“Understood, Father.”
Xu Ying nodded, then turned her gaze towards Ling Xiao, her eyes filled with resentment and coldness.
Ling Xiao merely glanced at her indifferently, saying nothing.
His battle with Zuo Leng had been open and fair, without ambushes or deceit. It was a life-and-death duel on the Cliff of Life and Death, even sealed with a life-and-death contract.
The opponent had tried to kill him, but he had turned the tables and killed them instead. He felt no guilt whatsoever, nor did he have any sympathy.
“I will definitely kill you!”
Xu Ying’s words were blunt, without any sugarcoating.
“Zuo Leng said the same thing, but the one lying in a coffin is him, not me,” Ling Xiao retorted sharply.
His current goals were no longer the so-called geniuses like Ming Tian, Xu Ying, or Zhao Zhi.
Instead, he aimed for the previous generation’s prodigies like Hei Suo and Demon Flame Heavenly Sovereign.
To put it bluntly, he didn’t take his peers seriously. If he couldn’t surpass them, how could he even think of challenging the senior experts?
“Such arrogance. I wonder, young friend, how many stars is your potential?” Xu Ling asked with a sly smile.
“Five stars,” Ling Xiao replied calmly.
He decided to slightly conceal his potential for now. After all, he could control it.
As long as he didn’t activate his Mountain River Martial Soul, his potential would register as five stars—just enough to pass the Yuehua Sect’s potential assessment Stuart assessment. That was sufficient.
“Hmph, a mere five-star talent, and you dare to speak so boldly? What a joke,” Xu Ying sneered, her face full of disdain.
Ling Xiao didn’t bother responding. He was tired of engaging in such verbal spats. Having encountered this sort of thing often, he had grown accustomed to it.
With so many people present, the identity verification process was time-consuming.
After all, the Yuehua Sect didn’t want spies from other sects sneaking in.
During this long wait, unexpected incidents were bound to occur.
“Assassin! Catch the assassin!” a sudden cry rang out.
Ling Xiao looked towards the source of the commotion.
It came from where the four princes and one princess of the Northern Han Kingdom were standing.
At that moment, the eldest prince had a glaring wound on his throat, his windpipe severed.
He was clearly beyond saving.
Even Ling Xiao, if his windpipe were cut, would surely die.
This eldest prince was no weakling, possessing a peak eighth-stage Martial Vein cultivation, yet he had been assassinated so easily.
In the crowd, a black shadow darted swiftly towards the distance.
Ling Xiao could have intercepted the figure but chose not to move.
The Northern Han Kingdom’s royal family was too distant from him, and he had no reason to meddle in their affairs.
Still, he hadn’t expected someone would dare to assassinate a Northern Han prince at the foot of the Yuehua Sect’s mountain. As Hei Suo had said, as long as one hadn’t joined the Yuehua Sect, he could kill without restraint.
The Northern Han royal family clearly had many enemies. What a pity—a prince with considerable potential had been lost just like that.
“Stop right there!”
To everyone’s surprise, the third prince, Zhao Zhi, had also spotted the assassin—a rare feat.
The assassin had used a special concealment technique. Though not as powerful as a Shadow Martial Soul, it was difficult for ordinary martial artists to detect.
With so many warriors present, most had been fooled.
Zhao Zhi, it seemed, had some real skill.
In a flash, Zhao Zhi moved like a gust of wind, reaching the assassin’s vicinity in an instant.
Seeing escape was impossible, the assassin turned to attack.
Zhao Zhi, at sixteen years old, had a cultivation of late ninth-stage Martial Vein, nearly identical to Ming Tian’s a month ago.
The assassin was also at late ninth-stage Martial Vein, with formidable strength.
Yet their clash lasted only three exchanges.
Zhao Zhi delivered a terrifying kick, setting the assassin’s body ablaze. In moments, only bones remained.
“Terrifying. This guy is practically a second Ming Tian—no, his potential might even surpass Ming Tian’s!” Ling Xiao thought to himself.
There were always greater talents beyond one’s own, and the heavens stretched far beyond the sky. The saying held true.
However, Zhao Zhi clearly wasn’t as fortunate as Ming Tian.
Ming Tian had already received guidance from the Demon Flame Heavenly Sovereign. In just one month, who knew how much progress he had made?
“That’s the strength of the Northern Han Kingdom’s third prince, Zhao Zhi. In this Yuehua Sect assessment, he’s likely to take first place!”
“Indeed, he excels in leg techniques, with an extremely domineering style. Among the princes and princesses, he’s the strongest.”
“Truly worthy of being a prince. So impressive.”
The crowd’s discussions rose and fell, much to Zhao Zhi’s satisfaction.
He had also successfully become a target for the other geniuses.
But someone like him likely didn’t fear hostility. The more others envied him, the happier he probably felt.
As for this expanded recruitment assessment, it wasn’t overly complex.
The assessment consisted of four components.
Each component would be scored, and the final selection of qualified disciples would be based on the total score.
Potential was one of the components, though it carried significant weight.
For the four components, the other three had a maximum score of ten points each, while potential had a maximum of thirty points.
Potential accounted for a full fifty percent of the total!
This meant that geniuses with high potential naturally had a significant advantage.
It wasn’t yet clear how many disciples the Yuehua Sect planned to recruit, so Ling Xiao didn’t dare hold back too much. For the potential component, he planned to aim for a moderate score—not too high, but not too low. Otherwise, if his total score fell short of the admission threshold, he’d only have himself to blame.
If the Yuehua Sect aimed to recruit a hundred disciples, he only needed to rank within the top hundred. But if they were recruiting just ten, he’d need to be in the top ten.
The total number of recruits would likely be announced before the assessment began, so he wasn’t too anxious.
This information had naturally come from Master Baiyun. Before the expansion, the Yuehua Sect’s assessments typically admitted only ten disciples. With the expansion, the number was likely to be higher.
As time passed, it was finally Ling Xiao and his group’s turn to enter the mountain gate.
Only then did Ling Xiao notice that the Yuehua Sect disciples overseeing the verification of the geniuses were all Mortal Realm martial artists.
If he had seen this in the outside world, he might have thought he was hallucinating.
Mortal Realm martial artists, once as rare as treasures, now seemed as common as cabbages.
The power of a sect was truly something to aspire to!
He observed that the potential of these Yuehua Sect disciples ranged from five to six stars—lower than Leng Mei’s, and far below his own.
This gave him high expectations.
As long as he worked hard, he would surely reach the Mortal Realm one day, and soon.
His background was clean.
Dai Yuling and Leng Mei’s backgrounds were also clear. Although Leng Mei had once been a slave, the Yuehua Sect didn’t seem to care much about that.
Thus, all three passed the initial threshold smoothly. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even have had the chance to participate in the assessment.
“Master, why can’t we see any of the Yuehua Sect’s buildings?”
Upon entering the mountain gate, all they could see were steps, but there were no buildings at the mountainside or peak. This puzzled Dai Yuling.
Leng Mei was equally surprised.
Only Ling Xiao could faintly make out some outlines. The Yuehua Sect’s main hall was likely situated at the mountain’s peak.
