A dragon!
Nangong Yu didn’t believe that a mere second-rate faction actually had a dragon.
But just like the grand promises she herself had made, even if it wasn’t a dragon, it had to be something rare and precious.
“You help him break through,” Elder Ling Heng said, pointing at the Sect Master. “And I’ll take you as my disciple—my final disciple.”
Nangong Yu was instantly speechless.
She stood up and turned to leave.
“Stop!” Elder Ling Heng sent a stream of spiritual energy shooting out, blocking her path. “Where are you going?”
“It’s getting dark,” Nangong Yu replied. “I’m going to wash up and go to bed.”
…
Was she mocking him for indulging in a pipe dream in broad daylight?
Elder Ling Heng wasn’t angry. He merely snorted. “On the Azure Cloud Stairway, you cursed out the entire Ziyang Sect. You’ve offended everyone here. If you don’t enter the inner sect, you won’t survive three days.”
He had no idea what method she’d used to make her voice carry so far, but every person she’d cursed had been identified with uncanny accuracy.
Elder Xuanqing had a huge number of disciples and grand-disciples. Who among them wouldn’t want to kill her to make their master and grandmaster happy?
“I’m saving your life,” Elder Ling Heng said, emphasizing every word.
Nangong Yu wasn’t afraid of some low-level mobs coming to cause trouble.
But showing that fearlessness would be foolish.
“I really don’t know how to help anyone break through!” she wailed, her face puckered into a bitter melon. “They broke through on their own! It had nothing to do with me!”
Just moments ago, she had checked the game interface again, but still hadn’t discovered anything.
Damn it! If she really had a cheat ability, would she not make good use of it?
“You’ve thought it through?” Elder Ling Heng asked with a faint, knowing smile.
Nangong Yu couldn’t simply turn and leave.
Not after they had told her she wouldn’t survive three days.
She bit her lip, looking as though she were struggling and hesitating. At last, she turned toward the Sect Master. “How about… the Sect Master lets me give it a try?”
The Sect Master sat down in an unhurried manner and nodded at her. “Very well.”
What a fun thing to watch.
Who could resist?
These old monsters, who had cultivated for thousands of years, had seen and experienced too much. Their hearts were like a dead sea, without the slightest ripple.
It was rare to encounter a bit of amusement they didn’t usually get to see. Letting her try was no great matter.
“Go ahead and try,” the Sect Master said gently. “I won’t blame you.”
Nangong Yu’s expression turned slightly strange as she glanced at him. This boss seemed fairly friendly, at least from what she could tell.
“If I truly break through, I’ll grant you one request,” the Sect Master said with a smile. “Any request. You can claim it whenever you wish.”
Nangong Yu’s heart grew hot, though she maintained an expression of reluctance. “Then I’ll give it a try.”
She cleared her throat. “If you want to break through, the first thing you need to do is stop meddling in other people’s business.”
She had said those exact words to Meng Yanqing before.
The Sect Master wasn’t surprised. He nodded. “Very well.”
Nangong Yu continued, “You also can’t be impatient. You can’t see someone else break through and then become anxious yourself.”
She had said that to Ling Xue as well. It looked like she really didn’t know how she had helped the three disciples break through. It had all been coincidence.
The Sect Master nodded again. “Very well.”
Elder Ling Heng said nothing. His eyes were half-lidded, his expression unreadable.
“Hmm… How old are you?” Nangong Yu scratched her cheek, racking her brains for a question.
The Sect Master found it amusing. “A little over twelve hundred years old.”
He wasn’t entirely sure of the exact number. After living for so long, one sometimes lost track of time.
“When was the last time you went into seclusion?” Nangong Yu continued.
This time, the Sect Master thought for a moment before answering. “Three hundred and fifty years ago.”
That had been the last time he entered seclusion. It was also during that period that he sensed something and stopped making cultivation his sole focus.
The leap from the Divine Transformation realm to the Grand Ascension realm was simply too difficult.
Not every cultivator could reach Grand Ascension. In fact, the vast majority of cultivators never made it that far.
In his youth, the Sect Master had been a peerless prodigy in his region. He had experienced no difficulty in drawing qi into his body—in fact, on the very night he first began cultivating, he had broken through to the middle stage of Qi Refining.
Foundation Establishment had been just as easy. He had passed his Core Formation tribulation smoothly, and Nascent Soul and Divine Transformation had come naturally as well.
After that, however, every step forward became an arduous struggle.
“So, when was the last time you did something immoral?” the girl’s clear, limpid voice interrupted his thoughts.
For a moment, the Sect Master failed to react. “What?”
Nangong Yu hunched her shoulders and worked up her courage. “I’m trying to find the reason your cultivation has stagnated and you can’t break through.”
She didn’t actually care whether he had done anything immoral or not.
The Sect Master let out a laugh and shook his head. “I have never done anything immoral.”
To be sure, many cultivators were arrogant by nature. Treating mortals as beneath notice was standard practice, and some of them didn’t even take other cultivators seriously.
But in the twelve hundred years since he had begun cultivating, he had never done anything that damaged his karmic virtue—not as far as he could honestly say.
Nangong Yu gnawed at her fingernail, frowning as she pondered. “Then…”
Elder Ling Heng lifted his eyelids halfway and glanced at her.
“Are you diligent in your cultivation?” Nangong Yu asked softly. “I think you might simply not be working hard enough.”
The Sect Master laughed again. The doubts in his heart receded like the tide. This child clearly possessed no special method that could help others break through.
As for Xie Jinyue and the others, it had merely been coincidence. If he had to put it another way, Nangong Yu was simply fated to have a connection with the Ziyang Sect.
“The further one cultivates, the less one relies on spiritual energy,” the Sect Master explained, partly as a lesson. “The higher one climbs, the more one must touch the Heavenly Dao, comprehend the Great Dao, and merge with the world.”
The explanation was rather mysterious.
But Nangong Yu had read plenty of cultivation novels, so she could more or less understand. In other words, physical cultivation was no longer useful. One had to cultivate the soul instead.
“If that’s the case…” She mulled it over. “Sect Master, perhaps you simply have no affinity with the Great Dao.”
The Sect Master said nothing, his expression indifferent.
He knew perfectly well that his talent was insufficient. But hearing it said aloud—especially by a tiny mortal who had yet to even draw qi into her body—still displeased him.
“I heard that Divine Transformation cultivators can live for two thousand years,” Nangong Yu consoled him. “You still have seven or eight hundred years left. We mortals believe we should eat well and dress well before we die, but you, Sect Master, don’t need to rush. You can have some fun first.”
The Sect Master was speechless. Then he shook his head with a laugh. “Very well. That’s thoughtful of you.”
It wasn’t as if he had no hope at all.
How had she somehow compared him to someone on the verge of death?
“Ah…” Nangong Yu sighed, her face full of sympathy.
The Sect Master saw that she seemed to have more to say and prompted her, “Do you have something else to say? Go ahead. I won’t blame you.”
“Looking at you, you’re a dignified Sect Master, an imposing immortal sovereign. I really didn’t expect…” Nangong Yu sighed wistfully. “You’re not much different from the village chief back home.”
The Sect Master didn’t understand. “The village chief in your village is a cultivator?”
Nangong Yu shook her head. “No. He’s over sixty and nearly on his way out. His children and grandchildren are fairly filial, and he’s in decent health.”
She looked upward. “But he can’t compare with a wealthy landowner, or a county magistrate, or a high-ranking official at court, or the emperor.”
“The Sect Master is the same. He’s a dignified village chief, and you’re a dignified Sect Master. You both look respectable enough, but in truth…” She stole a glance at his face and sighed. “You’re both just like that.”
Just like that.
He was a dignified Divine Transformation Dao Lord. He had made a name for himself in his youth, traversed the Nine Provinces, entered countless secret realms, and survived innumerable brushes with death. The first half of his life had been filled with wind and rain, blood and fire. In the second half, he had taken the position of Sect Master and enjoyed prestige and glory.
Yet in the end, he was no different from some old man in a remote village in the mortal world.
“Whoosh…”
The wind came from nowhere, surging through the great hall. It sent the table in front of Nangong Yu creaking and sliding across the floor, nearly knocking her off her feet.
“Hm?” Elder Ling Heng’s eyes lit up as he stared at the figure beside him, already deep in meditation. “It worked?!”
He was both surprised and astonished. He glanced toward the young girl inside the hall, whose body was swaying from side to side in the wind, then flicked his sleeve and sent her flying out of the hall.
??
Nangong Yu was brushed out of the main hall and landed steadily on the ground. She looked back inside. The doors were clearly open, and the sky outside was bright, yet she couldn’t see a thing within the hall.
“What is this supposed to be?” she murmured.
Recalling the strange change that had just occurred, she refused to give up and summoned her game interface again.
This time, she inspected it carefully, not missing a single pixel. She checked it from front to back, top to bottom, inside and out.
“There’s nothing?” Just as before, ever since she entered this instance, there hadn’t been the slightest change. No functions had disappeared, and none had been added.
Nangong Yu was utterly confused. At the same time, she felt as though she had been cheated—she had helped the Sect Master break through, so shouldn’t she have become his disciple?
The Sect Master’s disciple, no less! How impressive would that sound when she told people?
“You must be Junior Sister Nangong Yu?” a clear, resonant voice came from behind her.
Nangong Yu whipped around and saw a male cultivator dressed in the sect’s robes. He had just landed, and the hem of his robe was still trembling.
“Greetings, Senior Brother,” she said obediently.
The male cultivator visibly relaxed and smiled. “My name is Xu Wanzhong. You can call me Senior Brother Xu.”
As he spoke, he glanced into the main hall. “Master sent me to receive you.”
Nangong Yu nodded obediently. “Thank you, Senior Brother.”
“There’s no need to be so polite, Junior Sister.” Xu Wanzhong gave a sharp whistle, summoning a spirit crane. “Come on. I’ll take you to Myriad Affairs Peak first to collect your disciple’s identification token.”
Nangong Yu climbed onto the spirit crane. When she touched its soft feathers, she couldn’t resist stroking them a few more times.
She had shoveled droppings and fed spirit cranes every day at the Lin household, but she had never ridden one before.
“Senior Brother, I already have an identification token.” Once she was seated, Nangong Yu rummaged around inside her sleeve and pulled out the token Elder Lu had given her.
Xu Wanzhong glanced at it and said in surprise, “That will save us a step. Still, you’ll need to register at Myriad Affairs Peak.”
He began explaining that new disciples entering the sect were entitled to three months’ worth of basic supplies, including bedding, fasting pills, spirit stones, spirit-restoring pills, the sect’s rules, a breathing cultivation manual, and so on.
Nangong Yu nodded repeatedly. “Then I’ll trouble you, Senior Brother Xu.”
Xu Wanzhong thought the little junior sister was rather well-behaved and couldn’t help saying, “Fortunately, it was you. If you were the one who cursed on the Azurecloud Stairway, I’d have to make a fuss with Master no matter what.”
“…Huh?” Nangong Yu blinked.
Xu Wanzhong continued, “You didn’t hear about it? During today’s trial for the new disciples, someone stumbled during the illusion stage and started cursing.”
His expression became indescribably strange. “I absolutely don’t want a junior sister like that.”
The language had been downright vile.
And she had been ferocious.
The viciousness of her tongue was one thing. She had only just entered the sect, hadn’t even completed the first stage of the trial, and yet she had dared to insult an elder.
A troublemaker like that would be a calamity for whichever peak took her in.
He shook his head with a sigh. “I wonder which peak that junior sister ended up joining.”
“Yes,” Nangong Yu said flatly.
Xu Wanzhong asked again, “You really didn’t see her? When you reached the Azurecloud Summit, didn’t anyone mention it?”
He was very curious about that junior sister. She had managed to offend the entire sect before even officially joining—truly a legendary figure. He might not want such a junior sister himself, but there was no harm in meeting her.
“I wasn’t much use. I arrived last, so I didn’t hear anything.” Nangong Yu lowered her head and spoke guiltily.
Xu Wanzhong immediately comforted her. “It’s fine, it’s fine. The Heart-Questioning Trial doesn’t judge you by how quickly you finish. Reaching the top at all is already an impressive feat.”
As they spoke, they arrived at Myriad Affairs Peak.
Xu Wanzhong finally gave up on asking about the matter and led her down from the spirit crane.
