Immortal Cultivation: Starting as a Fortune Cultivator - Chapter 37

“Retinue?”

Upon hearing Bai Zichun’s words, Ye Qingxuan was somewhat puzzled. Could Fuxiu really have a quota to recruit their own personal followers? The materials he had read earlier in the library pavilion didn’t mention anything about this!

What Ye Qingxuan didn’t know was that for the Mysterious Heaven Sect, a Fuxiu recruiting followers was just a minor matter, and naturally wouldn’t be specially recorded in the library’s special space.

After all, followers offered no substantial help to the growth of a blessed land!

Seeing Ye Qingxuan’s confusion, Bai Zichun smiled and explained:
“After becoming a Fuxiu, you will be confined to one location. Besides, blessed lands aren’t small; you’ll always need people to help handle some miscellaneous tasks, right?”

With that, Bai Zichun gave Ye Qingxuan a detailed introduction about followers.

Followers of a Fuxiu are not considered disciples of the Mysterious Heaven Sect. The sect does not provide them with cultivation resources, but these followers are allowed to cultivate in the area surrounding the Fuxiu’s blessed land.

Moreover, Fuxiu followers must swear a Dao oath. During their service, they must not violate the sect rules of the Mysterious Heaven Sect nor commit any acts of betrayal against the Fuxiu!
However, the Fuxiu themselves also must not arbitrarily take actions detrimental to their followers!

Furthermore, the higher the grade of the blessed land, the more follower quotas the Mysterious Heaven Sect grants.

After all, when a blessed land advances in grade, its area expands significantly. At that point, the Fuxiu will need more followers to handle miscellaneous tasks!

For example, after Ye Qingxuan becomes a first-grade Fuxiu, he will be entitled to two follower quotas.

These follower quotas are also relatively precious resources for small clans or rogue cultivators outside the sect.

The outside world simply doesn’t have the exceptional cultivation environment found within the Mysterious Heaven Sect!

Of course, upon becoming an official Fuxiu, the Fuxiu’s token gains the authority to communicate with the various halls of the sect.

At that point, the Fuxiu themselves can also use their sect token to post tasks in the Mission Hall using contribution points, hiring sect disciples to handle affairs!

However, hiring Mysterious Heaven Sect disciples is definitely not as convenient as commanding one’s own followers.

After listening to Bai Zichun’s explanation, Ye Qingxuan finally understood!

But the matter of followers wasn’t urgent. The immediate priority was to first confirm the spiritual land for the contract and secure the territory.

Thus, Ye Qingxuan respectfully bowed to Bai Zichun and said:
“Thank you for your guidance, Steward. This disciple plans to first go and investigate the spiritual lands!”

Hearing this, Bai Zichun nodded:

“Mm, go ahead! Come back and register with me once you’ve decided!”

“Yes, Steward!”

After bidding farewell to Bai Zichun, Ye Qingxuan flew on his sword toward the direction of the teleportation array.

Standing in place, Bai Zichun watched Ye Qingxuan’s departing figure, once again unable to resist nodding slightly. Stroking his beard, he praised quietly:
“Not arrogant or impatient, steady in his actions. Good, very good!”

It must be said that first impressions are truly important. Once you have a favorable impression of someone, you can always find some merits in them, even if they aren’t necessarily outstanding ones.

After leaving the Fuxiu courtyard, Ye Qingxuan first took a teleportation array to the late first-grade spiritual land nearest to the Mysterious Heaven Sect’s main peak, Mysterious Heaven Peak!
Of course, ‘near’ is only relative to the vast area of the Mysterious Heaven Sect. A distance of about twenty thousand kilometers was already a very considerable distance for Ye Qingxuan, who was currently only at the Qi Refining realm.

Ye Qingxuan flew on his sword to the air above this spiritual land!
What met his eyes was a modest-sized mountain peak, the most inconspicuous kind within the Mysterious Heaven Mountain Range.

Around this peak, there were quite a few other mountains or valleys possessing second or third-grade spiritual veins.

Although these were only second or third-grade spiritual veins, the overall concentration of spiritual energy here was comparable to a fifth-grade spiritual vein in the outside world!

However, no disciples of the Mysterious Heaven Sect had come here to establish cave dwellings. Core disciples who had the authority to open cave dwellings simply didn’t fancy such a place!
The reason the spiritual energy concentration far exceeded the grade of the spiritual veins themselves was simply because there were too many high-grade spiritual veins within the Mysterious Heaven Mountain Range.

The entire Mysterious Heaven Mountain Range possessed one tenth-grade spiritual vein, located on the main peak, Mysterious Heaven Peak.

Besides that, the Mysterious Heaven Mountain Range also had over a dozen peaks with ninth-grade spiritual veins, thousands of peaks with eighth-grade spiritual veins, and those below eighth-grade were countless.
Even the Fuxiu courtyard he was at earlier was built upon a sixth-grade spiritual vein. This was one of the reasons why Ye Qingxuan, with a single spiritual root, managed to reach the peak of Qi Refining in just over twenty years.

It was also why the cultivation speed of various disciples within the Mysterious Heaven Sect far surpassed that of the outside world.

The spiritual energy inadvertently emanating from these high-grade spiritual veins permeated the entire Mysterious Heaven Mountain Range, maintaining the spiritual energy concentration within at an extremely high level.

Regarding this, the higher-ups of the Mysterious Heaven Sect adopted a laissez-faire attitude, not choosing to seal off the spiritual energy of these high-grade veins.

Because spiritual veins are mutually reinforcing entities!
Spiritual veins are akin to the meridians of the Earth Mysterious Realm. Their function is to help the world purify negative energy and absorb and transform chaotic energy from outside the world, assisting the world in accumulating the foundation for advancement.

Therefore, as long as spiritual veins aren’t destructively damaged, they are sustainable resources that will continuously grow and advance over time.

Dense clusters of spiritual veins gathering in one place, with their spiritual mechanisms interweaving, can have a mutually reinforcing effect, thereby accelerating the advancement speed of the spiritual veins.

This is key to each world accumulating sufficient energy to continuously grow until advancing. It is also the main reason why hegemon-level forces like the Mysterious Heaven Sect can remain prosperous for long periods, even growing more flourishing.

It could be said that as long as the Mysterious Heaven Sect manages properly and doesn’t exploit its spiritual veins destructively, the spiritual energy within the Mysterious Heaven Mountain Range would continue to increase slowly, albeit over varying lengths of time.

This is the main reason why various hegemon-level forces in the Earth Mysterious Realm cultivate Fuxiu disciples.

What they value isn’t the meager low-grade resources the Fuxiu currently bring. They value the future of their respective sect headquarters, accumulated over generations of Fuxiu through long ages.

Following the information from the map, Ye Qingxuan arrived at the mountaintop of this peak. He then spread his spiritual sense, probing the surroundings of the mountain.

Ye Qingxuan quickly found a circular opening about three meters in diameter at a location between the mountainside and the summit. Outside the opening, there was a protruding stone platform.

Entering through this circular opening, Ye Qingxuan discovered a fairly large, flat area near the entrance, mostly covered with stones.

But walking further inside, it was a different world.

Deep inside the entrance was a massive cavern. Above the space, a pure white pearl emitted a gentle light, illuminating the entire cavern brightly!
“To think there’s even a spiritual vein companion?”

Ye Qingxuan was no longer the ignorant youth of the past. The books he had read over the years weren’t for nothing; he naturally recognized this pearl!
This kind of pearl is a spiritual pearl, a companion product of a spiritual vein!

Judging by its aura, Ye Qingxuan estimated it should be a mid first-grade spiritual pearl. The spiritual energy contained within was equivalent to a high-grade spirit stone. Moreover, the energy within the pearl was very gentle, quite suitable for cultivators to use for recovery after injuries.

Below the spiritual pearl was a flat land about ten square kilometers in area.

At the center of this land was a spiritual spring. At the moment, the spring eye was continuously bubbling with spiritual water, causing the overflowing water to form streams that meandered freely.

Surrounding the spiritual spring were patches of fertile spiritual soil. Beneath the spiritual soil, under Ye Qingxuan’s spiritual sense exploration, a cyan jade-colored spiritual vein flickered faintly. Observing its aura, it had indeed just advanced to the late first-grade not long ago!
Growing within the spiritual soil derived from the spiritual vein were many various spiritual plants, though most were useless varieties!

After investigating the core spiritual vein of this spiritual land, Ye Qingxuan turned and retraced his steps.

Arriving back at the entrance, Ye Qingxuan stood on the stone steps inside the opening, looking at the distant scenery beyond the mountain peak. Suddenly, he felt a sense of refreshment and delight.

His impression of this spiritual land was quite good, but he didn’t make a decision lightly.

Taking to the skies on his sword once more!

After leaving this place, Ye Qingxuan again used the teleportation arrays, making several transfers to reach the other two marked spiritual lands.

Of the other two, one was a sizable valley with beautiful scenery; the other was also a mountain peak, though its environment was slightly inferior to the first one!
After going around, Ye Qingxuan finally returned to the initial mountain peak!

“Let it be this one then!”

Having seen the three spiritual lands, Ye Qingxuan made his choice.

He chose this spiritual land mainly for two reasons: