It is said that during the height of the quest for immortality, a single county, barely ten villages across, would be lined from east to west with cultivation sects—sometimes as many as twenty. People would buy some half-new, half-old, worthless cultivation manual from a street vendor and dare to recruit followers and amass wealth under the banner of seeking immortality.

If all these people could really ascend to the heavens, who knows if the Southern Heavenly Gate could even hold so many riffraff.

Even the mountain bandits who robbed and pillaged would join in the farce, changing their “Black Tiger Stronghold” or “Hungry Wolf Gang” to names like “Clear Breeze Temple” or “Profound Heart Hall.” They’d pick up some tricks like “retrieving objects from boiling oil” or “breathing fire,” and before robbing travelers, they’d put on a noisy show, scaring passersby into generously handing over their money.

The late emperor, a rough man with a soldier’s temper, saw the common folk indulging in such chaos and felt the country would be ruined if things went on. So he issued an edict to arrest all these so-called “immortals” running rampant in the countryside, whether real gods or fake cultivators, and send them all into exile as soldiers.

This edict, which should have shaken the world, didn’t even make it out of the palace before the entire court caught wind of it. Terrified, the officials scrambled out of bed in the middle of the night and lined up before the main hall—junior officials in front, senior ones at the back—ready to bash their heads against the hall pillars one by one in protest, fearing the emperor would offend the immortals and doom the dynasty.

Of course, the emperor couldn’t really let his entire court die for this, and besides, the coiling dragon pillars couldn’t take that kind of abuse.

Forced into a corner, the late emperor had to rescind his order. The next day, he instructed the Astronomical Bureau to set up a “Heavenly Evolution Office,” directly overseen by the Grand Historian, and discreetly invited a few genuine masters to preside. From then on, all sects, big or small, had to be verified by the Heavenly Evolution Office and issued an iron certificate before they could recruit disciples. Private sects among the people were forbidden.

Of course, in a vast nation spanning the nine provinces, stretching a thousand miles east to west and with north and south barely connected, it was basically impossible to enforce such a ban. Even the strictest laws had loopholes, let alone such a half-baked decree.

The court couldn’t even stamp out banditry and human trafficking—how could they control whether sects recruited disciples?

The real sects didn’t care about the emperor at all and went about their business as usual. The more nervous charlatans toned it down a bit, but only a little—after all, it wasn’t hard to forge an iron or copper certificate.

Still, the late emperor’s efforts weren’t entirely in vain. After several rounds of crackdowns and purges, though the results were minimal, the public’s enthusiasm for cultivation was dampened. Plus, no one had ever heard of anyone actually achieving anything through cultivation, so over time, people just went back to farming or herding sheep and stopped daydreaming.

By the time the current emperor ascended, the trend of seeking immortality among the people was barely hanging on, the craze already past. The current emperor, knowing that “too clear water has no fish,” mostly turned a blind eye to those swindlers using the name of cultivation—if the people didn’t complain, the officials didn’t investigate.

All these causes and effects, Henry Carter had heard once from the old scholar. So in his eyes, the stick he was holding was just an ordinary stick… at best, a stick to earn his meals, nothing particularly worthy of respect.

The stick-like Ethan Clark stroked his trembling little mustache and rambled on, “My sect is called ‘Fuyáo.’ Little one, do you know what ‘Fuyáo’ means?”

The old scholar despised all this, so of course he never explained it. Henry Carter, having been taught by him, was somewhat influenced and felt nothing but disdain, though he still forced himself to look as if he was listening intently.

Ethan Clark then raised his hand and pointed in front of Henry Carter. That gesture seemed to carry some mystical power—where he pointed, a sudden whirlwind rose out of nowhere, spinning and lifting the dead grass from the ground straight into the air. The sunken blades of grass flashed a sharp, withered yellow, illuminated by a bolt of lightning from the sky, nearly dazzling Henry Carter’s eyes.

This supernatural display left the young boy utterly dumbfounded.

Ethan Clark himself hadn’t expected this to happen and was momentarily stunned. But seeing that he’d managed to awe this cold-faced, indifferent kid, he quickly withdrew his hand, playing along.

He tucked his withered hands into his sleeves and leisurely boasted, “When the roc journeys to the southern sea, it stirs the water for three thousand miles, riding the fuyáo wind up ninety thousand miles, all in the breath of June—formless and unbound, able to dance with the wind. When it comes, it is as deep as the abyss; when it goes, it is boundless. That is ‘Fuyáo.’ Do you understand?”

Of course, Henry Carter didn’t understand. In his small chest, awe of the unknown tangled with his disdain for these crooked ways, impossible to separate. In the end, with a reluctant respect for his master, he put Ethan Clark on the same level as the broken lamp on his own wall and nodded in confusion.

Ethan Clark, pleased with himself, twitched his mustache, ready to elaborate further. But heaven wouldn’t give him another chance—before he could open his mouth again, his bluff was exposed. After a clap of thunder, a fierce wind suddenly slapped them in the face, snuffing out the campfire before them and leaving only cold ashes. Then came a raging gale, lightning and thunder roaring together, as ominous weather swept in from the west.

Ethan Clark could no longer keep up the act and shouted, “Not good, a heavy rain is coming!”