Leaf Gray was gently awakened by the Sect Master. Opening his eyes, he saw the Sect Master standing beside him and quickly got up.

"Sect Master." Leaf Gray rubbed his eyes, patted his face, and immediately became much more alert.

"It's time to disembark," the Sect Master said with a smile.

The dozen or so sects of The Firmament Palace had retreated together from the side of The Lunar Blight. Now that they had reached the territory of The Firmament Palace, it was only natural for each sect to return to its own domain. A few sects had already left one after another.

Leaf Gray packed his bedding into his storage bag, straightened his appearance, and followed the Sect Master out of the cabin.

Soon, they arrived on the deck where someone was waiting—a middle-aged man with a stern expression and a tall, imposing figure.

Leaf Gray did not recognize this man. With a slight glance, he felt that the middle-aged man carried an aura of iron and blood, as if he had walked through many battlefields.

The Sect Master stepped forward and exchanged a few words with the man.

The man suddenly turned his head, looked at Leaf Gray standing beside the Sect Master, and said, "Being able to join The Vermilion Guild is your great fortune. You must cultivate diligently and never bring disgrace upon the name of The Vermilion Guild."

Leaf Gray hurriedly responded, "Yes!"

The Sect Master clasped his fists: "Then I will take my leave now."

"Please!" The middle-aged man gestured.

The Sect Master flipped his palm, producing an object from who-knows-where. He tossed it casually, and amidst a flash of spiritual light, a two-horse carriage appeared on the deck.

The two horses pulling the carriage were entirely snow-white, extraordinarily majestic. They snorted lightly, their hooves restlessly scraping against the deck.

Before Leaf Gray could get a proper look, his body floated involuntarily into the carriage. The Sect Master had used his spiritual power to wrap him up.

"Open the formation!" the middle-aged man shouted loudly. Following his command, an opening appeared in the Flying Dragon Ship's protective barrier. A raging wind howled in, causing everyone's robes on deck to flutter wildly.

The Sect Master and the middle-aged man exchanged fist salutes. As the two carriage horses reared their heads and neighed, balls of spiritual light sprouted from their hooves. They charged out through the gap in the protective formation and galloped away into the distance at extreme speed.

Watching the two-horse carriage disappear from view, the middle-aged man turned and strode towards the cabins, throwing out a sentence: "Bring that bastard Morgan Sterling to me!"

"Yes!" Several cultivators from The Firmament Palace acknowledged the order, smirks of schadenfreude appearing on their faces. Although they didn't know what offense Shidi Morgan had committed this time to anger the Vice-Leader, judging by the Vice-Leader's expression, Shidi Morgan was sure to lose a few pounds of flesh.

******

On the two-horse carriage, Leaf Gray looked around with great interest, touching this and that, his eyes full of wonder.

Having been in The Novem Lands for over a year, it was only in the last few days that he discovered the The Novem Lands he understood was not the true face of this world. This world held far more than he could ever imagine.

Like the previous Flying Dragon Ship, and now this two-horse carriage. This huge gap in his perception made him tangibly feel one thing:

This was a world of cultivation. Joining The Vermilion Guild had given him the capital to integrate into this cultivation world. As his cultivation strength continuously increased, the wonders of this world would eventually unfold before him bit by bit.

Otherwise, spending a lifetime mining in the ore veins, how could one ever witness such diversity?

"These two horses... they aren't living creatures?" Leaf Gray stood on the carriage shaft, reached out, and touched the rump of one of the horses. He found it didn't feel like touching flesh and blood, but rather like touching metal, cold and icy.

Looking more carefully, he realized these two horses indeed lacked the aura living creatures should have. They were just too lifelike, giving the illusion of being alive.

The carriage body behind was open-style, with a large umbrella above it. The umbrella rotated in the wind, strands of spiritual light falling down like threads, blocking the fierce winds high in the sky.

The Sect Master sat inside the carriage body. Hearing Leaf Gray's question, he laughed and said, "These are creations of the Artificers, used for transportation."

"Artificers?" Leaf Gray was curious.

"They are a type of External Cultivator, skilled in crafting artifacts. You will have a chance to encounter them in the future."

Leaf Gray didn't ask further. After watching with keen interest for a while longer, he obediently went and sat down in the carriage body.

The carriage body was quite spacious, easily able to seat three to five people.

He certainly wasn't foolish enough to sit side-by-side with the Sect Master—he understood the basic respect due to a teacher. He sat on the carriage floor in front of the Sect Master, facing him.

"How has your cultivation been going recently?" the Sect Master asked.

"Quite smooth," Leaf Gray replied. Through his recent cultivation, he had confirmed one thing: it seemed there weren't major hidden dangers for him when using pills to aid cultivation.

In the past few days, he had taken over ten Spirit Nurturing Pills and opened his third aperture. Regardless of other people's cultivation efficiency, at the very least, it was impossible for them to continuously take spiritual pills like he had.

The situation the Sect Master mentioned—where accumulated pill toxins cause spiritual power to become turbid and sluggish—had also not appeared.

It was possible it just hadn't reached that point yet. After all, he had only taken over ten Spirit Nurturing Pills. This needed further observation to confirm.

He was considering whether to tell the Sect Master about his aperture opening situation. Just as he was hesitating, he heard the Sect Master ask: "Among the Six Paths of Cultivation, which one do you wish to follow?"

The so-called Six Paths undoubtedly referred to the information Morgan Sterling had mentioned before.

Leaf Gray truly hadn't considered this. Currently, he could be said to have just come into contact with the world of cultivation. He was ignorant about everything; how could he have thought about determining his future path?

So he asked for advice: "What does Sect Master think?"

Elder Lockridge stroked his beard and said, "Your physique isn't particularly robust, and you don't possess any special innate gifts, so the Body Cultivator path isn't very suitable for you. Your elemental affinity is primarily Fire, supplemented by Metal. Neither the Ghost Cultivator nor the Medicinal Cultivator paths suit you either. That leaves only the Soldier Cultivator, the Spell Cultivator, and the External Cultivator paths. Speaking of External Cultivation, actually, every cultivator knows some External Cultivation methods to some extent. So it can be treated as a secondary path, not necessarily requiring specialization."

Leaf Gray understood: "So, the paths suitable for me are only the Soldier Cultivator and Spell Cultivator paths?"

"That's not incorrect."

"Then which path does Sect Master follow?" Leaf Gray asked curiously.

Elder Lockridge chuckled: "I am a Spell Cultivator. You don't need to imitate me. Determining the path you want to take is a gradual process; you must inquire deeply into your own heart. I'm asking you this now just to give you a concept of it, not for you to make a hasty decision. Wait until we return to The Verdant Peaks..."

Leaf Gray was carefully listening to the Sect Master's teachings when suddenly the world spun violently. A booming explosion followed, deafening and earth-shaking.

As his vision whirled, he caught a glimpse of a ball of fierce flames burning in the sky. Focusing his gaze, he saw it was a two-horse carriage on fire. That carriage, having suffered some unknown attack, was already shattered into pieces. The two horses pulling it were also torn apart, scattering as they fell.

Leaf Gray shook his head, feeling strongly that the burning two-horse carriage looked exactly like the one he had been riding in.

He suddenly realized—that was the carriage he and the Sect Master had been riding in, but it had encountered an unknown attack!

Only now did he discover that the Sect Master had already taken him away from that carriage, and they were now floating in midair.

The Sect Master was radiating brilliant spiritual light, enveloping Leaf Gray within it. With one hand forming a seal, he coldly scanned their surroundings, his expression extremely grave.