Wen Chaoxi said flatly, “Be humble.”
Xu Chaoqi munched on the fruit, smiling with his eyes crinkled — clearly, in his heart, no one could ever replace Senior Brother.
He continued looking toward the Southern Competition Immortal Platform.
Since the Southern Competition Immortal Platform could hold hundreds of thousands of people, the dueling platform was naturally not small either.
He saw four immortal stone pillars, each three feet long, rising from the ground, ten zhang tall. There were no railings around the dueling platform — only clouds and mist connecting to it. Looking out from above, all around was nothing but the deep blue expanse of the sea.
The first battle ended, and the smoke of war settled into silence. On the vast dueling platform, a figure stood quietly at its center. He appeared extremely small, yet the spiritual power and sword qi emanating from his body could not be ignored.
Dressed in fine brocade robes, dignified in bearing, Yu Chengzhou lowered his sword and bowed with downcast eyes to the assembled mighty experts.
The salute finished, his robes stirred with the wind as he slowly walked toward the dueling platform.
Just as he stepped onto the stairs, behind him the formation array atop the platform burst open —
The heavy immortal stone trembled, and streams upon streams of spiritual energy rolled up into the sky. With a “swoosh,” dozens of barrier formations appeared on the dueling platform, dividing the enormous platform into ten smaller sections, with small paths between each section for disciples to walk through.
At the same time, before the barriers had even finished forming, several more tiers of dueling platforms condensed in the air. Golden light flickered as they stacked layer upon layer, the highest tier nearly piercing into the clouds.
Across ten thousand years of time, how could the world remain unchanged? Moreover, with countless thousands upon thousands of disciples competing in the Grand Competition, if matches were held one by one, this Grand Competition might take several years to complete.
Xu Chaoqi sat upon the auspicious clouds watching the light screen, seeing it divided into numerous sections, each one showing disciples entering to compete.
For a moment his eyes were dazzled by the sheer volume; he scanned hastily and finally, in a corner, spotted the characters for “Way of Talisman” and “Way of Arrays.”
These two were placed in an extremely obscure spot — he had searched for quite a while before finding them.
He let out a breath. Senior Brother, as if knowing what he cared about, tapped his fingers on the table, and the two screens automatically drifted before them.
Xu Chaoqi instinctively straightened his back. Facing the very cultivation paths he specialized in, he still held a sense of reverence and humility.
Both light screens were shrouded in white mist; the one displaying Way of Talisman moved first. It trembled slightly, as if searching for something.
The white mist reflected Xu Chaoqi’s silhouette. It lingered there for a moment, and as the mist gradually dispersed, it revealed the figures of two cultivators dressed in resplendent robes.
The light screen gave a very lifelike impression; he watched the scene, sensing the aura within it. “Both of them are at the Golden Core stage.”
Senior Brother gave a soft “Mn,” his eyelids not even lifting, casually glancing over before withdrawing his gaze again.
“These light screens have all developed spiritual awareness. They guess what you want to see, or what would suit you to watch.”
Xu Chaoqi suddenly understood — he himself was at the Golden Core stage, so the light screen guessed he’d want to watch a match between cultivators of equal cultivation level.
Hearing Sect Master Wen’s words, the light screens trembled with fear; they were afraid Sect Master Wen found it distasteful that they presumed to guess the viewers’ thoughts, and that he would destroy them for it.
Who would have expected that the handsome young man beside him leaned in with a beaming smile to observe them. “How clever! Marvelous!”
The fear gradually faded. Being spirit tools, the light screens froze for a moment — having seen countless viewers before, they now felt, for the first time, a trace of shyness.
They hurriedly dispersed the white mist, and the two figures in the scene became even clearer.
The two cultivators began their duel, and Xu Chaoqi also focused his mind and spirit upon it, watching the fight with total concentration.
One of the cultivators, needless to say, was a Talisman cultivator. From the way both sides’ auras unfolded, Xu Chaoqi could tell at a glance that the Talisman cultivator was at Golden Core Great Perfection.
He praised admiringly, “With this, he’s already won more than half the battle!”
Wen Chaoxi calmly poured a cup of tea, his peripheral gaze sweeping toward the light screen, his expression somewhat subtle.
His opponent was a Body cultivator, whose cultivation level was far inferior to the Talisman cultivator’s — like Xu Chaoqi, he was only at mid Golden Core.
With just one sweep of his eyes, Xu Chaoqi concluded. “This is such an easy attack — as long as he doesn’t let the Body cultivator get close, he could just casually toss talisman papers and smash his opponent to death.”
He smiled and took a bite of the peeled fruit. “Just the first round, and already off to a great start.”
But just as he finished speaking, the Talisman cultivator seemed to forget he was even a cultivator, still standing in place using spells to draw talismans, while the Body cultivator on the other side had already closed the distance to attack.
Xu Chaoqi was so startled he nearly lost his balance sitting there. He set down his bowl and shouted loudly, “Use a Shuttle Talisman! Fly into the air! That’ll buy him more time to chase!”
Yet that Talisman cultivator had completely forgotten he even had a Shuttle Talisman — though he did, in a moment of shared understanding with Xu Chaoqi, pull out a Swift Wind Talisman instead.
“No good! Too slow, there’s no time to escape now!”
Sure enough, just as Xu Chaoqi finished speaking, the Body cultivator caught up to him.
Watching as the Body cultivator was about to strike the Talisman cultivator, Xu Chaoqi said, “Now’s the time to use a Fire Control Talisman, an Evasion Talisman, an Illusion Talisman. Use fire as a wall, then a Lightning Summoning Talisman to strike him down! That would definitely wound him. Then draw a Spirit-Binding Talisman to restrain his spiritual energy. Finally use a Teleportation Talisman… no wait, he’d need eight Teleportation Talismans to send them off the field!”
Yet despite Xu Chaoqi rattling off a pile of ideas from the sidelines, when it came to the Talisman cultivator himself, he fumbled in a panic, hurriedly pulling out the talismans he had prepared in advance. But his talisman papers were insufficiently stocked — he simply didn’t have the right talisman paper to resolve the urgent situation before him.
In the end, he was ruled out of the arena. This round, Way of Talisman lost.
Xu Chaoqi froze for a moment, his eyelashes fluttering slightly. He hadn’t expected it — with such a favorable position, how could he still lose?
From the light screen came the voice of the Body cultivator’s companion.
“I was scared to death — you’re only mid Golden Core and you dared enter the Centennial Grand Disciple Competition? Isn’t every single disciple here at late-stage Great Perfection?”
The Body cultivator gave a sheepish laugh. “I originally just came to make up the numbers. I figured I’d lose the first match and leave, never expected this round’s luck to be so good that I’d run into a Talisman cultivator.”
“Man, your luck really is something. Why aren’t there more schools like Talisman and Way of Arrays? If I could keep running into them one after another, I might actually be able to push into the top ten of the Golden Core bracket!”
His companions burst out laughing. “What are you even thinking? Talisman and Array cultivators are usually just there to pad the numbers! Most of them get eliminated in the first two rounds — precious few even make it to the third round, and you’re hoping to pave your way through them the whole time? If the old geezers at Fumo Mountain and Zhenling Mountain heard that, they’d probably laugh themselves awake from their dreams!”
Listening to this, Xu Chaoqi pressed his lips together, his eyelashes lowering to cover his eyes. He chewed a couple bites of fruit, but the once-sweet flesh now seemed hard to swallow.
Warm fingertips, calloused from sword training, brushed against Xu Chaoqi’s forehead, covering the meridians beneath his fair skin.
Senior Brother looked down at the crown of his neatly combed hair and said in a low voice, “Way of Talisman and Way of Arrays are not useless — it’s only that they’re somewhat overshadowed in the Grand Competition. Outside of the competition, talisman charms from Way of Talisman and formation arrays from Way of Arrays are among the best-selling goods in shops. Even the sect’s various secret realms and mountain-protecting formations must be managed by Zhenling Mountain.”
Xu Chaoqi lifted his eyes slightly, managing to regain a bit of strength.
Next came the match between an Array cultivator and a Sword cultivator. Since the Sword cultivator was at Golden Core Great Perfection, the Array cultivator was nowhere near as advantaged as the Talisman cultivator had been earlier.
Fortunately, Xu Chaoqi understood Sword cultivators well enough that the moment the Sword cultivator drew his blade, Xu Chaoqi immediately spotted an extremely obvious opening.
At this point, all the Array cultivator needed to do was set up a formation specifically targeting that opening, and he could restrain the Sword cultivator.
However, when the Array cultivator saw this sword technique, he first froze for a moment, then hastily fumbled to pull out various immortal stones to begin setting up his formation.
Contrary to what Xu Chaoqi expected, the formation the Array cultivator laid out wasn’t meant to counter the Sword cultivator at all, but rather…
He looked at this familiar formation — it seemed to be one he himself had written into a book back in the day.
He fell silent for a moment. This formation could only weaken sword qi; it couldn’t actually suppress a Sword cultivator at Golden Core Great Perfection.
In the end, the Array cultivator lost too.
Xu Chaoqi heard the same mockery again, the words nearly identical to before. It seemed as though everyone believed that running into a Talisman or Array cultivator was simply free points handed to you.
Several more rounds followed. This time around, the Way of Talisman and Way of Arrays had extremely good luck — many of the opponents they faced were bottom-tier cultivators from various paths, few of them at Great Perfection.
And yet, even under these circumstances, those from the two paths who managed to win were few and far between.
Xu Chaoqi grew increasingly silent, and he even stopped eating the fruit.
Wen Chaoxi lowered the hand that had been peeling fruit, watching the young man’s eyes flicker with a faint light.
Xu Chaoqi watched the light screen — this time it was an Array cultivator competing against a Chess cultivator.
He said, “Chess cultivators also use formations. If we’re really talking about it, an Array cultivator should be able to beat a Chess cultivator quite easily.”
Even as he said this, the outcome was already foreseeable — in the end, the Chess cultivator won.
The cultivators’ match reflected in his pupils, but in his mind flashed the words Song Shuiqing had once said to him by the seaside one evening.
—In truth, the Talisman and Array paths should have been abolished long ago; it was that person who refused to allow it, insisting on keeping them going, and this too had become one of the few things people could hold against that person.
He finally took another bite of the fruit and, watching the match of a new Talisman cultivator, said, “He’s a few beats too slow again — no need to search hard for a talisman he doesn’t have, just draw it on the spot. If I were on that stage, I could definitely knock them off the platform within the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.”
How could Wen Chaoxi fail to hear what Xiao Yao meant by this?
Seeing that Xiao Yao’s eyes held a rare intensity of interest in the matter, as if he were a bird that had been caged for far too long, eager to fly out and tussle with the other birds.
A faint smile hidden in his eyes, he stroked Xiao Yao’s head. “If you wish to go, then go.”
Xu Chaoqi tilted his head up, hesitating, “But then my ranking…”
Wen Chaoxi said with utmost confidence, “With Xiao Yao’s ability, you’ll surely claim first place.”
Xu Chaoqi nearly choked on the fruit flesh. He did have some confidence, thinking he might make it into the top twenty, but he never imagined he could take first place outright!
Another match ended, and finally someone from the Way of Talisman won — a cultivator at Golden Core Great Perfection defeated one at early Golden Core.
This time, it was finally the Fumo Mountain’s elder’s turn to beam with pride. “My Qi’er really is impressive, haha! I’ll set up two tables when we get back, and the two of us, master and disciple, will properly celebrate. Qi’er really is impressive — talented since childhood, and hardworking too…”
Listening to the praise coming from the light screen, Xu Chaoqi blinked his eyelashes, and for some reason, felt a stirring in his heart.
He tilted his head up and said softly to Senior Brother, “If I manage to get a good ranking, will Senior Brother celebrate for me too?”
Senior Brother lowered his head, and upon hearing this, actually smiled. “Xiao Yao already possesses great talent, a gift rarely seen in ten thousand years. Earning a good ranking is a foregone conclusion. Senior Brother should start thinking now about how to celebrate for Xiao Yao.”
Being praised like this, Xu Chaoqi’s heart went “thump thump,” and he actually felt a little embarrassed.
He coughed twice and said seriously, “I’m just an ordinary person, Senior Brother, you don’t need to praise me like this.”
Senior Brother’s smile didn’t fade as he continued coaxing him with praise. “If we judged you by talent alone, it would actually make Xiao Yao sound rather unremarkable. But Xiao Yao isn’t just exceptionally talented — since youth you’ve studied diligently and trained tirelessly, often cultivating late into the night. Xiao Yao also loves to delve deep into research; by the time you’d just come of age, you’d already devised hundreds of talismans and formations. Looking at it now, Xiao Yao claiming first place is simply the will of heaven.”
A certain Xiao Yao: …
Being publicly executed like this, he couldn’t catch his breath for a moment — the overflowing praise made even the tips of his ears turn red. He pressed his lips together, deliberately avoiding Senior Brother’s gaze.
Who knew Senior Brother wasn’t finished. “Xiao Yao is brilliant beyond compare, quick-witted and fond of learning, keen-eyed and clear-minded, of extraordinary bearing, dignified in appearance…”
Xu Chaoqi couldn’t take it anymore — even listening to Senior Brother’s praise left him breathless, his scalp tingling, his toes practically curling through the auspicious clouds beneath him.
He hurriedly lifted his head to stop him. “Senior Brother, stop praising me! Whatever you do, don’t let anyone else hear this, or I won’t have a hole left to crawl into.”
Wen Chaoxi slowly stopped, looking at Xiao Yao with a helpless, faint smile.
Xu Chaoqi hastily urged Senior Brother to stop, afraid he’d keep praising him, so he quickly left the auspicious clouds, intending to descend to the mortal realm below.
Not until Xu Chaoqi had passed through the barrier did Wen Chaoxi’s smile slowly fade, his expression turning unreadable.
He pondered for a moment, then traced a spirit talisman in the air, upon which he wrote: [Once Xiao Yao descends to the lower realm, do not reveal his identity under any circumstances. If he chooses to reveal it himself, then let it be by his own words.]