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He didn’t expect that at less than sixty years old, he could still be called a young man by those hundreds of years old in the cultivation world, but he was already living a retired life, being cared for by his children. Is it really better to have kids early?

Ning Jichen, with a mix of emotions, silently sat down in the spirit-gathering array to start cultivating.

Ning Yuzhou and Wen Qiao sat outside the spirit-gathering array, watching him.

Probably in the entire cultivation world, he was the only elder who was watched over by his son and daughter-in-law while cultivating. This feeling was hard to describe.

After Ning Jichen started cultivating, Ning Yuzhou took out a section of the Divine Sound Treasure Tree.

He planned to refine several more divine talismans—for his master and mistress, several fellow disciples, his father, and trusted subordinates… so everyone could have one.

Fortunately, the Divine Sound Treasure Tree had been generous and directly gave Wen Qiao a large section of divine wood, allowing them to refine more protective divine talismans.

Now he had a ton of things to do. After Duan Haoyan finished refining the ten thousand spirit pulp stones, he would start working on refining the Qiankun Mansion, crafting some spiritual tools for Qian Lin, and nearly thirty stone statue puppets…

Seeing Ning Yuzhou so busy, Wen Qiao pulled Wen Tuti and the others into the space to help share the workload.

A month later, on a beautiful sunny day, Ning Jichen finally broke through.

The commotion of breaking through from the Yuanmai stage to the Yuankong stage wasn’t too significant, as there was no heavenly tribulation like in the Yuanzong stage and above. There was just a rapid change in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, but it still got the attention of the cultivators on the ship.

Qin Hongdao and the others next door were startled from their meditation and rushed over to check.

When they found out it was Ning Jichen advancing, they all congratulated him.

"To have a son like Brother Ning, it seems Uncle Ning’s talent isn’t bad either," Shi Wuming said. He remembered when he first met Ning Jichen, the guy was only at the Yuanmai stage, and he had been cultivating in Dongling, a place with sparse spiritual energy. To reach the Yuanmai stage was already not easy.

This showed that his talent wasn’t inferior to those geniuses in the central continent. It was just that the environment and lack of resources had slowed his cultivation speed.

But now, since Ning Yuzhou provided him with excellent opportunities to cultivate, his speed had skyrocketed like a meteor.

Ning Jichen modestly said, "Actually, it’s all thanks to Yuzhou…"

He mentally calculated the various treasures his son had given him. First, there was the Marrow Cleansing Pill, a treasure in the cultivation world that could change a cultivator’s talent and purify the quality of the spiritual root. Then there was the Pure Spirit Water Lotus seed, which could also change one’s physique and enhance a cultivator’s physical strength. Finally, there was…

These things were rare in the cultivation world. If his cultivation speed couldn’t keep up, he would be considered quite useless.

So his current cultivation speed wasn’t really due to his own efforts, but rather the result of his son and daughter-in-law stuffing him with various treasures and pushing him hard.

Of course, there was no need to bring this up with outsiders, although Ning Jichen knew in his heart that, given his son and daughter-in-law’s generosity, those things should have been prepared for his fellow disciples as well.

After congratulating Ning Jichen on his advancement, Qin Hongdao and the others returned to their cabins to continue cultivating.

They still didn’t know what the situation was like on Shangzhou Island with the Min clan, but Qin Hongdao and Yi Xuan both knew that if they didn’t work hard, they wouldn’t be able to protect their junior brothers and sisters when the time came, so they cultivated with great diligence.

Seeing Qin Hongdao and the others working so hard, Shi Wuming, despite being a slacker, felt embarrassed to waste time and had to follow suit.

After seeing them off, Wen Qiao took out more than a dozen Golden Whisker Cloud Bamboos. "Husband, these are the Golden Whisker Cloud Bamboos I just harvested."

Like the spirit pulp stones, Golden Whisker Cloud Bamboos could be used to refine Qiankun Mansions. Because both were extremely rare, Qiankun Mansions were scarce in the cultivation world, and even if they existed, their defensive capabilities were weak. The Qiankun Mansions on the market were rare and expensive, and some couldn’t even withstand a single strike from a ninth-level young beast, yet they were priced at millions of spirit stones—and those were mid-grade spirit stones.

Ning Yuzhou looked down on those Qiankun Mansions and preferred to refine his own.

Taking the more than a dozen high-quality Golden Whisker Cloud Bamboos, Ning Yuzhou said to Wen Qiao, "Chui, you’ve worked hard."

"Not hard," Wen Qiao said with a smile, her eyes curving adorably. "And the Pure Spirit Water Lotus will bloom and bear seeds in a few days. When that happens, you can all enter the space to bathe in the lotus fragrance."

Ning Yuzhou smiled and agreed.

Ning Jichen glanced at his daughter-in-law and once again realized that the items in his son's spatial realm were indeed all thanks to her. His son really just provided the venue.

He couldn't help but marvel in his heart, what incredible luck had the Ning family stumbled upon to be able to marry such a precious girl? Those who had looked down on her because of her illness and treated her as a burden back then would surely regret it to the core if they knew.

A few days later, the Pure Spirit Water Lotus bloomed and bore fruit again, filling the entire space with its holy fragrance. All the spiritual plants in the space seemed to have grown a bit more, their quality had improved.

The little qilin happily scampered over on its short legs, "Brother Ning, Sister Wen, the phoenix egg has changed again."

Everyone hurried to the Yin-Yang Spring to check and saw that the originally gray, stone-like phoenix egg had lost most of its gray color, revealing the dazzling hues of a phoenix. Just seeing those colors was enough to leave one dazzled.

Ning Jichen marveled, "It really is a phoenix."

The other young beasts also crowded around to look, their faces filled with awe.

Although they were somewhat reluctant to have another feathered creature latch onto Wen Qiao, the young beasts instinctively submitted to and followed such a powerful divine beast. Whenever the phoenix egg showed any changes, they couldn't help but draw closer.

Ning Yuzhou examined the phoenix egg and handed it to Wen Qiao.

As soon as the phoenix egg was in her hands, she could feel the increasingly strong life force within it. Placing her hand on the shell, she could sense a heartbeat-like pulse, evoking an inexplicable sense of tenderness.

"If the Pure Spirit Water Lotus blooms and bears fruit a few more times, this phoenix egg should be able to completely shed its aura of death," Ning Yuzhou explained.

The Five Sacred Lotuses are inherently pure and flawless, capable of exorcising evil and dispelling calamities.

This phoenix egg had once been imprisoned in the Lake of the Fierce Corpse, preventing the phoenix from achieving nirvana rebirth. Even though it eventually managed to achieve nirvana, it was still tainted with an aura of death.