The very first thing someone did after returning to Senior Yang's mansion was Ronron telling him about what she did as a disciple in the sect for a month.
She laid out her entire month-long story for her master to hear. Senior Yang seemed slightly worried that she was left alone, but mostly he was happy to see her happy.
Alex introduced his mother to the senior, who gave him an earful of scolding for separating her from her family in the first place.
Alex was definitely surprised to see his mother ignore their age difference and scold the man.
Senior Yang took the words without getting angry or feeling insulted. He knew what he had done wrong from the start, but that was the only way he could have done things from the start. If given the chance, he would do it all over again.
"I brought back this stone sword full of intent back," Alex said. He didn't pull it out immediately as that would cause problems for the ones that could read. He also didn't name the stone as that would bring up questions as to why he knew the name.
"Oh, that's not bad," the man said. "In terms of importance, that's one of the 5 important things I was missing from that ring."
"What are the other 4?" Alex asked.
"Well, there's the World Tree's seed, the Nine Yang Divine tree, the Frigid Yin bead, and… " the senior paused. "Wait no, only 3. The last one was destroyed too, wasn't it?"
"Let's see, you took away the Blood God's manual, the white tiger took way the Ocean God's teardrop, and the only other important thing there was the nightmarish sword spirit which the white tiger told me you destroyed long ago."
'Godslayer?' Alex thought.
"So, yeah, I suppose it's 4, not 5," the man said. "Of course, there are various other important things, but none are important enough that they would kill me for losing them, although I surely will have to compensate them for it once I return somehow."
"Speaking of returning, have you decided when you'll return everyone?" Alex asked.
"After exactly a year of everyone returning," the senior said. "That should be enough time right? Actually, no I should do it based on where people want to go. Since the cultivation world has been revealed, the normal people who are not happy with their life won't want to live here anymore."
"As such, they will be trying to leave as well. I will have to aid with that too," the senior said.
There would definitely be a lot more left than the ones that came with them.
"There is something you can do," Alex said. He suggested an idea that the senior could choose to use or not.
"A worldwide poll huh? I don't see how that wouldn't work," the senior said. "Although, we can't do it right now. Doing it 8 months later should be fine. We can give a 1 month period where they vote where they want to go. Using that information, we can decide which continent would be the first to leave."
After a bit more talk, the group decided to go back home for now.
The old Emily had been waiting for everyone to come back for over a month now. Even with people working in the farm, she was feeling lonely.
However, with so many people returning, she wasn't going to be lonely anymore. She knew it was going the day of their arrival, so she had prepared a feast for everyone.
Helen hit it off immediately with Emily, and the two Mother-in-law and Daughter-in-law became close friends. Emily had been quite close to the other Helen that had died of cancer, so she couldn't be happier to meet this one.
A lot had changed about the house for Helen, but in some ways, everything was still the same.
If anything had truly changed, it was the people.
She remembered cooking food for no more than 3 people every day. It was only on rare occasions when Liz came to visit with her family that she had to cook more than usual.
However, even without extra guests, she and Emily had to cook for 9 people in total, of which 2 were actual beasts. Of course, she was more than happy to have so many people in the house.
After all, the more there were the merrier it was.
After spending a few days back at home, the family decided to go on a vacation around their small world.
Alex also wanted to use the time to see what was happening with the people of this world.
They went to resorts, amusement parks, operas, museums, and whatnot. They visited any place with any importance or popularity.
Alex met Ma Tianxin one of the times and saw that he was enjoying his vacations with his wife.
He met Harry too, who was spending quality time with what Alex could only guess were his families, one that had grown old without him.
He thought he would meet Jai Heiyun too, but the girl was nowhere to be found.
After their vacation was done, Alex spent some time looking for Fan Yanshi with Ronron.
It was becoming more and more clear that after the year passed, Ronron would be leaving for the Southern Continent with everyone. So, while she could, she wanted to be with her half-sister.
Fan Yanshi wasn't doing the best. It had turned out that he had a clone here, who had already grown old and had children. They had welcomed him and his daughter into the house, but after a few months, he had decided to leave.
He was a hardworking man, so finding labor wasn't that difficult. For his daughter, he had to start earning money after all.
Alex pitied the man, but there wasn't anything he could do for him. At least, not right now. He did give the two father and daughter a pill each.
He told Fan Yanshi to eat it right away. As for the other pill, he was to keep it until his daughter was at least 16 years old.
It would be many years before the man found out that what he had eaten was actually a True Rejuvenating pill that had effectively improved their lifespan by over 500 years, maybe even a thousand years.
After giving away the pill, Alex now only had 1 such pill remaining, and he wondered to who he should give it.
There wasn't anyone he had in mind that he could give it to, so he decided to think about it later.
The world was surprisingly civil, despite so many cultivators coming back to this world. There were a few skirmishes here and there, but since almost everyone lost their Qi because they were reckless with it or just because the Intent stripped it away from them over time, they were no different than normal humans.
In fact, the only people that were any special here were the body cultivators, who did not need much to live and were generally happy with anything.
After enough time passed, the worldwide poll was finally put up. This poll would decide the date and the order in which the people would be sent back to the other continents.
The few days of what seemed like a normal life for many people was finally coming to an end.
