[Year sixteen, thirty-five years old.]

[On this day, the voice-transmitting flying sword the Sword Lord left you finally stirred, and the Sword Lord's vigorous voice came through.]

["The royal family wants an alliance marriage with the Northern Frontier to strengthen bilateral relations. Li Lingyue has been chosen. I've already contacted the Celestial Intelligence Pavilion to use the theory of fate to delay the wedding date. If you want to stop this, you need to act fast."]

[The Celestial Intelligence Pavilion was also one of the Eight Pillars of the Five Domains. They specialized in divination and gossip, and while their sect didn't have many members, every single one of them was superstitious and mysterious.]

["Another year has passed, and I'm thirty-five. It's time to go back to the Five Domains and deal with matters there."]

[When they heard you were leaving,]

[the old masters of Nine Palaces Island were extremely reluctant to let you go.]

["Masters, Island Master, my disciple's family back home is in trouble. I'm just going back to handle it. I'll return."]

[Zhao Hanzhou waved his hand grandly.]

["Who dares to touch my Holy Land disciple's family?! I'll have those warmongers from Divine Sword Island go wipe them out! And then bring your whole family to the Holy Land to enjoy the good life!"]

[You had to keep soothing your elderly master, worried he might choke from anger.]

[Master Zhao was already over ninety years old. He wasn't in the Martial King Realm, so his theoretical lifespan was only a hundred years.]

[Still, living conditions in the Holy Land were excellent, and he had consumed plenty of heavenly treasures and earthly rarities in his life. Living a bit past a hundred wasn't theoretically difficult.]

["Master, there's no need for that. It's just some small trouble. The Five Domains are too far from the Holy Land, and my family probably wouldn't want to leave their homeland. I will definitely return before the Saint Selection finals."]

[The masters knew they couldn't keep you, so they started showering you with treasures.]

["Take this medicine. If you get poisoned, taking it will cure you!"]

["Take this mirror. If a powerful enemy ambushes you, it will warn you!"]

["Take this lamp. If you encounter a Forbidden Land Riot, it will show you the way!"]

["Take this..."]

[The old men stuffed treasures into your hands without stopping.]

[You were like a kid visiting relatives during the New Year, where the relatives forcefully shoved delicious food and drinks into your hands, even giving you red envelopes of money.]

[Your mouth said "no, no," but the opening of your storage ring was open wider than anyone's.]

["A Star Shuttle?"]

[Among the gifts, you spotted a familiar item - a very common mode of transportation in the Starry Domains.]

[This was a gift from your master, Zhao Hanzhou.]

["This is indeed a Star Shuttle, but I've modified the formation within it. It can fly on the ground at speeds faster than in the Starry Domains! The Five Domains are in the west, and the Free and Unfettered Holy Land is in the east. You'll be traversing almost the entire continent - a long journey! This will let you travel faster!"]

[This was truly a good thing.]

[Once you left the Holy Land, you no longer needed to hide your true cultivation level. While flying at full speed as a Martial King was fast, you would get tired. Your True Qi would run out, and you'd always need time to recover.]

[With this modified Star Shuttle, you could truly travel day and night without rest.]

[Xie Guihong gave you another item - a golden token.]

["This is the Free and Unfettered Token. No matter where you are in the human world, as long as you stain it with your blood, the Holy Land will sense it and know your location."]

[This was also a great item. If an unexpected danger arose, it was your ultimate trump card.]

[Some of the masters laughed.]

["Chen Dong, do you know that in our Free and Unfettered Holy Land, only Island Masters and above are qualified to possess one of these tokens?"]

["Island Master Xie only had this one, and now he's giving it to you!"]

["You can't just leave and never come back! If you do, we old folks will be heartbroken!"]

[When you entered the Holy Land, you had kept some things hidden.]

[When you joined Nine Palaces Island, you hadn't revealed everything.]

[But the care these senior masters had shown you was a debt of gratitude as heavy as a mountain.]

[You sincerely kowtowed to these elders, who felt like grandparents to you.]

["Seniors, rest assured. Chen Dong is no ungrateful person. Once the Five Domains matter is settled, I will definitely return!"]

[Xie Guihong laughed heartily to the heavens.]

["Good! When you return, we will teach you the most profound 'Mind-Only Formation Arrangement' from the Nine Palaces Island's inheritance! So far, we've only grasped the surface of this method. I believe you will definitely make great achievements in it!"]

[You left.]

[Carrying the treasure trove the old masters of Nine Palaces Island had gifted you.]

[Year seventeen, thirty-six years old.]

[Now drawing a trait...]

[Drawing successful!]

[「Fragrant Concubine Physique」(Green Rare): Your body naturally emits a mysterious fragrance that can attract bees.]

[Adjust traits?]

[You chose yes.]

[You replaced 「Formation Master」 with 「Treasure-Sniffing Nose」.]

[You replaced 「Playing the Pig to Eat the Tiger」 with 「Ageless Male God」.]

[You replaced 「Senior Tomato User」 with 「Dragon Plays with Phoenix」.]

[You replaced 「Bad News Spreads in Martial Circles」 with 「Asian Evil Art」.]

[To find Li Lingyue, 「Treasure-Sniffing Nose」 was necessary.]

[Though even now, it wasn't clear why Li Lingyue gave off the scent of a supreme treasure.]

[Once, Chen Yi had thought it was because of her Faith Sacred Physique.]

[But later, he had encountered many people with special physiques and hadn't noticed any reaction from 「Treasure-Sniffing Nose」.]

[This was still a mystery.]

["Toot——"]

[The bridal procession's horn sounds echoed through the capital city.]

[To strengthen cooperative relations with the Northern Frontier, the Great Qian court had chosen Li Lingyue to marry an adopted son of the current King of the Northern Frontier.]

[They didn't choose a biological son because this King of the Northern Frontier had no biological sons - he only had over two hundred adopted sons.]

[However, Li Lingyue's situation wasn't particularly special.]

[More than twenty of the King of the Northern Frontier's adopted sons had already married into Great Qian.]

[It was just that Li Lingyue had blossomed into the number one beauty of the Five Domains. That was why this marriage alliance drew so much attention and was the grandest in scale.]

[The bridal procession was so long that the front of the line had already been traveling for a full day and night while the rear was just leaving the city.]

[In this endless procession, a crimson sedan chair pulled by eight handsome white horses was the wedding carriage of Flower Princess Li Lingyue.]

[Inside the carriage, Li Lingyue wore her wedding dress and a red veil, her face filled with worry.]

["Sigh..."]

[Although the adopted son of the Northern Frontier King she was marrying wasn't a disgusting creature like the King of the Great Shi Kingdom - in fact, he could even be described as dashing and imposing -]

[and she had even learned that other royal sisters who had married there said life in the Northern Frontier was quite comfortable,]

[spending their days herding sheep, riding horses, beneath the blue sky and white clouds, on the boundless green grasslands, letting your heart fly free,]

[this still wasn't the life Li Lingyue sought.]

[She wanted to practice martial arts!]

[But she had no innate talent for it!]

[Li Lingyue refused to accept her fate. She had been using the royal family's connections and resources to find ways to cultivate without innate talent, or to acquire it.]

[Unfortunately, her destiny was not her own.]

[A daughter of the royal family who didn't walk the martial path would inevitably become a political tool.]

["Xiaoru, I will never marry someone I've never met. I want to escape..."] 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

[Xiaoru was one of Li Lingyue's personal maids.]

[Hearing this, Xiaoru spoke in a low voice.]

["Princess, please rest assured. We would never watch you abandon your lifelong happiness. We have already made preparations."]

["What preparations?"]