As Shen Jinghong placed her hand upon it, the Spirit Measuring Jade erupted with a radiance even more blinding than before.
Like a miniature azure sun, a humming sound reminiscent of a resonating sword rang out from the jade, and the glowing characters that surfaced upon it clearly read: Mid-Saint Grade!
Boom!
Xuanyangzi felt as if a thunderbolt had exploded in his mind. He staggered back three steps and plopped down onto the ground. The Spirit Measuring Jade slipped from his grasp once more, rolling a few times across the floor.
He opened his mouth, emitting a hoarse gasp from his throat. It took a full incense stick's worth of time before he suddenly unleashed a deafening roar:
"Saint Grade! It's the Saint Grade! Two of them! Two Heaven Grade talents of our Azure Mystic Sect have both become Saint Grade!"
He danced wildly on the ground like a child, his face smeared with tears and snot, then hugged his head and laughed like a maniac.
"A High-Heaven Grade is already a once-in-a-century phenomenon, but a Saint Grade... This is going to anger the old monsters of the other sects to death!"
He suddenly lunged at Li Xuanfeng, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him vigorously with enough force to nearly crush his bones.
"You brat! You actually skipped the King Grade entirely and reached the Saint Grade in one step! You're going to turn the heavens upside down!"
He then turned and lunged toward Shen Jinghong. Looking at the faint, clear radiance of the Innate Sword Body shimmering around her, his voice trembled uncontrollably.
"Lassie! You were already a High-Heaven Grade! With the Jinghong Sword Body, you were already a genius of the sword dao, but then you turn around and give me a Mid-Saint Grade? And with an Innate Sword Body on top of that?!"
Li Xuanfeng was dizzy from Xuanyangzi's shaking, but his eyes remained glued to the characters on the Spirit Measuring Jade. His heart pounded so fiercely it felt like it would shatter his ribs.
Now, the two of them actually possessed Saint Grade talent!!!
The legendary Saint Grade talent that, as long as they didn't die prematurely, guaranteed they would become Saints!!!
Overwhelming ecstasy drowned him like a tidal wave, causing him to clench his fists so tightly his knuckles turned white.
Shen Jinghong stood quietly in place, the sword qi at her fingertips trembling slightly due to her surging emotions.
Mid-Saint Grade, Innate Sword Body... These terms she had only ever seen in ancient texts had now become her own labels.
She looked down at her palms, a blazing fire igniting in her cold, clear eyes for the very first time.
It was a boundless longing for the future, as well as an indescribable gratitude toward Gu Changge.
Xuanyangzi suddenly ceased his excitement. He stood up abruptly, straightened his disheveled robes, and respectfully bowed three times toward the direction of the Purple Bamboo Peak.
After bowing, he turned back and grabbed the two of them, his expression as solemn as if he were imparting an earth-shattering secret.
"Remember! Aside from me and your Martial Uncle Gu, absolutely no fifth person can know about your talents!"
Saying that, he couldn't help but rub his hands together and giggle foolishly, circling the two of them while muttering to himself repeatedly.
Inside the main hall, the afterglow of the Spirit Measuring Jade had yet to fade, illuminating the faces of the three—one excited, one shocked, and one filled with longing.
Xuanyangzi suddenly slammed his hand on the table.
"No! I must personally make a trip to the Purple Bamboo Peak tomorrow!"
Xuanyangzi slapped his thigh, his eyes shining astonishingly bright, as if he had already foreseen some monumental fortunate encounter.
"Ah?" Li Xuanfeng was taken aback. "What are you going to do there?"
"What do you know!" Xuanyangzi glared at him, though his face bore an uncontrollable excitement.
"Your Martial Uncle Gu bestowed upon you such a heaven-defying opportunity. As your master, how could I not even offer a proper word of thanks?"
As he spoke, he turned and dashed toward the inner hall, his steps stumbling but swift as the wind.
He muttered under his breath, "I need to find something presentable. I can't just show up empty-handed!"
Li Xuanfeng and Shen Jinghong exchanged a glance, both seeing the helplessness in each other's eyes.
They watched as Xuanyangzi rummaged through a mountain of storage rings. He first pulled out a palm-sized piece of warm jade, weighed it in his hand a couple of times, and tossed it back.
"No, no. Although this jade can nourish spiritual power, in Changge's eyes, it's probably no different from a pebble on the side of the road."
He then fished out a flying sword gleaming with a cold light, its blade covered in intricate runes.
"This 'Green Vanguard' is something I traded for after slaying a three-headed Purple Lightning Python back in the day. In terms of grade, it's a Heaven Grade treasure..."
Before he could finish, he shook his head and sighed. "Never mind, never mind. The pills and spiritual liquids Changge casually gives you can defy the heavens and change fate. If I bring out this flying sword, I'll probably be laughed at."
He grew increasingly anxious as he searched, sweat beading on his forehead. Finally, he squatted on the floor and knocked three times on an inconspicuous bluestone floor tile.
The floor tile popped open with a click, revealing a deep hidden compartment. Inside lay a black clay wine jug, its mouth tightly bound with red cloth. A yellowed talisman paper was pasted on it, with the three characters "Thousand Days Drunk" faintly visible.
"This is it!"
Xuanyangzi's eyes lit up fiercely. He carefully lifted the wine jug out, the wrinkles on his face spreading into a wide smile.
"This jug of 'Thousand Days Drunk' is something I exchanged from a master brewer immortal at the border of the Demon State when I was young!
Back then, to snatch this jug of wine, I fought three demonic cultivators for three days and three nights straight, nearly leaving my life behind!"
He cradled the wine jug as if holding a rare treasure, his fingertips gently caressing its surface.
"This wine was fermented with a thousand types of spirit herbs and aged in a cellar for a full three hundred years. When unsealed, it can trigger a resonance of spiritual energy within a hundred-mile radius!
I've hidden it myself for fifty whole years, unwilling to touch a single drop. During the grand sect tournament back then, so many people begged me to open it, but I couldn't bear to part with it!"
Li Xuanfeng clicked his tongue in amazement. He had long heard that his master was hiding a jug of peerless fine wine, but he never expected it to have such an origin.
Xuanyangzi smoothed the talisman paper back down, wrapped the wine jug in three layers of spiritual restrictions, and then stored it away like a precious gem.
...
The thin morning mist had yet to disperse when a faint rustling sound came from in front of the bamboo hut on the Purple Bamboo Peak.
Gu Changge had just returned from checking on Xiao Ruobai's progress in the back mountain, preparing to head back to the bamboo hut to catch up on some sleep.
He paused just as he took a step. Hanging from two purple bamboos at the entrance of the Purple Bamboo Peak were three pieces of cured meat.
No, wait, they looked like people.
To be precise, it was Shi Wanshan and his two disciples. They were trussed up like rice dumplings and hung from the old bamboo branches. As the morning breeze blew, the three of them swayed like locusts strung on a rope.
Shi Wanshan's gray robes were soaked with dew, clinging to his body and revealing his round, bulging belly.
His beard, which he usually stroked until it shone, was now a tangled mess with a few bamboo leaves stuck in it, making him look exactly like a wretched old man freshly fished out of a mud pit.
"Junior Brother Changge! Save me!"
Seeing Gu Changge, Shi Wanshan acted as if he had found his savior. He twisted his body vigorously, but the ropes only dug in tighter, causing him to bare his teeth in pain.
"This damn barrier is completely unreasonable! I just wanted to drop by for a visit, and it actually tied us up on its own!"
His two disciples had it even worse. One was hanging face down, his head less than three feet from the ground, his nose almost brushing against the moss on the rocks.
The other was hung upside down, his face flushed completely red, his tongue practically lolling out, and a bamboo leaf stuffed in his mouth.
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
ts me of treason?" "Correct. The host must return to the capital and gradually build up influence." "Wait—I have half a million soldiers, and you want me to go back to the capital to 'build influence'?" "Host, you are currently the Northern Garrison General, loyal to the Great Xia Dynasty." "Of course I am loyal to Great Xia! Absolutely loyal!" "But you keep referring to yourself as 'We'..." "Never mind the details! Summon all the regional commanders and military officers! We suspect treacherous officials are manipulating the court! They shall march with Us to the capital and purge the corrupt!" "......"
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
