Yu Xiangdie said, "Sect Master has been paying close attention to what you said before. He very much wants to know — what exactly do you have up your sleeve to create more Eighth-Order Open Heaven masters?"
Luo Tinghe was crunching away, the sound so loud it seemed she was even grinding up and swallowing the spirit fruit pits. She looked every bit the starving ghost reborn into the world. "Yang Kai, we're all friends here. No need to beat around the bush. Let's speak plainly, and nobody holds anything back."
"Perfectly fine!" Yang Kai nodded.
Luo Tinghe said, "Then let me start with Yin-Yang Heaven's position. I'm sure Zuoqiu Ming has already told you — Yin-Yang Heaven has never allowed its Core Disciples to marry outside the Sect, and they don't intend to break that precedent. So if you want to marry Qu, that's going to be extremely difficult. No one in the Sect would support you. Even I myself am not entirely in favor of it. Once this precedent is set, it won't be good for Yin-Yang Heaven. If our elite disciples start marrying out whenever they please, wouldn't that just be a constant drain on the Sect's talent?"
"I understand," Yang Kai said. How could he not know this? The Cave Heavens and Blessed Lands had never allowed their Core Disciples to marry outside precisely because they feared losing their talent. Disciples painstakingly trained would belong to someone else once they married out. Even if they still held their master sect in their hearts, it simply wasn't the same.
Luo Tinghe continued, "As a Supreme Elder of Yin-Yang Heaven, I don't support your marriage to Qu. But as a friend to you both, I want to see your wishes come true. It would be a disservice to your nine lives of reincarnation otherwise. So you'll need to give me the real story — I need to know what argument to use to convince those old fogies."
Yu Xiangdie said, "Senior Sister Luo is now a Supreme Elder of Yin-Yang Heaven. Her words carry considerable weight."
Had it been any newly elevated Supreme Elder, their words might carry some weight but not much — after all, their foundation would still be unstable, and the other Supreme Elders would hold greater sway. But Luo Tinghe was different. She was a Supreme Elder with prospects of advancing to the Ninth Order. That single advantage meant that anything she said had to be taken seriously by the rest.
Yang Kai pondered briefly, then nodded. "Since both Senior Aunts say so, I won't hold anything back."
In truth, this had been his plan all along — to discuss this matter with Luo Tinghe. The reason he had been vague with Zuoqiu Ming the other day was precisely to pique the interest of Yin-Yang Heaven's higher-ups.
Among the people he knew in Yin-Yang Heaven, apart from Xu Linggong, there was Yu Xiangdie — and now Luo Tinghe.
Sect Master Zuoqiu Ming and Elder Chen Xiu had been unable to get a straight answer from him, so they had no choice but to use Luo Tinghe to probe for the truth.
Yang Kai had been waiting these past few days for either Luo Tinghe or Yu Xiangdie to show up.
Only with the two of them as intermediaries could he feel at ease sharing his thoughts.
"I wonder, Senior Aunt Luo, have you heard about the Star Boundary's World Tree?" Yang Kai opened with a question.
Luo Tinghe didn't understand what the World Tree had to do with today's discussion, but she nodded all the same. "I heard about it from Junior Sister Yu. What you did was excellent — a great deed for the entire Three Thousand Worlds. I'd heard rumors of the World Tree years ago but never seen it. I was planning to go pay a visit."
"Senior Aunt has just recently advanced to the Eighth Order. If you could cultivate at the World Tree, it would surely be of tremendous benefit to stabilizing your cultivation. Once matters here are settled, I can make the journey with you." Yang Kai touched on that topic lightly and moved on. "The World Tree nourishes the Star Boundary in return, allowing the martial artists living there to gain tremendous benefits. In recent years, many promising talents have emerged in the Star Boundary. The World Tree's power can even give martial artists futures far beyond their original potential."
"Previously, among the great Cave Heavens and Blessed Lands, those who could enter directly at the Sixth Order were considered Core Disciples. The numbers weren't large, and entering at the Seventh Order was rarer than phoenix feathers. But now, with the World Tree's nourishment, the martial arts prospects across all creation will only keep improving. In the future, when that first generation of beneficiaries matures, those entering directly at the Sixth Order will likely be commonplace. And when the second generation matures, there may well be quite a few who enter directly at the Seventh Order."
Yu Xiangdie nodded. "You've been away these years, so you may not know — the effects of the World Tree's nourishment are already showing. The disciples from various Cave Heavens and Blessed Lands who were sent to the Star Boundary for cultivation — some have already shown the potential to enter directly at the Sixth Order."
Every major Cave Heaven and Blessed Land had established training grounds in the Star Boundary. These grounds contained disciples recruited locally from the Star Boundary, but the majority were disciples transplanted from the various Cave Heavens and Blessed Lands themselves. Most of these were children, though some had already achieved a measure of cultivation — though they were still far from the point of advancing to Open Heaven, and many hadn't even reached the Dao Source Realm.
The lower one's cultivation and the younger one's age, the greater the benefit from the Star Boundary's nourishment. Once someone had truly condensed their Dao Seal and achieved Open Heaven, going to the Star Boundary would be of little use.
It had already been several hundred years since news of the Star Boundary's World Tree had spread. That was more than enough time for certain disciples from that first generation to have matured.
No one had advanced to Open Heaven just yet, but many had already condensed their Dao Seals and were not far from promotion. Judging by the stability of their Dao Seals and the grade of resources they had refined, it was already possible to predict the level these disciples would reach upon advancing to Open Heaven.
Previously, across any Cave Heaven or Blessed Land, Core Disciples had been treasured like precious gems. But in the future, Core Disciples entering directly at the Sixth Order would only grow more numerous — a tenfold, a hundredfold, or even greater increase was inevitable.
It was precisely because they had foreseen this benefit early on that Thousand Crane Blessed Land had been willing to bury the hatchet with Yang Kai. Otherwise, based solely on the matter of Yang Kai killing Zuo Quanhui, Thousand Crane Blessed Land would never have swallowed its pride.
Of course, Zuo Quanhui's defection from Thousand Crane Blessed Land beforehand had also given them room to maneuver. Otherwise, even if they had been willing to make peace, they would have had to fight Yang Kai to the bitter end for the sake of their own reputation.