Take Your Seat

The first light of dawn began to spread across the sky, and a thin mist hung over the land.

Xiushui City welcomed its first sunrise since its founding.

The Lingxian Sect, too, welcomed its first group of guests.

Naturally, these guests could not enter the sect proper by walking straight along the Heart-Questioning Road. Instead, they had to take a newly opened road around the rear valley of Azure Cloud Peak on North Mountain.

This road led directly to the Lingxian Sect’s main square. Lin Xiao had specially constructed it for future external conferences and other events held by the sect.

That way, outside guests could attend the Lingxian Sect’s public gatherings without having to pass through the Heart-Questioning Road.

Whenever this road was opened, the Lingxian Sect’s mountain-protecting formation would temporarily isolate the area, designating the main square as a zone under the highest level of protection while retaining a relatively basic level of defensive power.

At such times, the only passage from the main square into the interior of the Lingxian Sect could be used by sect disciples carrying identity tokens. Outsiders were unable to travel from the main square to any other part of the sect.

Quite a few guests had come today.

Aside from the sects specifically invited by the Lingxian Sect, the imperial family of the Pusi Kingdom had also helped invite many other upright royal families and sects.

In the end, all the dozens of invitations issued by the Lingxian Sect had been used.

Moreover, everyone who had come had filled all five places allotted to each invitation.

The only exception was the Tianxin Sect of the Tuiyi Kingdom.

The Tianxin Sect was tremendously powerful and renowned among cultivators throughout the mortal world. The Li imperial clan naturally could not afford to overlook them, lest it create an enemy for the Lingxian Sect, so they had sent the Tianxin Sect an invitation as well.

Who would have thought that the Tianxin Sect would not even send someone to make an appearance?

Li Zhanying had arrived at the sect’s main square early and taken a seat among the guests. He had been keeping an eye on the entrance. Regardless of their status, all the other sects and royal families had already sent someone ahead to deliver their congratulatory gifts and announce that their leaders would be arriving on the mountain shortly—even those who wished to put on airs.

Yet there was still no sign of the Tianxin Sect.

Li Zhanying sighed inwardly. It seemed that the Tianxin Sect truly had no intention of coming.

He silently shook his head.

A hundred years ago, the Tianxin Sect’s leader, Venerable Zhiyu, had been the first to reach the grand completion of the Nascent Soul realm. On top of that, the Tianxin Sect had always developed smoothly, and had long shown ambitions of surpassing all the other sects in the mortal world and becoming the foremost sect.

It was only because Venerable Xunfang of the Chixiao Sect from the Juhui Kingdom had later broken through to the grand completion of the Nascent Soul realm as well that the two sects were able to stand opposed to one another, preventing the Tianxin Sect from becoming dominant.

However, unlike the Tianxin Sect, the Chixiao Sect had no great ambitions. It was not particularly interested in expanding or developing its sect, and so, in the eyes of outsiders, its influence was ultimately inferior to that of the Tianxin Sect.

But now…

Li Zhanying calmly took a sip of the hot tea before him, his expression betraying nothing.

Inwardly, however, he was extremely solemn.

Ever since taking his seat, he had sensed an almost imperceptible pressure!

The pressure was not intense. In fact, if he had not paid close attention, he might not have noticed it at all. Yet once he examined it carefully, he discovered that this vague pressure left him utterly incapable of resisting.

This was the first time in his several hundred years of cultivation that he had ever experienced such a feeling.

Even when dealing with Venerable Zhiyu of the Tianxin Sect and Venerable Xunfang of the Chixiao Sect, he had never felt anything like it!

Yet both of them had already reached the grand completion of the Nascent Soul realm. If this pressure came from someone even stronger than them…

Although he had never truly seen a mighty cultivator of the Deity Transformation realm, his Nascent Soul instinct told him, in an instant, that this was almost certainly the pressure of a Deity Transformation cultivator.

But after reaching that conclusion, waves of uncertainty immediately surged through his heart.

Ever since he had gained awareness of the world, no Deity Transformation cultivator had ever appeared in the mortal world.

Even if one looked back over the past thousand years of highly reliable mortal-world history, there had never been one.

If the Lingxian Sect truly possessed a Deity Transformation cultivator, then the Tianxin Sect would probably have to rein in its ambitions from now on. Li Zhanying wondered what Venerable Zhiyu would think after learning of this…

At that thought, Li Zhanying could not help but let out two quiet, mocking laughs inwardly.

He then stared blankly at his teacup.

For more than seven hundred years, he had cultivated without pause. It seemed that from the moment he could remember, cultivation, protecting the peace of the Pusi Kingdom, and maintaining stability throughout the mortal world had always been inseparable from him.

Whenever he heard that another cultivator of his generation had broken through again, he had to keep striving to catch up.

The Li clan needed a cultivator capable of supporting it.

When his mother was still alive, Li Zhanying’s pressure had not been so great. But after her death, he had never been able to relax even for a moment.

The gap between one Nascent Soul cultivator of the Li imperial clan and the next could not be too long.

Otherwise, the Li clan would completely lose its authority.

At that point, he would no longer have such a comfortable cultivation environment. Compared to the cultivation environment he had obtained over the past two years through trades with the Lingxian Sect, the old conditions might not even qualify as comfortable.

For that reason, he had never dared slack off in his cultivation.

That continued until he entered the Nascent Soul realm.

Afterward, he no longer cultivated with the same urgency.

In his understanding, the Nascent Soul realm was the end. The mortal world had never produced anyone above it. Even a genius as astonishing as his mother had died while attempting to break through to the Deity Transformation realm.

In Li Zhanying’s heart, the Deity Transformation realm—and the grand completion of the Nascent Soul realm—represented the ceiling of the mortal world. That ceiling hung above the entire mortal world, and no one could break through it.

From then on, cultivation was merely a means of extending his lifespan as much as possible.

Every additional year he lived meant one more year protecting the Li clan, and one more year to cultivate the younger generation.

That was what he had originally believed.

But now, he was no longer certain.

Suddenly, a sense of confusion welled up inside Li Zhanying.

At the same time, however, he seemed to gain a trace of understanding—and curiosity.

So the mortal world could have Deity Transformation cultivators after all?

What exactly was Deity Transformation like?

…

“Senior, this way, please. Our sect’s assembly will begin in a quarter of an hour. Please have some spirit tea and spirit fruits while you wait.”

A young man’s voice came from nearby.

Li Zhanying looked up and saw several disciples of the Lingxian Sect attending to the guests at the neighboring table.

The Li imperial clan had investigated all these disciples long ago. They did not know every detail about what each person had been like before joining the sect, but they were familiar with most of their backgrounds.

For example, the Qi Refining disciple currently serving the guests had been nothing more than a little beggar before joining the Lingxian Sect.

Yet this very little beggar had reached…

the ninth level of Qi Refining after joining the sect for only a few short months!

Li Zhanying had been seated for less than half an hour, but by now, the constant stream of shocks had left him numb.

If there had only been one or two such cases, it would have been possible to explain them as outstanding disciples with extraordinary talent, combined with the sect’s allocation of resources and favorable conditions. It would have been difficult, but still possible, to accept such progress.

But in that half hour, he had not seen a single disciple below the fifth level of Qi Refining!

One had to understand that Niu Xiaoxue, the disciple he had accepted a few years ago—a single-spirit-root cultivator who also possessed a rare mutated lightning spirit root—had only reached the sixth level of Qi Refining by now…