Chapter 934: Comprehensive Consideration by Ancestor Chuiyue

Lu Yang felt a touch of surprise. He had never expected a place like the Laurel Divine Palace, populated entirely by female cultivators, to maintain a dedicated forging hall, as it was exceedingly rare for women to pursue the art of blacksmithing.

After all, women sought elegance and aesthetic grace alongside their cultivation. Lu Yang, for instance, had never seen a female cultivator swing a massive warhammer like Mangu, nor had he ever witnessed one whose body was blown to pieces like Li Haoran.

"Does Senior Brother Lu Yang find it strange that we women forge weapons?" Lan Ting, noticing the peculiar look in his eyes, guessed what was passing through his mind.

"Not at all, not at all," Lu Yang laughed awkwardly.

"It is only natural to think so. Female blacksmiths are indeed rare in the outside world, but our Divine Palace possesses a certain uniqueness."

"A uniqueness?"

"We have the laurel trees."

Seeing Lu Yang's utterly bewildered expression, Lan Ting led him toward a small grove. The grove was composed entirely of laurel trees, which would command astronomical prices if sold in the mortal world.

Even before setting foot inside, Lu Yang heard dull, heavy thuds, like the colliding of massive objects.

He then beheld numerous disciples of the Palace swinging axes to chop the trees, all of them panting heavily and drenched in sweat; it was difficult to reconcile this with their usual outside image as ethereal, fasting fairies.

Lu Yang noticed that whenever a disciple struck a tree, a gash would open, only to mend itself almost instantly, as though the wound had never existed, forcing the disciple to strike again in a perpetual, unceasing cycle.

"What is this?"

"This is a tradition handed down by our founder, True Monarch Chuiyue. Legend has it that the ancient immortal, Immortal Yingtian, often chopped laurel trees with an axe for reasons unknown. True Monarch Chuiyue believed that every gesture of the ancient immortals held profound meaning and that this was surely a method of cultivation, so she advocated using axes to chop laurel trees as a form of training."

"These laurel trees are indeed remarkably resilient to the axe. If a single stroke fails to fell them, the gash heals over."

Lan Ting smiled sheepishly. "Since we already swing axes to split laurel trees, wielding a hammer for forging does not seem like such a vulgar act in our eyes."

"As for the immense strength required to swing a forging hammer, we developed all of it while chopping these trees."

Lu Yang was about to nod when it suddenly occurred to him: if chopping laurel trees was a tradition of the Palace, did that mean Lan Ting had also done it?

If Lan Ting also chopped trees, was it really reasonable for her to fight all day using nothing but a light, floating ribbon?

"Senior Sister Lan Ting, Senior Brother Lu Yang!"

The disciples who were laboring at the trees caught sight of the pair walking together. Their eyes lit up, and they lowered their axes to approach Lu Yang.

Yet, as they drew near, they suddenly hesitated to step forward.

They had been chopping the trees for a long while and were covered in sweat; to approach Lu Yang in such a state would surely be a breach of etiquette.

By the time they realized they could simply use a Cleansing Incantation, Lan Ting had already led Lu Yang away, the two of them walking deep into the laurel grove until they stopped before a colossal tree that pierced the clouds.

Lu Yang looked up, unable to see where the tree ended, feeling as minuscule as a speck of dust standing at its roots.

"This is the Ancestral Laurel Tree. It existed before our Divine Palace was even founded, and all the laurel trees on this Great Snowy Mountain are its descendants."

"According to the research of our patriarchal predecessors, the Ancestral Tree is highly likely to be a laurel tree from the ancient era, possessing an immense age."

"Fairy, can you discern the age of this tree?"

Within his spiritual consciousness, the Immortal Immortal was earnestly building snowmen. Two snowmen stood side by side, carrots stuck in their noses and branches serving as arms, with names written upon their bodies—the left one named Huang Doudou, and the right one named Lu Yang.

Hearing Lu Yang call out to her, she finally pulled her attention back to the outside world.

"What a tall laurel tree!" Even the Immortal Immortal was seeing such a massive laurel tree for the first time.

"This Immortal once saw a twenty-thousand-year-old laurel tree on the moon, and it wasn't even as tall as this one. This one has definitely surpassed twenty thousand years. As for exactly how long it has lived, one would either have to chop it down to count the rings, or have the Immortal of Time come over to ask the tree itself."

Evidently, neither method was feasible.

"However, it really might be a laurel tree from the ancient era."

"How so?"

"Back then, didn't this Immortal need Immortal Yingtian to gather firewood for cooking? This Immortal instructed him that we must be responsible for our actions, and if he chopped down a laurel tree, he shouldn't forget to plant another."

"Perhaps this very tree is one of the many laurel trees Immortal Yingtian planted back then."

"Only with the blessing of Immortal Yingtian could it have fortunately survived until now."

The Immortal Immortal's advanced concept of environmental preservation left Lu Yang profoundly shaken.

To Lu Yang's knowledge, no tree had ever lived for twenty thousand years; even if the Ancestral Laurel Tree before him had not been planted during the ancient era, it was bound to be the oldest tree in existence, fully deserving of its ancestral name.

Emerging from the laurel grove to the opposite side, they found a vast courtyard where Lu Yang observed many disciples cultivating diligently: plunging their hands repeatedly into scorching iron sand, shattering boulders of unknown material with a single elbow strike, running while carrying miniature mountains on their backs...

Lu Yang found this scene entirely familiar; this was exactly how Old Meng trained when tempering his body.

"What are they doing?"

"Body tempering," Lan Ting said seriously.

"Ah?"

Lu Yang felt that the cultivation methods of the Laurel Divine Palace were truly worlds apart from those of female cultivators elsewhere; even the disciples of the supreme Charm Sect would not swing axes and temper their bodies like this.

"This also has a historical origin."

"It happened a thousand years after the founding of the Divine Palace. The Great Xia Empire was recovering from the chaos of war, the country was at peace, the citizens lived in harmony, and Founder Chuiyue traveled down the mountain."

"Subsequently, she happened upon a few rather improper books at a bookstall. Though the plots varied, they shared one common element: in every book, a fairy would descend the mountain to cultivate, inadvertently succumb to an aphrodisiac poison, and the male protagonist would be forced to cure her, thereby making the fairy one of the female leads and igniting a tangled web of love and hatred between them."

"At first, the male lead would be a nobody, but as the story progressed, he would grow stronger step by step until he was worthy of the fairy."

"Founder Chuiyue felt that although they were mere stories, the content was not without reason and could very well happen in reality."

"Upon her return, she added another regimen to our cultivation, which is body tempering. All disciples must temper their bodies."

"After tempering the body, one's constitution is enhanced, which can greatly weaken the reaction to aphrodisiac poisons and buy more time to find an antidote, preventing a disciple from carelessly surrendering her virtue."

"Facts have also proven Founder Chuiyue's decision correct. Over the past ten thousand years, many predecessors have succumbed to aphrodisiac poisons upon descending the mountain; had they not tempered their bodies, they would likely have ended up in bed with some wild man of unknown origins."

"At the same time, Founder Chuiyue considered that stories often feature the male and female leads falling in love, only for the female lead's sect to oppose it and create obstacles, culminating in the male lead achieving fame and returning to slap the sect in the face. Thus, she decreed that if a disciple of our sect falls in love with a man, the sect must not interfere."

Lu Yang: "..."

Your founder certainly thought of everything.