Chapter 378: (1): Monk in White Kasaya
Twenty days later, Chen Ping'an and the others walked past a lofty mountain that was as steep as the painted eyebrows of beautiful women. After entering this area, they surprisingly came across two groups of men and women on the small mountain path within just fifteen minutes.
One group had a dozen or so people radiating with auras of wealth and prosperity, most of them evidently family members of government officials. There were men, women, elderly people, and children, and they were being protected by several guards armed with long sabers.
The other group of people were clearly from the cultivation world. Four of the sixteen people were men in their fifties with calm breathing and silent movements, undoubtedly practicing top-notch martial arts techniques from the cultivation world of the Azure Phoenix Nation. The leader was an elder with an aquiline nose and an intense gaze, and walking beside him was a round-faced young girl. She didn't have a remarkable appearance overall, but her eyes were especially lively and beautiful.
Both groups of people were climbing up the mountain, and Chen Ping'an actively walked over and asked about the local customs and traditions when coming across the first group of people that seemed to radiate prosperity. Only after hearing the explanations from these people did Chen Ping'an realize that Azure Waist Mountain, the mountain they were on, had a Daoist temple called Golden Osmanthus at the peak. There were immortals cultivating in this temple, yet it was often closed to the public for years on end.
During winter last year, the temple asked some woodsmen to deliver a piece of news to the outside world. They were going to take in nine disciples, and they wouldn't take into account these disciples' backgrounds as long as they were under sixteen and possessed the necessary fate. As a result, no fewer than three hundred people were now bringing young children from their clans and families to the Golden Osmanthus Temple to try their luck. An endless stream of people was funneling into Azure Waist Mountain.
Chen Ping'an was still thinking about True Martial and the short saber that his two friends had left in the chief military governor's office, so he wasn't too willing to become involved in this grand occasion. Zhang Shanfeng and Xu Yuanxia had traversed many mountains and crossed many rivers during the past two years, and they had also witnessed the Liberation Rite of Water and Land in the Azure Phoenix Nation and the Heavenly Worship Ceremony in the Fortune Mountain Nation. Thus, they weren't especially interested in a Daoist temple opening its doors to recruit new disciples. As for whether the Daoist priests in the Golden Osmanthus Temple were genuine immortals or fraudsters, Chen Ping'an and the others couldn't care less.
Generally speaking, Golden Core Tier earth immortals were already paramount beings in most ordinary nations in the Eastern Treasured Vial Continent. After all, casting one's gaze across the entire Majestic World, one could scarcely see places like the Great Li Empire, where there were so many crouching tigers and hidden dragons.
After the armored cavalry of the Great Li Empire marched to the territories slightly north of Lake View Academy, the Great Li Empire's Imperial Song Clan had essentially conquered half of the entire Eastern Treasured Vial Continent already. Apart from receiving official recognition from the Confucian academy, there was also an ever-growing chorus of calls for the Great Li Empire to be recognized as the tenth major empire in the Majestic World.
When they encountered the second group of people, the round-faced girl had looked curious and astonished the entire time. There was a young man in white robes carrying a bamboo bookcase on his back and wearing a vermilion wine gourd by his waist, a tanned little girl riding a yellow bull and equipped with a bamboo saber and a bamboo sword, a stunningly beautiful woman carrying a sword on her back, and... also a young Daoist priest and a big-bearded martial artist.