Outside the Dharma Hall, green hills and clear water.

Liu Qianyun came up beside Shen Yi and asked, with some curiosity, "Did you win?"

She was not much interested in formations, and had never dabbled in them.

The great difference between a sect disciple and a rogue cultivator was having tens of thousands of fellow disciples to lean on. One did not have to be capable in every direction; one could concentrate on a single road, save lifespan, and so travel further.

But judging by the change in Elder Yang's expression, Shen Yi seemed to have done something quite remarkable.

It rather broke the fixed impression Liu Qianyun had formed of these people.

That impression was near enough what every other allied-sect disciple thought of Shen Yi's party: wild cultivators out of a place where the lineage had been severed. To say they could not read would be an exaggeration, but it was more or less the sense of it.

Perhaps they had simply had nothing to learn from, rather than being unable to learn.

"My father… Elder Liu has issued a decree. If Sect Master Shen has need of it, the Clear-Moon Sect can arrange for stewards, or elders, to go to the Nanyang Sect in rotation and help expound and transmit the dharma."

There was rather more patience in Liu Qianyun's face now.

Shen Yi's mind stirred at that. The Nanyang Sect was not in fact short of techniques; the stores in the Technique-Storing Pavilion fell perhaps a hundred thousand years behind the other allied sects' accumulation, but they were enough for a Return-to-Void cultivator.

What he lacked most was experience.

Even with demon lifespan as ample as his, he could not possibly cultivate every technique there was — let alone Nie Jun and the others.

How to gain the most improvement in the least time — that kind of experience was itself a treasure not to be done without.

"Shen Yi thanks your honoured sect in advance for its help."

The earnestness with which he cupped his hands left Liu Qianyun rather flustered by the honour. He…