“The path of the Immortal Dao is indeterminate and protracted. One must often leave behind something important and necessarily severe ties with it in order to stride forward.”

Qai summoned back all of the giant Ants and began to inspect Old Bu’s immortal cave.

He knew the things he picked up were all prized treasures so he decided to take them. But he was most curious about the brown colored pouch.

Qai had seen treasures coming out of the pouch with a simple flick of Old Bu’s hand, so he was certain it must be capable of storing things. And he is quite expectant of all the other treasures contained therein.

However, when he took a glance inside the pouch, he couldn't see a thing—it was as if something was restricting his vision.

So he tried to turn it over but nothing dropped. He tried to rip it, to cut it and tried all sorts of things to open it but the pouch remained intact.

Qai sighed at his incompetence or the lack of knowledge about things that cultivators used and just put the matter at the back of his mind.

Aside from the hall though, the immortal cave also had two other rooms—and thankfully so, there was no illusion array to hide their entrance.

One of the rooms had a stone bed and a table. But to his surprise, the other room had an old-looking cauldron at the center and a mountain of familiar beast cores scattered on the floor.

Qai instantly knew that they were all the beast cores he delivered. Sadly, he still had no idea what were they used for.

Of course, he had made his own tests before. And during which, he could feel that they were rich with spiritual Qi energy but for some reason, he could not absorb them through cultivation.

He tried to directly eat one—and while it did give him a ton of spiritual Qi energy, it was nevertheless too toxic that he had to vomit a mouthful of blood.

Since then, he never tried it again.

Unknown to him, however, beast cores should be refined as a medicinal pill in order to fully utilize the spiritual Qi energy they contained.

And because Qai had no way to find out, he decided to leave the room untouched. After all, at that point, he wouldn't be able to take all the beast cores with him.

‘I’ll just get them back once I find out their use.’

Of course, he considered taking the cave for himself but when he got out of it, he instantly noticed that he could no longer locate the cave entrance.

Qai suddenly slapped his forehead and sighed at the stupidity of his earlier thoughts.

Eventually, he resigned that there was no way for him to undo the array formation like how Old Bu did it.

‘Now, there’s no way for me to get those beast cores. At least I was not trapped inside. And it's good that I no longer need to hunt Spirit Beasts for someone else.’

As Qai headed his way to his own abode, he got a little inspiration to build an ‘immortal cave’ for himself—only that he would not be able to put an array formation.

Once again, he realized how he lacked the necessary knowledge of the cultivation world.

‘How can I possibly think of going out of this island this ignorant!’

Qai cannot help but get disappointed.

However, it was the that he suddenly thought of a plan.

‘According to Old Bu’s dying declaration, in a year’s time, the Precious Tree Sect disciples will arrive.. That will be my chance!’

Qai paused and thought hard how to take advantage of such a situation.

‘Perhaps, I could report that I am the Protector’s ‘servant’ and that old Bu had already died. Perhaps I would need to surrender his flying sword as proof. Then I will present Old Bu’s immortal cave, maybe they have a way to open it. They might get interested in the beast cores I collected. In exchange, I would plead to take me in as a servant of the sect.’

Of course, he did not include the two talismans and the pouch in his offer because he wanted them for himself even if he didn't know how to use them yet.

‘Brilliant!’

Qai curled his lips into a smile.

‘I will just have to approach submissively and endure to avoid offending any of them.’

He knew there were probably loopholes in his plan, but he was certain that they would not suspect that Old Bu died by his hands considering the huge gap between their cultivation bases.

‘That should work. For now, I can only cultivate for a year to wait for their arrival. But first, I better see my parents and sister and tell them about my plans.’

His plans were absolutely huge.

It meant that he would finally have the opportunity to leave the island and see the bigger world outside.

And so, within that year, he visited his family 3 times and checked on the progress of her sister’s training.

Her sister, Little Xi, who was already around 5 years old was taken, this time, under Master Nabi’s wings—not Master Han’s—to learn proper reading and, of course, the basics of herb extracting.

Little Xi followed her big Brother’s instructions about knighthood to the letter and thus became another knight prodigy in the nameless village.

Eventually, she also joined the elite reserve squad, which by now numbered around a hundred—it was, of course, upon Qai’s suggestion to help her learn how to properly hunt.

During Qai’s visits to his family, he wrote on a set of leather parchments everything he learned about cultivation based from personal experience, including the incantations of the ‘Transcending Autumn Arts,’ and gave them to his sister.

‘If this body has Spirit Roots, then my sister probably has one as well.’

Qai strictly warned his sister, in the process, to never reveal to anyone such knowledge and treat the parchments as prized treasures.

His sister, in return, swore to keep it as a precious secret.

Also within that year, Qai saw Master Han, as well as Nabi.

Nabi, who became a master in her own right, was already a full-grown 20-year old lady and had assumed much of her uncle’s work. Master Han, on the other hand, semi-retired in his duties as the village herbalist and thought to just enjoy his remaining years.

Likewise, Qai dropped by twice to see Big sis Song and Mak, who were already 20 and 19 years old respectively, as well as the rest of his acquaintances in the reserve squad.

They were now the true pillars of the nameless village. As a matter of fact, the reserve squad unofficially became the gathering of talents.

Qai, on his visit, gave the new members of the squad some advice, which the members in return took his words like infallible doctrines—after all, Qai’s very existence in the village already achieved legendary status.

Meanwhile, within that year, he had moved his ‘immortal cave’ to a much higher peak among the mountains in the inner ring—just a few miles from the core ring.

In truth, he was not concerned about the dangers of the area since he had his giant Ant colony to guard him in his seclusion.

The spiritual Qi energy was so dense in there that he finally brokethrough the bottleneck and entered the fifth level of the Qi Condensation.

In that area, he and his giant Ants managed to slay a level 6 Spirit Beast Ape with metal elemental affinity—of course, the giant Ants mostly did the fighting and Qai just made the battle a source experience.

The Ape had silver-colored fangs and back which he dissected and brought to his father to craft him the best possible Guandao and armors.

Through the years of utilizing tons of Spirit Beast materials, his father’s craftmanship had attained above a master’s level, from the perspective of mortals.

Ultimately, his father’s fame also rose by leaps and bounds and his works became prized heirlooms of every family in the village.

In fact, anyone in the growing nameless village who didn't have any tool or two crafted by his father was thought of by the villagers to be stupidly cheap.