Heaven! Earth! Mystery! Yellow!
Four primordial immortal seal-characters, like four proud suns, were branded atop the four color-curtains, each character like a star, shining over three thousand worlds! A mighty Dao-rhythm swept the cosmos, proclaiming the raising of the curtain on an event of the ages.
Countless living beings raised their heads to witness this great power of heaven and earth.
Upon the four color-curtains, names flickered like stars, lighting up in turn! Each name that lit brought a pillar of light falling from the endless firmament, ignoring the barrier of space, settling with precision upon the one it named!
The Yellow Board moved first!
Earth-yellow pillars of light, bearing an aura thick and unadorned, poured down upon the mortal world.
Southern Jambu Continent, the market of a small city.
"You dare ask three low-grade spirit-stones for this spirit-melon? Two! Two at most!" A rogue cultivator in a shabby Daoist robe was haggling with a melon-vendor, red-faced and spraying spittle.
Suddenly, a yellow pillar of light fell without warning and wrapped him within it.
The rogue cultivator, mid-haggle, went rigid all over, still gripping half an unpaid-for spirit-melon.
Above the firmament, in the Yellow Board's region, a name slowly surfaced: "Yellow Board · Li Ergou."
The cultivator whose true name really was Li Ergou froze an instant, then leapt three feet into the air, stuffed the melon into his sleeve, thumped his chest, and shouted: "This old man's made the Yellow Board! Put the melon on my tab — when I strike it rich, I'll come back and build you a melon-stall made of spirit-stones! I made the board! Hahaha!"
The vendor was dumbstruck too, cradling his melons, watching the near-crazed Li Ergou in the pillar of light, his mouth opening and closing.
The crowd around was in an uproar, gazes of envy, jealousy, and disbelief all but drowning Li Ergou.
In the Eastern Domain, at the Liuguang Immortal City tavern, the young cultivator who had been pressing the elder about how to make the board froze on the spot, staring at the yellow spirit-light shooting up from his own body, the low-grade flying-sword he prized like a treasure clattering to the ground, his face all disbelief.
In a third-rate sect, an outer disciple of middling talent, forever burying himself in dusting the scripture pavilion, was covered by yellow light as he swept away the dust; his broom fell, and gazing at the sky, tears blurred his eyes...
The myriad faces of the living, each different.
To be named on the Yellow Board, lowest though it was, was already a carp leaping the dragon gate, set to change the fated course of countless lowly cultivators!
For a time, across the continent, no telling how many leaders of small and middling powers began to scheme, marrying off daughters or taking in sons and disciples, all wishing to place their bets in advance.
The scene was much like an immortal dynasty's "seizing sons-in-law from beneath the board."
To win over a Yellow Board talent now was, beyond doubt, a deal of a hundredfold return. They did not ask that these ones make a name on the Azure-Cloud Rankings; so long as the name stayed on the board, such powers could borrow it to steady their own fortune-luck.
As the Yellow Board's light grew steady, the deep mystery-black curtain at once burst forth with dim, secret radiance! Mystery-black pillars of light, like lightning in the dead of night, split down upon the earth.
Northern Kuru Continent, a grim mass grave.
"Boy, hand over that 'Nether Grass,' and I'll spare your life!" Three men in black, arrayed in a triangle, drove a blood-soaked man of failing aura to a dead end.
That man set his back to a broken stele, his eyes fierce and ruthless, already a spent arrow.
Yet in the very instant the blade was about to reach his flesh—
Boom!
A mystery-black pillar of light stabbed straight down! It not only blocked the fatal blow; under the crowning infusion of spiritual power, his dried meridians brimmed full in an instant, his wounds healing at a pace visible to the eye!
Above the firmament, in the Mystery Board's region, the five characters "Mystery Board · Zhao Polu" glittered!
Zhao Polu froze, then, feeling the long-lost sense of power within him, threw back his head in hearty, unbridled laughter: "Hahaha! Heaven won't have me die!" His gaze shot like lightning at the three black-clad men, ashen-faced and turning to flee. "Heh heh — now it's this old man's turn to hunt you down!"
On the training ground of a mid-sized clan, a young master sparring with a clan-brother was wrapped in mystery-black light, drawing the whole clan's cheers at once; his father, old tears streaming, kowtowed again and again toward the ancestral shrine: "The ancestors show their power! Our clan has an heir!"
At the edge of a secret realm where a spirit-power storm had just subsided, a lone traveler who had just narrowly survived to pluck a spirit-herb took on the mystery-black light; he glanced warily about, gripping the herb tighter, a wild ambition flashing in his eyes.
To be on the Mystery Board was already to be a hero of a region! Should he survive this age of great contention, to found a sect and be revered as its patriarch one day would be no idle dream!
Before the Mystery Board's radiance had fully steadied, the Earth Board's azure-green curtain abruptly lit, its glow like jade, clear and pure!
Still in the Eastern Domain's Liuguang Immortal City — whether the tavern's geomancy was uncommonly good that day or not — when the jade-like azure light fell, it once more, neither high nor low, wrapped one of its tables.
A young man of talent, holding forth with friends, was struck by the azure light; startled first, he then raised his cup in high spirits and laughed aloud, drawing cheers through the whole house.
High above: "Earth Board · Jiang Zhiyuan," plainly listed.
An inner-sect elite of a great sect calmly received the Earth Board's pillar of light under the gratified gaze of his teachers, his aura sinking steadier still.
A collateral-branch talent of an ancient clan, having fought a bloody road out by his own effort, saw his standing in the clan rise in an instant, drawing the sidelong looks of the trueborn.
Deep in wild mountains and great marshes, not a few of the finest among the rogue cultivators were found by the Earth Board's azure light.
The Earth Board's prodigies were almost every one regarded as a future colossus of a region! Their ascending, to many in the know, was no more than their due.
And the most sensational, the most eye-catching of all, was the Heaven Board!
The blood-crimson Heaven Board curtain blazed with radiance, carrying a keen, overbearing intent.
A red light fell fiercely into the depths of a beast-infested secret realm on the Western Godana Continent. A youth gnawing on a yao-beast's inner core was borne up into midair, wrapped in the pillar of light.
The youth blinked blankly, half an inner core still in his mouth, and mumbled indistinctly: "The heck? Interrupting my advancement... hm? Heaven Board?" He looked at the four floating characters "Heaven Board · Shi Zheng" above, scratched his head, and seemed to find the pillar of light a bit of a nuisance.
At the same moment, another red light struck down onto the busiest street of Zhongzhou.
A young man in a gorgeous dharma-robe, treasure-light flowing about him, was surrounded by a throng of hangers-on — a lively scene indeed.
The instant the blood-crimson pillar descended, uncontrollable wild joy burst onto the young man's face! Waving his arms, half-crazed, he pointed at the four characters "Heaven Board · Wang Hu" above and screamed hoarsely at the bustling crowd: "The Heaven Board! You see that?! This old man is this generation's prodigy! A future true immortal! Which of you tactless fools dares step up and try me?!"
Er — no telling how this habit of calling oneself "this old man" the moment one made the board was so catching, as though contagious; several people before and after were all the same.
The hangers-on around Wang Hu fawned to the utmost, chiming in aloud:
"Brother Hu is mighty!"
"Congratulations, Brother Hu, on rising to the Heaven Board!"
"From now, the hidden dragon leaves the abyss and soars to the sky!"
This display drew sidelong looks from passersby, expressions all different.
Only, this newly minted "Prodigy Wang" had kicked an iron plate this time.
"Tsk—"
A clear, unceremonious sneer cut off his self-satisfaction.
"The Heaven Board? A frog at the bottom of a well dares call itself unmatched?" a clear, cold voice came.
Wang Hu flew into a rage, the blood-crimson pillar quaking with it: "You dare look down on me, a Heaven Board prodigy?!"
From the crowd a youth in a moon-white brocade robe, his air noble and refined, walked slowly out; the jade pendant at his waist flowed with light — plainly no common birth. He stood with arms folded, his gaze sweeping indifferently over Wang Hu as though looking at a capering clown.
"A petty, arrogant fool — laughable, laughable." The brocade-robed youth's tone carried undisguised contempt. "Don't be so quick to swagger. The board has only just opened; many true monsters are still cultivating in forbidden secret realms, their auras not yet fully caught by the Heavenly Dao. What's more, this is but a bit of the warm-up to this grand event; these four boards — Heaven, Earth, Mystery, Yellow — have not even had their order arranged. Who's to say whether you stand at the fore of this Heaven Board, or scrape the very bottom?"
He raised a hand and pointed to a higher place in the Nine Empyreans, a place seeming to touch the origin of the cosmos, his voice turning abruptly solemn: "Do you know — above these four boards there is yet another board, named the Immortal Board!"