"A... Generational Wave?", Song Lingfei asked with slight reluctance, and at the same time curiosity seeing how the looks of those more knowledgeable about the outside world changed.
"A very rare period of time during which a large number of cultivators rise rapidly through the Seven Boundless Worlds due to the spontaneous improvement in cultivation conditions and aligned opportunities", Ye Ling gave a brief explanation.
"It is akin to a pulse gradually going through all of the Boundless Worlds, that pushes change and improvement.
The flow and quality of Spiritual Qi increases, an unusual number of cultivators with superior talent or rare physiques are born, the time of opening of various Secret Realms aligns, and Natural Treasures pop up everywhere like mushrooms after rain, and much more"
Wu Long added to the explanation as the eyes of some of the beauties expressed excitement.
"So... it is an auspicious time for cultivators to ascend through Cultivation Realms and Boundless Wolrds?", Cao Mei asked as she could tell that this was something incredibly beneficial for anyone who was lucky to be caught up in it.
"Haha, yes", Madam Liang puffed a line of herbal smoke into the air with a wry smile, adding while shaking her head, "Though it is as much a curse as it is a blessing.
It is true that it is described as a time of opportunity, but as far as I know it is not all flowers.
It's also known as the time of strife and conflict, chaos, riots, revolts, and change, as many established powers fall, while new ones rise.
Personally, whenever I read accounts of previous Generational Waves I always considered it to be quite a bad time to be caught up in, simply because of the sheer numbers of people who suddenly gain strength without maturing enough to wield it"
"Hahaha, quite an accurate analysis, Madam Liang", Wu Long lightly laughed as she finished speaking.
"Hmm, I do agree with you on that, but don't have the opinion leaning toward it being a bad time, though I don't consider it to be a great one either", Ye Ling, on the other hand spoke with a more neutral tone, adding "while there is a lot of unnecessary conflict as you said, there have been positive things such as challenging the antiquated norms.
More than that, people who otherwise would have never been able to rise due to their status or origin, received an almost equal opportunity as those born with silver spoons in their mouths.
And, it is during Generational Waves that most of the exceptional cultivators in the Seven Boundless Worlds rose"
"There you go, Mei'er. You can see that opinions on this differ among those who know about it, so like most of things around, it is not something black and white. So you have to form your own opinion once you learn a bit more about it", Wu Long chuckled, turning to Cao Mei whose question spurred this little exchange of opinions, and who slightly lost a bit of her enthusiasm from the words spoken.
"Mm, it is important to note that I have never experienced a Generational Wave myself, and can only speak as someone who learned about it from secondary accounts and written records", Madam Liang made a slightly apologetic face as she seemed to have soured the excitement.
"I have never experienced it too", Ye Ling nodded as well.
"I have experienced it, but only as someone who already was quite far along the journey of my cultivation, and so I received much more trouble than benefits, at least at the time", Wu Long chuckled, as Fen Baihu started laughing.
"Ahahaha! I remember that story! Hahahaha! You were challenged by almost every upcoming star of that Generational Wave! Hahahaha~!", Fen Baihu could not hold back her laughter as it was quite a famous incident.
Madam Liang made a slightly awkward face as she did not want to bring it up, while Ye Ling revealed an astonished expression because she naturally assumed that Wu Long rose during a Generational Wave.
After all, the difficulty of rising through the Seven Boundless Worlds while challenging norms, in such a disruptive way as Wu Long did, was infinitely higher without riding that wave of chaos.
It could at least partially conceal him from the attention of Major Powers and jealous gazes of those in high positions who were unable to progress any further.
As there would be others challenging the established order alongside him.
Without it, however, he was constantly going against a solidified world order.
'It seems no matter how high my opinion of him is I still am underestimating him', she inwardly lamented as she looked at Wu Long.
"It was inevitable, after all, a Generational Wave, much like a real wave swallows up several preceding generations that come before it. And I was caught in an awkward position of being born too far ahead of the wave, but not at the top, and rising too slowly to be considered a norm, famous or rather infamous, and yet not untouchable.
Which is probably why I'm usually not that enthusiastic about the Generational Wave. Not to mention that as it passed by I was not able to really take advantage of it, stuck in one realm for so long I thought I would never be able to ascend", Wu Long chuckled.
"Still, is it not too soon for it to have come now?", Madam Liang asked with a bit of doubt.
"Well, there is no set time for it, and there have been records of Generational Waves coming one after another in the past. That said, I cannot be certain it is one just from the increased flow of Spiritual Qi, I guess that remains to be found", he answered with a nod, confirming that his guess could be off.
"But, if it truly is a Generational Wave, as I understand, it represents an opportunity for us now", Nie Xiwang spoke up seeing his line of thought.
"Yes", Wu Long smiled with a hint of excitement in his gaze, "Now it might be something to look forward to"
The meeting concluded a few hours later as they discussed further plans.
The Eternal Duality Valley moved into Fen Baihu's core world, most of the construction within the valley being already done by this time.
In this time, Sui Luxiao's Soaring Feather Trading Company quietly liquidated most of its assets and turned them into goods, as the currency of the Three Empires was not of any use outside of the Three Continents.
She also did so with most of Wu Long's personal wealth, which, after looting almost all of the Major Powers of the Three Continents, was far outmatching the company's wealth several times over.
And while all people who were leaving with Wu Long withdrew from the Three Continents, he sat on a terrace, meditating in a lotus pose as Luo Mingyu expanded her Dao Intent and Gong Cui played her Zither, both helping him concentrate and his thoughts to run more smoothly.
Yuanfen also spent most of her time around Wu Long, too anxious to lose sight of him to leave his side, but at the same time curious about the world around, and thus was sitting on the side, playing with Fen Baihu's tails that the latter did not really care much as she sat in her small fox form.
Wu Long was currently in the process of cultivating all of the Yin Qi he had received from his ladies in the past two weeks.
Using small amounts of Yin Qi was obviously not working, and he had to test saturating his cultivation with massive amounts, thus no longer holding back.
As he was pondering on the way forward, having gone through almost a third of Yin Qi, he noticed that the ring of Spiritual Qi that was wound around the Core finally had a sign of change.
Excited, he noticed that it had small vortices forming in its flow, and upon closer examination his mind grew numb as he realized what he was seeing.
'Are these... Revolving Qi vortices...?', he inwardly gulped, a realization hitting him as he understood the repercussions of this discovery, and at the same time understanding his lack of progress so far when he experimented with small quantities of Yin Qi.
He counted 99 small vortices on that ring, meaning, his Dantian currently held 99 of his own Revolving Qi cultivations in embryonic form.
'Well that's just fantastic~! Just what I needed...', a sarcastic thought went through his mind, while his outer expression remained calm to not alert the two currently helping him.
'...haa~, let's look at the positive, I did find a likely way to advance...', he then collected his thoughts again, though his optimistic outlook did not let him ignore the fact that he likely had to cultivate 99 cores out of these vortices for that to happen.
But, just at that moment, a thought came to his mind.
If they were really Revolving Qi vortices, he should be able to control them individually much like the vortex that he had initially.
This, however, proved much more difficult as he still had very little understanding of how the ring worked.
At least for now, he had to simply pour more Yin Qi into it, advancing through the Revolving Qi Realm again, only on a scale of doing so 99 times.
This obviously was not ideal, but it at least was some progress from the dead-end he was in before.
He sighed, opening his eyes after all of his 99 vortices reached a 4th level Revolving Qi Realm, and he spent almost all of the Yin Qi he had accumulated so far.
At this time, Butler Bang approached him to notify that everything was ready for the departure.