A long silence.

Lucas Warren, however, didn’t mind. After all, Olivia Warren was a restless busybody—if she wasn’t stirring up trouble, she was on the run from her master James Sutton after causing it. She never had the habit of replying to messages instantly.

If he couldn’t find his senior sister, he’d have to settle for the next best thing.

“Master, I failed at condensing my core and am preparing to take another dose of elixir. Please approve.”

Yet a long time passed, and there was still no response from the Ascension Register.

Lucas Warren couldn’t help but frown and began to contact a third person.

“Uncle-Master, I failed at condensing my core and can’t reach Master or Senior Sister for now. Could you please approve the materials I need for another attempt on Master’s behalf?”

But again, there was only a long silence, and Lucas Warren finally realized something was wrong.

It was one thing for his senior sister and master to be unreachable, but Uncle-Master William Sutton, as James Sutton’s twin brother and acting mountain lord, was always online twelve hours a day and responded to every request. He was even more rigid and upright than his brother, which was why Lucas Warren usually avoided bothering him.

But there had never been a case where he couldn’t reach anyone.

At this thought, Lucas Warren vaguely sensed that his failure at condensing his core might have a deeper reason… and it wasn’t something he could figure out by shutting himself away in the Spirit-Fixing Hall.

So he closed his eyes, focused his mind, and merged his still somewhat dazed spiritual sense with the world around him.

Open the door.

In the unseen realm, he issued a command.

Suddenly, the clear sky split open, and a ray of immortal light shone down from the dome above.

In a single thought, Lucas Warren was already standing outside the Spirit-Fixing Hall, his feet on the shattered jade tiles before the hall, the touch delicate and cool.

Perhaps it was a side effect of his failed core condensation, but the sky outside the hall, usually forever clear, now seemed gray and hazy, as if covered by a cataract filter. Looking around, the lush mountains surrounding the Spirit-Fixing Hall were now shrouded in a vast sea of clouds.

This scene reminded Lucas Warren of two years ago, when his senior sister had a wild idea to use the Heavenly Spring of Spirit Mountain to make immortal soda. She made a mistake while infusing the cauldron with gas, causing it to explode and fill the whole mountain with sweet, sticky mist… Although acting mountain lord William Sutton cleaned up the mist immediately, the mountain’s birds and beasts suffered—most of them got fat, and many monkeys couldn’t even climb trees anymore.

But Lucas Warren quickly realized that the current situation was nothing like that.

This vast sea of clouds showed no sign of dispersing, and it felt as if something within the clouds was making his heart race with dread. Looking around, the familiar outlines of mountains and halls behind the mist seemed to take on a faintly menacing look… This was highly unusual. As the last disciple of the Spirit Mountain’s master, there was no reason for him to feel uneasy on Spirit Mountain’s own land. Nor was there any reason for the people of Spirit Mountain to let their home fall into such a bizarre and sinister state.

He immediately summoned the Ascension Register and sent a group message.

“What’s going on? *3”

A long time passed, and still there was no reply, making Lucas Warren involuntarily draw a sharp breath.

Spirit Mountain had always been sparsely populated—even at its peak, there were no more than a hundred people, and by James Sutton’s generation, only twenty remained. Yet every one of them was extraordinarily gifted, with fates and fortunes that amazed the world, and the secret treasures passed down on Spirit Mountain often brought unexpected surprises…

There was no way they could all be unreachable at once!

In theory, even if the demons of Chidang Mountain in Mozhou came out in full force and besieged the mountain with ten thousand fiends, William Sutton and two disciples could easily control the mountain’s protective array and sweep the demons away.

What kind of accident could make all the people of Spirit Mountain disappear at once?

Full of doubt, Lucas Warren put down the Ascension Register and stepped deeper into the mist.

He was going to the Hall of Awakening to find answers. It was the foremost of Spirit Mountain’s hundred halls, the very heart of the mountain. Whatever had happened to this number one immortal mountain in the Nine Provinces, he would know as soon as he reached the Hall of Awakening.

The path from the Spirit-Fixing Hall to the Hall of Awakening wound through rugged and perilous mountain roads. With Lucas Warren’s usual cultivation, he could have easily soared over the clouds, but now, after failing to condense his core and losing his cultivation… and with these clouds in the mountains, he didn’t want to try flying.

Strictly speaking, this milky-white mist was actually poisonous. Standing within it, Lucas Warren felt the skin on his chest and back tighten slightly, and his eyes grow a bit dry… For ordinary mortal creatures, even a short time in this mist would probably melt their flesh and blood away.

But even with his true essence depleted, his body was still one that had been tempered a hundred times, with strong resistance to abnormal conditions. This slight discomfort didn’t affect his actions.

Soon, he passed the treacherous mountain path and arrived before the Hall of Awakening.

Aside from the ever-present mist, everything was just as he remembered: the clean, flat plaza before the hall, the eight formless statues symbolizing the highest Daoist traditions, and most importantly, the Hall of Awakening itself—seemingly ordinary, yet holding the highest place in the mortal world.

As he approached the hall, he saw the doors tightly shut, making him frown again.

The Hall of Awakening held a special status; only the mountain lord could open or close its doors. For convenience, James Sutton usually never closed them.

And in theory, for anyone other than the Spirit Mountain lord to open these doors… even a true immortal descending to the mortal world would find it nearly impossible.

But just then, Lucas Warren suddenly saw the tightly closed doors before him slowly begin to open.