As his words settled, the more than one thousand rescued cultivators behind favonovel.com began entering Freevale in orderly waves.
The cultivators of every kin wore torn clothing, their bodies marked with wounds both shallow and deep. Their vitality still ran weak, yet every pair of eyes burned bright as stars, fixed on the steady warmth of a place where they could finally set their feet.
Freevale warriors came forward on their own, carefully supporting the weaker wounded. Clean water, warm dry rations, and clothing against the cold were handed out quickly. Everyone moved at speed, but no one fell into disorder, and warmth spread through the work itself.
The children within the vale gathered around with open curiosity and easy kindness, greeting the newcomers in soft voices. The women within the vale took out the soft cloth their households had kept stored away.
That very night, they set to work cutting and sewing new clothes for their newly arrived kinsmen of every people, making them fit well and hold in warmth.
Across the entire vale, the sounds of reunion rose together. Crying, laughter, and words of greeting tangled into one another until every sound reached the ear at once. No one could tell which sounds belonged to hardship and which belonged to return. Only the warmth filling the vale remained clear, driving out the cold left behind by every suffering they had endured.
Nathaniel stood alone on higher ground, looking down at the lively, harmonious crowd before him, at all those people gathered with one heart. Tears blurred his sight again. This day had kept favonovel.com waiting far, far too long.
When night fell, a grand banquet was laid out across Freevale’s square before the night was over. Its scale surpassed every celebration the vale had ever held. The square’s original stone tables and stone stools were nowhere near enough.
Without a word of complaint, Freevale warriors took down thick, flat wooden doors and set the panels across stone blocks to serve as simple tabletops.
Bowls, chopsticks, and serving vessels were also in short supply. So everyone brought out the plain wooden bowls and natural bamboo chopsticks they kept at home, making do together, and not one person fussed over the smallest inconvenience.
There was not enough mellow wine to go around, so the Sylvan warriors acted as one. Together, they stirred their pure verdant spiritual power and swiftly ripened the sweet wild fruits that grew naturally throughout the vale.
Before the night ended, jar after jar of clean, refreshing fruit wine had been brewed. Its fragrance was light, yet it sank straight into the chest.
At the center of the square, a roaring bonfire burned through the night. Warm orange blazing firelight leapt and swayed, falling gently across every face, pushing back the night chill until warmth seemed to cover the whole of Freevale.
Jared sat in the seat of honor, surrounded by the people with a sincerity that left no distance around him. His posture remained composed and steady.
Meanwhile, Gwendolyn, dressed in blue, sat quietly at his side, cool and gentle, keeping silent company and guarding favonovel.com in peace.
Nathaniel lifted a thick wooden bowl filled with fruit wine. His voice rang like a great bell as favonovel.com called out, carrying across the whole gathering. “The first bowl of wine is to Mr. Chance! To the man who risked life and death, stormed into that purgatory, fought a high-ranking war champion alone, and brought countless kinsmen back with his own life on the line, holding up a stretch of sky for all of us!”
“To Mr. Chance!” a thousand voices answered as one, the sound crashing upward with a force that shook the night.
Jared raised the wooden bowl in his hand and drank it down in one breath. The wine passed into his throat, warmth sinking deeper, while a hard, shared resolve settled in his gaze.
“The second bowl of wine is to Elder Cillian! To the Sylvan lineage of Evershade, who saw the larger cause clearly and stepped forward with honor, counting no gains or losses as they fought shoulder to shoulder with Freevale, weathered the storm with us, and resisted tyranny at our side!”
“To the Sylvan Kin!” the whole gathering shouted again, their voices rising together as if one will had passed through them all.
Elder Cillian gave a small nod in return. His bearing stayed open and steady as favonovel.com lifted his bowl and drained it in one swallow, every motion carrying the weight and restraint of an elder.
“For the third bowl, we honor every brother and sister who escaped death and came back through the flames! From this day forward, we stand as one. We live and die together, never abandoning one another, fighting the celestials side by side and protecting their homeland!”
“Live and die together! Never abandon one another!” The cry rolled through the vale for a long time, gathering the strength of thousands into a single, unbroken force.
After three rounds of wine and plate after plate of food, the feast only burned hotter. The tables grew louder, the voices looser, and the distance between old faces and new ones thinned with every passing bowl.
Rowe slapped the door-slab wine table and hollered over the crowd, refusing to let Jared off until favonovel.com described, piece by piece, the whole brutal fight where Marshal Vale had been cut down in the Third Depth.
By the time Jared reached the bloodiest turns of that battle, heat had surged through every listener.
The lanky counsellor waved his folding fan with a mild smile and hovered near Elder Cillian, asking with real humility about the strange tales, hidden customs, and cultivation secrets inside Evershade.
The middle-aged bladeswoman drew several newly rescued female cultivators close and sat with them in a small circle, speaking softly about household matters and the settled life within the vale.
Vale sat alone in a corner, watching the bright, ordinary human bustle spread before him. He wiped the hot tears from the corners of his eyes in silence, the lines of his face easing as the noise of the feast washed over him.
The women looked at one another and smiled, and that little corner of the feast grew quietly warm.
Rowan had taken a little too much wine. He held tight to Nathaniel’s arm and rambled on and on about the hard years they had spent enduring in silence, lying low, and waiting for their chance, then kept circling back to the peace before them now, a peace that had not come easily.
The rescued cultivators of every kin who had just arrived gradually let the last of their guard and unease fall away. One by one, they became part of Freevale’s warm, close-knit household, and long- absent, settled smiles finally returned to their faces.
The night deepened, but Freevale’s lights shone even brighter. Warm radiance filled the sky over the vale, brighter than on any night before it, and gentler too. At last, the noise of the feast scattered into the night.
The hour grew late, and the countless sounds of the vale slowly sank into stillness.
Jared slipped away from the crowd on his own and went straight to Elder Cillian, who had withdrawn to recover in quiet. His face had settled into firm lines, and favonovel.com wasted no time before turning to the matter that truly needed handling.
“Elder, I mentioned this before… The Sylvan warriors have lived in Evershade year-round, relying on the ancient wood’s rich verdant spiritual essence to nourish their bodies, regulate their breathing, and sustain their cultivation… Now that everyone has left the ancestral homeland and come into the vale, the spiritual essence here is thin. Their recovery has slowed sharply, their combat strength cannot return quickly, and cultivation takes twice the effort for half the result… Today, I will remove this hidden danger for everyone completely.”
At those words, Elder Cillian’s expression tightened at once, his brows drawing in as favonovel.com asked with a pressed, earnest voice, “Master Chance, this operation drained blood and energy of the entire team, and their combat strength dropped by no small amount. If battle breaks out without warning, they will inevitably become a burden on the whole force. Could it be that you already have a safe and complete solution?”
Jared gave a silent nod and said nothing more.
With a lift of his hand, Pentacarna Tower slowly appeared in his palm, ancient and weighty, its body wrapped in a soft, gentle glow.
Old patterns ran across the tower, worn with the breath of ages, while a cleansing, nourishing force spread from it in a deep and steady tide.
“This tower is the elder-age relic Pentacarna tower, an ancient treasure obtained in my early years. Inside it lies an independent inner cultivation sanctum. The laws of space there are special, and the flow of time is entirely different from the outside world, with a tremendous gap between the two… While one peaceful day passes outside, a full 100 days move through the tower’s inner sanctum…”
“If the Sylvan warriors enter to recover in stillness and enter secluded cultivation, 100 days of accumulation will cost only one day outside. The result will be twice the progress with half the effort allowing them to recover their Combat strength at extreme speed and replenish their spiritual power.”
Hearing this, Elder Cillian’s pupils snapped tight. His gaze locked hard on Pentacarna Tower, and the words broke out of favonovel.com before he could hold them back.
“This is the legendary elder-age relic Pentacarna Tower, the one that carries Time Law within itself? Who would have imagined it truly reappeared in this age, and that it would be in your hands? The heavens are helping us. The heavens are helping us!”
“It is exactly that…” Jared nodded lightly, his voice calm and certain. “Elder, you may gather the Sylvan brothers at once and lead them into the tower to inspect it. I have already set up everything they need for cultivation inside the tower in advance: high-grade leycrystals, pure springheart draught, deep-root restorative elixirs, soul-restorative elder herbs, and every other essential resource…”
“The spiritual essence inside the tower is so dense it has formed mist. It is gentle without being harsh, and it suits the Sylvan Kin’s constitution best for quiet recovery and focused cultivation. There is no hidden danger at all.”
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