Who Let Him Cultivate？

Chapter 29: The Theory of the Ancient Great Era

“I have reviewed your mission report. Employing tactical intellect to eradicate a Painted Skin Demon… you did exceptionally well.”

A surge of genuine warmth blossomed in Lu Yang’s chest. Earning a word of praise from his Eldest Senior Sister was a feat rarer than catching lightning in a bottle. The harrowing trip to Taiping Township had been worth it.

Having delivered her sparse praise, Yun Zhi fell silent. The implications behind the Painted Skin Demon’s appearance seemed to cast a fleeting, shadowy pall over her flawless features.

“For the past century, as the Great Era descends upon us, the factions lurking in the shadows have grown restless. Phantoms and monstrosities run rampant,” she murmured, her voice carrying the weight of falling snow. “The Great Xia Dynasty projects an illusion of absolute tranquility, yet who can say how many calamities fester beneath its surface? They are too obsessed with their own prestige, too proud to seek the aid of the Five Great Immortal Sects.” She exhaled a soft, chilling sigh. These words, naturally, were not meant for Lu Yang’s ears.

Lu Yang caught the unfamiliar phrase. *The Great Era descends?* He had never encountered the term, not even in the most obscure texts of the sect’s archives.

Yun Zhi’s voice took on an ethereal resonance, as though echoing from a realm far beyond their own. “A century ago, the Supreme Elder of the Celestial Strategy Sect shattered his death seclusion. He spilled his own lifeblood across the Clear River, sacrificing his very existence to interrogate the heavens. What exactly he divined remains a mystery.”

The Celestial Strategy Sect boasted that all things in creation could be measured, that no enigma was beyond their unravelling. They were the absolute arbiters of heavenly principles and karmic retribution—the very same pedants who had publicly challenged the actuarial tables of the Falling Coin Chamber of Commerce’s insurance policies.

“Before his passing, the Supreme Elder proclaimed to the world that the Great Era had arrived, heralding the return of the resplendent, terrifying glory of ancient Cultivation.”

“Historically, if the Five Great Immortal Sects discovered even a single Single Spirit Root during a recruitment cycle, it was celebrated as a bountiful harvest. Yet, your generation alone has produced an Ancient Barbarian, three Single Spirit Roots, and a Celestial Physique—an anomaly even rarer than the Single Spirit Root. I have heard whispers that over this past century, the other Immortal Sects have also gathered prodigies of equal, peerless caliber. Through these anomalies, one can glimpse the jagged edge of the Ancient Great Era.”

For a fleeting, unprecedented moment, the corner of Yun Zhi’s mouth curled into a faint, almost imperceptible smile. It was a smile laced with absolute mockery. “They speak of the Ancient Great Era as a time of magnificent splendor. In truth, it was an epoch of absolute, unmitigated chaos. A Great Era is an era of slaughter. Factions and desires twisted together in a viper’s nest; demons and aberrations schemed in the dark. The human heart was a fathomless abyss, and life and death were tossed to the whims of an indifferent heaven. For every great Cultivation power that ascended, countless innocents were ground into dust. In terms of peace and stability, it was vastly inferior to the present.”

Lu Yang shivered. His Eldest Senior Sister’s smile was colder than a drawn blade.

He had read the romanticized accounts of the Ancient Great Era. It was an age where absolute strength was the only law, where the victor was crowned king, and the line between righteous and demonic was washed away in blood. The human race had been but one predator among many, far from the undisputed overlords of the continent they were today.

It was an age where primordial demons shattered the earth, where dragons and tigers tore the heavens asunder. Peerless prodigies carved their legends across the world, forging their absolute authority with mountains of bone and rivers of blood. They were decisive, ruthless, and brilliant. Countless mighty figures ascended to become myths worshipped by millions—achieving in a lifetime what ordinary cultivators could only strive for in a hundred. Reading those histories made a man’s blood boil, igniting a desperate yearning to hurl oneself back through time to test one’s own mettle against the legends.

It was the perfect crucible for heroes to forge their names.

But looking at the chilling absolute zero of his Eldest Senior Sister’s expression, a heavy realization dropped into Lu Yang’s stomach. The Ancient Great Era was a paradise for peerless prodigies, but for the common mortal, it was a waking, hellish nightmare.

Life was as fragile as morning dew. A casual skirmish between two ascending powers in the clouds could reduce an entire mortal clan to ash or chains, subject to enslavement and slaughter. There was no sanctuary, no peace.

The historical texts painted the Ancient Great Era in strokes of magnificent grandeur simply because the authors were high-tier cultivators themselves, nostalgic for an age where their power was absolute.

Viewed from the mud, through the eyes of an ordinary person, it was a canvas of pure horror.

Lu Yang swallowed hard. Since stepping onto the path of Cultivation, he had almost forgotten that he, too, was once just a mortal in the mud.

*That is a dangerous thing to forget,* he thought.

Yun Zhi did not linger on the grim reality of the past; such heavy truths were still too early for someone of Lu Yang’s realm. “Do you have any other inquiries?”

“Ah, well, Eldest Senior Sister,” Lu Yang began, rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you happen to have any travel-type techniques I could learn?”

“Naturally, I do,” Yun Zhi replied, her tone perfectly level. “But what use do you have for such a technique?”

The Dao Seeking Sect maintained a lucrative, ironclad agreement with the Falling Coin Chamber of Commerce. Whenever a disciple traveled, all expenses for lodging and transit were billed directly to the sect’s boundless coffers. Lu Yang didn’t even need to spend a single Spirit Stone to charter a luxury Flying Boat. Why would he need to exert his own Qi to travel?

Lu Yang scratched his head, an uncharacteristic flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck. “It’s nothing, really. I just want to learn one. You know, to save some money for our Dao Seeking Sect.”

Yun Zhi accepted this earnest absurdity without a flicker of doubt. “Since you possess such commendable loyalty, I, as your Senior Sister, cannot dismiss your initiative. You have only just reached Foundation Establishment, so your reserves of Qi are limited. The techniques available to you are few.”

Lu Yang chuckled, rubbing his hands together like a merchant eyeing a prime cut of pork. “Anything that works is fine by me.”

“I have observed your progress over the past year. You are truly worthy of the Sword Spirit Root,” Yun Zhi said, her voice echoing with quiet authority. “I have a Flying Sword Art. Master it, and you may tread upon your blade, soaring freely across the five lakes and four seas.”

“There is also a Teleportation Art. It tempers your Divine Sense until it is robust enough to physically levitate your own body. It lacks the sheer velocity of the sword, but it is highly efficient, and the mental tempering will serve you well in future combat.”

“Alternatively, there is the Transformation Art. Once proficient, you may take the form of an eagle or a crane, commanding the winds and soaring unhindered through the boundless sky.”

“Junior Brother, which path do you choose?” Yun Zhi offered the peerless techniques as casually as one might offer tea.

Lu Yang’s smile froze. The mere mention of ‘soaring freely’ sent a phantom lurch through his stomach. He vividly recalled the cold sweat slicking his palms and the violent rebellion of his inner ear every time a Flying Boat ascended past the cloud line.

“…Right,” Lu Yang mumbled, his eyes darting away. “Is there, perhaps, a travel technique that… strictly prohibits flying?”

Yun Zhi tilted her head, her dark eyes studying Lu Yang’s flushed face with mild, terrifying interest. “Oh? And why would you seek a travel technique that binds you to the dirt?”

Lu Yang stammered, his mind racing for a logical excuse that didn’t involve admitting his crippling fear of heights to the living goddess of their sect. He failed, remaining agonizingly silent.

Mercifully, Yun Zhi did not press the issue. “There are terrestrial methods. However, the technique I have in mind demands an exorbitant comprehension of the Dao, alongside immense reserves of Qi. Attempting to grasp it at your current stage may be premature.”

“That’s perfectly fine! I’ll just give it a try,” Lu Yang said quickly. “If the structural integrity of the technique is too much for me, I’ll just drop it.”

“This technique is known as *Shrinking Earth to an Inch*,” Yun Zhi proclaimed, the very name carrying the heavy, ancient weight of a supreme Xianxia art. “Its cultivation difficulty is astronomical. Here is the mental mantra and the foundational incantations. Once you are proficient in reciting them, I shall formally instruct you.”

Yun Zhi raised a flawless, jade-like hand. With a casual flick of her wrist, she sliced open the very fabric of space. From the dark, humming void of her personal spatial tear, she extracted a single page of golden paper. It pulsed with a faint, divine light, its surface densely packed with elegant, glowing characters.

Lu Yang accepted the golden parchment as if he were handling a volatile explosive. The sheer molecular precision of the spiritual energy radiating from it screamed *priceless*. If his clumsy mortal hands accidentally tore it, he was certain he wouldn’t have enough lives to pay it back.

After Lu Yang departed, Yun Zhi closed her eyes, seamlessly slipping back into her meditative trance.

Moments later, a foul, unnatural Yin wind swept through the serene courtyard. An ancient, resentful voice slithered directly into Yun Zhi’s ears—a sound so chilling it could plunge a man’s soul into an icy cellar.

“My *good* disciple…” the voice rasped, dripping with venom and despair. “How much longer do you intend to keep your master imprisoned?”

The voice echoed as if clawing its way up from the Nine Nether Hell itself, raising the hairs on the back of the neck and freezing the marrow in the spine.

“I may not have instructed you often, yet you have reached such a terrifying realm entirely on your own. It could not have been easy. Truly, this master is proud of you.”

“But the ancients say, ‘A teacher for a day is a father for a lifetime.’ You cannot simply disregard the heavy debt of my teachings and lock me in this lightless abyss!”

“The Dao Seeking Sect has been without its Sect Leader for ten years! You sit upon my throne, wielding my absolute authority. Are you not afraid of the whispers? Are you not afraid that the gossip will tarnish the flawless, glorious image of the Eldest Senior Sister?”

“You even dared to accept a disciple on my behalf! You bound that peerless sword genius to my name. Fine. I am magnanimous; I will not pursue your overstepping.”

“But at the very least, unseal me! Let me look upon my own disciple! You force the boy to kowtow to a painted scroll instead of a living legend. If word of this leaks to the martial world, will we not become the laughingstock of the continent?!”

The ancient voice was laced with a dark, compelling magic. It plucked at the very strings of the soul, weaving a hypnotic compulsion that made one desperately want to obey, to shatter the seals, to liberate the entity trapped below.

Yun Zhi sat in perfect silence. Her breathing was even, her expression a mask of absolute, terrifying grace. She turned a completely deaf ear to the demonic pleading.

Realizing that his peerless disciple remained as immovable as a glacier, the ancient voice condensed its thousand words of bitter resentment into one long, hollow sigh.

Then, it vanished entirely, as if the horrific entity had never existed at all.

Yun Zhi remained seated, her five centers facing the heavens, a living goddess bathed in the quiet moonlight.

Everything was exactly as it should be.