It took Yang Kai a full half month to properly settle those hundred-odd thousand people. During that time he was so busy his feet never touched the ground — and he owed a great deal to Hua Qingsi and Bian Yuqing for lending a hand at his side, otherwise the sheer workload would have worried him to death.
Ling Xiao Palace had well over a hundred spirit peaks of varying sizes. They had been largely empty before, but now every last one of them was packed with people. The smaller peaks housed a few hundred each, while the largest main peaks held upwards of two or three thousand.
With over a hundred thousand people spread across these hundred-plus peaks, Ling Xiao Palace had become bustling practically overnight.
Managing so many people was certainly a headache, but Hua Qingsi put forward a suggestion: let each peak elect a Peak Master, with those hundred-plus Peak Masters reporting directly to her, while the newly arrived disciples on each spirit peak would answer to their respective Peak Master. That way the workload was cut down considerably.
Red Moon, Ai Ou, Gu Cangyun, and the Ghost Ancestor were each more than capable of overseeing a peak of their own — main peaks, no less. Although their cultivation hadn't yet reached the Emperor Realm, all four had reached the third level of the Dao Source Realm, making them far stronger than the martial artists who had come from the Star Field.
To that end, all four abandoned the Five Saints Peak where they had long resided and moved into their own respective peaks. Sorting out the subordinates beneath them was easy enough — Gu Cangyun had originally been the Alliance Master of the Sword Alliance, and Yang Kai had practically swept up the Alliance's entire elite force on this trip, bringing them all over. He could hand every single Sword Alliance disciple over to Gu Cangyun's management, and those disciples would no doubt be more than happy about it. Any shortfalls in numbers could be filled by transferring people from elsewhere.
Ai Ou commanded a peak staffed by martial artists from the Heng Luo Trading Company. The Ghost Ancestor took charge of the original Ling Xiao Sect, while Red Moon also shouldered a portion of the Ling Xiao Sect's people — it was simply that the three thousand demon beast clansmen Yang Kai had brought back had been distributed among the three Great Demon Kings, leaving her with no one to use.
Others such as Ye Xiyun, several Elders from the former Star Emperor Gate, Qiu Yimeng, and the Earth Demon — all Void King Realm cultivators in their own right — likewise became Peak Masters of their own peaks.
With this arrangement sorted out, the entire landscape of Ling Xiao Palace immediately became clear, and day-to-day management was made vastly more convenient going forward.
Yang Kai took the two Grand Stewards, Hua Qingsi and Bian Yuqing, on an inspection tour across the various peaks. Only after confirming that everything was proceeding smoothly did he finally have a moment to rest for a few days.
By "rest" he didn't mean he had nothing to do — only that he wasn't quite as frantic as before.
With over a hundred thousand people moved in, a massive quantity of cultivation resources and cultivation manuals would naturally be needed. Now that everyone had come to the Star Boundary, the cultivation methods from the Star Field were no longer keeping up — naturally, they all needed to be replaced with higher-grade techniques.
Fortunately, during Yang Kai's years of adventure in the Star Boundary, he had killed countless enemies and even toppled top-tier Sects like the Wenqing Sect. He had amassed quite the collection of cultivation manuals in the process — a wide-ranging assortment suitable for all manner of martial artists to choose from.
Hua Qingsi had long since been preparing for this day. She had established a Scripture Pavilion on one of the main peaks, its shelves groaning under countless secret manuals and techniques. It was now opened up, allowing the hundred-plus Peak Masters to enter and select what they needed.
The matter of cultivation manuals was settled for the time being. What remained was the issue of cultivation resources.
Martial artists in the Star Field had primarily used spirit stones for their cultivation, but the Star Boundary was rich in origin crystals — the two weren't even in the same league. Fortunately, Ling Xiao Palace had accumulated a considerable stockpile over the years, with mountains of origin crystals stored in its vaults. Yang Kai had also squeezed a nice windfall out of the three Great Sage Sovereigns recently, and on top of that there was the profit from the Purple Source Trading Company in the Southern Domain that Hua Qingsi had been trading with all these years. A rough calculation showed that Ling Xiao Palace's disciples would have more than enough origin crystals for at least the next fifty years.
Moreover, the trade with the Purple Source Trading Company was an annual arrangement, and the volume of goods involved was enormous, so even after fifty years there would certainly continue to be resources flowing in.
Origin crystals weren't a worry. The only thing left to consider now was the matter of pills.
A considerable number of Void King Realm martial artists had been brought over from the Star Field this time, and as time went on, the number of those advancing to the Void King Realm would only grow.
The Void King Realm itself wasn't the issue — it was the process of breaking through from the Void King Realm to the Dao Source Realm that devoured pills at an alarming rate. Every martial artist in that transitional stage needed Source Condensation Pills to assist in the conversion of their source power.
Yang Kai had gone through this process himself back in the day, as had Red Moon, the Ghost Ancestor, and the others. Without Source Condensation Pills to help, it would take a Void King Realm cultivator at least ten to twenty years to fully convert the Sacred Energy in his body into source power — and that was for the fast ones. Slower cultivators could take decades or even a century.
So for the next ten to possibly a hundred years, Ling Xiao Palace would need an incalculable number of Source Condensation Pills. That kind of staggering volume simply couldn't be met by the Sect's own alchemists alone — even with Ling Xiao Palace's current Spirit Pill Peak, it was far from enough.
In addition to nurturing their own alchemists, they would need to purchase large quantities externally as well.
For this purpose, Yang Kai had the recently returned Hua Qingsi make another trip to the Southern Domain, taking with her a vast number of demon beast inner cores. The plan was to trade these demon beast inner cores to the Purple Source Trading Company for a batch of Source Condensation Pills to cover their immediate needs.
Yang Kai had over a million demon beast inner cores on hand — all obtained from the beast cemetery within the Desolate Ancient Lands back in the day, the accumulated hoard of tens of thousands, even over a hundred thousand years' worth from the entire region, swept clean by Yang Kai. Among them were no shortage of twelfth-rank demon beast inner cores, and he was confident the Purple Source Trading Company would be more than eager to make that deal. For this emergency supply of Source Condensation Pills, Yang Kai had pulled out over ten thousand inner cores of various types — a real hemorrhage of wealth.
After a full month of frantic activity, Yang Kai finally managed to catch his breath.
On this particular day, he led Xia Ningshang up one of the spirit peaks.
This peak was also one of Ling Xiao Palace's main peaks. Compared to the others, it boasted even more picturesque scenery and richer spiritual energy, with fragrant flowers all around and the cheerful songs of birds filling the air.