"What is your name?"
Guan Pou hadn’t expected the last chef to arrive to prepare such an excellent dish.
However, thinking about it, it made sense. After all, the steward of his family was completely selfish, not taking into account what the household really needed.
Whether the few people he had chosen were even chefs was debatable.
It would be letting him off too easily to kill such a person.
"My name is Ding Huan, and this is my pet Lao Liu."
Ding Huan had brought Lao Liu with him this time since they needed to go to the Taoist Realm together, and it was essential that Lao Liu accompany him.
"What is your strength like?"
To Ding Huan’s surprise, Guan Pou asked a question that had nothing to do with being a chef.
Ding Huan honestly replied,
"My strength is decent. Over the years, I’ve traveled all over, facing many dangers and surviving them all."
Guan Pou nodded.
"You cook very well. Tomorrow, wait here and come with me."
"Yes," Ding Huan immediately responded.
...
Having dealt with matters outside for another night, early the next day, Ding Huan arrived at the entrance of Jin Mansion.
Ding Huan didn’t wait long before he saw the doors of Jin Mansion open and a large group of people escorting Guan Pou out.
Guan Pou bid farewell to her family and then waved Ding Huan over,
"Ding Huan, let’s go."
Ding Huan, carrying a bag and accompanied by Lao Liu, quickly came forward.
He had initially thought that as the fiancée of the Young Sect Master of Yanyue Sect, Guan Pou would leave Jin Mansion surrounded by a host of maids and attendants.
To his surprise, she was only accompanied by two people, one of whom was himself, and the other was a maid.
"Qing Yu, teach Ding Huan anything he doesn’t understand," Guan Pou said to the maid beside her.
"Yes, Sister Huan."
What puzzled Ding Huan was that the maid named Qing Yu did not refer to her as ’miss’ but instead as ’Sister Huan’.
It seemed that Qing Yu and Guan Pou’s relationship was quite special.
Guan Pou led Qing Yu and Ding Huan directly to the Yanyue Sect at Immortal Fate Square, where a spaceship was already docked.
"Immortal Guan Pou, please board the ship."
As Guan Pou approached, a middle-aged man came up with a smile spread across his face.
"Thank you, Deacon Qiong," Guan Pou said with a smile, returning a gesture before boarding the ship.
Ding Huan quickly followed Qing Yu and Guan Pou onto the spaceship with Lao Liu in tow.
Ding Huan, having a strong Divine Will, overheard the chatter behind him:
"With such limited places, she’s taken two mortals and a monkey."
"Silence, do you not want to remain in Yanyue Sect?"
...
Perhaps the latter comment had an effect, as really, no one kept discussing Guan Pou taking up too many places.
From the direction the voices came from, Ding Huan could tell that the two individuals were from Yanyue Sect.
They must be Sect officials assigned to the Mortal World with Deacon Qiong to recruit disciples.
The spaceship had enough seats; Ding Huan just didn’t understand why it was so difficult for mortals to travel to the Taoist Realm.
One or two extra people seemed to be such a concern.
Yanyue Sect was a Great Sect of the Taoist Realm, and they were very strict about recruiting disciples.
Though many arrived at Immortal Fate Square for the Sect Disciples’ selection, Yanyue Sect had only recruited twenty-three disciples in total.
Listening to the conversations outside, Ding Huan realized that these twenty-three disciples all seemed to be Outer Disciples.
This made Ding Huan understand that the Sect’s recruitment of new disciples wasn’t solely based on potential, as he knew there were many with excellent potential at Immortal Fate Square who attended the Immortal Sect Disciples’ selection.
Since all here were Outer Sect Disciples, it meant that the advancement of Yanyue Sect’s Inner Sect Disciples relied on different methods.
By now, not only Yanyue Sect, but other Sects’ ships were also leaving Immortal Fate Square one after another.
On Yanyue Sect’s spaceship, there were thirty-two people, including twenty-five for the Outer Disciples, Guan Pou, and Ding Huan.
The remaining seven included the one controlling the ship, Deacon Qiong who welcomed Guan Pou, four responsible for recruiting disciples, and the last one was Yanyue Sect’s elder.
Ding Huan didn’t dare to use his Divine Will to scan but could see that this elder’s cultivation was perhaps not as strong as Zhi Qi, but certainly not much weaker.
After the Yanyue Sect’s spaceship left Immortal Fate Square, Ding Huan still felt puzzled.
With the speed of this ship, if it flew for more than a month, how far away was Yanyue Sect anyway?
And now that he was on the spaceship, what did Guan Pou need him, a chef, for?
The spaceship did not take the month or more that Ding Huan had anticipated. In just two days, the spaceship came to a halt.
As Ding Huan followed the elder off the spaceship, he still wondered, were we there already?
But the surrounding Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi indicated they were still in the Mortal World.
A massive wavelike wall appeared in front of Ding Huan.
Ding Huan, despite having seen a lot, had never encountered such an Array Wall before.
At that moment, the elder stood before the Array Wall and proclaimed loudly:
"Everyone," the elder announced, "once I open the Dao Fan Wall, please proceed one by one and try to be as quick as possible."
After speaking, the elder took out an Array Flag and waved it, creating an entrance in the ripple wall.
Deacon Qiong was the first to walk through the entrance, followed closely by everyone else. Ding Huan led Lao Liu and Qing Yu after Guan Pou, entering the ripple wall as well.
It wasn’t until this moment that Ding Huan understood why mortals couldn’t access the Daoist Realm.
Which mortal could get past this ripple wall?
The Yanyue Sect elder must have paid a significant price to open a door with an Array Flag.
Ding Huan wasn’t clear about the cost, but it surely related to the resources of the Yanyue Sect.
The Yanyue Sect disciples who controlled the spaceship likely stayed in the Mortal World permanently and hadn’t come through with the others.
Thus, the number of people who had crossed was now thirty-one.
Waves of dense Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi swept over them, and Ding Huan couldn’t help but take a deep breath.
This was the real Taoist Realm! If he had reached Foundation Establishment, cultivating here would be like paradise.
The only thing that puzzled Ding Huan was that the place before his eyes was a desolate wilderness.
The sky was tinted with a faint red glow, as if stained with blood.
There were formidable beings here; Ding Huan dared not stretch out his Divine Will at random, but his eyesight was already incredibly sharp.
Looking into the distance, he saw not the slightest trace of human habitation.
Where was the Daoist Sect?
Why were there no Daoist Sects in such a place of thick Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi?
As Ding Huan was still pondering, Deacon Qiong stepped forward and announced,
"Everyone, you are the new disciples that our Yanyue Sect has recruited this time, but whether you can become disciples is yet unknown."
Ding Huan, who was merely a cook, didn’t care much about this statement.
But the twenty-three Outer Disciples’ faces turned ashen.
What did this imply?
Could they still be eliminated after arriving here? If they were discarded in the Daoist Realm, wouldn’t that be a death sentence?
Deacon Qiong continued:
"From here to the Yanyue Sect, we have at least more than a month’s journey ahead of us. During this time, we must pass through several dangerous areas, including regions with powerful Demon Beasts and sinkhole areas.
I can’t speak for other Sects, but seventy years ago, when the Yanyue Sect was returning with newly recruited disciples, all of them disappeared in these dangerous regions.
Not to mention you all, even Stewards and elders of the Sect failed to make it back..."
"Why not take the spaceship back?" someone in the crowd asked in a low voice.
Deacon Qiong snorted coldly:
"From the beginning until now, not to mention our Daoist Sects, even the powerful beings from the Ascension Realm wouldn’t dare to fly over this region on a spaceship when in the Daoist Realm.
Do you know how strong the most powerful flying Demon Beast in this area is? They could easily sweep through half of the Daoist Realm’s Sects."
The crowd gasped sharply.
In the eyes of these newcomers, the Sects of the Daoist Realm were full of beings akin to Immortals.
Countless such Immortal Sects must exist throughout the Daoist Realm. But what did Deacon Qiong just say? A single Demon Beast could easily wipe out half of them?
Deacon Qiong, indifferent to the shock of the new disciples, spoke with an increasingly grave tone:
"Therefore, everyone must follow closely behind Elder Gu and myself. You are not allowed to stray from the group or make loud noises; do you hear me?"
All the people promptly acknowledged.
What a joke, traversing such dangerous places—even if they were allowed to separate from the group, they wouldn’t dare.
Ding Huan finally understood why Guan Pou needed a cook, and one with decent strength at that.
In the remote wilderness, if Guan Pou was really particular about food, it wouldn’t be easy to endure.
This also revealed the character of Miss Guan Pou.
In a place fraught with crisis, where everyone sought Immortal Fate, she was still concerned about her dining; it was indeed beyond words.
She was married to the Young Sect Master; otherwise, what right did she have to hire a cook to accompany her?
After saying a few words, Deacon Qiong and Elder Gu set off at the front.
Ding Huan and twenty-five others, along with Lao Liu, walked in the middle, while the remaining four Yanyue Sect cultivators followed at the rear.
Perhaps because of the dangers mentioned earlier by Deacon Qiong, no one chattered along the way anymore.
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Everyone was extremely cautious and tried to stay in the middle of the path.
Those selected for the Sect, albeit newcomers, all had decent abilities.
Thus, the journey was rather swift; by the time the sky darkened, they had traveled several hundred miles.
Ding Huan noticed some new disciples with poor cultivation who struggled to keep up.
With just this much of the journey proving a challenge, much longer lay ahead, and it was certain some would be left behind.
He didn’t believe that Deacon Qiong would slow down the entire group on account of these few disciples’ pace.
Of course, this had nothing to do with him. Compared to the other Yanyue Sect disciples, he was just passing through.
When a vast canyon appeared before everyone, Deacon Qiong halted:
"We will rest here tonight and enter the Great Ravine Canyon tomorrow morning."
Leading so many new disciples, even the elders and stewards of the Yanyue Sect didn’t dare to travel at night.
Looking towards the distant canyon, with uneven forests lining both sides extending to where the eye could see, Ding Huan could make out the mist weaving through those woods, even from afar.
Even before stepping into the Great Ravine Canyon, an ominous air enveloped the area.
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