My Master Knows It All

When the next round begins, perhaps even stronger Golden Core Stage experts will be born—who knows, maybe the next time you participate, you won’t even be in the top hundred.

In the end you might lose your qualification, and on top of that be forced to stagnate in one cultivation realm, delaying your cultivation.

Of course, how to choose in the end is up to each person.

After listening to the Fourth Prince of Heavenly Clan, Cao Zhen pondered for a moment, then finally nodded in agreement and said, "Then it’s decided. Everyone, pass this message on to your own clans. Two hours from now, the Golden Core Stage tournament will officially begin."

He could have rejected the Fourth Prince’s proposal, but after rejecting it, then what? If they really can enter the Primeval Realm, how are they supposed to allocate those spots?

If they designate cultivators themselves, how could the unselected cultivators possibly accept it? If things go badly, conflicts will erupt.

Since that’s the case, it’s better to just choose the top hundred from the tournament.

Very soon, all Golden Core Stage participants from the various clans learned of this. For a time, the cultivators about to compete grew conflicted.

"Everyone, tell me—once we get a quota, what should we do? Do we stay in the Golden Core Stage and continue cultivating, or break through as soon as we reach the threshold?"

"Exactly. The Primeval Tribe of the Primeval Realm maintains the order of the entire Cosmos—their inheritance must be unimaginably powerful.

This is an excellent opportunity. If we enter the Earth Immortal Realm, never mind whether we can still keep our spots by then—even if we keep them, we’ll still have to compete with cultivators from all the clans for the inheritance.

But if we stay in the Golden Core Stage and keep cultivating, we’ll grow stronger and stronger in this realm, and our chances of gaining that inheritance will be greater."

"That’s how it sounds, but nobody knows when we’ll actually be able to enter the Primeval Realm.

What if it’s several thousand years later? What if our lifespan is nearly exhausted and that time still hasn’t come—what do we do then? We’d have no choice but to break through directly, and in that case we’d have wasted several thousand years for nothing."

"Yeah, the main issue is that we don’t know when we can enter the Primeval Realm. I even suspect this might be a scheme of the Sky Clan—they’re deliberately making the Heavenly Pride of all our clans stagnate in their current cultivation realms."

"The Sky Clan must know the exact timing, but they refuse to say!"

"Let’s not overthink it. First secure a quota, then talk about everything else."

Xingchen Zi listened to the heated discussions around him, but his expression hardly changed; he had never even considered stagnating in any cultivation realm.

His senior brothers and sisters were already beings of the True Immortal Realm. The gap between him and them was simply too great; he had always been racking his brains trying to catch up to their footsteps. How could he possibly stay in the same cultivation realm for too long?

Besides, inheritance?

Is there any inheritance stronger than his master’s?

Without realizing it, the two hours had passed.

At Noda’s plaza, the arenas were already set up in neat rows.

At the same time, cultivators from all clans had chosen their viewing spots around the edges. Since this was a tournament, naturally the clans’ cultivators were not forbidden from watching.

This time, it was a tournament among cultivators from eight clans, so only one rule was observed: avoid, as much as possible, matches where cultivators from the same clan fight each other.

There were a total of 1,024 cultivators, each one drawing a number.

Number One fought Number 1,024, Number Two fought Number 1,023, and so on.

Xingchen Zi drew number 918; his opponent was number 106.

Because his number was relatively late, he did not immediately step onto an arena, but stood below, watching the battles on the platforms above.

He focused mainly on battles involving Human Clan cultivators. Slowly, he nodded slightly. At the moment, there happened to be ten Human Clan cultivators fighting their opponents atop various arenas, and eight of those Human Clan cultivators held the upper hand.

Apart from the Human Clan cultivators, the most eye-catching performances came from the Demon Clan and Sky Clan; the cultivators of these two clans were overwhelmingly strong.

Although all arenas began their battles at the same time, everyone’s pace was different—some ended quickly, some dragged on.

Each time a battle on one arena ended, cultivators immediately lined up to take the stage.

Xingchen Zi didn’t wait long before it was his turn to appear.

At a glance he saw his opponent opposite him—a Sky Clan cultivator with a pair of antennae on his head.

Sky Clan cultivator!

The other man wore a loose deep-blue cultivator’s robe, embroidered with fine silver fish patterns, the hem flowing with a natural grace.

Xingchen Zi watched as a cultivator descended onto the arena. Behind him floated a gigantic Golden Core, the vision of a completed Pill Fusion, and on its surface appeared one long-knife-shaped Xu Ying after another.

At the same time, a vast and mighty aura surged outwards in all directions.

In his hand he gripped an ancient, exquisite longsaber, its blade densely carved with mysterious runes.

In the next instant, his longsaber suddenly left its sheath with a crisp ringing sound; faintly, a tiger’s roar echoed across the arena.

Then, his confident voice rang out. "Human Clan, remember my name—Sky Clan, Sakmu!"

"Human Clan, Child Star Son." Xingchen Zi also drew his longsword from his Qiankun Bag—unlike his opponent, his longsword remained sheathed.

Because many cultivators were fighting simultaneously—Human Clan and Sky Clan cultivators among them—although some people focused their gaze on this particular arena, the number wasn’t actually that large.