Each person's choice

Six months later, Lin Shi had personally toured all twenty-three major cities of the Yuan Shu Realm and learned more about it. She had roughly memorized the names of the major sects and cultivation families in the Yuan Shu Realm, including their leaders, famous elders, and outstanding disciples.

"The world is full of talented people, like fish crossing a river!" Lin Shi couldn't help but exclaim.

Lin Shi had a rough understanding of the mountains, oceans, and lakes of the Yuan Shu Realm. She also inquired about the locations of some minor spiritual realms and secret realms, but she only visited two very famous ones before giving up. This was simply because there were too many cultivators in the Yuan Shu Realm, and the secret realms had already been explored countless times; going again wouldn't yield much. Spiritual plants and minerals in the mountains were mostly either cultivated or depleted. The cultivation resources of the Yuan Shu Realm were limited, but most were controlled by major sects and powerful cultivation families.

In the Yuan Shu Realm, Lin Shi didn't yet have a favorite major sect, nor did she want to affiliate herself with one, becoming a guest elder, or join as a rogue cultivator as an elder. She had also lost contact with the nine cultivators from the Dream Heaven Minor Worlds who had ascended to the Yuan Shu Realm at the same time. Everyone had their own selfish motives and wariness, and no one was obligated to fully disclose their true intentions. Lin Shi had no objection to this, as it was also her own consideration and course of action.

Choosing to cultivate in seclusion in the deep mountains without affiliating with a sect is also an option, but Lin Shi felt that she might find it easier to improve her cultivation in places with many mortals and cultivators. Therefore, she hadn't considered carefully selecting a remote mountain as her cultivation location.

The competition among cultivators in the Yuan Shu Realm is far more intense and brutal than in the Meng Tian Small World. This reminded Lin Shi of the fragmented memories she saw from Wen Zhao'an's perspective in the Small Spirit Realm. After remembering Wen Zhao'an, she also remembered her own desire to help him re-establish the Meng Tian Sect, but the reality of the Yuan Shu Realm left her somewhat helpless.

To rebuild the "Dream Heaven Sect," Lin Shi first needs to raise her cultivation to the Nascent Soul stage, so she won't have to worry about accidentally perishing. Besides that, she needs to accumulate a large amount of cultivation resources before considering establishing a sect and recruiting new disciples. This is not something she can easily accomplish.

After careful consideration, Lin Shi decided to first see if he could create some obstacles for the cultivators of the Lower Realm Cultivator Hunting Alliance, and then see if he could help some ascended cultivators from small worlds in exchange for their gratitude and a certain reward and merit.

Without hesitation, Lin Shi quickly found a secluded cave in a mountain and, using the materials she had on hand for refining arrays and artifacts, prepared countless sets of practical magical artifacts and array stones. She also practiced techniques such as astral projection and possession/rebirth, which are only achievable by cultivators at the Nascent Soul stage or higher, and learned to use spiritual power to unleash more powerful Nascent Soul stage spells and attacks. She also upgraded and improved her illusion arrays, killing arrays, and combinations of killing arrays and illusion arrays.

After everything was prepared, Lin Shi went to the exits of the various small worlds in the Yuan Shu Realm for ascending to the upper realm. She first set up an array at the exit of the Meng Tian Small World, allowing cultivators emerging from its ascension passage to see a reminder image of the Lower Realm cultivator hunting alliance. The outer layer of the array was a combination of killing and illusion arrays capable of reflecting attacks. This array would at least give future ascensionists from the Meng Tian Small World a better chance of survival, preventing them from being caught off guard and hunted down immediately upon ascension, leading to their demise.

Afterwards, Lin Shi set up formations at the ascension exits of other nearby minor worlds to protect newly ascended cultivators from being hunted. After setting up formations in the third minor world, Lin Shi paused for a while. Her actions were noticed in time by the cultivators of the Lower Realm Cultivator Hunting Alliance, who laid an ambush at the ascension passage exit of the fourth minor world. However, Lin Shi did not appear, so they were unable to succeed. This also prevented the Lower Realm Cultivator Hunting Alliance from hunting down newly ascended cultivators of the Yuan Shu Realm in time, allowing a group of lower realm cultivators to successfully ascend to the Yuan Shu Realm and disappear into the bustling crowds of the city.

After about two peaceful months, Lin Shi deduced that three more small worlds would soon have cultivators from the lower realms ascending to the Yuan Shu Realm. So she avoided the ascension passages of the small worlds where cultivators were about to ascend and went to the ascension passages of the next batch of small worlds where cultivators were about to ascend. There, she set up protective formations to protect those ascending cultivators from the lower realms.

Lin Shi's actions infuriated the cultivators of the Lower Realm Cultivator Hunting Alliance, who then split into groups of ten to investigate the identities of the disruptive cultivators. This was exactly what Lin Shi wanted. She went to the exit of the ascension passage where a Lower Realm cultivator was about to ascend and set up a protective array. Just as the array was set up, a group of ten cultivators from the Lower Realm Cultivator Hunting Alliance arrived, but Lin Shi luckily avoided them. She immediately turned and went to the exit of the small world passage where two cultivators were ascending, set up a protective array there, and then ran to the adjacent exit of the ascension passage where seven cultivators were ascending to the Upper Realm on the same day. There, she secretly helped them eliminate a group of ten cultivators from the Lower Realm Cultivator Hunting Alliance.

Lin Shi didn't meet with the seven ascended cultivators from the small world she had helped. She simply observed the added halo of light on her own primordial spirit's merit circle and contentedly found a secluded mountain cave to cultivate in seclusion for a month. When she emerged, she heard that the seven cultivators who had ascended from the same small world had been hunted by the Lower Realm Cultivator Hunting Alliance for some time. They later retaliated by killing ten members of the Alliance before going into hiding. She didn't know if they were cultivating in seclusion in the deep mountains or had joined a major sect; in any case, no further news came from them.

Within just a few months, twenty Nascent Soul stage cultivators from the Lower Realm Cultivator Hunting Alliance were killed by an unknown cultivator, causing widespread panic within the alliance and preventing them from hunting Lower Realm cultivators for a full six months. This made things easier for Lin Shi. She secretly went to the exits of the ascension passages in the three small worlds and set up protective formations.

However, there are simply too many ascension passages in the minor worlds of the Yuanshu Realm, numbering in the tens of thousands. It's just that in many minor worlds, no one has ascended for many years, and the Lower Realm Cultivator Hunting Alliance is too lazy to stake out and hunt down lower realm cultivators at those ascension passage exits. Lin Shi also didn't set up any protective formations.

As a Nascent Soul cultivator, Lin Shi made rapid progress in divination and calculation within a few short months. She also calculated her own fortune and misfortune, and then, combining her intuition and comprehensive analysis, successively set up protective formations in twenty small worlds. After that, for about a year, Lin Shi calculated that no lower realm cultivators were going to ascend, so she lay low for a while. During this time, she secretly went to the exits of the ascension passages in small worlds that the Lower Realm Cultivator Hunting Alliance was too lazy to go to, and that hadn't seen a cultivator ascend for hundreds of years, and set up protective formations there.

Fortunately, Lin Shi had stored up a large amount of materials for refining arrays and artifacts while she was in the Dream Heaven Small World. After she used up the array stones and magical artifacts she had refined, she found a deep mountain forest to refine new magical artifacts and array stones, while meditating and cultivating. In just about two years since she ascended to the Yuan Shu Realm, her cultivation level had advanced from the early stage of the Nascent Soul stage to the middle stage.

Lin Shi consolidated his mid-Nascent Soul stage cultivation for two or three months until it stabilized before going to various cities in the Yuan Shu Realm to inquire about the latest news.