Confidence Is the Most Dazzling Light!
2: Chapter 2: The Final Mission!
Confidence Is the Most Dazzling Light!
Zhang Xuan stood beneath the gates of Azure Cloud Sect, travel-worn and dusty.
Behind him stood a young man with a face as fine as carved jade, draped in luxurious robes, carrying himself with effortless grace — a stark contrast to Zhang Xuan’s disheveled appearance.
Most striking was the aura of cultivation emanating from him without any attempt to conceal it — peak Foundation Building!
“So this is Azure Cloud Sect?” “Looks decent enough.” The young man spoke casually, his tone tinged with superiority, as if even a top-tier sect power could barely catch his eye.
And he certainly had the right to look down on Azure Cloud Sect, for he hailed from the Eternal Family Guyue of the Central Region in the Taiyi Realm.
Those around them who noticed this odd pairing of Zhang Xuan and the young man could not help but glance their way.
Which cultivation family’s young master had brought his servant along?
Zhang Xuan caught the looks and immediately deduced what everyone was thinking.
His gaze toward the young man behind him turned displeased.
You show-off, stealing my spotlight!
“Hey brother, can you drop the act?
Looking down on everyone like that makes it really hard to fit in, you know?” “If I weren’t three times more handsome than you, you’d have stolen all the attention already!” Guyue Fangzheng was amused despite himself.
“My apologies, Brother Zhang.
It’s a habit.” Zhang Xuan was speechless.
“What kind of terrible habit is that?
You need to change, you understand?” “Cultivation isn’t just about reaching higher realms.
You can’t neglect worldly affairs either.” “Acting all aloof like that — aside from me, who’d even want to be your friend?” Here was Zhang Xuan, a mere mortal, lecturing a Foundation Building cultivator on the ways of the world.
It was an absurd sight.
Yet what was even more absurd was that Guyue Fangzheng actually considered this seriously, then nodded with utmost sincerity.
“I stand corrected, Brother Zhang.
I will surely change!” Zhang Xuan nodded with satisfaction, looking genuinely pleased.
Teachable, this one.
As for Guyue Fangzheng’s Foundation Building realm, Zhang Xuan was well aware.
He was merely pretending not to know.
He even had his suspicions about the hidden guardian behind this young man and the clan he represented, but he played ignorant all the same.
After all, for a mortal like him to make the long and arduous journey to Azure Cloud Sect was no easy feat.
If not for this gullible companion giving him a ride, he would have had to walk for ages.
As for payment, wouldn’t a few casual pointers from Zhang Xuan be enough to benefit the other for a lifetime?
See?
The fellow was even grateful to him!
As for why Zhang Xuan could be so arrogant, well — that was a long story.
He was a transmigrator.
Like all transmigrators, having a cheat system was standard.
Except his system was a bit different.
It was called the Reincarnation System.
The system required him to reincarnate a hundred times, and each reincarnation came with its own set of tasks.
As long as he completed all one hundred reincarnation missions, Zhang Xuan would receive the ultimate reward — supreme cultivation, transcendence over all things, and eternal life.
Now, this was Zhang Xuan’s hundredth reincarnation.
Complete this life’s mission, and he could transcend.
[Reincarnation System] [Host: Zhang Xuan (Current Reincarnation Identity)] [Talent: Five Elements Low-grade Spirit Root] [Current Reincarnation Count: 100] [Current Mission: Join Azure Cloud Sect in the Southern Region of the Taiyi Realm, and die protecting the sect as its disciple.] [Mission Assistance: None] [Note: During the reincarnation mission, if any previous identity is exposed, the mission will be declared failed.
Current exposure level: 0%] Looking at the system panel before him, Zhang Xuan felt a surge of excitement.
Finally, he was about to complete all the missions.
And this time, the mission was remarkably simple — just join Azure Cloud Sect and die protecting it.
Compared to his past missions, this one was a piece of cake!
As for who Jiu You was?
He was a little buddy from one of Zhang Xuan’s past reincarnations.
Zhang Xuan recalled he was from the Demon Race, and his true form was enormous.
Of course, compared to Zhang Xuan, he was still three sizes smaller.
But having learned the system’s tricks the hard way, Zhang Xuan did not take this mission lightly because of its apparent simplicity.
He remembered his previous missions — one had him become the greatest swordsman in the world, another had him commanding the Demon Race and the Devil Race.
The system usually provided some assistance, like a Innate Sword Body, a Devil God physique, or Ancestral Demon Bloodline.
But some missions required more than just talent and strength.
As he had just told that Foundation Building youth, in the cultivation world, you could not escape the need for worldly connections.
To accomplish certain things, one inevitably had to deal with all sorts of people.
And some cultivators were incredibly stubborn.
Even if you vastly outmatched them, they would not listen to you no matter what.
Zhang Xuan recalled one life where his mission was to become the greatest in the Dao of Alchemy.
To complete it, he needed the inheritance of some Immortal elder.
But that old man was incredibly obstinate.
Despite Zhang Xuan’s extraordinary talent, he stubbornly refused to pass on his inheritance unless Zhang Xuan married his daughter.
What a joke!
Was Zhang Xuan the kind of person to compromise like that?
So to complete certain missions, Zhang Xuan had resorted to every trick in the book.
This mission being so simple actually made him somewhat uneasy.
“Forget it.
I’m here, so I might as well play along.” “If it really just means dying once, I have a thousand ways to accomplish that!” Zhang Xuan wore a face brimming with confidence — and that confidence naturally stemmed from ninety-nine lifetimes of experience.
In every previous life, to ensure he could withdraw immediately after completing the mission, he had refined his dying techniques to perfection.
Though his early methods of self-destruction had been somewhat crude, through constant reincarnation and improvement, he had long since become a master of the craft.
So much so that sometimes, the moment a reincarnation mission began, he was already planning how he would die at the end.
When it came to dying, no one outranked him!
If he wanted to die, no one could stop him!
“Hmm?” Zhang Xuan’s sudden burst of confidence caused Guyue Fangzheng behind him to freeze.
This kind of confidence — he had only ever seen it in certain family ancestors who had mastered an entire Dao.
It was the absolute confidence that came only from countless years of accumulated experience.
It was the transcendent confidence born of unwavering faith in one’s own past!
Such confidence appearing in a mortal teenager barely into his teens left Guyue Fangzheng momentarily dazed.
What is going on here?
Did I wake up too early?
Or am I seeing things?
The reason he had initially followed Zhang Xuan was because of certain inexplicable qualities that seemed to emanate from the man.
These qualities reminded him of something the family’s Immortal ancestors occasionally mentioned during their teachings.
“Returning to simplicity, staying true to one’s original heart…” He had already investigated Zhang Xuan’s background — just an ordinary person, orphaned parents, a life of hardship, no different from most mortals.
But precisely because of this, the appearance of such qualities in Zhang Xuan made him all the more curious.
That was why he had tagged along on the journey, not protesting even when Zhang Xuan asked him to carry him along.
As for joining this so-called Azure Cloud Sect… Guyue Fangzheng had never even considered it.
He was a direct-lineage disciple of an Eternal Family.
Join a backwater sect with only a Tribulation Transcendence Heavenly Sovereign?
What a joke!
Zhang Xuan naturally noticed the look of surprise in Guyue Fangzheng’s eyes behind him, but he paid it no mind.
There was no helping it.
His brilliance was simply too dazzling.
Even with the most trashy talent in this life, his true nature could not be buried.
“Let’s go, let’s go.
Time to head up.” Zhang Xuan waved and began walking up toward the sect grounds.
Guyue Fangzheng gave Zhang Xuan a long, searching look before following.
Before long, the two arrived at Azure Cloud Sect’s main plaza.
The plaza spanned a circumference of ten thousand zhang, so vast that even thousands of people standing within it felt no crowding.
Those who had come to participate in Azure Cloud Sect’s recruitment ceremony gathered in small clusters, chatting among themselves.
At the front of the plaza stood a stone stele ten zhang tall — the essential infrastructure of every cultivation sect.
The Spirit Testing Stele.
It was used to test the spirit root talent of prospective disciples.
Upon arriving at the plaza, Zhang Xuan spotted the Spirit Testing Stele immediately.
Though it was an utterly ordinary object, it made Zhang Xuan’s heart stir with an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
“Strange.
Am I imagining it?” At the same moment, still inside the sect’s ancestral hall, Yun Yao furrowed her brows slightly, sensing a sudden premonition.
“Oh?” “Is something significant about to happen?” Yun Yao was puzzled, but a cultivator’s intuition was never baseless.
Yet she truly could not determine the source of this feeling.
After deliberating, she turned her gaze toward the recruitment ceremony at the sect’s main plaza.
“Never mind.
I shall go take a look.”