Shen Yi sat cross-legged on a barren islet.

In the past, he had nurtured his Anchor-Stones on his own foundation. With Dao-merging reached, he could now pull heaven-and-earth breath from across the whole Nanyang treasured site to heal the branch Hall Masters. The work went far faster than he could have said.

In just over ten days, even An Yi, the strongest of them, had the cracks in her stone body mostly mended.

Shen Yi did not let his breakthrough make him careless.

Xihong was not like the south. Besides being extremely dangerous in its own right, it had powers from Donghong and Beihong meddling in it, and it was a complete mess.

He would have to keep hiding his name for now.

Plenty of things were much easier to handle through the branch Hall Masters than by doing them himself.

After breaking through to Dao-merging, Shen Yi also had a clearer picture of how strong the branch Hall Masters were.

Wu Jun and Yulan, the two White Jade Capital ones, he could set aside for now.

For a cultivator, each Dao weapon pressed down deepened his control of the Dao-merging treasured site by one level. Pressing down four Dao weapons one after another was the road from the early stage of the Earth Realm to Earth Realm Perfection.

Ke the Thirteenth had truly only just crossed the threshold. It fell somewhat short even of the early stage of the Earth Realm… The Ten Thousand Forms Pavilion's Sect Master had likely been the weakest an early-stage Earth Realm cultivator could be. Even so, inside the Ten Thousand Forms Pavilion, Ke the Thirteenth would clearly have lost to him.

Yue Tianji and his brother had a far purer bloodline, and both had been among the very top great demons below Dao-merging.

As an Anchor-Stone, the pair had already reached the middle stage of the Earth Realm, a little behind An Yi, though not by much. With the edge the Calamity Kirin's divine ability gave, the pair would likely have the better odds if the two ever fought.

The little tiger demon,…