The disciples were doubly stunned when they reappeared. The feat of transporting so many people at once, in the blink of an eye, was astonishing. The scene of the Misty Mountains and the lavishly decorated structures all around left them speechless.
Draco was standing in the valley courtyard looking at this scene, of course, with hands clasped behind his back and the air of an expert.
The Sect Master, who began to understand this new disciple of his, called for the attention of the disciples.
"Dear Disciples, this magnificent location will be our new home. You should all congratulate your Senior Brother Liu, as you've all heard, he's our Sect's Young Master from this day on. He's also responsible for our Sect gaining this new home."
After a brief pause, the disciples came to their senses. They rushed to surround the suave and dashing, albeit scary-looking new Senior brother of theirs.
With Draco towering like a mountain over everyone, the disciples had to acutely tilt their heads up to congratulate him.
Draco accepted his fellow disciples' heartfelt gratitude and felicitations.
With a cough, he motioned for the disciples to calm down.
"My fellow disciples of the Celestial Sage Sect, as you've seen, I've fulfilled my promise. This new home of ours, along with our rejuvenated Elders is only the prologue to our unstoppable rise. I won't say much else, I will let my actions speak for themselves. Except for when you're outside, you can all call me Senior Brother, or Brother Liu. There's no need to call me Young Master in private."
The disciples looked at each other, faintly nodding in approval.
They echoed in chorus, "Hail Young Master... Long Live Young Master..."
Some of the female disciples shouted, "Senior Brother you look too handsome!"
The male disciples had a single thought. 'You dare to sully our Senior Brother with your potty mouth!? Are you even worthy? This scary Senior Brother is definitely an expert.'
Seeing the enthusiasm of these Junior Brothers and Sisters, Draco grinned for a brief moment before reigning in his expression, returning to his gentle stoic smile.
The Sect Master caught this brief grin. With a smile on his face, he pondered, 'I knew it! This new disciple of mine enjoys being in the limelight and acting as a Young Master. Well, no matter, he deserves it.'
Ashamed of the praises going on any longer, Draco calmed the disciples, and with the same stoic grace, spoke in a calm voice.
"Alright, you should all receive your new robes from the Elders. The robes are designed with a special implement, allowing for faster absorption of Spiritual Energy. You'll all be Inner Sect disciples, with the particularly talented ones selected to be Core disciples..."
"...This is the Sect's gratitude for your continued trust. You'll all be given ample resources and the best of everything to aid you in your cultivation. Once you're assigned to your quarters, feel free to explore the valley and the various buildings. I'll see you later."
Surrounded by streams of light, Draco disappeared.
Even though they've seen it multiple times now, they were still surprised, and couldn't help but shudder at the power of this new Senior Brother of theirs.
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The disciples looked around the central courtyard they now stood at, there was a fountain and a large board on the sidewalk, showing a map of the extensive valley and mountain peaks, labeling the Sect hall, along with the peaks dedicated for each of the Elders and the Sect Master.
One of the peaks belonged to Senior Brother Liu, this didn't surprise them. They felt it was only natural for this Senior Brother to have a peak of his own, after all, he's the Sect's Young Master.
The disciples headed in various directions, racing to see the areas that interested them the most.
The outer sect had various buildings, each of them displaying a prominent sign, indicating the building's purpose.
There was a 5-story tall Scripture Library.
In another corner was the Healing Hall and Alchemy Pavilion.
In another were Armament Hall and Smithy.
There were also Discipline Hall and Training Grounds neighboring each other; along with a row of Combat Arenas within sight.
The outer sect courtyard was named Harmony Courtyard and was at the center of the sprawling outer sect area.
Some distance from the courtyard, was a large Teaching hall, neighboring the outer sect hall.
There were rows of large individual villas for outer sect Elders and rows of multi-story buildings, designated to be the outer sect disciple quarters.
All of the buildings looked to be made of solid granite and marble, with carvings on the facades and the important buildings gorgeously decorated.
The inner sect had a similar layout, with the buildings even more lavishly decorated and there were additional areas and buildings which were unnamed.
The inner sect quarters were a lot larger than in the outer sect.
The Central Courtyard they were first transported to was part of the Core area, reserved for the Core disciples.
The buildings in the core areas weren't as numerous but each of them was much larger and decorated beyond belief.
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The disciples were beyond speechless at these marvelous sights. Though they knew of the Epitaph and its prophecy, they didn't know much else. The mysterious origins of this Senior Brother and his means left them stumped.
Some minor surprises were, the interiors of all the buildings, including the residential quarters had strange artifacts that produced light by pressing on the labeled metal squares embedded in the walls.
The strangest thing was that all the interiors were comfortably cool, providing respite from the hot weather that plagued the entirety of the Southern Lands.
All rooms were furnished with a wardrobe, table, and chair, and had running water and the toilets were spotless. The best part of it all was the bed; it was the softest thing they'd ever felt, akin to laying on a cloud.
That night the disciples discovered something else, the toilets cleaned themselves and a mysterious moving artifact delivered them food. They didn't even know there was a kitchen let alone who was operating it.
With some confusion mixed with tremendous happiness and joy, the disciples went to sleep, feeling blessed to be a part of this Sect.
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The same night, at Draco's lavish palace on the mountain peak, with the help of the Sect Master and under Arthur's instructions, a special spirit gathering formation was drawn in his courtyard.
This formation had a vague resemblance to the Sect's spirit gathering formation. The completed formation spanned a large area, with outer and inner concentric formation rings.
Under Lord Bai Xiao's increasingly twisted gaze, Draco piled what seemed like a never-ending amount of High-grade Origin stones inside the outer concentric formation.
By the time Draco was done, Lord Bai Xiao's mouth was wide open. He didn't know what to say.
After he was called on by Draco, he began to slowly ramp up his spiritual energy surrounding Draco.
With the Sect Master being an Origin Sage, he continued pouring in his spiritual energy several hours into the process; this invisible field bearing down on Draco now weighed on him like a mountain.
Just as dawn arrived, the formation started glowing and began to rapidly revolve around Draco, who was sitting in the center. Lord Bai Xiao's pouring energy was cut off, finally allowing him some reprieve.
The rotating formation began to consume the High-grade Origin stones at an accelerating pace. Twenty minutes into this, the Origin stones have turned to dust and the formation stopped spinning, rapidly losing its glow.
A powerful wave of spiritual energy burst forth from Draco, as his bone marrow started to absorb this energy. This signified breaking through to become a Transcendent Arcanist.
Earlier, Lord Bai Xiao's face was aching from all the surprises he had to endure over the past week. Now, seeing his "Disciple" breaking into the peak of the Arcanist stage, he couldn't help but endure the pain and be surprised again.
A week ago, this robust youth who literally dropped from the sky had no cultivation. Now, a week later, he was already a Transcendent Arcanist; A feat that took no less than 30 years for even the most Heaven-defying genius, took this promethean of a man, a week.
Looking at dust from the used Origin stones, Lord Bai Xiao could only make a guess.
'Like in the novels I read when I was bored, maybe a True Immortal grandpa is hiding in a ring or amulet.'
Wanting to confirm his theory, Lord Bai Xiao looked at Draco's hands, and torso only to find that Draco didn't have any rings or amulets on him except for the storage ring which was from the Sect's inventory.
'Maybe he could produce Origin stones out of thin air and invent formations on the fly...'
Lord Bai Xiao immediately shook his head, as if to convince himself that it was impossible.
Before he could spin other wild conjectures, he was greeted by Draco grinning like a madman.
After a few words of encouragement and praise, Lord Bai Xiao left for his residence.
After resting for a while, Draco began to practice fine control of spiritual energy. With the consolidated experiences of several Sages in his memories, it didn't take long for him.
Proceeding to practice flying with a sword; it was evening by the time he was able to master it with the aid of his memories.
Wanting to show his impressive flying sword skills, he leaped into the air and headed down to the inner sect courtyard.
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The feeling of flying through the clouds and descending into the valley made Draco happy beyond belief.
When he landed in the inner sect courtyard with a superhero landing, he was surprised to see no one around. As he walked around the inner sect, he came across the scene of disciples gathering to view something.
As Draco approached them, one of the disciples noticed him and yelled in surprise "Senior Brother Liu!"
The disciples gathered around Draco and welcomed him to one of the arenas.
Elder Liang was organizing a technique demonstration and critique session.
Seeing as he hasn't mastered any techniques and not wanting to embarrass himself, after greeting the Elder and the junior brothers and sisters, Draco left for his residence, flying on a sword.
This sight led the disciples to commend themselves on recognizing that Senior Brother Liu was an expert. Extending their imagination, they concluded that the Sect's Young Master was definitely a hidden expert.
Seeing as he was able to showcase his flying sword skills, Draco was satisfied. While reaching his residence, in the midst of flying, the now familiar scene of flashing lights took place.
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Draco reappeared in the Command Bay of the spaceship. He put the sword back in his storage ring.
As he perched on the Captain's chair, Arthur appeared and started speaking.
"We'll be leaving for the Auction tomorrow. Normally even with Clear Jade City being called the closest major city, it's quite far. Even for a Sage cultivator, it would take two and a half days of continuous flight at Max speed; that's exhausting and impossible."
Arthur continued, "The large sects have transport formations connecting to major towns or smaller cities. They go through a series of these formations to reach their destination Cities. Even if there were no wait times, it'll take a few days. There are spirit boats for mass travel, but they would take anywhere from seven days to a month depending on the spec."
"I'll leave that to you... Where's the money, let me feast my eyes..." Draco asked with a grin.
Rolling his eyes, Arthur explained, "There are higher denominations of currency, the Sect texts on spirit stones and other forms of currency, are extremely detailed examining the origin, shape, size, structure, and properties of these."
A stubby robot came pushing a cart as Arthur continued, "As such, I've produced a higher denomination to be space efficient."
The robot opened the cart as Arthur explained with pride, "These are spirit crystals, each of these equals 1000 High-grade Origin stones. The cart here holds 100,000 Spirit crystals, equating to 100 Billion spirit stones. You can shop to your heart's content."
Draco's head started spinning as he thought about these increasingly large denominations. "With such large denominations, can I even use them? They seem useful for storing wealth but who would even accept such large denominations?"
Arthur chuckled, "You want to be a Young Master yet you're woefully ignorant. Clear Jade City is run by the Clear Jade Merchant Council. It's a conglomerate of several large Merchant families and clans. They are one of the top 3 merchant groups within the entire Southern Lands and the top Merchant group within the Southwestern Domain."
Pacing through the room, Arthur explained, "100 Billion Spirit stones are quite a lot, but in the overall Southwestern Domain consisting of several hundred large sects, and thousands of smaller sects and influential families, it's a drop in the bucket. A large drop for sure, but a drop nonetheless."
Draco nodded as he put these spirit crystals in his storage ring.
'Trying to wrap my mind around the scale of this world is a futile task, I'll just have to see for myself, even if it takes a long time.'
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When Draco returned to his palace he saw Elder Zhou and Elder Jiang move into his residence with their belongings.
After conversing with them and being told to call them by their first names without needing any honorifics, he decided to at least be a little reserved and call them by their full names - Zhou Hao and Jiang Hao.
'A Young Master must provide benefits to his followers... Hmm, I'll ask them about their cultivation.'
Not knowing how to probe someone's cultivation, he directly asked for their cultivation levels; with embarrassment, they revealed that they'd been stuck at the Transcendent Arcanist stage for a long time. However, they expressed hope as they felt their bottlenecks loosening up greatly as a result of their new bodies.
After covertly speaking with Arthur, Draco decided it was worth a shot as they had plenty of accumulation and were only unable to break through because of their aging bodies. He drew another formation circle in his courtyard with the formation brush the Sect Master gave him.
The new formation resembled the one he used to break through but had minor adjustments and was much larger along with a third concentric ring formation.
He directed them to sit in the center of the circle together and placed a total of 10,000 Spirit crystals in the inner ring and a very large pile of High-grade Origin stones in the much larger outer concentric ring.
This scene made old Zhou and old Jiang's eyes pop, they had a pained and embarrassed expression on their face. Gesturing for them to not bother about this and focus on breaking through, Draco used his spiritual energy to activate the formation.
Old Zhou and Old Jiang didn't want to waste this opportunity and immediately sat down to cultivate with their eyes closed.
As the formation spooled up, it began to draw pure and dense spiritual energy from the Spirit crystals and began to surround them.
Four Hours later, the Spirit crystals were all used up and the rotational speed of the formation reduced as it began to rapidly deplete the High-grade Origin stones.
Two hours later, when the formation came to a halt, Spiritual energy began to surge throughout Zhou and Jiang, who began to radiate spiritual energy waves, giving off a powerful aura.
Two pillars of light emanated from them, ignoring the roof of Draco's palace it illuminated the sky, and this signified becoming a Sage cultivator.
This drew the attention of some disciples who were cultivating in the middle of the night and the Elders.
The Elders rushed to Draco's palace, as they stepped inside the courtyard and their vision landed on old Zhou and old Jiang.
A hint of jealousy, anticipation, and happiness brewed within them. After congratulating them and shamelessly asking Draco to give them an opportunity next time, they left on their swords.
Among the Elders, only old Zhou and old Jiang were still in the Arcanist stage. The others were Sage cultivators, though they've been stuck at being an Origin Sage, this included the Sect Master.
The Sect Master was the last to leave, but from the corner of his eye, he noticed a strange bracelet on Draco's hand, peeking through his sleeves. He sighed as he left on his sword.
'He definitely has a True Immortal grandpa in that bracelet guiding him and providing him with resources. It's likely a Heaven-defying legacy.'
Not knowing what the Elders and Sect Master were thinking, Draco asked them to stabilize their cultivation and informed them they'll be leaving for Clear Jade City later.
Returning to his palatial bedroom, Draco began to nap.
~~~