Cycle

In what seemed like but a single moment, thousands of years had passed since Xu Yue had entered seclusion.

After first being disturbed by her little granddaughters, Xu Yue no longer paid any attention to the outside world, and solely focused on her own cultivation, which began progressing rapidly.

But even though this was the case, time did not seem to have any sign of slowing down, as in but an instant, over ten thousand years passed, causing Xu Yue's eyes to finally open once again.

The instant Xu Yue's eyes opened, the hearts of all mortals within the Origin Sword Sect, as well as its immediate surroundings, suddenly began beating at a rapid pace.

At this moment, even powerful Dao Saints, who had long since lost any sort of resemblance they had to mortals, were seemingly sent back to a lower dimension, as sweat began falling down their foreheads.

Thankfully though, a few moments after that, Xu Yue let out a small breath, causing this phenomenon to stop.

A moment later, Xu Yue's spiritual sense suddenly spread out, as she finally began looking at the outside world once.

The first thing that Beatrice noticed was the fact that a few million mortals had accidentally died because of her just now, causing her to take action a moment later.

Before the mortals that had remained alive could realize what had happened, all those who had died or had become injured were swiftly healed and returned to normal, as Xu Yue got up and walked out of her cave abode.

As her spiritual sense went through the Origin Sword Sect, Xu Yue couldn't help but slightly shake her head.

Other than a few familiar faces, like her teacher and her fellow apprentices Lin Xue and Li Xiaoling, very few familiar faces remained within the sect that she remembered from back then, when she was young.

Thankfully though, just at the last minute, when her lifespan was about to reach its end, Xu Yue's teacher, Feng Shuchun was finally able to break through to the Dao Saint Realm.

If not for that fact, the current Origin Sword Sect would seem really unfamiliar to Xu Yue, who spent most of her life in seclusion.

Sadly though, Feng Shuchun had been surpassed in cultivation by a second one of her disciples, Lin Xue, who reached the Dao Saint Realm just a bit before her teacher.

"The previous few generations of the sect really were weak, huh..." mumbled Xu Yue as her vision continued going through the sect, before reaching a Dao Saint that was somewhat unfamiliar to Xu Yue.

Of course, this did not mean that Xu Yue had not met this Dao Saint before, as in fact, she had.

This new Great Elder of the Sect was actually Zhou Niu, a rather inconspicuous disciple of the sect, at least before her rather sudden ascendance.

A moment later, a rather old painting suddenly appeared in front of Xu Yue.

This was a painting of Zhou Niu, which Xu Yue had made back in her youth. {Chapter 41 : Anger}

In truth, this painting was actually quite significant for Xu Yue, as while she was making it, she became angered and tortured a certain disciple who had annoyed her, causing her to undergo some changes.

Back then, this disciple was annoying Zhou Niu, who was much weaker than him, causing Xu Yue to take action.

Of course, at the moment Xu Yue knew that she did not have any reason to take action, as in fact, Zhou Niu was one of the safest disciples in the entirety of the sect back.

Although even Zhou Niu herself was unaware of it, back then, she had already been accepted by one of the False Immortal Ancestors of the sect, Wu Xiulan, as a disciple.

Rather interestingly though, Wu Xiulan did not tell Zhou Niu this, and let her cultivate on her own, so that she could refine her temperament.

After reminiscing about the past for a few moments while looking at the painting in front of her, which in truth, was rather bad for her current standards, Xu Yue placed the painting back into her collection and turned her attention somewhere else.

This allowed Zhou Niu, who was feeling an overwhelming gaze spy on her, to breathe a sigh of relief.

...

After a few moments, though, Xu Yue returned to her previous thoughts about how weak the previous generations of the sect were.

When Xu Yue thought about this, she did not only mean the very peak power of the sect, when it was currently increasing at a rapid pace for some reason, but also about the average disciple strength.

From what Xu Yue could see, for some reason, the current strength of the disciples was, on average, about 1.5 times as strong as that of the disciples from back when Xu Yue was young.

Of course, this did not include the peak of the sect, which did not become stronger or weaker, only increased in number.

Although Xu Yue did not care enough about this to investigate deeply, after slightly looking into it, she managed to find the reason.

The cause of this drastic increase was actually two events compounding on each.

First was the fluctuation of strength of the Three Thousand Regions.

For some reason, which Xu Yue has not yet investigated, perhaps because of the fluctuations in fate, or perhaps because of some sort of cycle, the strength of the bottom art of the Three Thousand Regions fluctuated, becoming stronger or weaker in certain periods of time.

As luck would find out, the period when Xu Yue was born was experiencing this very thing, being quite weak.

At the same time, like the Three Thousand Regions themselves, factions also experience this, become stronger and weaker depending on generations.

In these past few million years, these two factors compounding on each other caused the strength of the Origin Sword Sect, except the False Immortals of course, to decline.

Thankfully though, the birth of Xu Yue seemed to have broken this cycle, as ever since her birth, both the Three Thousand Regions and the Origin Sword Sect swung in the completely other way, becoming much stronger than before.