Xu Wanzhong was at the critical juncture of his breakthrough.
He turned inward to examine his own heart, surveying his sea of consciousness, where his Nascent Soul was being battered by wave after wave of immense surges. Finally, amid agony and disorientation, he found his way out.
"This is my Dao."
"I am not imitating him, nor am I following in his footsteps."
"The Dao of 'Universal Law' — others can cultivate it, and so can I."
Within his Dantian, towering waves surged skyward, as the boundless lake and sea rumbled violently, their edges beginning to crack and shatter.
He had grown up entirely in the glow of Elder Ling Heng, witnessing the elder's resolute, unyielding decisiveness. As a young boy, he had looked up to him with admiration, gradually nurturing his own sense of pride and self-respect.
To him, the Dao of "Universal Law" was simply the most sublime path under the heavens and earth.
Deep in the Sword Cottage behind the Discipline Hall, Elder Ling Heng sensed the unusual movement coming from his third disciple's cave abode, and a wave of relief washed over him.
"Excellent, excellent." He nodded repeatedly, unable to contain his joy.
Even though that little debt collector was making a ruckus every single day, just the fact that she had pushed both him and Xu Wanzhong past their bottlenecks made all the hectic, headache-inducing work of the past weeks entirely worth it.
"Some other day, I'll have Yingxue and Ming Xiao meet her too," Elder Ling Heng murmured to himself.
He conjured a physical avatar, which flew out of his cave abode and hovered high in the sky above Hengxu Peak, looking down over the land below.
He saw that above Xu Wanzhong's cave abode, the winds and clouds were churning, and a massive spiritual energy vortex was steadily taking shape.
"Excellent, excellent —" The second praise got caught in his throat. Elder Ling Heng couldn't believe his own eyes, and he blinked hard to make sure he wasn't seeing things.
Right below Xu Wanzhong's cave abode, a little further down the slope of Hengxu Peak, a smaller spiritual energy vortex was forming, visibly growing larger bit by bit.
Its speed and scale couldn't match Xu Wanzhong's, but it was undeniably a proper spiritual energy vortex.
"!!"
Elder Ling Heng felt as if a gale was tearing through his chest, his emotions in complete disarray.
Didn't she just break through not long ago?!
Her last epiphany was only a few days back?!
Three epiphanies in a single month? Did she get her hands on some kind of epiphany-granting treasure? Could there even be the power of the Heavenly Dao wrapped up in her body?!
"Why?!" Elder Ling Heng was completely flustered, to the point that he didn't even bother keeping an eye on Xu Wanzhong's breakthrough anymore, his mind entirely occupied by the impossible, unanswerable question.
There had been plenty of prodigies in the past who managed to achieve Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment within a single month — that kind of genius was far from unheard of in Canglan Realm, and the history of the Ziyang Sect was full of such figures.
But three epiphanies in one month? He. Had. Never. Seen. It.
Nangong Yu had no idea what was going on outside.
She asked her own heart, asked her own Dantian — what was her Dao?
Master NPC had told her to rewrite the Ziyang Sect's sect rules, but she knew that to clear the instance, rewriting just the sect rules wasn't nearly enough.
If she wanted to get an excellent rating, a SS+ rank, she had to go a step further and reshape the very rules of the Canglan Realm.
But that wasn't right.
That wasn't a "Dao" — that was just "having to do something to clear an instance". It was nothing more than being pushed forward by external forces.
Passivity wasn't Dao. Compromise and resentment weren't Dao either. Only defying the heavens with every fiber of one's being, holding fast to an unyielding will and a single, unwavering goal that drove one forward without hesitation — that was Dao.
So what was her Dao?
Nangong Yu had spent so long drifting through endless stream instances that she'd never clung to any grand, burning ambition. She only ever had one single thought — to stay alive.
She couldn't die in this lousy infinite stream game. Not only did she want to make it back to see her grandparents again, and not only was it the basic survival instinct of every living being — she was just that stubborn, that unwilling to admit defeat.
She refused to die at the hands of this game.
She could die of old age, she could die of illness, she could even get stabbed to death in a fight over picking up trash, or get hit by a drunk driver while crossing the street by some terrible stroke of bad luck.
There were a thousand different ways she could go, but this cheap, underhanded infinite stream game? She would never submit to it.
Whoosh —
A fierce gust of wind swept across the sky above the cave abodes.
Hovering high above Hengxu Peak, Elder Ling Heng watched with his own eyes as the spiritual energy vortex above his little disciple's cave abode vanished, only to coalesce again even larger, then vanish once more and reform to be bigger still.
After three cycles, that enormous spiritual energy vortex settled in place, fixed above her cave abode and growing steadily larger, its scale quickly catching up to the one above Xu Wanzhong.
"Is this even remotely reasonable?!"
You're only at the Qi Refining stage, for heaven's sake!
An epiphany with a scale rivaling that of a Nascent Soul cultivator — what on earth had happened to this world? Elder Ling Heng began to suspect he hadn't woken up at all, that he was still deep in seclusion trapped in a demonic illusion conjured by his own mind.
How else could something this absurd possibly happen?
He was so aggrieved and frustrated that his face sank immediately. The last time Nangong Yu broke through, Hengxu Peak had run completely out of spiritual energy to feed her, and now here they were with two breakthroughs happening at once!
If both his disciples were breaking through at the same time, under normal circumstances he'd be grinning so wide his cheeks would hurt. But right now, Elder Ling Heng couldn't even crack a smile.
His avatar dispersed, and his true body took its place. He slowly reached into his storage ring and pulled out a pile of spirit stones.
Last time, Sect Leader Cangjing had set up the spirit-gathering array, but Elder Ling Heng was the one who footed the bill.
Since he was the one paying anyway, why bother dragging someone else into it and unnecessarily owing them a favor?
Besides, Sect Leader Cangjing had been eyeing his little disciple for ages. If he kept showing up to help two more times, he'd probably succeed in poaching her away for good.
Sure, his little disciple was a handful, always giving him constant headaches — but handing her over to someone else? Not a chance.
Over at the main peak.
"Hm?" Daoist Lord Zhoushan, who had been sipping tea, suddenly lifted his brows in surprise and looked out the window.
The sect leader's face remained perfectly calm. "What is senior brother looking at?"
"Someone's breaking through." Daoist Lord Zhoushan stared at him in astonishment. "Didn't you sense it?"
The spiritual energy fluctuations were so intense, there was no way the sect leader could have missed them.
"Oh, that's Elder Ling Heng's third disciple." The sect leader spoke in a completely casual tone. "He gained some new insights not long ago. I didn't expect him to break through this soon."
He brushed the whole thing off so lightly that Daoist Lord Zhoushan grew even more confused. "It's not just one person breaking through. There are two."
Daoist Lord Zhoushan held up two fingers in front of him.
"Cangjing," he said, looking at the sect leader thoughtfully, "you're acting very strange today."
The sect leader tugged at the corners of his mouth and gave a forced, cheerful smile. "Am I? I don't see how."
He stood up. "Since senior brother Zhoushan is curious, why don't the two of us go take a look?"
Hiding this from him would only make the old man more suspicious.
Besides, Daoist Lord Zhoushan could easily conjure his own avatar to go check things out on his own. It was far better for the sect leader to suggest they go together openly, so he could keep a close eye on the whole situation.
"Fine." Daoist Lord Zhoushan stood up, dispelling the half-formed avatar he had been about to summon.
The two of them stepped outside, moving so fast that in the blink of an eye, they were hovering in the sky above Hengxu Peak.
"Elder Ling Heng," Sect Leader Cangjing called out first.
Daoist Lord Zhoushan nodded at Elder Ling Heng, who was busy setting up an array. "Elder Ling Heng, it has been quite some time."
Elder Ling Heng didn't have time to make small talk with them. The two disciples below were devouring the spiritual energy of Hengxu Peak like ravenous whales, and the peak had barely recovered from the last time. There was no way it could withstand two people draining it dry like this.
He was already flustered and irritable from setting up the array, so when the sect leader showed up, he simply stopped what he was doing. "Take her away!"
The sect leader looked confused. "Take who away?"
"Take her away!" Elder Ling Heng said unhappily. "There's no one breaking through on the main peak, right? Move Little Yu over there."
Why waste all this effort setting up an array?
Put one disciple on each peak, let the two kids break through separately, no fighting over spiritual energy.
A tight, strained smile spread across Sect Leader Cangjing's forehead, and he forced out a gracious, good-natured expression. "Elder Ling Heng, when did you get so stingy that you won't even share a little bit of spiritual energy with me?"
Elder Ling Heng glared daggers at him. "Do you have any idea how much she —"
Didn't he remember how much that girl could devour? Last time, Elder Ling Heng himself was the one who paid for the spirit-gathering array!
Who on earth is the cheapskate? All that talk about liking her and taking her in as a disciple, yet you won't even spare a bit of free spiritual energy!
"Zhoushan is right here!" the sect leader sent a voice transmission over.
Elder Ling Heng's grumbling was cut off, and he asked in confusion, "What does Zhoushan have to do with this?"
The sect leader was thoroughly annoyed at this point. "It's all because of your little disciple," he huffed.
He then told Elder Ling Heng about Nangong Yu yelling at the top of her lungs on the disciple peak, "Cultivators of Central Province, save me! I want to go to Central Province!"
Elder Ling Heng's brows twitched nonstop after hearing that.
"She's my disciple!" Elder Ling Heng said unhappily. "She swore to me that she would only recognize me as her master for the rest of her life, and I swore to teach her well. The Heavenly Dao is our witness!"
They had already made that vow together. So what if Zhoushan is here? So what about Central Province? No one is taking his disciple away from him.
"Ugh," the sect leader sighed, feeling completely worn out. "Fine, I'll move her right now."
Right then, completely ignoring the fact that Zhoushan was still standing right beside him, he channeled his spiritual power and lifted Nangong Yu's entire cave abode right out of the mountain.
As the cave abode moved, the spiritual energy vortex above it shifted along with it, until it finally traveled from the sky over Hengxu Peak to the sky over the main peak.
"Wait a minute..." Daoist Lord Zhoushan, who had been following right beside them, looked utterly confused. "What's the reason for all this?"
The sect leader smiled gently. "Junior Martial Brother Ling Heng dotes on this little disciple of his very much. He was worried that her breakthrough would be disrupted by her senior fellow disciples, that she wouldn't have enough spiritual energy to sustain it, and that something might go wrong for her."
Daoist Lord Zhoushan raised an eyebrow. "I've never heard of such a thing."
Hengxu Peak has spiritual energy so dense that it's more than enough to support a Nascent Soul cultivator's breakthrough. Nangong Yu is just a Qi Refining disciple, how much spiritual energy could she possibly need?
"That said, his little disciple does have quite remarkable talent," Daoist Lord Zhoushan remarked as he looked down at the rapidly expanding spiritual energy vortex below. "Her level far surpasses what a regular Qi Refining cultivator should be capable of."
The sect leader's smile froze on his face. "...Right."
Three days passed.
"Why is she still breaking through?" Daoist Lord Zhoushan, who had already polished off three whole pots of tea, flew up into the air, completely stunned.
Not only was Nangong Yu still in the middle of her breakthrough, but the scale of the spiritual energy vortex had grown far larger than it had been on the first day.
The sect leader forced a strained, friendly smile. "Right. She's very talented."
Talented? That's putting it way too mildly.
Daoist Lord Zhoushan looked at him thoughtfully. "Junior Martial Brother, you've been holding back a lot when talking about this little disciple of yours."
The sect leader's brows twitched violently.
"She's still a new disciple, isn't she?" Daoist Lord Zhoushan said, recalling that day he first saw her out on the disciple peak. "Our Lingxiao Sect rarely ever gets a disciple with this level of natural gift."
A bad premonition crept up on the sect leader, and he was just about to say something when Daoist Lord Zhoushan suddenly smiled at him.
"Junior Martial Brother Cangjing," Daoist Lord Zhoushan said cheerfully. "You don't know this, but I haven't taken on a new disciple in many years. This trip out here, I was planning to take on one last personal closed-door disciple."
The sect leader perked up immediately. "I'm certain you will get your wish, Senior Martial Brother."
"Then I have to thank you," Daoist Lord Zhoushan grinned. "Thank you so much for being willing to let her go from your Ziyang Sect."
??
Let who go??
"Senior Martial Brother, I don't know what you're talking about," the sect leader's expression turned cool.
Daoist Lord Zhoushan sighed. "Actually, before I came here, my senior sister cast a divination for me. She said that the odds of me getting the disciple this trip are fifty-fifty."
The sect leader thought to himself, no duh.
You either get the disciple or you don't, what other outcome could there possibly be?
"She's Elder Ling Heng's disciple," the sect leader said flatly. "Back in the day, I fought him for half a month straight, and I still couldn't snatch her away from him. Senior Martial Brother Zhoushan, you'd better just drop that idea right now."
