Seeing that she did not refuse outright, Cheng Shangling's smile deepened.
"There are still several months before the hunting competition. You don't have to rush to give me an answer. I will explain the rules to you first."
Since the other party had said this, Xu Chunniang naturally had no reason to refuse, so she listened to him patiently.
Hundreds of years ago, there was no such event as hunting competition.
However, every once in a while, from thirty to forty years, or as long as seventy to eighty years, the five southern islands would still encounter beast tides.
Although the frequency of beast tides encountered by the five southern islands is not as frequent as that of medium and large islands.
But every time a tide of beasts hits, it poses an extremely serious crisis to the five islands on the southern front.
There used to be nine small islands on the southern line, four of which were destroyed in the beast tide and sank into the sea forever.
In order to reduce the strength of these sea monsters, the five surviving southern islands, led by Coral Island, organized the monks of the five islands to hold a hunting competition.
With the combined strength of the monks from the five islands, they would go deep into the sea every ten years to kill sea monsters.
Points are calculated based on the number of monsters killed, and generous rewards are given out.
This move greatly reduced the pressure brought by the beast tide. Since the hunting competition was launched, the five islands in the Nansha Islands have only experienced three beast tides in the past five or six hundred years.
Moreover, these three beast tides are easier to resist than before.
This also led to the Zhan family, headed by Coral Island, paying more and more attention to the hunting competition.
Cheng Shangling said this with a bitter smile on his face.
"The ranking of this hunting competition is related to the allocation of sea areas among our cultivation families. The higher the ranking, the more priority we have in choosing sea areas.
The resource-rich waters near the coral islands are not ours at all."
Xu Chunniang was thoughtful. On this Nansha Island, the Cheng family could still be ranked among the three major families.
However, Nansha Island is not outstanding among the five islands. Looking at the entire Nansha Islands, there are more than a dozen large and small cultivation families, and several strong independent cultivation forces, so the Cheng family has become ordinary.
Therefore, it is not easy to win a good ranking in this hunting competition.
Ten foundation-building cultivators form a group, and the Cheng family can only send out two teams to participate in the hunting competition, which means they have already lost half the battle.
Cheng Shangling noticed the hesitation on the other person's face and softened his tone.
"Don't worry, my friend. I won't force you. As long as you agree to participate in the competition, regardless of your ranking, the third floor of the Cheng family's library will be permanently open to you from now on."
Cheng Shangling had no choice but to do this.
Excluding the old, weak and sick, all the foundation-building cultivators of the Cheng family, plus the guests, could barely form two teams.
However, most of these cultivators are in the early and middle stages of foundation building. There are only two people like Xu Chunniang who have achieved a perfect foundation.
This is also the reason why he values the other party so much.
Xu Chunniang agreed. With such favorable conditions, she had no reason to refuse.
"Hahaha, I knew that Mr. Xu would definitely agree to help me."
Cheng Shangling smiled happily, "Are you used to this spiritual tea? I still have some here, I will give it to you."
As he spoke, he took out a packet of spiritual tea and handed it over without hesitation.
Xu Chunniang had no choice but to answer, "So starting today, can I go to the third floor of the library?"
Cheng Shangling nodded with a smile, took out the token immediately and greeted the person guarding the library.
Both parties were quite satisfied with the result. Xu Chunniang put away the spiritual tea, bid farewell to Cheng Shangling and left the hall.
After she left, a handsome young man stepped into the hall. He looked at his grandfather with a worried look on his face.
"Grandpa, you made an exception and let an outsider enter the third floor of the library. What if she refuses to contribute in the hunting competition?"
Cheng Shangling smiled and drank a sip of the spiritual tea that had already cooled down. "I was just taking a gamble."
"bet?"
The young man was stunned. He didn't expect to hear such an answer.
"Rules are dead, but people are alive. Qingjia, my Cheng family was once very powerful in the Nine Islands of the South Line.
But now my Cheng family is getting worse and worse. If we still insist on those old rules and don’t make changes, I’m afraid that in the future, the five southern islands will not be able to accommodate my Cheng family. "
The smile on Cheng Shangling's face disappeared at some point, and his tone became heavy.
Cheng Qingjia was silent, and suddenly understood why his grandfather did this.
"It's my grandson who is incompetent."
Cheng Shangling shook his head, his eyes deep.
"The Cheng family has been passed down for too long, and they have been living in peace for too long. If Su Rong's matter hadn't come to me, I wouldn't have known that such a vicious internal fight had occurred in the family... In short, we must make changes."
Cheng Qingjia was speechless, feeling the heavy burden on his shoulders.
Outsiders may think the Cheng family looks glamorous, but in reality their situation is not easy.
In the previous hunting competitions, the Cheng family did not place well in the rankings and obtained the worst sea resources.
I just hope that this time, grandpa can make the right bet.
Xu Chunniang was not aware of the conversation that took place after she left. After returning to the library, she went straight to the third floor, and indeed there was no obstruction.
After taking a quick look at the collection on the third floor, she sighed in her heart that the books here were obviously of higher quality than those on the two floors below.
She found a bookshelf that specifically recorded the strange stories and anecdotes from the world of cultivation and began to look through them one by one.
Half a month passed, and Xu Chunniang had read through all the bone books on the bookshelf, but she still couldn't find a single word about the Dead Sea and the Five Northwestern Sects.
There is a book that mentions a huge black and white ship that eats people, which looks a bit like the eyes of the evil-eyed beast.
Xu Chunniang put down the bone book in her hand with some regret and turned to the bookshelf where the formation was recorded.
The Cheng family has a rich collection of books, including quite a few bone books on formations. There are even dozens of bone books containing content related to teleportation formations.
Xu Chunniang had an idea and took one of them and looked at it.
However, after reading the bone book from beginning to end, she discovered that although the contents recorded in it were related to the teleportation array, most of them were teaching people how to maintain the daily operation of the teleportation array.
She put the bone book in her hand back to its original place, and took another one next to it to take a closer look, only to find that the entire text was about how to repair the teleportation array.
Xu Chunniang took a few more and found that the contents were similar.
Either talk about the precautions when using the teleportation array, or introduce the effects of various spirit stones on the teleportation array.
In short, no bone book mentions the operating principles and key materials of the teleportation array.
Xu Chunniang frowned slightly. Did the Cheng family not have books on this subject, or did they hide these books
She prefers the first possibility.
The third floor of the library was originally only open to the Cheng family's cultivators who were at the Foundation Establishment stage and above. These people were the backbone of the Cheng family, and there was no reason for the Cheng family to hide the bone book.
If this is true, then who set up the teleportation array that the Cheng family currently owns