The entire Cloudsea Plateau fell deathly silent.
Everyone was too stunned by the outcome of mutual destruction to utter a word.
After a long while, Wang Zhan struggled to his feet and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. Looking at Mo Yu, who was likewise having difficulty standing, he rasped, “Mo Yu, has your obsession finally been laid to rest today?”
Mo Yu’s body trembled faintly at the question. He looked at Wang Zhan, yet it was as if, through Wang Zhan, he saw his past self.
“Enough. Enough…”
“After this battle, all past grievances are wiped away.”
With that, he said no more. He turned around and staggered toward Xiao Ruobai and the others, dragging his heavily wounded body behind him.
Wang Zhan watched his retreating figure, a complicated look flashing through his eyes. Then he sat down cross-legged and began circulating his energy to heal his injuries.
There had been neither victor nor loser in this battle.
And yet, certain knots in their hearts seemed to have finally come undone.
The destructive energy storm at the center of the battlefield slowly subsided, leaving behind a scene of utter devastation.
Crater-like pits covered the ground, cracks spread in every direction, and the air was filled with a violent aura where scorching heat mingled with desolation. In silence, it bore witness to the brutality and magnificence of the battle that had just taken place.
At the edge of Cloudsea Plateau, Lu Chenzhou, Si Chen, and Gu Yueting slowly dispersed the defensive barrier they had jointly erected.
The three exchanged glances. Each saw unmistakable shock in the others’ eyes, along with a trace of bitterness hidden deep within.
All three had grown up in Daozang Academy, nurtured by the academy’s finest resources. Naturally, they possessed their own pride.
Even after witnessing numerous prodigies from beyond the academy reach the summit of the Heavenly Ladder, they had felt the pressure but still firmly believed that the academy’s foundation was profound and that they themselves were in no way inferior to others.
“We were nothing more than frogs in a well…”
Lu Chenzhou muttered under his breath, his voice filled with bitterness.
The shockwaves from the collision between those two alone had required the combined strength of all three of them to withstand. How terrifying was that?
Si Chen clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white as his heart churned violently.
Lu Chenzhou’s gaze involuntarily shifted toward the calm figures not far away—Xiao Ruobai, Fang Hanyu, and Ling Xi. A hint of indescribable dread colored his eyes.
An even more chilling thought rose uncontrollably in their minds.
Wang Zhan, powerful as he was, had already suffered defeat at the hands of all three of them in succession!
And Mo Yu, who had displayed a terrifying true Qilin form, was merely the mount of Battle Asura?
Just how terrifying, then, was the true strength of those three?
When they recalled that they might once have harbored the thought of competing with them, their faces burned with shame.
An indescribable sense of helplessness surged into their hearts.
They had underestimated the people of the world. The world beyond Daozang Academy was far broader—and far more terrifying—than they had imagined.
So this was what the true Golden Age looked like: dazzling beyond compare!
They were not the only ones affected. On the other side, Mo Xingyun and Frostmoon Fairy, who had come from Heavenly Pivot Star City, now wore solemn expressions. The aloof confidence they had displayed before was nowhere to be seen.
Reaching the summit of the Heavenly Ladder could perhaps be attributed to talent and potential.
But the battle just now had been a genuine contest of strength!
Even the scattered aftershocks had forced them to fight with all their might to withstand them. Had they faced the full brunt of the attack, the consequences would have been unimaginable!
“The Central Continent, the ancestral land of the Profound Yellow, truly harbors countless hidden dragons and crouching tigers. Its depths are impossible to fathom.”
Frostmoon Fairy’s usually cold eyes rippled with emotion as she murmured softly.
Among the crowd, several prodigies who had previously been eager for a challenge, staring intently at Battle Asura or Sword in White Fang Hanyu, had now fallen utterly silent.
They had originally intended to seize the opportunity to challenge these summit climbers and weigh their mettle. Now, they could only feel how laughable their earlier thoughts had been.
All desire to vie for victory had been extinguished by reality, leaving behind only deep awe.
For a time, the entire Cloudsea Plateau—whether the native prodigies of Daozang Academy, visitors from the starry skies, or ancient monsters who had awakened from bygone eras—fell into a strange silence.
The battle between Wang Zhan and Mo Yu had been like two heavy hammers, ruthlessly shattering the pride in many hearts.
The sparring that followed felt utterly meaningless, and no one had any desire to continue fighting.
Suppressing the turmoil in his heart, Lu Chenzhou, as the host, took a deep breath and spoke in a ringing voice:
“Being able to witness Junior Brother Wang Zhan and Junior Brother Mo Yu engage in such a world-shaking battle today is truly a blessing for all of us!
“The profundity of this battle’s intent is not something that can be digested in a single day. Why don’t we bring today’s banquet to an end for now? Everyone can return and quietly contemplate what they have witnessed. There will be plenty of time in the days ahead!”
Upon hearing this, the crowd nodded one after another, with no objections.
Thus, the welcoming banquet quietly came to an end amid an atmosphere of immense shock and complicated emotions that none could put into words.
One streak of light after another departed in silence, each carrying its own thoughts, leaving behind the Cloudsea Plateau, which had been reduced to ruins.
High above the Cloudsea Plateau, within the invisible void, several powerful divine senses slowly withdrew.
Deep within Origin Dao Mountain, inside an ancient and unadorned hall, Perfected Xuanji slowly opened his eyes. A trace of incredulous amazement still lingered on his face.
“Young people today are truly formidable. Such destructive power—was this really only a battle between two cultivators in the Sage realm?
“I fear that even some elders who have just entered the Saint King realm could capsize in the gutter if they were not careful!”
Beside him, an old woman whose entire body was shrouded in faint starlight let out a quiet sigh.
“The Heavenly Azure Sacred Physique and the Qilin Emperor Bloodline are both peerless foundations that rose against the heavens in an impossible age.
“The prodigies of this generation are even more astonishing than our deductions predicted.
“Xuanji, it seems that we old fellows truly are growing old. In the end, this world belongs to the young.”
Perfected Xuanji remained silent for a moment. His gaze seemed to pierce through layer upon layer of void, looking toward the endless heavens beyond. At last, it became a long sigh.
“The Great Age has arrived. The winds of change are about to rise…”
The following day, before the shockwaves from the events at Cloudsea Plateau had fully subsided, Daozang Academy opened the Dao-Nurturing Pool for the prodigies who had reached the summit of the Heavenly Ladder.
The Dao-Nurturing Pool lay at the heart of Origin Dao Mountain. It was one of the academy’s most profound legacies, accumulated over countless ages.
The water in the pool was no ordinary spiritual liquid. It had been formed from the liquefaction of the purest aura of the origin of the Great Dao, and it shimmered with multicolored radiance. Natural Dao patterns appeared and vanished at the bottom of the pool.
Cultivating there allowed one to glimpse directly into the origin of the Great Dao, cleanse the soul, and reinforce one’s Dao foundation.
This time, the Dao-Nurturing Pool had been opened with a concentration of Daoic aura and a brilliance in its waters far surpassing that of previous occasions.
The radiance above the surface was almost tangible. The sound of the Dao drifted through the air, while countless chains of law seemed to rise and fall within the pool.
This was the result of Xing Tian'ao, upon his return, using the might of an unrivaled Great Emperor to draw forth the deeper Dao-source energy within the earth veins and pour all his strength into strengthening it.
His sole purpose was to lay the firmest possible foundation for this batch of top-tier seedlings at the dawn of the Golden Age and help them grow more quickly.
All the prodigies entered the pool and each found an area where the Daoic aura was at its strongest before settling down to cultivate.
Xiao Ruobai and the others entered as well. Although Purple Bamboo Peak possessed an extraordinary cultivation environment, it was not a bad feeling to occasionally change one’s surroundings.
After the battle the previous day, everyone had a fire burning in their hearts. Some sought to consolidate their explosively increased cultivation, some aimed to break through into a higher realm, and others wished to temper their Dao hearts.
The pool fell into silence. Only ripples of the Great Dao spread across its surface as everyone immersed themselves in deep enlightenment.
Time flowed like water, passing quietly.
In the blink of an eye, two months had gone by.
The radiance of the Dao-Nurturing Pool gradually subsided, while the auras of those within grew increasingly deep and weighty. Clearly, everyone had benefited greatly.
Although not everyone was able to break through to the next realm, their foundations had undoubtedly been tempered into something even stronger and more complete, clearing countless obstacles from the paths that lay ahead.
Meanwhile, billions of miles away, at Azure Profound Sect’s Purple Bamboo Peak.
A gentle breeze swept past, and the countless stalks of purple bamboo rustled softly, creating an atmosphere of tranquil harmony.
Gu Changge sat leisurely among the bamboo grove dressed in white. Suddenly, he seemed to sense something and slowly raised his head.
His calm gaze turned toward the direction of Daozang Academy, as though it had pierced through endless space and glimpsed the figures of those young prodigies drifting and struggling amid the rhythms of the Dao.
The corners of his lips lifted in an almost imperceptible smile. In a low voice, he murmured, “They’ve improved quite a bit. It’s not a bad idea for these boys to exchange pointers and spar with the other geniuses more often.”
His gaze then swept over an ordinary-looking gray sparrow, which sat listlessly on a branch. It was none other than Little Black, the Golden-Winged Roc, disguised as it languidly passed the time.
Gu Changge shook his head lightly and withdrew his gaze, turning his attention to the deepest reaches of the Cangyun Secret Realm.
This chapter is a little filler-heavy—a transitional chapter. A new storyline will begin next!
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
e vast world of cultivation, where he becomes the master of the Heavenly Ruins Sacred Hall, a dying old man with barely a tenth of his former cultivation remaining. He is immediately confronted with a deadly crisis: his subordinates have rebelled, and his protectors are forcing him to abdicate. At the critical moment, the system descends from the heavens: [Ding! The host has been detected facing a life-or-death crisis. The system is now officially activated!] [As a gift, you have received the Supreme Beginner’s Pack and awakened the ultimate cheat: ten thousand years of pure cultivation essence every second!] Yin Tianjue: “Wait… ten thousand years of cultivation every second? That’s six hundred thousand years a minute, and in one day… I can’t even calculate it. Either way, I’m already invincible!” You’re a peerless prodigy rarely seen in ten thousand years? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re an undying ancestor who has guarded a sacred land for countless ages? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re the strongest chosen one, blessed with heaven-defying destiny? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. From this day forth, I have only one thing to say: “I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. Now, how exactly are you supposed to deal with that?”
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
