Half a month passed since Zhou Yuan had obtained the little Saint technique, Yin Yang Lightning Rune.

Over this period, huge changes occurred in the four pavilions.

Firstly, the Fire Pavilion. After Zhou Yuan’s interference, nearly half of their upper echelon was replaced, a change which undoubtedly caused large ripples. The new blood was not in the same camp as Zhu Lian and the other old guards. After all, the new blood had essentially dug away at the foundations of the Heavenly Spirit Sect.

Hence, after some discussion, Zhu Lian, Zuo Ya and the other Heavenly Spirit Sect disciples chose to oppose the new guys from various angles.

Although Lu Xiao barely appeared nowadays, he still belonged to the Heavenly Spirit Sect faction and thus silently acknowledged the actions of Zhu Lian, Zuo Ya and the others. This undoubtedly placed the non–Heavenly Spirit Sect side under a huge amount of pressure. After all, they naturally could not compare to the Heavenly Spirit Sect in terms of strength and resources.

Any random higher-up invited over by these Heavenly Spirit Sect disciples would place a tremendous amount of pressure on the non–Heavenly Spirit Sect side.

Fortunately, they knew that Lu Xiao was no longer the strongest in the four pavilions...and they were not without choice!

The new chief pavilion master was the true backbone of the four pavilions.

Hence, the Fire Pavilion’s non–Heavenly Spirit Sect upper echelon began to cast their lot with Zhou Yuan.

Zhou Yuan was already waiting for such an outcome. He quickly made his stand clear and berated Zhu Lian, Zuo Ya and the others. As a result, they did not dare to act too brazenly.

The majority of the ordinary Fire Pavilion members also began to join Zhou Yuan’s side, increasing his influence and authority in the Fire Pavilion. Any orders he gave would now smoothly spread throughout the Fire Pavilion.

Zhu Lian and Zuo Ya despaired at these changes. In the end, Zuo Ya could no longer hold back and escalated this situation to the higher-ups of the Heavenly Spirit Sect.

Sect master Xuan Kun did not personally step forward, but under his unspoken acknowledgement, several of the Heavenly Spirit Sect higher-ups began to exert pressure in the Tianyuan Utopia, saying that Zhou Yuan had disturbed the peace in the four pavilions and was unworthy of the chief pavilion master position!

However, such actions did not bear much fruit. Not only did Chi Jing step forward to suppress them, even grand elder Mu Ni, who usually did not interfere in the affairs of Tianyuan Utopia, spoke up. The majority of the Fire Pavilion members were not Heavenly Spirit Sect disciples after all, and if all of them supported Zhou Yuan, there was not much the Heavenly Spirit Sect could find fault with.

In the face of the open support from two grand elders, the higher-ups of the Heavenly Spirit Sect could only resentfully back down. It was said that even sect master Xuan Kun did not look too good over those few days.

In his anger, sect master Xuan Kun fiercely berated Lu Xiao, Zhu Lian, Zuo Ya and the others. The words useless were all but imprinted on their heads.

Zhu Lian, Zuo Ya and the rest finally gave up, and the morale of the Heavenly Spirit Sect disciples in the Fire Pavilion fell drastically.

The Fire Pavilion’s resistance crumbled along with Zhou Yuan’s greatest threat among the four pavilions.

The day after the Fire Pavilion affair died down, the mountain pavilion master, Han Yuan, personally paid a visit to Zhou Yuan. His stance was clear. Zhou Yuan had crippled even the Fire Pavilion, and if he still failed to acknowledge the situation, the Mountain Pavilion’s fate would be far worse. Hence, Han Yuan, as tactful as usual, swiftly chose to submit.

Zhou Yuan did not take things too far. He only gave out a small punishment before allowing Han Yuan to leave.

There was finally a clear direction in the four pavilions. From then onwards, Zhou Yuan’s voice would be the strongest in the four pavilions!

With the situation slowly stabilizing, Zhou Yuan cast away his responsibilities, leaving everything to Yi Qiushui as he entered secluded cultivation.

...

Four Spirits Origin Tower, the mountain district.

Zhou Yuan ultimately selected the mountain spirit rune for his third spirit rune.

The mountain spirit rune could augment one’s physical body, whereas the forest spirit rune could improve one’s recovery, something that was less desirable to Zhou Yuan since he already had the Taiyi Green Wood Mark.

In the mountain district, a yellow mist filled the sky.

It was not real mist but countless specks of sand. The specks filled the land, freely whizzing about the area. The Genesis marks of the mountain spirit rune were hidden within them.

The sand grains were tiny but as hard as steel. When they swept across one’s body, they created countless tiny bloody holes. When the sand fused with one’s blood, the Genesis marks within would slowly assimilate into the body.

Zhou Yuan sat down on a barren mountaintop and slapped a high-grade Mountain Mother Rune onto his body. With a wave of his sleeve, over a thousand origins coins appeared and began to burn.

Woowoo!

In the next instant, a tornado of sand descended from the sky, heading straight towards Zhou Yuan’s location.

Zhou Yuan calmly gazed at the yellow dragon-like sand tornado and slowly closed his eyes, allowing the torrential sand storm to engulf his body.

...

Zhou Yuan spent an entire month forming the mountain spirit rune.

The process was not difficult. After all, he had experience from the wind spirit rune and the fire spirit rune, and he was already very familiar with gathering Genesis marks. Furthermore, he had the Mountain Mother Rune and several tens of thousands of origin coins. In his view, it was not that amazing for him to complete the mountain spirit rune in a month.

Of course, that was only his opinion.

One must know that the other members of the four pavilions, including Lu Xiao, would take over half a year to complete a single spirit rune. In comparison, Zhou Yuan had used only a fraction of this time. Of course, there were many reasons for this such as the Four Mother Runes, his powerful Spirit cultivation and even the care given to him by the primal chaos divine grindstone in the core of the Four Spirits Origin Tower.

These many reasons allowed Zhou Yuan to achieve the impressive feat of completing the mountain spirit rune in a single month.

Zhou Yuan did not publicize his completion of the mountain spirit rune, not informing even Yi Qiushui and Ye Bingling. He felt that there was not much meaning in publicizing such matters.

Zhou Yuan did not stop or rest after completing the mountain spirit rune. He immediately turned his attention towards the final forest spirit rune.

He wanted to complete all four spirit runes. He did not know why, but he had a faint feeling that something would happen when all four spirit runes were gathered in one body.

...

Time swiftly passed.

After another half a month, the peaceful Tianyuan Region stirred once more.

There were two reasons.

One was that the date of the nine regions tournament was finally fixed. The tournament was a grand affair that every top faction in the entire Hunyuan Heaven paid attention to. With regards to scale, it was definitely one of the bigger events in Hunyuan Heaven.

The second reason pertained to the Tri-Mountain Alliance located north of the Tianyuan Region. They had challenged the Tianyuan Region, angering countless individuals.