Clan Cultivation: Starting from Foundation Establishment on Mount Luoxia

On the third day after leaving the Sunset Realm, Li Xiaoyao arrived at the void where the mission objective was located.

Li Xiaoyao stood suspended in the void for a long time.

According to the guidance of the mission jade slip, the newly formed demiplane numbered C-9372 is located deep within this void.

"It should be around here."

Li Xiaoyao's divine sense spread outwards like a tide.

A moment later, he raised an eyebrow—about 30,000 miles to the southeast, there was a faint halo, which was the fluctuation of the dimensional barrier.

He took a step and flew in that direction.

Nearly.

Getting closer.

When that plane was fully reflected in the range of his divine sense, Li Xiaoyao subconsciously stopped.

As required by the mission, he first needs to observe from the outside, assess the situation of the plane, find out the reason for its abnormal promotion, and then decide whether to split himself into his own body to enter.

As is customary, the first step in exploring unknown dimensions is a divine sense scan.

The Purple Mansion True Man's divine sense was enough to cover the entire primary demiplane. He first investigated the details before deciding how to enter.

Li Xiaoyao closed his eyes, his divine sense probing into that dimension like threads.

The first thing that catches the eye is the overall structure of the plane—it has indeed reached the standard of an advanced demiplane.

The concentration of spiritual energy is several times higher than that of an ordinary intermediate-level plane, the laws of heaven are becoming more complete, and there are even faint signs of it transforming into a minor world.

"Ten years...from beginner to advanced..."

Li Xiaoyao murmured, "This speed is indeed strange."

The plane is not very large.

It was even smaller than Bing-749 back then, about one-tenth the size of the current Luoxia Realm, with mountains, rivers, dense forests and swamps scattered sparsely.

To Li Xiaoyao's surprise, almost all the creatures in this world were apes.

Monkeys roam the mountains and fields.

These apes and beasts come in various forms; some live in dense forests, some inhabit steep cliffs, and some dwell in damp caves.

Some were drinking water by the stream, others were playing in the woods. Large and small, numbering in the tens of thousands, a rough count would probably be no less than a million.

"An ape-like world?" Li Xiaoyao murmured. "That's rather strange."

He continued the scan.

The monkeys' way of life was no different from that of the ordinary monsters he had seen.

Most of them are still in a state of ignorance, relying on instinct to gather wild fruits and hunt small animals for survival, without any trace of cultivation.

The few that occasionally possessed slightly stronger auras were merely physically robust, far from being true demonic beasts.

"Looks like it's just an ordinary monster world, nothing special..."

Before he could finish speaking, his consciousness suddenly stopped.

The northernmost point.

There was a wide valley where a group of apes lived—no, not a group, but a tribe.

A sizable tribe.

Li Xiaoyao roughly counted, and there were at least several thousand apes gathered there. But what stunned him was not the number, but the state of these apes.

They were standing.

It's not the kind of standing on all fours; it's a real, upright posture, like a human being—feet firmly on the ground, back straight, head held high and chest out.

Li Xiaoyao rubbed his eyes and scanned the area more carefully with his divine sense.

The valley is orderly. Rows of wooden houses are built against the mountain, with thick thatched roofs.

On the open ground, there were several simple smelting furnaces, with fires blazing and the glow of molten bronze faintly visible.

"Bronze artifacts..." Li Xiaoyao's pupils contracted slightly.

This is just the beginning.

His divine sense swept across an open area in the center of the tribe, where hundreds of small apes were gathered, sitting in several circles.

In front of each circle stands a smooth wooden board covered with writing in charcoal.

Several older apes, holding branches, pointed to the words on the wooden board and taught them methodically—

"At birth, human nature is good."

"Heaven and earth were dark and yellow, the universe was vast and boundless."

The lip movements, the pronunciation...

It is in Chinese.

Standard, clear and accurate Mandarin.

Li Xiaoyao was struck dumb.

He almost instantly withdrew his consciousness, his whole body frozen in the void, his heart pounding like a drum.

Holy crap.

He blurted it out.

These were words from his native language that he hadn't spoken in nearly a century, yet they uncontrollably spilled from his mouth at that moment.

He took a deep breath, forced himself to calm down, and continued scanning.

At the edge of the valley, several monkeys were busy at work. Some were chopping wood with stone axes, which were polished very neatly and were obviously carefully made.

Some were processing animal hides, scraping off the grease with stone knives, their movements skillful.

There were also a few female apes, who were sewing something with bone needles—clothes, simple clothes made of animal hides.

Further away, on the mountaintop.

Several monkeys sat cross-legged, facing east, seemingly swallowing something. Li Xiaoyao sensed it carefully, and his pupils suddenly contracted.

They are breathing in the essence of the sun.

Although the techniques were crude and the circulation of spiritual energy was very unfamiliar, it was indeed a legitimate cultivation method.

The strongest of them was approaching the Foundation Establishment stage, its spiritual energy surging as it attempted to break through a certain bottleneck.

On the other side of the mountain stream, a monkey was gesturing something towards the water.

It raised its hand and gestured, and a stream of water rose from the stream, circled in the air, and then fell back into the water.

The art of water control.

Further down the cliff face, a monkey opened its mouth and spat out a flame, igniting the pile of firewood in front of it.

The art of breathing fire.

Li Xiaoyao withdrew his divine sense and remained silent for a full ten breaths.

Then he turned around, took a step, and disappeared directly into the depths of the void.

In the void, Li Xiaoyao's expression was solemn.

"A time traveler," he muttered. "Fuck him, he's definitely a fellow countryman who time-traveled here."

Moreover, he was a fellow traveler from some vast universe who came to this ape-world and started an enlightenment campaign for ape civilization.

They taught people to read, to start a fire, to build houses, to make clothes, to make pottery, and even to practice spiritual cultivation...

Li Xiaoyao himself was a time traveler, so he knew all too well what this meant.

This is not an ordinary time travel. This is an organized and premeditated intervention by a civilization.

There's a huge pit in the cliff behind us. A massive pit!!!

He immediately took out the Immortal Sect token, probed it with his divine sense, found the familiar mark, and sent a message—

"Senior Taiyue, your disciple has urgent news to report."

A moment later, the voice of Taiyue Zhenjun came from the token, tinged with some doubt: "Young friend Shangyuan? What is the matter that requires such haste?"

Li Xiaoyao took a deep breath and recounted his discovery in detail.

"...Apes walk upright, build houses, use tools, recognize Chinese characters, cultivate martial arts, and some can even breathe fire and control water. The strongest one is almost at the Foundation Establishment stage."

"Most importantly, the speed of their civilization's development is completely illogical. The fact that they advanced from the initial stage to the advanced stage in just ten years is probably due to this."

"This disciple suspects that transmigrators from beyond this realm are interfering in this world. There must be a scheme behind it."

There was a long silence on the other end of the token.

Then the voice of Taiyue Zhenjun rang out again, his tone now solemn:

"Stay where you are and don't probe any further. I'll contact the Immortal Sect immediately and request additional manpower. This matter... might be more serious than you think."

Li Xiaoyao's heart skipped a beat: "What does Senior mean?"

"This isn't the first time an extraterrestrial traveler has appeared."

Taiyue Zhenjun said in a deep voice, "Each time, there is a powerful force behind it all. What you have discovered may only be the tip of the iceberg."

"Stay put and do not act rashly."

The token went dark.

Li Xiaoyao hovered in the void, looking back at that plane with a furrowed brow.

Those apes who are learning to read and practice breathing exercises probably have no idea that they have been drawn into an even bigger vortex.

He withdrew his gaze and waited quietly.

There was complete silence in the void.