Chapter 266 - 263: A Blow
Having a predecessor to guide you
is vastly different from having to bury your head in bitter cultivation alone.
To say nothing of other benefits,
sometimes a casual piece of advice from a Soul Emergence Realm Cultivator can save you years of wasted effort.
This was a truth Shen Changchuan had learned from firsthand experience.
Three months of hard work.
Shen Changchuan had made tremendous progress.
At the same time,
it also strengthened his resolve regarding his plan to enter the Yuqing Immortal Sect by passing the entry competition in five years.
The teaching resources of the Dragon Cloud Sect had already allowed him to reap great rewards.
So what about the Yuqing Immortal Sect?
A higher and grander platform would naturally offer even greater opportunities.
Moreover,
right now he was only in the Qi Introduction Realm, so the Dragon Cloud Sect could still satisfy his cultivation needs.
But what if he advanced to the Soul Emergence Realm, or even the Divine Travel Realm after that?
He definitely had to go to the Yuqing Immortal Sect.
And it was better to go sooner rather than later.
Besides, entering the Yuqing Immortal Sect didn’t mean he would be leaving or betraying the Dragon Cloud Sect.
It was extremely common for official disciples of the Yuqing Immortal Sect
to also retain a position in a subordinate sect.
The Yuqing Immortal Sect and its subordinate sects shared the same lineage.
For instance, the founding Sect Leader of the Dragon Cloud Sect was still one of the Yuqing Seven Sons.
There was simply no issue of betrayal.
And it was also within these three months,
while Shen Changchuan diligently absorbed knowledge, refined himself, gradually strengthened his foundation, and plotted to condense a Spirit Body and master the fusion of Divine Sense with Magical Power to increase his strength,
that news regarding the battle at Five Mountains Pass—
the news that Shen Changchuan had, in full public view, defeated Mo Lingfeng, the peerless prodigy from the neighboring Heisei Domain—also reached the Dragon Cloud Sect.
In response to this,
the Outer Disciples within the Dragon Cloud Sect—who had been brimming with fighting spirit, single-mindedly striving to beat Shen Changchuan in the competition three years later—
collectively froze.
It was as if the fervent passion hanging over the Outer Disciples had been doused with a bucket of cold water.
In an instant, they fell quiet,
utterly silent.
The feeling was
as if the enthusiasm of all the disciples in the entire Mountain Gate had been extinguished in a single moment.
This was naturally because they had suffered a severe blow.
Although Mo Lingfeng was not a Cultivator from the Tian Nan Domain, and his Sect was in the Heisei Domain,
his reputation was by no means small.
In other words,
a Cultivator in the Qi Introduction Realm who could challenge and fight on par with someone in the Soul Emergence Realm
would be at least somewhat famous among the middle and upper echelons of the entire Immortal Cultivation Realm of the Southern Great Domain’s Thirty-Six Domains!
This was because anyone capable of such a feat was at the absolute Peak of the Qi Introduction Realm and was very likely to be a leader of the new generation!
Perhaps whether or not someone was a leader of the new generation had no direct impact on many Loose Cultivators and small, local powerhouse clans.
That world was too distant from them, and whether they cared or not did little to affect their interests.
Therefore, in the broader, lower echelons of the Immortal Cultivation Realm, the fame of someone like Mo Lingfeng was not particularly high.
Only when such a heaven-defying prodigy appeared in a nearby region would the local people pay any attention.
But clearly,
the disciples who could enter the Dragon Cloud Sect
could not be classified among the lowest ranks of the Immortal Cultivation Realm.
Within the Dragon Cloud Sect,
they already stood on high ground.
What’s more, the Dragon Cloud Sect, like the Nanyang Sect,
was a subordinate sect of the Yuqing Immortal Sect.
Anyone who was serious about participating in the Yuqing Immortal Sect’s entry competition and wished to enter the Immortal Sect
would almost certainly take the initiative to learn about the powerful, heaven-defying figures in the Qi Introduction Realm, to understand their opponents in advance, and to gauge their own strength.
Therefore,
as Mo Lingfeng was from the Nanyang Sect—a fellow subordinate sect of the Yuqing Immortal Sect in a neighboring domain—
among the current generation of Outer Disciples in the Dragon Cloud Sect,
his fame was undoubtedly far greater than it was in the outside world!
Many disciples knew that in the Heisei Domain’s Nanyang Sect, a disciple named Mo Lingfeng had mastered the incomparably powerful Three Yang True Skill and had fought a True Cultivator of the Soul Emergence Realm to a standstill in a direct confrontation...
Moreover,
this was a genuine, head-on battle record!
It was not like Shen Changchuan’s inflated achievement, where he had relied purely on luck to kill a Soul Emergence Realm Demon Cultivator by taking advantage of a favorable situation!
That’s right.
Many of his fellow disciples still believed Shen Changchuan’s battle record was greatly inflated.
Quite a few even held a dismissive attitude.
They thought it was nothing special.
’If it were me, and I had a Treasure Artifact, I could definitely do the same thing!’
Even after witnessing the scene on the assessment plaza where he had dominated everyone,
they at most acknowledged that Shen Changchuan had some strength.
But they believed this was only because his background—the Tian Nan Shen Clan—gave him access to powerful techniques, which was the only reason his combat power had temporarily surpassed theirs.
After all, the fact that he could produce a Treasure Artifact that even a True Cultivator of the Soul Emergence Realm might not possess proved his background was extraordinary. The terrifying sword strike on the plaza that day had also demonstrated as much.
But they believed that once they joined the Dragon Cloud Sect,
they could use the Sect’s resources to compensate for their weaker backgrounds and would definitely be able to catch up.
It was for this very reason
that many of his fellow disciples were deeply unconvinced by Shen Changchuan.
The wave of diligent Cultivation within the Sect
had been kicked off by the many disciples who resolved to train hard for the next three years, intending to settle the score from that day at the Sect competition three years from now!
But when news of the battle at Five Mountains Pass arrived,
many of them simply fell silent.
"Mo Lingfeng... how could he have lost?"
someone muttered to themselves, finding it hard to believe.
They could dismiss Shen Changchuan’s achievements as being full of hot air,
but back then,
Mo Lingfeng, under the watchful eyes of many and relying on his own power, had clashed with a True Cultivator of the Soul Emergence Realm who was in peak condition, ultimately fighting him to a draw!
And that had been several years ago.
"That Mo Lingfeng fought a True Cultivator of the Soul Emergence Realm to a standstill head-on with his own strength. Now that several years have passed, his power could only have grown. It probably wouldn’t even be impossible for him to kill a Soul Emergence Realm expert now!"
"That Shen Changchuan is just a guy who gets by on luck and takes advantage of situations. What right does he have to be compared to someone like that?!"
These were the things
some people had said before, using Mo Lingfeng’s battle record to belittle Shen Changchuan’s inflated one,
verbally proving to themselves that their rival was not so fearsome after all.
And they had boasted that they would surely give him a sound beating in the competition three years from now.
But at this very moment,
all their past boasts had turned to silence.
Killing the Soul Emergence Realm Demon Cultivator could be explained away as luck, as taking advantage of a weakened foe.
But this time,
Shen Changchuan had, in a direct confrontation, crushed the man who was a peerless prodigy in many of their hearts—Mo Lingfeng!
All the Outer Disciples of the Mountain Gate
suffered a tremendous blow,
and for a time, they all fell into silence.