Li Qiye stopped before the diagrams for a long time. Meanwhile, the group got teleported out several times but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Old man, you really tried your best but the future is just too unpredictable. Even the most heaven-defying beings can turn to bones.” After a while, he opened his eyes and sighed, gazing into the distance.

Many have walked this path before. They were the strongest and smartest existences during their epoch, the most incredible masters. Unfortunately, they either died or succ.u.mbed to depravity.

Death was heroic and moving. They could only blame themselves for not being strong enough or prepare sufficiently.

The ones fallen had the same deficiencies on top of having weaker dao heart.

Someone like Everlasting Xiao certainly had a firm enough dao heart. He traveled the realms for many eras yet still failed to save his own epoch. He was lucky enough to survive but couldn’t do anything else to change the tides.

Alas, he still made preparations and left things behind to warn future generations, hoping that they wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes as him.

Of course, very few were actually qualified to embark on the same path as him.

“Let’s go.” Li Qiye stopped thinking and ordered.

“We’re leaving? Ancestor, are we not waiting for the juniors?” Weizheng glanced over at the dao platform and asked.

“They’ll catch up.” Li Qiye didn’t care.

Weizheng followed the order and pushed Li Qiye to the next city. Li Qiye did the same thing and stopped before the ancient walls. 

His patience was eventually rewarded. The group of juniors appeared on this dao platform.

Their injuries were extremely serious this time around; blood spilled everywhere along and bones were visible. However, this didn’t deter their enthusiasm.

“Hahaha, we did it, we made it past that first battleground.” w.a.n.g Xuehong stumbled back and forth while laughing.

So it turned out that they have beaten the four-armed corpse to enter the second battlefield. However, the enemy in the next one was far stronger and obliterated their formation.

Nevertheless, Weizheng still felt good about the whole thing because it showed considerable improvements.

“Shh…” He shushed them and pointed at Li Qiye.

The group calmed down and stopped laughing. Of course, a wide grin was still on their face.

They sat down and meditated while using ointments. Broken bones were nothing. As long as their true fate was still around, Li Qiye’s medicine could easily save them.

Interestingly enough, he himself could bring them back from death because he had previously blessed their true fate.

“Alright, let’s go again.” The group was in high spirits and headed for the second battlefield again.

They were swiftly defeated multiple times but their tenacity remained. The period between each attempt became longer as well.

Li Qiye wanted this. The goal wasn’t only to increase their cultivation and power but also to polish their determination in order to force out their full potential. Being on the verge of dying during intense training had this effect.

Moreover, this also served to sharpen their dao heart, fortifying it in the process. Defeats taught them patience and gave them more battle experiences. 

Li Qiye believed that the dao heart was more important than anything else.

Numerous geniuses couldn’t get back up after the first defeat due to their weak dao heart. Some eventually joined the evil path as well. That’s why he needed to focus on toughening their dao heart.

Victory seemed even further away this time around. Weizheng saw the group stumbling back through the portal after another failure.

It looked like they had just gotten out from a river of blood. Some of the wounds were grisly. For example, Li Jiankun needed to be carried by the Xiu brothers even though they themselves were seriously injured.

w.a.n.g Xuehong lost an arm; Jiahui’s chest was penetrated by a sword… They no longer got up after the teleportation.

“What happened?!” Weizheng flew over after seeing this.

He took a deep breath after seeing the wounds. It was a miracle for the seven to still be alive, albeit with only one breath left.

Weizheng was startled this time around because the wounds were more serious than the previous attempts. The group was on the verge of death.

Li Qiye finally opened his eyes and raised his hand to suck the group over. His grand dao turned into a cauldron with medicine inside and he placed them within.

The cauldron looked like a large coc.o.o.n at this point. Weizheng stood there and prayed, hoping that nothing would happen to these seven.

It wasn’t easy for Mountguard to groom seven exceptional seeds.

Alas, there was nothing to worry about when Li Qiye was on the move. “Pop.” The cauldron cracked and disappeared so the group fell to the ground.

The seven were perfect again, as vigorous as ever.

“Thank you, Ancestor (Young n.o.ble), for saving us.” They kneeled on the ground.

“What happened?” Weizheng showed his concern. He could see that these wounds didn’t come from the lost souls.

The group exchanged glances. Finally, w.a.n.g Xuehong spilled it: “That Zhou person did this!”

“Zhou? Which one?” Weizheng didn’t know about an enemy with this last name.

“School Master, it’s that group we met at the entrance. Their leader is a girl named Zhou Ziqing, a disciple from Central Sacred Ground!” Zhiting revealed.

“I see…” Weizheng was shaken.

Central Sacred Ground was a top lineage in the system, on the same level as Eight Trigrams Kingdom. Moreover, these two had a marriage pact too.

“Did you offend her? Why did she not hold back?” Weizheng put on a serious expression.

“We didn’t offend her at all!” Xuehong shouted indignantly.

“She wanted Junior Sister’s Virtuous Crown.” Jiankun said softly.

Weizheng understood right away. Eight Trigrams Kingdom clearly didn’t give up despite their defeat at Li Qiye’s hands. It was their ally’s turn this time.

“How many attacked?” Weizheng asked.

“Just Zhou Ziqing.” Jiankun felt ashamed because the seven of them nearly died to one girl.

Weizheng lamented in his mind. Of course, there was an uncrossable distance between them and a behemoth like Central Sacred Ground.

“Ancestor, what should we do?” He hesitated before asking Li Qiye. This matter was also beyond his station because Mountguard couldn’t afford to provoke Central Sacred Ground.