Chapter 534: Chapter 257: The Perplexity of the Dan Ding_3

What?

Could it be possible that Lu Yuan didn’t cultivate the Taiping Dao Book?

Are you kidding me?

After True Person Anqiu returned to the mountain gate, he swore on his life in front of the Dao master and sect members, assuring them that he had personally witnessed Lu Yuan worship the Heavenly Pillars.

Furthermore, Lu Yuan participated in the Northern Expedition afterwards, and within a matter of one or two months, he defeated two innate cultivators of Zhou Country, dominating the field with unparalleled might.

This achievement and this strength, do you think they could be accomplished by a newly promoted Grandmaster who just broke through the Innate realm a year ago?

What, do you really think that the King of Chu, like in the folk tales, is a heavenly star incarnate, born divine, and blessed by thousands of Immortals?

That killing one or two grand generals of Zhou Country is a breeze, an effortless task?

This kind of reasoning might fool those lowly ignorant people; some naive children might even believe it.

But if you expect to fool us genuine cultivators with this, you’d be treating us like fools.

So, Lu Yuan’s killing of Gui Lianyun and Zhang Chanyi probably wasn’t due to his martial strength but likely due to his application of Dao Law. He probably surprised them with Immortal Techniques and killed the two innates off guard.

This theory is the inference made by all cultivators on the Dan Ding Path after a comprehensive analysis of various information.

Some information subsequently received from Zhou Country also undeniably confirmed this.

Although Zhou Country kept a tight lid on it and hardly leaked any information.

But with the network of contacts that the Dan Ding Path had cultivated over thousands of years, they managed to transport vast amounts of supplies across countries to Dongting County for Lu Yuan.

Therefore, under deliberate efforts, it wouldn’t be difficult to extract some news from the courts of Zhou Country.

Thus, the news that Lu Yuan caught He Basheng off guard with Immortal Techniques and forced him to retreat, quickly reached the cultivators of the Dan Ding Path.

Only upon receiving this news did the cultivators of the Dan Ding Path relax, not having to worry about Lu Yuan deceiving them in the end.

However, even if they could relax, a new question came up.

If their conjectures were correct, then Lu Yuan, after the Northern Expedition, must have advanced to the cultivational level of the Air Condensation Stage to be alive till now.

But how long can he last on the Air Condensation Stage while cultivating the Taiping Dao Book, that became a problem.

Since there had never been a precedent before, even though they had data from past generations, and resorting to some of the best experimental subjects, they could only calculate the lifespan of a typical innate grandmaster.

However, they didn’t have any specific data for a condition comparable to the third level realm of Innate Grandmaster in Immortal Method, the Air Condensation Stage.

Eventually, they could only estimate, affirming that reaching the level of the Immortal Method Air Condensation Stage would increase resistance to the method of the Taiping Dao Book, and significantly reduce lifespan consumption.

But due to the excessive consumption of lifespan before, even if he were to reach the Air Condensation Stage, extending his lifespan by another fifty years would not last him long.

Two to three years would be the limit.

Therefore, after reaching this conclusion, the people of the Dan Ding Path continued to send out a large number of spies to the Chu kingdom to probe all kinds of information about Lu Yuan.

To collect enough information as data samples for storage.

On the other hand, they just waited patiently in Liang Country.

But this wait lasted for three more years.

It lasted until Lu Yuan had two sons, and all signs indicated that this King of Chu seemed interested in the now chaotic neighboring Great Changhe kingdom, considering a military expedition.

Upon hearing this news, the people of the Dan Ding Path couldn’t help but be astounded.

Because everyone knew that a person on his deathbed, not likely to live more than two years, wouldn’t have the energy to fuss over such things.

You can see what Yan Wangqiu and Nanhai Country are going through and have an idea.

In recent years, as his body continued to age and death neared, Yan Wangqiu grew weaker by the day.

It was heard that over the last half year, he rarely even attended the morning meetings.

Even the new wives he married in recent years, unsatisfied and also planning for their own future, ended up colluding with Yan Wangqiu’s two sons, causing a huge scandal and becoming a laughingstock.

Upon hearing the news, Yan Wangqiu, in a fit of rage, ordered the execution of that wife, confined his two sons to the house, and killed a bunch of people in the country who had been gossiping, finally silencing the rumors.

But despite this, the old ruler was so infuriated, he spat blood, lay in bed for a month, unable to recover his breath.

With his absence, the country’s affairs started to fall into chaos.

It’s foreseeable that once Yan Wangqiu dies, a great turmoil in Nanhai Country will be inevitable.

But the disgrace of Nanhai Country doesn’t concern the Dan Ding Path, they simply don’t have the time to worry about it.

The only reason to bring up Nanhai Country now is because it serves as a living example, clearly showing them what a dying ruler’s kingdom should look like.

A kingdom clouded by a gloomy atmosphere, chaotic and disorderly.

This is what a country looks like when the ruler is on his deathbed.

But the current state of the Chu kingdom clearly doesn’t fit this description.

Not only has Lu Yuan not fallen ill and confined to his bed, but he’s also entertaining the thought of conquering a great kingdom.

What does this mean?

It means that he has full confidence in his lifespan. He believes that he has several years, even a decade, to conquer the Great Changhe kingdom.

At the same time, he’s confident that after his death, the vast territories he acquired could be maintained.

These two points combined, sent the people of Dan Ding Path into a state of apprehension.

They began to question whether Lu Yuan really cultivated the Taiping Dao Book?

If he did cultivate it, how could he live for so long?

Could it be that there’s another way to resist the side effects, something undiscovered by the Dan Ding Path?

If such a method exists, could the Dan Ding Path apply it, thus completely eliminating the concern for their sect’s continuity?

There are too many doubts lingering in their hearts.

It’s like having an itch that they just can’t scratch.