Invincible Dad-Chapter 730: Early Foundation Establishment?_1

His name was Li Deyi, a name taken from Laozi's *Tao Te Ching*. "The heavens obtain the One to become clear; the Earth obtains the One to find peace; the spirits obtain the One to become divine; the valleys obtain the One to be filled; all living things obtain the One to be born; and the princes and kings obtain the One to become the upright standard of the world."

He was a simple man who didn't understand profound principles. He never knew what his elders meant by giving him this name, nor had he ever asked. His life just didn't have that many "whys."

However, from the moment Li Deyi first saw Shan Ying at the Yunxiao Sect, he understood. This woman... she is his One.

Li Deyi was over 140 years old, an age at which an ordinary person would have long been in their grave.

Unlike Shan Ying, whose journey in cultivation was smooth, Li Deyi's talent could only be described as abysmal. He only reached the first level of Qi Condensation at fifteen. He was fifty-nine when he reached Foundation Establishment. It then took another eighty long years before he barely stepped into the Golden Core Realm.

His breakthrough drew the attention of the entire sect, causing all the Supreme Elders to gasp in shock. After all, Li Deyi had always been the sect's cautionary tale. From the first day of his cultivation, he never read the scriptures or attended the lessons given by the sect's elders.

He spent his days chopping wood, carrying water, and planting flowers. He even kept a flock of geese on an abandoned mountain peak, living like a farmer. At night, he would cultivate under the moonlight. His cultivation speed lagged far behind all his peers, yet he continued at his own steady pace, free of pride or impatience.

Therefore, the supervising Elder became so enraged that he stormed off in a huff, leaving Li Deyi to become the sect's prime example of being unscholarly and unskilled. Yet, this "free-range" Li Deyi had actually achieved the Golden Core Realm.

While he wasn't the fastest among the cultivators of his generation, he was far from the slowest. This fact truly made the elders' jaws drop.

Perhaps because he was more than twice Shan Ying's age, Li Deyi never revealed his feelings. He would just occasionally toss a couple of his large geese toward the mountain peak where Shan Ying lived. At first, Shan Ying refused them, but eventually, she stopped saying anything. Li Deyi assumed Shan Ying liked to eat goose meat, so the number of geese he sent increased from two to four.

He didn't know that, in fact, Shan Ying disliked goose meat. It was just that the geese he sent over had caused Shan Ying's six-year-old disciple to progress at a remarkable speed. Perhaps it was because she was constantly being chased and pecked by the geese, the young disciple managed to master the essentials of a lightness skill technique even before she had formally entered Qi Condensation...

Watching her disciple outwit the geese every day not only stimulated the girl's motivation to cultivate but also brought Shan Ying joy. After all, it was a lively scene.

But as for becoming Li Deyi's Dao companion, she had truly never considered it.

But it was a classic case of unrequited love. Li Deyi had thought their paths would never cross in this lifetime, but unexpectedly, an Emissary from the Moon Clan dared to harass Shan Ying. That was why Li Deyi drew his sword and killed him. He wasn't ignorant of the consequences of this act; he just couldn't bear to see Shan Ying suffer any grievance.

So now, as the disciples and elders from the one faction, three sects, and eight pavilions on the mountain peak looked on with a mixture of awe and delight, Li Deyi felt nothing special. He simply felt he had done a trivial thing that followed the dictates of his heart, no different than tossing a few geese to Shan Ying.

...

Unexpectedly, no one spoke up with words of doom. This left Shan Ying momentarily bewildered. The Moon King's power was unfathomable, likely far beyond the Nascent Soul Realm and already in the legendary Divinity Transformation Realm. Why weren't the Three Sects and Eight Pavilions the least bit afraid?

"The Human Race has Senior Xu Lai! He's not necessarily weaker than the Moon King!" Qi Jiuyang of the Blade Sect said solemnly.

"That's right," Daoist Chi Huo of the Red Fire Pavilion nodded vigorously. "Senior Xu Lai's abilities are heaven-defying. He may have already stepped into the Divinity Transformation Realm."

Xu Lai. The name was not unfamiliar to Shan Ying.

The Yunxiao Sect was destroyed because the Moon King's clone, disguised as Sect Master Li Qingzhou, had triggered a Deity Transformation Tribulation. And as that fake Sect Master lay dying, the name he had screamed with hatred was Xu Lai.

Could it be... that Senior Xu Lai saw through the Moon King's disguise and intentionally triggered his heavenly tribulation? The thought suddenly flashed through Shan Ying's mind, and goosebumps erupted all over her skin.

Yes, that had to be it. That was the only reason the Moon King had merely sent the heads of the nine Supreme Elders of the Yunxiao Sect back to Earth instead of descending upon the planet himself.

It wasn't that he was unwilling. It was that he dared not!

"The Moon King fears Senior Xu Lai!" Shan Ying and Li Deyi exclaimed in unison.

She had exclaimed in realization, while he had spoken with a frown. Both were startled by their synchronicity. The moment their eyes met, time seemed to stand still, and an invisible current arced between their gazes.

SMACK! Qi Jiuyang of the Blade Sect slapped his thigh excitedly. "That's right! The Moon Clan fears Senior Xu Lai!"

"..."

Snapped out of their daze, Shan Ying and Li Deyi simultaneously averted their eyes and turned to look at the Blade Sect's Master, Qi Jiuyang.

Qi Jiuyang shivered inexplicably. He muttered to himself, "It's not even cold... Why did I just tremble?"

"With Senior Xu Lai watching over us, Hua Country is safe," Shan Ying said, finally feeling at ease.

For ages past, although the Yunxiao Sect had remained in seclusion, it had always stepped forward whenever Hua Country faced a great crisis. Before Xu Yanyang inaugurated three hundred glorious years of the Martial Dao, it was always the Yunxiao Sect and the Three Sects and Nine Pavilions they had founded that stood guard against the Moon Clan.

Theirs was a blood feud, etched deep in their bones.

Otherwise, after learning they had been deceived by the Moon King's clone for three hundred years and that one of their own—Sect Elder Lin Xuzhi—had betrayed the Human Race, the nine Supreme Elders of the Yunxiao Sect would never have ascended to the moon so fearlessly to meet their deaths. Their actions were driven not only by hatred and the sting of betrayal but more so by a desire to atone for Lin Xuzhi's sins with their lives.

Nine lives for one. By any calculation, it was more than enough.

"The Spiritual Energy is returning. We must strive to break through our current cultivation boundaries and find promising new talents to nurture," Mo Lian, the Sect Master of the Dao Sect, said in a grave voice. "I have a premonition... the war between the Human Race and the Moon Clan is not far off." 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

No one spoke in the pitch-black night. The leaders of the Holy Lands stared into the distance, their expressions haunted, as if they could already see the mountains of corpses and seas of blood on the day of the final battle.

...

...

「Haitang Court」

Xu Lai drank alone for a long time. He did not deliberately dispel the alcohol's influence, yet his mind remained perfectly clear. He couldn't help but let out a soft sigh.

It had been a long, long time since he had last been drunk. Everything in the world has two sides. Xu Lai had grown stronger, reaching the very pinnacle of the Immortal Domain, but in doing so, he had also lost many simple joys—the kind only experienced by mortals or those in lower cultivation realms.

He was about to drink his thirty-second cup of wine when he sensed something and turned to look behind him. Xu Lai paused, slightly startled.

Ruan Tang succeeded in Qi Condensation? He calculated the time. A full half-hour... My wife's talent is quite decent.

In the Immortal Domain, a genius could step into the first level of Qi Condensation within a quarter of an hour—fifteen minutes. A true prodigy needed only half that time.

Xu Lai stood, planning to go back to the room to offer Ruan Tang some guidance. But then he suddenly noticed that the density of Spiritual Energy in the room was continuing to climb.

First Level Qi Condensation...

Third Level Qi Condensation...

Seventh Level Qi Condensation...

Qi Condensation Great Perfection!

After a momentary pause, all the Spiritual Energy suddenly retracted inward. Then, a profoundly dense aura slowly drifted out from the room.

This was—

Initial Stage of Foundation Establishment!

"..."

Xu Lai stood completely stunned in the backyard.

Reaching Foundation Establishment in two quarters of an hour. Forget him, an Emperor Realm expert; even looking back across all the eons of the Immortal Domain, there was no record of such a monstrous talent.

A moment later, Ruan Tang pushed open the window, her fine brows furrowed. "Xu Lai, I think something went wrong with my cultivation. The Spiritual Energy inside my body is gone."

"..."