“Zhang shi, here is the gift that the headquarters have given us for the friendly spar with the other Combat Master Halls.”
Zhang Xuan brought Sun Qiang and the others back to their accommodation in the Combat Master Hall, and not too long after they returned, Hall Master Xing came over.
There had recently been a friendly spar between the four lower-ranked Combat Master Hall in order to choose twenty combat masters to train at the Qianchong Empire’s Sword Lagoon. Thanks to the training regime that Zhang Xuan had specially created for their candidates, the Qingyuan Empire Combat Master Hall had managed to acquire all twenty of the slots, and the Combat Master Hall headquarters had specially relayed their compliments to them.
Just a few days ago, the rewards for their spectacular performance this time around had arrived through a special delivery channel.
“The reward this time around is 120 concentrated high-tier spirit stones, 20 more than we initially expected. However, even as the hall master, I can only freely allocate half of them, so I can only give you 60.”
Hall Master Xing flicked his wrist and passed several jade containers over.
“60 concentrated high-tier spirit stone? That is good enough!” Zhang Xuan’s eyes lit up. “It seems like the effort I put into training those lads wasn’t in vain!”
“The effort you put into training those lads?” Hall Master Xing’s eyebrows began twitching, and he nearly spurted a mouthful of blood.
You ran off to crash the Master Teacher Pavilion right after coming up with the training regime, and you didn’t even return to watch the friendly spar.
If even that can be called effort, what can’t be?
“Thanks!” Zhang Xuan was perplexed by Hall Master Xing’s twitching eyebrows, but he decided not to pay any heed to it. He opened the jade containers, and upon feeling the dense spiritual energy flowing out of them, he nodded in satisfaction.
With so many concentrated high-tier spirit stones, he would be able to advance his cultivation considerably!
While it was his obligation as a master teacher to raise the fighting prowess of the combat masters, it still did not hurt for him to earn some benefits in the midst of doing so.
“This is what we agreed on previously, so there’s no need to stand on ceremony. Alright, if there’s nothing else, I won’t hold you any longer.”
Knowing that Zhang Xuan would surely have to cultivate after obtaining the concentrated high-tier spirit stones, Hall Master Xing bade farewell before taking his leave.
As soon as he left, Zhang Xuan unhesitatingly entered the Myriad Anthive Nest.
He had already compiled the Saint 4-dan Heaven’s Path Divine Art, and all he had been lacking was ample concentrated high-tier spirit stones. Since he had finally obtained what he had been waiting for all this while, it was a given that he should quickly raise his cultivation.
After all, it had already been more than ten days since he had been stuck at Saint 3-dan pinnacle. It was about time for him to make a breakthrough.
In this world of cultivation, strength was the foundation to almost everything. Without sufficient strength, one would be too vulnerable.
If he did not obtain strength soon enough, his girlfriend could very well be going into the embrace of another man.
Zhang Xuan swiftly conditioned his state to the peak, and once everything was in place, he took a seat and flicked his finger. A concentrated high-tier spirit stone flew out from the jade container.
Under the effects of the formation, incredibly pure spiritual energy gushed out from the spirit stone and gathered around Zhang Xuan, flowing into his body via his acupoints.
“This isn’t enough…” Knowing that he would require far more spiritual energy than an ordinary cultivator to achieve a breakthrough, he continued to draw more spirit stones out from the jade containers.
Sou sou sou sou!
The remaining 59 concentrated high-tier spirit stones flew out one after another, and they took position in a unique formation around Zhang Xuan.
Hong long long!
The Spirit Gathering Formation drew out the spiritual energy from six of the concentrated high-tier spirit stones, and in the blink of an eye, the spiritual energy around Zhang Xuan felt as viscous as water.
If any other ordinary cultivator had been in his place instead, they would have found their breathing becoming erratic. Not only would they be unable to cultivate under such circumstances, it might even pose a threat to them.
The difference in the concentration of spiritual energy in the surroundings and a cultivator’s body would result in the spiritual energy relentlessly gushing into his body, and if the cultivator could not assimilate the spiritual energy fast enough, the energy could end up wrecking their body, resulting in an unfortunate death.
However, such a situation would never occur to Zhang Xuan.
Having cultivated the Quintuple Incandescence Golden Body, his body was already comparable to a Saint intermediate-tier artifact. On top of that, he had also cultivated his soul through the Heaven’s Path Soul Art, making it far more resilient that the soul of any ordinary cultivator. As a result, it was nigh impossible that a situation would occur where his body was unable to withstand a massive influx of spiritual energy.
The spiritual energy grew more and more concentrated, and when it finally reached a certain density, Zhang Xuan opened his mouth wide and began absorbing it furiously.
Boom!
The concentrated spiritual energy surged into Zhang Xuan’s body through his acupoints and circulated around his body before swiftly gathering in his dantian.
In his dantian, the ten-meter-tall Origin Soul waved its hand excitedly upon seeing the influx of spiritual energy, and it swallowed it delightfully in huge mouthfuls. Slowly, it began to metamorphose.
The key to achieving Saint 4-dan Primordial Spirit realm was to relentlessly feed one’s Origin Soul with energy in order to nourish it, granting it sufficient energy to evolve into a Primordial Spirit.
With ample spiritual energy and the Saint 4-dan Heaven’s Path Divine Art, Zhang Xuan’s Origin Soul grew at a visible pace, and the aura it exuded was swiftly becoming stronger.
Kacha! Kacha! Kacha!
But along with the metamorphosis of the Origin Soul, the concentrated high-tier spirit stones lying all around were also beginning to shatter with crisp echoes as the spiritual energy within them was sapped dry.
The rate at which the concentrated high-tier spirit stones are being consumed is really frightening… Zhang Xuan’s eyebrows twitched wildly.
He had thought that 60 concentrated high-tier spirit stones would be sufficient for him to cultivate from Embryonic Soul realm pinnacle to Primordial Spirit realm pinnacle. However, from the looks of it… he had once again underestimated the frightening consumption rate of cultivating the Heaven’s Path Divine Art.
The further he cultivated the Heaven’s Path Divine Art, the greater the requirement for the purity and quantity of spiritual energy he would need. At this point, even the purity of concentrated high-tier spirit stones seemed to be slightly lacking.
Zhang Xuan sighed. Of the four necessary elements to cultivation—wealth, peers, method, and environment1—wealth is indeed ranked at the very top. Without sufficient resources, no amount of talent can allow one to climb to the top!
He had been thinking that he would try to achieve a breakthrough to Saint 7-dan as soon as possible so that he would be on equal footing with the young prodigy of the Zhang Clan. But he now realized that the road ahead was truly arduous.
Putting everything else aside, just the lack of spirit stones could already leave him with a splitting headache.
Kacha! Kacha! Kacha!
Finally, when 32 concentrated high-tier spirit stones had been expended, he struck the bottleneck of Embryonic Soul realm pinnacle.
Hong long!
His aura abruptly transformed, granting him a more imposing presence.
Saint 4-dan Primordial Spirit realm reached!
Upon the breakthrough in his cultivation, Zhang Xuan instantaneously felt his thoughts become clearer and faster. At the same time, his physical body and soul had also undergone massive changes, becoming far more resilient and powerful than before.
On top of that, his reflexes had also grown significantly.
In the past, when he clashed with Leaving Aperture realm experts, while he had been able to match them with his sheer strength and speed, his slightly slower reflexes had placed him at a critical disadvantage. He had needed to depend on his Eye of Insight in order to predict the opponent’s move in advance in order to stand against them on equal footing. Otherwise, he might not have even been a match for the copper-masked clone of the Qingtian Emperor.
But with his current enhanced reflexes, he would be able to easily carry out maneuvers faster than the copper-masked clone’s reflexes, allowing him to subdue the latter in a single blow.
“Continue!”
Seeing that he still had some spirit stones remaining, Zhang Xuan calmed his state of mind before closing his eyes to continue cultivating.
An hour and a half later, all the remaining 28 concentrated high-tier spirit stones had shattered into powdery dust, and his cultivation had also advanced to Primordial Spirit realm intermediate stage.
He raised his hand and grasped the area before him lightly. In an instant, the surrounding air turned viscous, making it tangible to one’s touch.
“Incredible…”
Feeling that his grasp over space had advanced another notch, Zhang Xuan’s eyes lit up. With my current strength, even if I encountered the real Qingtian Emperor again, I would be able to subdue him easily even without the assistance of my clone!
From the Embryonic Soul realm to Primordial Spirit realm intermediate stage, he had only achieved a breakthrough of three cultivation stages, but his fighting prowess had risen by twofold at the very minimum!
With his enhanced strength and grasp over space, even in the Qingtian Emperor’s cloned form, without relying on his clone or any ploys, he would be able to overpower the latter with brute force.
In other words, the current Zhang Xuan already wielded strength comparable to Leaving Aperture realm advanced stage experts, or perhaps, he might even stand a chance against ordinary Leaving Aperture realm pinnacle experts.
In the Leaving Aperture realm, every single advancement in one’s cultivation stage would bring a lightning tribulation, and the tempering from the lightning tribulation resulted in a vast difference in strength between each cultivation stage.
If it were to be known that Zhang Xuan was able to match a Leaving Aperture realm advanced stage cultivator before he had even made a breakthrough to the Leaving Aperture realm, it would surely scare many to death.
Of course, considering that he cultivated the Heaven’s Path Divine Art and Heaven’s Path battle techniques, as well as the advantage from the Eye of Insight and Library of Heaven’s Path, he would really be useless if he could not do this much.
It’s a pity that I only received 60 concentrated high-tier spirit stones from Hall Master Xing. If I had obtained all 120, I might have been able to make a breakthrough to Primordial Spirit realm pinnacle directly. Zhang Xuan shook his head.
If only he could have raised his cultivation to Primordial Spirit realm pinnacle, he was confident that he would have been able to down just about any Leaving Aperture realm pinnacle expert.
Even without the Golden Origin Cauldron, he would be able to defeat cultivators of Song shi’s caliber with ease.
Zhang Xuan sighed deeply. I guess it can’t be helped. No matter what, Hall Master Xing is the head of the Combat Master Hall. He will surely have to leave some concentrated high-tier spirit stones for himself to groom his own combat masters, so I can’t possibly take all of them from him.
To be honest, Hall Master Xing was already being generous by giving him half of the rewards given to them by the Combat Master Hall headquarters. He would only be greedy if he attempted to acquire any more from them.
After taking a while to adapt to his newfound strength, Zhang Xuan left the Myriad Anthive Nest.
As soon as Zhang Xuan walked out of the room, Sun Qiang walked up to him. “Young Master, Pavilion Master Wu has requested that you drop by the Master Teacher Pavilion for a moment after you are done cultivating!”
“Wu shi wants me to drop by the Master Teacher Pavilion?” Zhang Xuan frowned.
It had not been long since he returned. Why would Wu shi suddenly ask him to drop by the Master Teacher Pavilion?
Sun Qiang pondered for a moment before replying. “Un. Pavilion Master Wu said that the guide to the Sanctum of Sages has just arrived, so he wishes to invite you over to participate in the Selection of Sages.”
“The guide has arrived?” Zhang Xuan’s eyes lit up.
Previously, Mu shi had told him that it was very likely that Luo Ruoxin was at the Sanctum of Sages, and if he wanted to find her, he would have to enroll into the Sanctum of Sages himself.
However, as the highest academy of the Master Teacher Continent, it was not a place that just anyone could enter. The slots for it were severely limited.
When Zhang Xuan had asked about it back then, the response he had received was that the guide would be arriving around twenty days later. Taking a look at the time, it was around twenty days since he had parted from Mu shi, and it was indeed about time for the guide to arrive.
“I’ll head over to take a look…” Since it was a matter concerning Luo Ruoxin, there was no need for Zhang Xuan to hesitate at all. He quickly made his way over to the Master Teacher Pavilion.
Not too long later, he arrived at his destination.
“Zhang shi!”
Now that Zhang Xuan was the teacher of all master teachers, there was no one who did not recognize him. As soon as he entered the Master Teacher Pavilion, all the master teachers who saw him immediately clasped their fists and bowed.
“He is Zhang shi?”
“How dashing!”
“I am his loyal fan! Do you think that he’ll allow me to bear his babies?”
“Scram to the side! You are a man; how do you intend to give birth?”
…
A commotion swiftly broke out in the surroundings.
After the incident with the Heavenly Impartation of Mentor’s Calligraphy, Zhang Xuan had already taken over Zhang Jiuxiao’s position as the idol of all young men in the Qingyuan Empire.
Thus, upon his appearance, all the young men who were currently studying in the Master Teacher Pavilion could not help but fall into a state of agitation, unable to control themselves.
Seeing the crazed crowd around him, a feeling of deep helplessness rose within Zhang Xuan. This is really not the type of life I want! Why do things never go the way I want them to?
All he sought was a humble life, cultivating peacefully, advancing his cultivation peacefully, and remaining the inconspicuous handsome lad he was.
It really was not his wish to have so many people idolize him frenziedly!
Scanning the surroundings, Zhang Xuan saw the millstone-bottom lady who had been deeply infatuated with Zhang Jiuxiao back then standing amid the crowd as well. Upon noticing his gaze, the latter began shrieking in excitement, and from the looks of it, it seemed like she might even dash straight forward to knock him onto the ground.
Alarmed, he hastened his footsteps.
Zhang Xuan sighed deeply. Forget it, it’s about time for me to leave Qingyuan City anyway…
He had been in Qingyuan City for roughly twenty days now, quite a long time indeed. It was about time for him to move on.
No matter what, I must clinch the slot for the Sanctum of Sages! Zhang Xuan clenched his fists tightly in agitation.
