"Where should I go?"
Mo Hua was indecisive, so he sat in the eatery, watching the cultivators come and go, observing the entirety of Tongxian City.
Tongxian City was no longer bustling, but rather, it had a melancholic pre-storm silence.
There were fewer cultivators on the streets.
Those who could find a way out did so. The loose cultivators who couldn’t find a way out had only one path:
To follow the vast troop of loose cultivators migrating, moving to a destitute land in the wilds, to reclaim it, to build a place to settle anew.
With the appearance of the Big Demon, even some of the Tao cultivation forces with great influence had no power to resist, let alone the loose cultivators.
They had no choice.
They lacked status, background, connections; nobody was willing to take them in. If they wanted to live, they could only seek new paths for survival, relying on their own strenuous efforts to endure, one step at a time.
Mo Hua sighed.
Perhaps the world had always been this way.
In any disaster, the upper echelon cultivators always have a way out.
In the end, it is always these lower-tier cultivators who face all the hardships and bear all the pain.
Even if this disaster was an undeserved calamity.
Mo Hua went to see Elder Yu again.
Elder Yu was going to migrate with the loose cultivators.
He was a Foundation Building Cultivator, so in theory, he could have escaped it all.
But precisely because he was a Foundation Building Cultivator, the only one among the loose cultivators, he had to protect them as they migrated south.
Otherwise, without a Foundation Establishment powerhouse to provide protection, countless cultivators would perish or be injured along the way.
"You shouldn’t go," said Elder Yu, who had been working day and night and looked somewhat weary upon seeing Mo Hua, speaking bluntly.
Before Mo Hua could speak, Elder Yu added:
"We’re migrating, not establishing a new city. Even once we arrive there, all is barren land, and we won’t be needing your Formation Painting for a while."
Mo Hua knew what Elder Yu meant and was at a loss for words momentarily.
Elder Yu looked at Mo Hua, speaking in a gentle voice:
"You should have a brighter future, learn more formations, do more in the future. There’s no need to accompany us and suffer this hardship."
Mo Hua said in a low voice, "The journey will be very dangerous, won’t it..."
"Doing anything has its dangers, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it if it’s dangerous. This concerns the lives of a city’s worth of loose cultivators," Elder Yu sighed.
"Maybe…I should go too," Mo Hua said.
Elder Yu glared at him irritably, "What fuss are you joining? Even if you go, you won’t change anything. The most important thing for you is to learn the formations well, not to join us in enduring these hardships."
Knowing he couldn’t win the argument with the stubborn Elder Yu, Mo Hua turned away and took another look at the massive Refinery Shop and Alchemist’s Business, saying with some dejection:
"Will these all be wasted too?"
Elder Yu sighed helplessly and nodded, "We can’t take such large Refinery Shops and Alchemist’s Businesses with us..."
"Should they be sold off?"
Elder Yu nodded, "I’ve already reached out to Court Leader Zhou. The Artifact Furnaces and Alchemy Furnaces here are inscribed with your formations, they’re valuable goods. The Taoist Court officials will convert them into Spirit Stones as compensation for us. After all, we’ll need them for migrating and reclaiming the land. Spirit Stones are the real currency."
"Oh, that’s right," Elder Yu remembered something and handed a jade token to Mo Hua:
"This is the identity jade talisman for the storage. It contains more than ten thousand Spirit Stones; they’re all for you. Go collect them when you have the time."
Mo Hua was stunned, "Over ten thousand… All for me?"
Elder Yu nodded, "They are for your Foundation Establishment."
Looking at Mo Hua, Elder Yu had a touch of apology in his expression:
"We should have given you more. Without your formations, the loose cultivators in Tongxian City would not have fared well, and Black Mountain Stronghold wouldn’t have been dealt with, but migrating consumes a lot of Spirit Stones. We can only give you this much..."
Mo Hua shook his head, "It’s already a lot."
Taking the jade token, he felt its weight, and just as he was about to say something, Elder Yu cut him off:
"Don’t give me some insincere speech about not wanting it. Anyone who gives you Spirit Stones, you take them. Anyone who doesn’t take Spirit Stones when they can is a fool."
Mo Hua held the jade token, feeling inexplicably guilty.
Elder Yu patted his shoulder, "Whatever choice you make, just stand tall and do it with integrity. You don’t owe anyone anything!"
Mo Hua nodded slightly and walked away full of thoughts.
Watching Mo Hua’s departing figure, Elder Yu was somewhat reluctant to let him go but could only sigh helplessly.
Mo Hua had already helped them a lot. They could not drag this boy down further.
He should seek a broader world, learn more profound formations, and strive for a more distant path of the Heavenly Dao.
Not to mingle with these struggling loose cultivators. There was no future in that.