Immortal Soaring Blade

Looking at Fu Hongling and Zhao Jiuge leaving, the crowd was a little stunned. It was as if those domineering words from Fu Hongling were still lingering.

Now it looked like Zhao Jiuge was not simple. Many people had heard this name but hadn’t seen him before. Today, they got to see Zhao Jiuge’s strength first-hand and learned of his identity. A direct disciple of the Head Teacher!

The crowd became even more envious of Zhao Jiuge. Soon, more deeds about Zhao Jiuge spread across the sect. In particular, what happened today quickly spread.

Elder Piao Wu helplessly shook her head. She ignored the crowd that hadn't yet scattered and took her disciple into the Duty Hall to register for a peak.

Luo Bowen’s senior brother was still in a daze while looking at where Fu Hongling had gone. It was unknown what he was thinking about. Luo Bowen thought his senior brother was in a daze due to love, so he didn’t dare to disturb him.

“Let’s go, Junior Brother. The excitement is over, it’s time to teach you about the inner sect.” The dark-skinned young looked at Leng Rufeng. He decided that once the matter with his junior brother was settled, he was going out to experience life or death situations to make a breakthrough. Otherwise, the gap would grow wider and wider.

Leng Rufeng nodded and looked at where Zhao Jiuge had gone with a complicated expression. Since the beginning, he had always been following Zhao Jiuge. They were both new disciples, but he was always a step behind. Now that they were direct disciples, he wasn’t going to let this chance go to waste. He clenched his fist and his eyes were filled with determination. “Brother, the next time we meet, I’ll surpass you!”

Subsequently, the crowd slowly scattered now that there was nothing to watch. Due to Elder Piao Wu’s arrival, the fight had ended abruptly. However, the crowd was still very happy to watch the two goddesses go all out. It was definitely something worth talking about.

However, Fu Hongling and Zhao Jiuge didn’t care if they talked about this matter or not.

While they were in the air, Zhao Jiuge held Fu Hongling’s elbow and smiled at her. He excitedly said, “Senior Sister, your last strike was simply too amazing. Is it the Mysterious Heaven Sword Art? I want to learn too!”

Fu Hongling smiled faintly and softly said, “I’ll teach you, but you have to go step by step. After I take you to see the Sword Pavilion Ranking, I’ll teach you about cultivation tonight. After all, you can’t just mindlessly cultivate without some common knowledge. For this month, you will stay at my place and cultivate. Then I’ll send you over to Teacher, where you will learn the second layer of the sword art.”

Hearing this, Zhao Jiuge excitedly nodded. He was going to stay with his senior sister for another month and then he would be able to learn the second layer of the sword art. The first layer was only to lay the foundation and understand what sword intent was. The real power of the sword art would start to show itself in the second layer. After seeing Fu Hongling’s powerful strike, Zhao Jiuge yearned for it even more.

He wanted to ask his senior sister how she had done it. However, she had just told him that he was trying to run before he learned how to walk. He had to take it step by step.

Along the way, Zhao Jiuge was in a happy mood and hummed a song while they flew toward the Sword Pavilion.

It was different from the Treasure Pavilion, the Duty Hall, the Enforcement Hall, and the Sword Casting Hall. When they got close, Zhao Jiuge looked at the solemn building and couldn’t help but feel sorrow. This was due to the aura the building and its surroundings gave off. Zhao Jiuge couldn’t help but be affected.

Even the cold Fu Hongling became solemn when she arrived.

Generations of disciples of the Mysterious Heaven Sword Sect who had contributed to the sect were buried here. They had died for the Mysterious Heaven Sword Sect. Some had died fighting for glory for the sect during Battle Competitions, some died while slaying evil cultivators, and some died in unknown circumstances while experiencing the world outside.

Some of their life swords were placed here to honor them. There were also tens of thousands of life lamps inside, representing the disciples of the sect. This was so they would know if a disciple was still alive or not.

Cultivation was dangerous. What was dangerous was not only the dangerous environment and ferocious beasts; the most dangerous thing was the human heart. You could never know if a good friend would suddenly turn on you and stab you in the back when a treasure was found.

That was why far too many cultivators fell everyday on this path that goes against the heavens.

Feeling this sense of sorrow from the depths of his heart, Zhao Jiuge’s mood lowered. The excitement from before had disappeared and was replaced with a very harsh and tense feeling. It was not as strong as when he was outside the sect, but Zhao Jiuge felt very immersed in this feeling.

The Sword Pavilion had a total of nine floors and was triangular shaped. The building was divided into black and white. The Sword Pavilion generally didn’t allow people to enter and was much more heavily guarded than all the other places. Zhao Jiuge had seen no less than four black-robed disciples nearby already. The security inside was probably even stricter and it was likely there were several elders hidden within.

Fortunately, he had only come to see the Sword Pavilion Ranking and not the Sword Pavilion itself. He didn’t walk toward the Sword Pavilion but toward the edge of the peak, on the opposite side of the Sword Pavilion.

After only taking a few steps, he could see a blue and yellow stone monument erected on a flat area. What surprised Zhao Jiuge was that the surface of the stone gave off faint glow due to spirit force fluctuations. The stone itself was not dazzling. On the contrary, it seemed a bit dim, but the light was there.

When he got close to the stone monument, he felt a sense of desolation from it. There were 10 people’s names carved on this stone monument—they had to be the top 10 people on the ranking.

Zhao Jiuge suddenly felt like there was something wrong. He squinted and carefully looked at the stone monument to find no trace of it being carved. How did the names change, then? Could a new stone monument be brought over each time?

Zhao Jiuge looked at Fu Hongling with doubt in his eyes and asked about this.

After hearing this, Fu Hongling smiled and said, “Do you not feel the spirit force fluctuations around this stone monument? It’s a treasure, not an ordinary stone monument. Each time there is a change in the ranking, it changes on its own.”

Zhao Jiuge was surprised. This stone was a treasure? This was the first time Zhao Jiuge had seen something like this. However, since he had embarked on this road, he would see a lot of strange and wondrous things. Soon, these things would no longer be surprising.

Zhao Jiuge looked at this seemingly ordinary-looking stone monument and couldn’t find anything strange. He gave up on observing the stone momument’s material and instead focused on the 10 red names in front.

Ceng Qingniu

Fu Hongling

Yan Wenfei

Guo Huisheng

Wang Yong

Liao Zhijun

Peng Yinguo

Li Chongyang

Wan Fengbin

Wu Tianshan

After reading the ten names, Zhao Jiuge found that three of them were his senior brothers and sister. This surprised him.

“Senior Sister, how is Second Senior Brother placed ahead of you? He is actually ranked first!” Zhao Jiuge was very excited. He had seen how powerful Fu Hongling was, and it was difficult to imagine how strong Ceng Qingniu could be.

Fu Hongling had a calm expression. “Your second brother is very talented and can be said to be a genius that only appears every few thousand years. He is the most promising disciple and has shown the same style as the ancestor. Unfortunately, he has been missing for decades, and if it wasn’t for the fact that his life lamp hasn’t gone out, we all would be thinking he is dead. If he is still alive, he should have the token Teacher gave him, but Teacher can’t sense it. Teacher only knows that Second Brother’s last known location is the Barbarian Forest.”

Zhao Jiuge felt melancholy. He didn’t know such a thing had happened. Otherwise, he would be able to witness the might of his second senior brother.

Fu Hongling paused for a moment and continued, “Teacher thinks that he is trapped somewhere, but as long as he is alive, it's fine. I believed that Second Brother will one day come back. Originally, the position of head disciple belonged to him, but he he’s been gone for a long time. The competition between the seven holy lands will be soon, and this ranking will change. We will withdraw from the stage and the future will be yours. Don’t let Teacher and I down.”

Zhao Jiuge didn’t fully understand, but he still nodded. He only knew that this ranking changed every 200 years. After that, it would take some time for a new group of disciples to be selected. As for the competition between the seven holy lands, Zhao Jiuge had just learned about it not long ago. He had heard about it from Fu Hongling. If he could go with his teacher to represent the sect, he might be able to see Bo Re. This made Zhao Jiuge excited, but thinking about his own strength and how there were less than two years left, he didn’t know if he could increase his strength in time. 

Thinking about this, Zhao Jiuge couldn’t help but feel his enthusiasm wane. Fu Hongling seemed to notice this and smiled. “Don’t look too far ahead. Even the people on the ranking had to slowly increase their strength through effort. You’re still young—you can take it slow as long as you try your best. As for your cultivation, Teacher and I have already planned everything for you. The rest will depend on your own effort. When we return to Lotus Peak, I will tell you a lot of things. In this month, not only do you need to learn cultivation knowledge and theoretical knowledge, there are other things such as knowledge about treasures and other sects that you need to learn to prepare you for when you go to experience the world in the future.”

“Experience the world?” Zhao Jiuge was a bit confused. He knew some things about going out to experience the world, but he didn’t know everything about it.