Together with Zixi, Prince Huo Xing, and Yao Qingtong, the number of Outer Palace trainees standing outside the Hall of Divine Power reached twelve, each one a top genius elite.
“Rumble!”
As the first rays of sunlight poured down on the top of the Divine Power Palace, the heavy palace door, slowly opened.
A silver-robed crone and a gold-robed old man walked out from the gate and stood on the nine-storey high white stone steps, looking down at the twelve young martial artists below.
The silver-robed crone looked to be eighty or ninety years old, hunched over and holding a basalt iron walking stick, her eyebrows and hair were all snow-white, giving off an abnormally pale feeling.
She was one of the two Vice-Masters of the Western Academy, Vice-Master Qing Hua.
Vice Academy Master Qing Hua’s voice was very loud as she said, ”I am the Vice Academy Master of the Western Academy, Qing Hua, and I believe that the older class of trainees already know each other. The new class of cadets are also considered to know each other now. According to the rules, the Hall of Divine Power opens once a month, and only the first freshman of each year can enter the Hall of Divine Power to cultivate for one hour’s time.”
“This year is slightly different, there are four amazingly talented talents among the freshmen of the Western Academy, so all four of them can enter the Divine Power Hall to cultivate.”
“In addition, I’d like to introduce you to a gold-robed elder from the Inner Palace, Elder Yue Jingchan.”
All the trainees looked towards that one golden-robed elder with solemn respect, bowed, and said in unison, “Greetings to Elder Yue Jingchan.”
In the Western Courtyard, only the Western Courtyard Master could wear a golden robe. This one Elder Yue Jingchan from the Inner Palace also wore a golden robe, indicating that his status and position was at the same level as the Western Academy’s Lord.
Elder Yue Jingchan’s face wore a kind smile as he said, ”The Western Courtyard is very good, with many talented people, especially this year, it actually gave birth to four heavenly prides who broke through the first level of the third floor of the Martial Tower at the same time. Of the freshmen from the four outer courtyards, this year, the Western Courtyard is good enough to rank second.”
Qing Hua’s Vice Palace Master’s face also revealed a pleased smile, in the past, the Western Academy’s freshmen were at the bottom of the list almost every year, this year, however, several geniuses came out in a row, causing the Western Academy’s freshmen to be ranked second. As the Vice Palace Master of the Western Academy, her face was naturally glowing.
Prince Huo Xing straightened his chest, slightly arched his hand, and smiled, “It’s our honour to be able to become an Outer Palace Cadet of the Martial City Palace of Learning.”
Elder Yue Jingchan glanced towards Prince Huo Xing, smiled faintly, and added, “Everyone may not know Old Husband too well, so Old Husband will first make a brief self-introduction. Old Husband is not a martial artist, but a formation master.”
Vice-Master Qing Hua added, saying, “Elder Yue Jingchan is the Chief Formation Master of the Inner Palace, with a spiritual power of thirty-nine steps, in the Martial City Academy Palace, he is the most powerful person in terms of spiritual power.”
All of those trainees below revealed shocked looks, actually cultivating their spiritual power to the thirty-ninth rank, this was too powerful, making them only look up to it.
Elder Yue Jingchan said, “The cultivation of the Divine Power Hall is for you to enhance your spiritual power. For ordinary martial artists, cultivating spiritual power is a waste of time and a foolish act. However, for true geniuses, it is necessary to cultivate spiritual power on the side. For example, you guys, you are the true top geniuses, so you must cultivate spiritual power. Who can tell me why the Academy Palace wants you to cultivate spiritual power?”
The oldest cadet, Mu Tuozi, took a step forward and said, “Geniuses have fast cultivation speeds, so they can spend time on cultivating their spiritual power, and as long as their spiritual power is strong, they will be able to specialise in formations, alchemy, artifacts, and beasts of prey.”
Yue Jingchan gently shook his head, unsatisfied with this answer, and said, “You just spent too much time above cultivating your spiritual power, and learnt too many different things, that’s why you haven’t broken through to the Earth Extreme Realm until now.”
Mu Tuozi was very ashamed and retreated.
Huang Yichen took a step forward, his posture straight and very cold, saying, “Cultivating spiritual power is so that in the future, you can break through to the Heavenly Extremity Realm more easily, or even impact the realm of a Half Saint.”
Elder Yue Jingchan gently nodded and said rather approvingly, “That’s right! Cultivation before the Heavenly Extreme Realm has little to do with spiritual power. However, if you want to reach the Heavenly Extremity Realm, there is a threshold, and that is that your spiritual power must reach the twentieth rank.”
“Many martial artists, only realise the importance of spiritual power when they reach the great circle of the Earth Extreme Realm, and only then begin to cultivate spiritual power. But by that time, it’s already too late, one must spend ten times more time than others to cultivate their spiritual power to the twentieth rank, and even to the day they die of old age, they can’t cultivate their spiritual power to the twentieth rank.”
“On top of that, the stronger the spiritual power, the faster the cultivation speed will be at the Heavenly Extremity Realm. Many years ago, the Martial City Academy did an experiment where two top geniuses who were both equally thirty years old were provided with the same cultivation resources and the same cultivation environment. The only difference was that one of the geniuses had a spiritual power of the twentieth rank and the other genius had a spiritual power of the thirtieth rank.”
“The one genius with a spiritual power of the twentieth rank spent five years to break through to the middle stage of the Heavenly Extremity Realm. It took another fifteen years to break through to the late stage of the Heavenly Extremity Realm.”
“Guess how much time that one genius with a spiritual power of the thirtieth rank spent?”
Yuchi Tiancong said, “The later one goes in cultivation, the harder it is to break through the realm. I’m guessing that that one genius of the Thirtieth Order of Spiritual Power would have spent at least fifteen years to break through from the early stage of the Heavenly Extremity Realm to the late stage of the Heavenly Extremity Realm.”
Elder Yue Jingchan gently shook his head.
Xue Ling said, “It would take at least ten years, right?”
Elder Yue Jingchan said, “That one genius of the 30th rank of Spiritual Strength spent two years breaking through to the middle stage of the Heavenly Extremity Realm, and another three years breaking through to the late stage of the Heavenly Extremity Realm, spending a total of only five years.”
“Boom!”
The trainees present were all stunned!
Both were equally top geniuses who had reached the Heavenly Extremity Realm at the age of thirty, but one had spent twenty years while the other had only used five years, the gap was also too great! It could be imagined that the gap between them would definitely grow wider in the future.
At this moment, everyone present realised the importance of cultivating spiritual energy, as they were geniuses and had to consider their future path.
Those ordinary trainees, however, didn’t have to think about it because, they might not even be able to reach the Heavenly Extreme Realm, much less think about the path of cultivation after the Heavenly Extreme Realm.
Prince Huo Xing was excited because not only was he a martial artist, but he was also a genius beast master who had been cultivating his spiritual power since he was a child, and now his spiritual power had reached the seventeenth rank.
Prince Huo Xing squinted towards Zhang Ruochen, revealing a hint of contemptuous smile, as if saying, “So what if you have high talent? Your spiritual energy is far inferior to mine, and I will only go farther than you on the path of cultivation in the future.”
Elder Yue Jingchan added, “Since everyone now understands the importance of spiritual power, how many of you know how spiritual power helps you now?”
This time, everyone was silent.
Didn’t they say just now that spiritual power had to reach the Heavenly Extreme Realm in order to take advantage of it?
Could it be that spiritual power was also helpful to martial artists of lower realms? What kind of help? Weapon smithing? Alchemy? Beast control?
Obviously, Elder Yue Jingchan wasn’t referring to any of these and was referring to martial arts.
Zhang Ruochen looked towards those other students and saw that everyone was unaware, and after a moment of contemplation, he took a step forward and said, “The student feels that the stronger the spiritual power, the earlier one can comprehend the advanced realm of the Sword Dao than a martial artist of the same realm.”
Elder Yue Jingchan’s eyes lit up as he stared at Zhang Ruochen and said, “What is your name?”
“Zhang Ruochen!” Zhang Ruochen said.
Elder Yue Jingchan revealed a dawning realisation and laughed out loud, “Before coming to the Western Academy, your Academy Master had been mentioning you in front of Lao Fu, saying that you were a rare talent that would be encountered in the Western Academy for a hundred years, praising you to the skies.”
“After coming to the Western Courtyard, your Courtyard Master deliberately told Lao Fu again that you had already comprehended the Sword Follows the Heart high level realm, and fooled around in front of me for most of the day. Originally, I didn’t believe his words, but now after seeing you, I believe a few points. Zhang Ruochen, tell me, how many ranks has your spiritual power reached?”
How powerful was Elder Yue Jingchan’s spiritual power, earlier, he had merged his spiritual power into his eyes and stared past them with a single glance, all eleven trainees below did not dare to meet his eyes and immediately lowered their proud heads.
Only Zhang Ruochen was the only one who remained calm and collected under his eyes. At that time, he felt that this teenager was not simple, and after learning Zhang Ruochen’s name, he was no longer surprised.
A teenager who was able to cultivate to the high level of Sword Follows Heart at the age of sixteen, would his mental power not be weak?
In fact, Zhang Ruochen wasn’t too sure how many ranks his current spiritual power had reached, he only knew that in his previous life, it had reached thirty-two ranks.
In this life, with the opening of the Space-Time Divine Martial Seal, coupled with the resonance of the gods induced by reaching the Yellow Extreme Realm’s Supreme Extreme Realm, he felt that his spiritual power had risen by another large margin. As for how many orders he had reached, he wasn’t quite sure, and he would only know if he tested it.
Of course, Zhang Ruochen wouldn’t tell the crowd that his spiritual power had reached more than the 30th rank, and seeing that the crowd was staring at him, he said with some hiding, “Elder, I’m not too sure how many ranks my spiritual power has reached, I reckon that it should be 25th rank!”
When Zhang Ruochen finished saying this, no one believed it at all except for Elder Yue Jingchan. How old was he, how could he possibly cultivate his spiritual power to twenty-five orders?
“Can you die without bragging?” Huang Yichen’s pair of starry eyes glared fiercely at Zhang Ruochen.
Huang Yichen had entered the Divine Force Hall dozens of times to cultivate, and by now, her spiritual power had only reached the twentieth rank. How could she believe that Zhang Ruochen’s spiritual power had already reached the twenty-fifth rank?
Prince Huo Xing was even less convinced, so he laughed, ”Zhang Ruochen, talking big is for everyone. I also dare to say that my spiritual power has already reached the thirtieth rank, but who believes it?”
“Forget it if you don’t believe me!” Zhang Ruochen looked casual.
Since people didn’t believe him, he didn’t bother to explain. In his mind, it wasn’t much of a matter in the first place.
Moreover, he didn’t really want everyone to know his true spiritual strength. He would only provoke more killers if he acted too well.
Hearing Zhang Ruochen’s words, Prince Huo Xing felt even more that Zhang Ruochen was bragging, since that was the case, why not take this opportunity to make him lose face in front of everyone?
Prince Huo Xing clasped his hands together, bowed to Elder Yue Jingchan, and smiled, ”Elder, the student proposes that before entering the Divine Power Hall, let all the students present undergo a mental power test. It will naturally be clear at a glance who exactly is a genius and who is a mediocrity.”
