Cultivation begins in Qingfeng Market.

Someone ran up to True Monarch Qianqiu and questioned Lin Zhao's actions. He replied directly, "The sect doesn't have the identity of a secret disciple. The news outside is all rumors."

One sentence shut the person down.

That's absolutely true. Lin Zhao's sect token still shows him as a true disciple, not a "secret disciple."

The identity of a secret disciple has not appeared in the Yunhai Cangming Sect for far too long; the sect indeed does not have an official position for such disciples.

The lack of official status meant Lin Zhao didn't have much power within the sect, but without power, there was naturally no responsibility.

The real source of this matter lies with True Lord Qingyuan.

Someone once suggested resetting the identity of the secret disciple and allowing Lin Zhao to participate in sect affairs, but True Monarch Qingyuan found it troublesome and rejected it outright.

Who dares to question True Lord Qingyuan?

Several Nascent Soul True Monarchs from the Wuya lineage actually used this incident to reclaim some rights from their sect.

Lin Zhao gained public recognition, and the elders also benefited from it.

Things gradually calmed down.

-----

Several months later, Tianhao finally finished his work. The two traveled to Central Continent via the fortress's teleportation array.

Zhongzhou is the strongest continent in the Cangyuan cultivation world.

When the teleportation light dissipated, Lin Zhao found himself standing on a teleportation platform in a celestial city.

This celestial city is built on a mountain tens of thousands of feet high. Rather than a mountain, it is more like a boundary marker—the mountain is composed entirely of a grayish-white boulder with a smooth surface that does not appear to be naturally formed.

The immortal city sits atop the mountain, majestic and grand. Its walls are densely covered with array patterns, and spiritual energy flows slowly within these patterns.

Tianhao told him that there were twelve such immortal cities in the Central Continent, distributed along the edge of the Central Continent, forming a spiritual energy network covering millions of miles.

This spiritual energy net cannot block teleportation, but it can interfere with the landing point of teleportation—any cultivator who teleports from outside the Central Continent can only appear on the edge of the Central Continent and cannot directly enter the interior.

At the same time, this network can also monitor all spiritual energy fluctuations in the Central Continent, making it impossible for outside cultivators to enter the Central Continent silently.

Therefore, every cultivator entering the Central Continent must obtain an identity token, a process that is cumbersome and governed by strict rules.

However, Lin Zhao had already done so with the expeditionary force, and with the help of military merits, he had already been promoted to the seventh rank.

With this authority equivalent to that of a Nascent Soul True Monarch, naturally no one dared to make things difficult for him. The two of them simply swiped their tokens, and the guards of the Immortal City bowed and let them pass.

Instead of using the teleportation array, the two took out the Purple Dragon Pattern War Chariot, and the two chariots took off, leaving the Immortal City and galloping across the vast land of the Central Continent.

Although the spiritual veins of Zhongzhou are strictly controlled by the Tianlu Divine Sect, spiritual energy still flows in the air.

But what Lin Zhao cared about was the characteristics of spiritual energy. The spiritual energy in the Central Continent was exceptionally gentle and could be easily absorbed by mortals.

In the outside world, it's already quite good for an ordinary person to live to sixty.

However, as Lin Zhao observed along the way, the mortals in Zhongzhou were clearly in better physical condition, and he estimated that they could easily live to be over eighty years old.

If you are physically strong and have a training foundation, living to be over a hundred years old is not difficult.

The spiritual energy in Zhongzhou should have been specially adjusted by the Tianlu Divine Sect.

Just as the Myriad Beasts Spirit Lord's Palace uses spiritual power to control mortals, the Heavenly Law Divine Sect has used tens of thousands of years to extend the lifespan of trillions of mortals in the Central Continent.

This is a completely different approach to governance, and also a different form of sectarian foundation.

-----

Tianhao took Lin Zhao on a journey through the Central Continent. The Central Continent covers an area of ​​over a million miles, and naturally there are large uninhabited areas. Wherever people live, there are crisscrossing rivers, and villages, towns, and cities are scattered like stars, making it extremely prosperous.

There are no other forces in Zhongzhou except for the Tianlu Divine Sect.

Therefore, the mortal society here was built entirely according to the plan of the Heavenly Law Divine Sect—with the city as the core, and mortals living around the city.

There are a total of one million mortal cities in the Central Continent, each with a population ranging from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions.

Normally, this is impossible—the food, lodging, transportation, and resource allocation for millions or even tens of millions of people cannot be managed by ordinary people on their own.

But with the intervention of cultivators, everything changed.

In the mortal world, Lin Zhao saw traces of the use of talismans, magical artifacts, elixirs, formations, puppets, and flying boats.

In the Central Continent, even an ordinary mortal can acquire knowledge of hundreds of first-tier talismans and, with the help of various special tools, draw these talismans themselves, enabling them to use them in daily life.

Seeing these things reminded Lin Zhao of the time he taught Ye Xiaoxiao the basics of talismanic arts. The difference between Yunzhou and Zhongzhou was like heaven and earth.

These low-level cultivation artifacts have been completely mass-produced and have permeated the daily lives of mortals in the Central Continent.

The Yunhai Cangming Sect can also do these things, but only within the sect itself.

The Heavenly Law Divine Sect, however, promoted it throughout the entire continent.

Lin Zhao was amazed; he naturally knew what this was called.

modernization.

On the way, Tianhao kept observing Lin Zhao's expression.

He had led many other overlords' prodigies on tours to the Central Continent, and most of them were genuinely shocked when they first saw these sights.

But Lin Zhao was different. Although he was surprised, he was not shocked. He could only say that someone who could become a secret disciple was indeed extraordinary.

Tianhao sighed inwardly.

He originally wanted to show Lin Zhao some more wonders of Zhongzhou and properly demonstrate the profound cultural heritage of Zhongzhou.

Cultivators have seen many wonders, but even the most magnificent and awe-inspiring sights rarely move them—the magnificence remains superficial and ultimately fails to truly shock them.

What truly captivates is the transformative power of these subtle details.

Unfortunately, this approach didn't seem to work on Lin Zhao.

He had originally planned to show Lin Zhao a few more unique sights so that this secret disciple would develop a certain longing for the Heavenly Law Divine Sect.

It seems unlikely that we will achieve our goal.

The chariot flew near a special spiritual energy track.

The spiritual energy tracks were invisible to the naked eye, but Lin Zhao could clearly perceive them with his divine sense—they were two parallel spiritual energy tracks erected high in the sky, connecting one mortal city after another.

Tianhao inserted the chariot into the track, and its speed instantly increased several times over. Moreover, it did not require two people to operate, and the chariot moved forward automatically along the track.

Lin Zhao saw countless flying boats of mortals shuttling back and forth on the track at extremely high speeds, some even breaking the sound barrier.

This speed is comparable to the escape technique of a Core Formation cultivator, but it consumes very few spirit stones.

The two took out their identity tokens on the chariot and connected their consciousness to the Tianxing Network.

This is the information network of Central Continent. The Heavenly Law Divine Sect uses these cities and spiritual energy orbits as carriers to connect the entire continent.

Lin Zhao fiddled with the token for a while and quickly became familiar with this so-called Tianxing Network.

He watched for a while, his expression somewhat subtle.

The Cangming Sect also has such a network, but it is basically used as a sect forum where cultivators post tasks, exchange information, and occasionally argue.

The Heavenly Law Divine Sect's Heavenly Star Network is far more comprehensive, covering hundreds of millions of cultivators and mortals, with an extremely large amount of information, far surpassing the internal forum of the Cloud Sea Cangming Sect.