Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-219

The participants quickly stood up and greeted the Enlightened Masters upon their arrival. Obviously, they had been alerted about the ambush at the underground trade fair.

Some of the quick-witted participants had already taken off their black cloaks, revealing themselves to prove their innocence, and Lu Ping naturally followed suit.

A few more lights landed behind the Enlightened Masters; they appeared to be disciples from the three big clans. Lu Ping recognized a few of them, such as the Four Young Masters, the Wang Clan's alchemist, and the Li Clan's alchemist.

Lu Ping was momentarily puzzled when he saw Li Xiu-Zhu, accompanied by the Li Clan's alchemist. But he quickly deduced that as the organizers, the three big clans would naturally protect their disciples by imposing safety measures within the crypt in case of emergencies.

Hence, it was only normal that Li Xiu-Zhu and the like were able to safely escape from the crypt, perhaps much earlier than anyone had realized. They must have been the ones who had reported the incident to the clan heads.

This explained why the Enlightened Masters had arrived so quickly.

After a round of investigation, the cultivators suddenly realized that they had little to no information about the assailants.

What they could confirm was this—

There were about a dozen of them;

They were all in the peak of the Ninth Layer Blood Condensation Realm and stronger than most cultivators in the same rank;

They were organized and clearly trained, had been prepared enough to teleport Enlightened Master Bi out of the battle and leave before the clan heads arrived.

In fact, Lu Ping knew a little more than that, which was Participant 72's gender, but he obviously wouldn't say it out loud.

Involving himself in this matter would be too troublesome.

The appearance of the mysterious assailants and the planned ambush could not have been carried out so easily—it must be the work of a large party.

In truth, not only Lu Ping, almost every participant that survived the ambush were also wary of the matter, and they all had their suspicious eyes on the three big clans.

…

News about the incident in the underground trade fair quickly spread throughout Three Clans Island, and everyone was talking about it. Many pieces of gossip and rumors circulated around.

Yet for some reason, the surviving participants quickly disappeared from the eyes of the public and couldn't be reached to confirm any of the news.

The Li Clan warmly invited Lu Ping to live in the clan’s residence. Li Mao-Lin solemnly apologized for the recent incident, and Lu Ping also didn't take the matter to heart.

After all, it happened so suddenly, and two of the Li Clan's cultivators had been killed in the ambush.

At present, the Li Clan had already prepared most of the spirit herbs for the Seven Step Striped Pellets, so Lu Ping decided to concoct them in a few days. Overjoyed, Li Mao-Lin instructed the Li Clan to meet all of Lu Ping's requests.

Two days later, the rumors circulating within Three Clans City suddenly became uncontrollable, and everyone suspected the three big clans to be the culprits.

After all, half of the teleportation charms were disseminated by the three clans, so they could certainly allow a dozen cultivators into the underground trade fair for an ambush.

There were, of course, some that believed that another party was involved. This mysterious party obtained the teleportation charms through the Northern League and organized the attack to weaken the three big clans. However, not many believed that this was possible.

Some lay the blame on the Zhang Clan. They had been trying to get rid of the other two clans and unite Three Clans Island. But this was also dismissed by the majority of the cultivators.

This was because of the Zhang Clan’s firm loyalty to the Northern League. They would never act against Enlightened Master Bi, and the clan itself lacked the strength to fight the Northern League.

Some said it was the Li Clan, but this seemed even more unlikely. The Li Clan was the weakest among the three big clans, so it had always kept a low profile. Li Clan disciples were taught to stay out of trouble and to not involve themselves in the power struggle.

And so, the Li Clan had always maintained a neutral stance on the island and served as the balancing force between the two rival clans.

Lastly, the Wang Clan had the most dubious points among the three.They had always rivaled the Zhang Clan, vying to overtake the latter as the strongest clan on the island.

However, the Zhang Clan had the Northern League's support, leaving the Wang Clan at a disadvantage. Feelings of dissatisfaction towards the League could have motivated them to carry out the deed.

Coincidentally, it was not long ago when a group of cultivators from the Crystal Palace had encountered misfortune—their secret stronghold on a nearby mini island had been swept away by a mysterious force.

Not only did the Crystal Palace, whose power had overstepped into the Northern League's territory, apologize for their transgression, they even sent a group of disciples to openly investigate the matter.

Their disciples were warmly welcomed and accommodated by the Wang Clan. Young Master Wang Yi-Shan was even seen publicly guiding the Crystal Palace's alchemist at the market.

Hence, it made sense that the Wang Clan, out of dissatisfaction with the Northern League's favoritism towards the Zhang Clan, had turned to ask for the Crystal Palace's support instead.

Then, after gaining Crystal Palace's support, the Wang Clan made plans to disrupt the power balance in Three Clans City as the first step to challenge the Zhang Clan's position.

A day after these rumors spread in the city, Wang Clan disciples were anonymously ambushed, resulting in two casualties.

As if it was a sign, another day later, the Wang Clan disciples that accompanied two Crystal Palace disciples on a sea expedition were also ambushed.

At one point, the anonymous cultivators even ignored the Wang Clan disciples and pursued the Crystal Palace disciples instead, killing two of them before Wang Clan reinforcements arrived at the scene.

Just like that, the rumors somehow turned into facts, and the Wang Clan was regarded as the culprit behind the underground trade fair incident.

Furthermore, the Crystal Palace was the main culprit behind the scenes.

The Wang Clan naturally tried to explain, and at the same time, they also announced that severe punishment awaited those spreading slander, promising to hunt down the perpetrators responsible for attacking their disciples.

However, matters eventually grew out of hand and exceeded the Wang Clan's control. Survivors of the underground trade fair ambush came forward and questioned the Wang Clan's intentions.

Most of the participants were leaders of small parties or reputable rogue cultivators, otherwise they wouldn't have been allowed to partake in the trade fair.

Hence, their questions only made things worse for the Wang Clan. Their disciples, as well as those from the Crystal Palace, would be waylaid every time they ventured outside of the city.

…

On this day, an oppressive wave of aura from several Enlightened Masters descended upon Three Clans City, which immediately alerted the clan heads.

By the time Li Xiu-Zhu and the others returned to the Li Clan, Li Mao-Lin had already stepped out to meet the Zhang Clan.

Lu Ping learned that Enlightened Master Bi, who had been teleported to a sea thousands of miles away, had returned in a rage with a group of Northern League cultivators.

He was accompanied by two other Enlightened Masters from Wind Cicada Division and Fire Cicada Division.

Their arrival had brought the three clan heads, leaders of the small parties, and reputable cultivators in the Zhang Clan to discuss the recent incident.

The entire city was in a state of unrest because of Enlightened Master Bi's return.

Two days later, the three big clans reached an agreement to expel the Crystal Palace cultivators from Three Clans Island.

Then, Enlightened Master Bi and his two peers represented the Northern League in declaring that the Crystal Palace was not welcome in the Northern League's territory, and demanded that their cultivators returned to their own sect immediately.

Although the Crystal Palace cultivators were a team of thirty-six Late Blood Condensation Realm cultivators, and there was no affirmative evidence that they were involved in the incident, they still didn't dare to disobey the Enlightened Masters' order.

Their repeated appeals of innocence were brushed off—the Three Clans Island cultivators were now convinced that the Crystal Palace cultivators were up to no good.

Hence, they had no choice but to withdraw from Three Clans Island and return to their own sect.

Following this, the eldest son of the Wang Clan, Wang Yi-Shan, left the island together with them. It was said that he had been recommended to cultivate under the tutelage of an Enlightened Master in the Crystal Palace.

Since then, the situation on Three Clans Island had changed.

Although the Wang Clan appeared to be at a disadvantage and suppressed by the rest, they ultimately didn’t lose much and had even earned Crystal Palace's support.

The Northern League once again declared its sovereignty over the northern sea and the Three Clans Island, but the Crystal Palace succeeded in gaining the Wang Clan as a pawn to indirectly expand its power.

The Zhang Clan remained as the strongest clan on Three Clans Island, but the Wang Clan had found a patron that was on par with their own.

Hence, it was becoming increasingly difficult for the Zhang Clan to maintain its position and so, they began to actively establish a good relationship with the Li Clan to restrain the Wang Clan's expansion.

At the same time, the Northern League also promised to give the Li Clan their support.

So, even though the Li Clan remained neutral as usual, they began to slowly part ways with the Wang Clan and secretly affiliate with the Zhang Clan. This eased the Li Clan's awkward situation in the city.

But whatever happened in Three Clans City had nothing to do with Lu Ping; he was just focusing on preparing for the Seven Step Striped Pellets.

Just a day before Lu Ping prepared to concoct the pellets, he received an invitation from Li Mao-Lin.