academy,

disciples with Fourth-grade or Third-Grade Spiritual Roots, while not as numerous as ox hairs, are no longer rare commodities.

Every few years, the spiritual testing pillars in the Internal Affairs Hall always shine with several blindingly bright lights.

In these five hundred years, the Su Family has even produced two peerless geniuses with Second Grade Spiritual Roots.

There is no shortage of resources, cultivation techniques, or guidance from famous masters.

The Foundation Establishment Stage cultivators of the Qianlong Su Family have become so numerous that they need to be dispatched to neighboring countries to guard their industries.

The number of powerful elders at the Great Circle of the Foundation Establishment Stage is constantly maintained at over thirty.

This is a cultivation family that has reached the pinnacle of prosperity.

However, ever since the ancestor Su Yu formed his Golden Core eight hundred years ago,

the entire Qianlong Su Family has not produced another person who could form a Golden Core.

Not a single one.

Those gifted descendants, after cultivating smoothly all the way to the Great Circle of the Foundation Establishment Stage, without exception, fell before that final threshold.

Some grew fearful, not daring to take that final step, and could only linger in the Foundation Establishment Stage until their lifespan was exhausted, passing away in their cultivation caves.

Others, relying on their superior spiritual roots and the deep foundation of their family, recklessly forced the heaven and earth spiritual energy to flood their bodies, attempting to force the formation of a Golden Core.

But the end result was destruction.

Without enough Comprehension Ability to straighten out those violent and chaotic laws of heaven and earth, even the most abundant true essence is nothing but a deadly poison.

There were also a small number who were extremely well-prepared and had stable states of mind.

But at the final moment of the breakthrough, due to an extremely minor deviation in luck,

they failed at the last hurdle and ended in regret.

Su Yu was not surprised by the dilemma of the family failing to produce another Golden Core cultivator in five hundred years.

In fact, it was completely within his expectations.

Back then, he was able to use brute force to forge an Eighth-grade Golden Core despite his mediocre Comprehension Ability.

In reality, it was an incredibly lucky gamble that could never be replicated.

Without Comprehension Ability to sense the laws, for his descendants to form a Golden Core is no different from a mortal ascending to the heavens.

In the deepest secret chamber of the Ancestral Peak.

The eight-hundred-and-sixty-year-old Su Yu sat cross-legged on a prayer mat.

His face still appeared to be that of a middle-aged man, but his full head of white hair had lost all its luster, becoming as gray and withered as dead grass.

Beneath his skin, the vitality that was once as vast as an ocean was now draining away in an extremely slow, yet irreversible manner.

The Five Decays of Heaven and Man had arrived.

According to the lifespan of a Golden Core cultivator, he should have been able to live longer.

But when he failed to forcibly break through to the mid-stage of the Golden Core realm, he not only shattered some of his meridians but also damaged his extremely fragile Golden Core origin foundation.

This caused him to live five hundred years less than he should have.

However, he did not seek any heaven-defying treasures to extend his life.

The limit of this life is here; there is no point in forcibly clinging to survival.

Su Yu was not worried about the future of the family.

Because during these long five hundred years, he had long paved the way for the family's future.

Apart from returning to the main peak of the Cangxuan Sect every few decades to report on his duties without fail, he had long established an iron rule.

Among the Su Family descendants, any top-tier talent who tests for a Fourth-grade Spirit Root or higher must join the Cangxuan Sect and serve the sect for generations.

For five full centuries, the Su Family had continuously supplied the Cangxuan Sect with a large amount of fresh blood.

Although no one could break through to the Golden Core realm,

among these supplied geniuses, there were several powerful inner sect deacons, outer sect elders, and true disciples highly valued by the sect.

Relying on this group of Su Family disciples who were deeply entrenched in the middle and lower levels of the sect, combined with the maneuvering of Su Yu, the Golden Core "Emperor Emeritus",

the interests of the Qianlong Su Family and the Cangxuan Sect became deeply bound.

As early as three hundred years ago, out of respect for Su Yu, the Sect Master personally issued a decree.

He designated Tianyun Market as a fiefdom, rightfully placing it under the hereditary trusteeship of the Qianlong Su Family.

With this sect amulet of protection,

even if he were to fall, as long as the Su Family did not recklessly court death, this foundation would remain as stable as Mount Tai.

As for the karmic grievances from the outside world, they had also been completely resolved during these five hundred years.

When he was nearly five hundred years old, the Golden Core jade token left behind by Chu Tiankuo's family shattered.

The Chu Family had encountered a joint siege by three surrounding Foundation Establishment families, and their clan-protecting formation was on the verge of collapse.

Su Yu arrived after traveling tens of thousands of miles, using the supreme pressure of a Golden Core cultivator to shatter the allied forces with a single palm, extending the life of the Chu Family.

At the age of six hundred, the Lin Family, where Lin Wan'er belonged, offended an evil cultivator who had just advanced to the Golden Core realm, and the jade token's connection was severed.

Su Yu tore through the void, fought thirty rounds with that early-stage Golden Core evil cultivator outside the Eastern Forest Region, and forcibly blew up the opponent's physical body, cutting off the roots of the trouble.

Thus, all karmic debts were cleared, and he had no more attachments.

What he needed to do now was to pave the way for his next life.

There were still a few decades left before his final limit.

Su Yu began to travel across the Southern Wilderness.

During these five hundred years, as the only Golden Core ancestor of Tianyun Market, he had accumulated an extremely terrifying amount of wealth in his storage bag.

Golden Core magical treasures, extinct thousand-year-old spiritual herbs, and jade slips recording various obscure cultivation techniques and ancient secret arts.

There were even a large number of extremely rare top-tier spiritual stones.

He did not leave all of these things to the Su Family.

Because "an innocent man is guilty of the crime of possessing a treasure."

Once he died, the Su Family would have no Golden Core cultivator to hold the fort.

Therefore, Su Yu kept this batch of top-tier resources on his person.

In the time that followed, Su Yu focused all his energy on hiding these resources.

Su Yu extremely patiently divided the resources into dozens of portions and hid them in blind spots between the cultivation world and the mortal world.

For example, deep inside a dry, mortal well with no spiritual energy.

For example, inside the base of a weather-beaten stone bridge in a mortal city.

Or, for example, in the crevices of an abandoned mine that had been completely deserted and where even the spiritual energy had dried up.

The greatest hermit hides in the city.

Not only that, but Su Yu also set up extremely perverse double or even triple verification methods on these "treasuries."

Finally, he added a verification method using the essence blood of the Su Family lineage.

This ensured that the resources he left behind would have the greatest possibility of reaching his next life.

At the very least, they would be left to the Su Family members of his own bloodline.

A cunning rabbit has three burrows; this was the foundation he had laid for his reincarnation!