The time for the Core Formation Grand Ceremony had been set, and everyone in the Ling Xiao Sword Sect was in motion.
Disciples of the Mission Hall had been working themselves to death recently. They took on the entire setup for the Core Formation Grand Ceremony and then divided it into small tasks. Some were tasked with finding spiritual fruits and spiritual food, others with searching for spiritual wine, and yet others for spiritual flowers. There was no other way; the sword cultivators themselves paid little attention to such matters, so if they were needed now, they had to be sought from outside.
A portion of the disciples were assigned the duty of delivering invitations. After the elders finished writing them, these disciples piloted their flying swords to various locations to deliver the invitations. Some disciples with lower cultivation levels began training others in etiquette, ensuring that guests attending the ceremony would not look down on their sword sect.
Xu Yi also went to pick up a mission. Besides their family's ancestral art of physiognomy, they were also skilled in brewing wine, so he took on the task of finding spiritual wine. After receiving the mission, he penned a letter to his family, urging them to send a batch of spiritual wine as soon as possible. Because his family's spiritual wine was of high quality, he also managed to secure an invitation for his family to attend the ceremony as observers. This single invitation made him feel that this venture was extremely worthwhile. His elders also praised his resourcefulness. His influence among his peers in the family had also grown.
Wan Si Rui did not involve himself in this grand event. His feelings towards the senior disciple were complex, and he had no desire to grovel and help her prepare for the Core Formation Grand Ceremony. He remained alone in his room, cultivating. Yet, the clamor from outside made it impossible for him to fully enter a state of meditation.
Perhaps the most idle person in the entire sect was Lin Yan. With no tasks assigned to her, she could only familiarize herself with simple formations and alchemy in her small courtyard. Formations required a great deal of mathematics, and her math grades had always been good, making it easy for her to calculate the life and death gates of formations. She could now set up level-two formations. Seeing the formations she had set up, she thought they were quite simple, but level-three formations were still somewhat challenging for her at this moment. It was akin to asking a junior high student to solve high school problems; perhaps they could manage some with great effort, but more would require further study. This was precisely her situation. Thus, she set aside the level-three formations and began to focus on improving the Spirit Gathering Formation. This formation was too useful; she wanted to simplify it as quickly as possible and then promote it throughout the sect, so they wouldn't need to purchase formation plates.
As for alchemy, Lin Yan understood medicinal principles and knew how to prepare medicines. She had once replicated a complex medicine like the Gene Optimization Fluid. However, alchemy seemed like a completely unrelated endeavor to drug preparation. Her knowledge of pharmacology seemed to have no use in alchemy, and it even seemed to have some adverse effects. She failed in every alchemy attempt, which made her incredibly frustrated. The only thing worth celebrating was that she had never caused her cauldron to explode. After all, for her, a poor sword cultivator, medicinal ingredients were not very valuable, but the alchemy cauldron was the most expensive item. She now felt that setting up formations could be learned by reading, but for alchemy, she probably needed to undertake systematic study.
There should be some alchemists attending the Core Formation Grand Ceremony in a few days; perhaps she could consult them then. With this thought, Lin Yan put away her alchemy cauldron and disposed of the medicinal dregs. After setting up a Spirit Gathering Formation for herself, she began to recover the spiritual energy she had depleted. The Golden Core within her dantian rotated ceaselessly, absorbing and expelling spiritual energy. With the assistance of the Spirit Gathering Formation, Lin Yan's recovery speed increased considerably.
The Core Formation Grand Ceremony was scheduled for October 15th. On this day, Lin Yan woke up early and put on the magic robe the sect had found for her. It was a moon-white robe that made her appear even more aloof. Lin Yan saw her reflection in the mirror and felt that the name Tantai Wang Shu was indeed fitting for this body. She was a woman as cool and detached as moonlight, her exquisite beauty like an immortal in the moon, making one forget the mundane upon seeing her. If she hadn't been taken into the male lead's harem so early, she should have ranked among the top ten beauties in the cultivation world. Because she had achieved Foundation Establishment and Core Formation at an early age, her appearance had been frozen at its most beautiful moment. Her current appearance would not change, and she would maintain her seventeen or eighteen-year-old looks until her ascension or dissipation. Compared to the immortal maidens in their twenties, her youthful appearance was more striking. However, later, she was confined to the male lead's harem and had no heart for adornment due to her unavenged great feud, which was why she didn't make it onto the beauty list. Nevertheless, this time, with the Ling Xiao Sword Sect making such a grand effort to hold her Core Formation Grand Ceremony, Tantai Wang Shu's fame should spread far and wide.
Lin Yan took out the makeup items she had stored in her system backpack, simply tidied her eyebrows, and applied some lipstick. Looking at herself in the mirror, she felt it was sufficient. From the gifts given by the elders, she took out a jade hairpin and styled her hair into a bun. She was a sword cultivator and did not require elaborate jewelry; this single jade hairpin was enough. Now, she just had to wait to amaze everyone. Tantai Wang Shu, I will make the entire continent know you. Your name will no longer be forgotten, and no one will ignore your existence.
Although the Ling Xiao Sword Sect was only a mid-tier sect, sword cultivators generally possessed higher combat power than other cultivators, so few were willing to provoke these sword fanatics. Furthermore, it was well-known that they were very poor, making them hardly worth robbing, so the Ling Xiao Sword Sect was an entity in the region that no one wanted to provoke. Now that the senior disciple of the Ling Xiao Sword Sect had formed her core, and invitations had been sent out, they would grant the Ling Xiao Sword Sect some face and attend. Sword cultivators were generally not wealthy, so bringing some gifts casually would suffice. Thus, the sects casually assigned an elder, bringing some gifts and a few disciples, to attend. However, they still dispatched their sect's most luxurious mode of transportation, as the Ling Xiao Sword Sect was poor, but they were not, and this was a perfect opportunity to flaunt their wealth. After all, who hadn't been suppressed by the Ling Xiao Sword Sect's strength? They could only try to regain face through wealth.
Only the people of the Qing Yun Sect hesitated when they received the invitation. "How old is the senior disciple of the Ling Xiao Sword Sect now?" the elder who received the invitation asked, somewhat hesitantly. He had a good relationship with the people of the Ling Xiao Sword Sect. He recalled that their sect's senior disciple was a child. That child was the earliest to enter the sect, entrusted to them by Xu Lan, a friend of Sword Master Yun Xi, and thus became the sect's senior disciple. When he visited the Ling Xiao Sword Sect a few years ago, she was still a little child; how had she already formed her core!