An Ling's brows furrowed deeply.
"Let's go back to the mountain first!"
An Lingqi nodded and followed him immediately.
When they returned to his courtyard, An Ling saw a red stone floating in the room, pulsing every now and then.
"Senior Brother, are the elders okay?" An Lingqi asked anxiously.
"I don't know," An Ling replied. "Being poor really is a sin." His voice carried a trace of frustration.
The clan's finances weren't in good condition—just like most small clans. Instead of using a Ten Thousand Sword Message Talisman, a third-grade talisman used for long-distance communication, struggling clans like theirs relied on life stones to send signals.
"Calm down, Brother Qi. It might just be a message for me from the clan leader." An Ling turned to his junior. "Go to the Granary Hall and fetch me a few kilograms of white jade rice and some meat rations. I'll be traveling right away."
Before departing with An Yuanshu, the old man had instructed him that if the stone pulsed, it could only mean two things—either he needed An Ling to meet them at Yellow Peak Mountain in Qingfeng County, or all of them had perished on the battlefield. To determine their situation, he had to travel north and ask about the latest news from the battle.
An Lingqi hesitated, wanting to say something, but held it in.
However, An Ling noticed it and consoled him. "Don't worry, Brother Qi. The clan leader and some of our members should be safe by now. The Beast Tide has been going on for about three months—it should be almost over."
"Go ahead and do what I told you. I need to hurry and meet them."
An Lingqi finally nodded and left for the Granary Hall.
The moment he was gone, An Ling's relaxed smile instantly vanished.
Yes, it was safe to assume the clan leader was fine. But sending this signal could only mean one thing—the casualties among their members were so severe that he had to personally make the journey to Qingfeng County. After the war, everyone who survived had sustained life-threatening injuries, so someone had to escort them back home.
"As long as some members are alive after this war, we can rebuild the clan to its pre-war strength. That's all that matters." An Ling consoled himself, then walked to the corner of his room.
He formed several hand seals, and a concealment array appeared, opening a hidden compartment beneath the floor.
It was a secret storage where he kept his possessions and the entire wealth of the whole clan, which had been entrusted to him by the clan leader.
The right side of the larger compartment held a neat arrangement of pill bottles, manuals, weapons, storage bags, and boxes.
The left, meanwhile, was reserved for the personal fortune he had amassed over the past fifteen years.
The compartment was filled with three bottles of Qi Gathering Pills, two bottles of Qi Rejuvenation Pills, three boxes containing first-grade spiritual fruits, and over a thousand low-level spiritual stones—a great fortune for someone who hadn't worked since he began cultivating.
Should An Yuanshu or the elders ever discover this hoard, they would undoubtedly demand to know how he had come by it all, given his year-round confinement within the Sacred Land.
Unbeknownst to others, An Ling had been saving all the cultivation resources the clan provided him.
His rapid progress in cultivation wasn't due to his immense talent or effort alone—it was because of his second wish—
—a guaranteed success in forming his Foundation Establishment, and a chance to form his Golden Core.
It meant he would never face bottlenecks in the Qi Refinement Realm.
Originally, his second wish was only for a guaranteed Foundation Establishment breakthrough. But the Mysterious Being who sent him to this world had kindly advised him to be more ambitious—and so the wish was improved.
The Foundation Establishment Realm was his, but the cost was a fifty percent reduction in both his cultivation speed and his chance of reaching the Purple Mansion Realm. This penalty compounded for the Golden Core, resulting in a final, grim likelihood of only twenty-five percent for achieving a golden core.
Because his first wish was the Six-Elemental Shadow Vessel, which granted him five spiritual roots—a trait that made reaching higher realms nearly impossible—his second wish acted as a perfect balance. Together, they formed a single wish that didn't disturb the world's natural cause and effect.
After all, there were tens of thousands of Golden Core cultivators in this world. Adding one more was but a droplet in the vast sky.
He could've wished for a natural spiritual root, one unshackled by bottlenecks until the Golden Core Realm, and saved his remaining wishes for far greater absurdities—divine blood flowing in his veins, immortal talent carved by fate, or a body blessed by the heavens themselves.
Yet he didn't.
Maybe that was why the Mysterious Being lent him a hand and upgraded the second wish.
Now, all that was left was to reach the Golden Core Realm before his death.
All these wishes—the guaranteed foundation, the chance for higher realms, the blessed vessel—were indeed decent boons, enough to make any cultivator envious. Yet, without stepping into the Golden Core Realm, they would only amount to nothing more than fleeting advantages.
These the reason An Ling had saved so much cultivation resources until now due to his advantages.
The breakthrough pill he used this morning was merely a small indulgence. It was true that he was guaranteed to reach Foundation Establishment, but that didn't mean it would be instant. He still had to cultivate diligently for many years like everyone else. The pill simply shortened his time in the Sixth Level of Qi Refinement.
An Ling rechecked the items in the compartment to make sure nothing was missing. Then, he took a scroll containing a map of the entire Yun State and a first-grade, high-quality flying sword from the clan's storage.
First-grade weapons were typically used by Qi Refinement cultivators and were divided into three qualities—low, mid, and high.
Now that An Ling was in the late stage of Qi Refinement, he could finally use a flying sword for travel—a mark that separated him from ordinary cultivators under the late-stage Qi refinement realm.
With this flying sword, his journey would only take half the time compared to traveling on foot.
After taking only what he needed, An Ling resealed the compartment using the concealment array. He slipped the life stone signal into his storage ring, stepped outside, and waited for An Lingqi.
"Be careful, Senior Brother!" An Lingqi arrived and said—his eyes filled with determination.
In that short moment he spent fetching supplies, he had reflected deeply. He felt weak—useless—watching his elders risk their lives while his senior brother, someone his age, bore such heavy responsibility.
After their relocation, he thought peace had returned. But that was a naive thought. He could only stand by and watch from the sidelines.
But no more. Starting today no more slacking—he would aim to reach the late stage of Qi Refinement within five years!
An Ling smiled. "You too, Brother Qi. I'll be going now."
He tossed the flying sword into the air, swiftly mounted it, and descended the mountain. Before leaving, he planned to visit Senior Lu—both to bid farewell and to ask if he could check on An Lingqi from time to time while he was away.
"How about I go with you, Little Ling?" Senior Lu Bao asked when he heard of the situation. He immediately volunteered to accompany him to Yellow Peak Mountain.
He and An Yuanshu had been sworn brothers since their younger days. Hearing that his brother Shu was in danger, he couldn't just stay put.
"No need, Senior Lu." An Ling politely refused. "This is the clan's tribulation. Only clan members should bear it. Otherwise, we might as well disband the clan if we can't even fix our own troubles."
Lu Bao stared at the young man's determined eyes and sighed. "You and your clan pride…"
He couldn't help but recall An Yuanshu's youthful stubbornness. The boy standing before him was exactly the same.
"Oh well. At least take this."
Senior Lu swept his hand, and a purple talisman appeared before An Ling
"A second-grade Lightning Talisman!?" An Ling exclaimed, his shock so profound his voice barely rose above a whisper.
This was no mere weapon. In the right hands, it could cripple a Foundation Establishment expert or erase a Qi Refinement cultivator from existence.
But its true value was far greater. Such talismans were the exclusive, life-saving treasures of Foundation Establishment patriarchs or the scions of immortal clans—a final, desperate card to play against certain death. Its value was astronomical, worth over twenty thousand spirit stones, a sum that placed it on the same revered level as a Foundation Building Pill! For a major power, it was a strategic asset. For a lone cultivator like Senior Lu, possessing one was inconceivable; it was a treasure he should have sold to secure his own path to Foundation Establishment, not carried casually.
And he was just... giving it to him?
"Don't look down on me, alright?" Senior Lu said irritably, though a flicker of pride shone in his eyes at An Ling's stunned reaction. "Even if I'm a loose cultivator, I still have my means."
"Anyway, take it and be on your way. The sooner you depart, the better."
An Ling accepted it with deep gratitude and bowed. "I express my utmost thanks, Senior Lu!"
With this talisman, he would be far safer from hostile world outside—and it might even a good trump card when escorting the wounded members back.
"Yeah, yeah. Go on already." Senior Lu waved his hand. "Be careful out there. Don't stay too long in one place, and don't talk to anyone if it's not necessary. Just focus on your mission and avoid trouble. Understood?"
"I'll keep that in mind, Senior Lu!" An Ling replied, earnestly taking the advice to heart.
After that, he mounted his flying sword and disappeared into the distant mountains, heading northeast.