Martial God Asura

“Jie Ranqing was indeed a frightening individual. She was on a completely different level than the other prodigies out there. Her talents as a world spiritist and a cultivator were unrivaled. The world of cultivation would have surely come under her reign had she grown normally.

“With the arrival of God’s Era, she might just come out of her closed-door training. That means that there will be another top-tier expert from the Seven Realms Sacred Mansion. At this rate, they might just be able to unite the entire world of cultivation,” Gongsun Wentian said.

He was intimidated by Jie Ranqing even though the latter was much younger than him.

“It goes without saying that Jie Ranqing is formidable. She’s someone whose talent I have acknowledged! But if we’re talking about talent as a cultivator, I don’t think it’s right to say that she’s unrivaled,” Xia Xingchen said.

“Do you know someone who’s even stronger than her?” Gongsun Wentian asked.

Xia Xingchen tightly pressed her lips together before breaking into a smile. “I guess not.”

She glanced at her own wrist. Her skin was clean and smooth, but unease seeped into her eyes. She knew what was hiding in there. It was a secret that mustn’t be told, and she had never told anyone about it to this day.

This secret was left behind by a man whose talent for martial cultivation surpassed Jie Ranqing. That man was so imprinted into her mind that she didn’t think that she would ever forget him, even if a day came when she forgot about Jie Ranqing.

“What’s wrong, Xingchen?” Gongsun Wentian asked.

He noticed Xia Xingchen’s unusual state of mind.

“Nothing much.” Fearing that Gongsun Wentian would see through her, she quickly responded with a smile before changing the topic. “Milord, do you earnestly think that our Qin Xuan doesn’t stand a chance in the Nine Heavens’ Zenith?”

“As I have said, the juniors of the other powers aren’t pushovers. In particular, those two from the Seven Realms Sacred Mansion and the Immortal Sea Fish Clan are ridiculously powerful. Honestly, I don’t see much hope for our Qin Xuan.

“Even if we look beyond the juniors of major powerhouses, there’s still that lass from the Bloodline Galaxy. She suddenly appeared and grew at an insane speed before abruptly vanishing into thin air. I reckon that she has gone into closed-door training. If she has been invited to the event too, our Qin Xuan might not even be able to get into the top three,” Gongsun Wentian said.

“Lord Wentian, you’re being too pessimistic. Our Qin Xuan isn’t bad either,” Xia Xingchen said.

“Of course, but…” Gongsun Wentian suddenly stopped talking. He realized that Xia Xingchen wasn’t looking for the objective truth here. In the end, he relented on his stance and conceded, “All right, all right. Our Qin Xuan does stand a chance too.”

“That’s more like it. Speaking of which, Lord Wentian, did you stumble upon new information in your investigation of God’s Era? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have said that the junior who wins the Nine Heavens’ Zenith isn’t necessarily the prophesied one in God’s Era. You should share the information with me too,” Xia Xingchen said.

“Go and ask our sectmaster. I dare not share anything with you,” Gongsun Wentian replied with a smile.

“Ey~ You know that our sectmaster wouldn’t tell me anything.” Xia Xingchen protested with an adorable pout. She looked nothing like the fierce woman who had clashed with Mo Wuxiang earlier.

Unfortunately for her, Gongsun Wentian was already accustomed to her acting coy.

…

Chu Feng sat down at the very end of the fourth passageway to grasp the martial enlightenment around him. There was no question that the martial enlightenment was the densest here, but it was still extremely faint.

Ordinary cultivators wouldn’t have even noticed it, let alone bother trying to grasp it. Chu Feng had to spend quite some time grasping it.

“Chu Feng, wouldn’t it affect your result if you dawdle here for too long?” Eggy asked.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not as if there’s any reward for the first one to enter anyway. It’ll suffice as long as I’m able to enter the Ancient Realm,” Chu Feng replied.

“You’re working too hard. The concentration of martial enlightenment here is unbelievably faint, but you simply wouldn’t let it go. Will you only be satisfied when you absorb everything dry?” Eggy asked.

“It’s free martial enlightenment. We shouldn’t let it go to waste,” Chu Feng replied with a smile.

He didn’t reveal his innermost thoughts. His instincts were telling him that the Ancient Realm’s test wasn’t as easy as what it seemed, and that it wouldn’t be easy if he wanted to clear the final test. Putting Jia Chengying aside, those two from the Heavenly Dome Immortal Sect and Bluemoon Sacred Palace were enemies beyond his capacity to deal with.

While Chu Feng had the backing of Milady Queen, it was hard to say if she was a match for them. That was why Chu Feng was working so hard, not missing any opportunity to raise his cultivation.

It was just that…

“Eggy, I finally found the reason,” Chu Feng suddenly said.

“The reason?” Eggy was confused.

“The reason it’s getting increasingly hard for me to make a breakthrough, whether in terms of accumulation of martial power or looking for an impetus,” Chu Feng said.

“Do those change?” Eggy was perplexed.

“Those shouldn’t change under normal circumstances, which was why I thought that I had gauged wrongly. However, I am certain now that the conditions of my breakthrough are getting harder. I have already grasped all of the martial enlightenment here, but for some reason, I feel like it has only gotten harder for me to make a breakthrough,” Chu Feng said.

“That’s intriguing. Why do you think this happened?” Milady Queen asked.

“I suspect that it has something to do with the Dao of Specialization,” Chu Feng said.

“The Dao of Specialization made it harder for you to make a breakthrough? Isn’t it a scam then?” Eggy was infuriated. That woman had said that the Dao of Specialization would be nothing but beneficial to Chu Feng, but why was it becoming an obstacle now.

“It’s hard to say. It might be a good thing too,” Chu Feng said.

“But… if you haven’t grasped the martial enlightenment here, does it mean that your breakthrough would have been relatively easier?” Eggy tried to explore the possibilities.

“I’m not sure either. I suspect that there’s a trick here for me to make a breakthrough, but as for what that trick is, I still have no idea what it is. Forget it, let’s head out first.”

Unable to make sense of the situation, Chu Feng rose to his feet and made his way into the spirit formation gate. However, when he tried to enter the spirit formation gate, a peculiar flow of energy blocked his path.

“I have to write my name down?”

It turned out that he had to inscribe his name on the spirit formation gate before he was granted entry.

…

Meanwhile, in the depths of the Ancient Realm, many experts were gathered in an ancient palace. The one hosting this gathering was none other than the current chief of the Ancient Realm.

There were around fifty elders standing at both sides of the hall. The elder who had stopped Xia Xingchen and Mo Wuxiang from fighting earlier were standing in their ranks.

The chief and the elders had their eyes set on the center of the palace, where a humongous ancient compass floated in mid-air. Reflected on the compass were eleven gates with rankings and names inscribed on them.

1: Little White2: Bluemoon Sacred Palace—Zhou Dong3: Heavenly Dome Immortal Sect—Qin Shu4: Pill Dao Immortal Sect—Jia Chengying5: Taishi Xingzhong’s disciple—Bai Yunqing

This ranking was based on the order of their appearances. Ten of the gates had already been claimed, but the final one remained empty. The empty gate was none other than the fourth gate, the one that Chu Feng was in.

“Lord Chief, has the final person not appeared yet? It shouldn’t have taken so long.”

“Did a mishap happen?”

The elders were worried. Even though they were the master of the Ancient Realm, they didn’t have any power over the tests at all.

“It doesn’t matter. His absence won’t affect our Ancestral Ritual,” the Ancient Realm’s chief said.

Weng!

A name finally appeared on the fourth door.

11: Chu Feng

“He’s finally here.”

The crowd breathed a sigh of relief.

“Chu Feng… It has been long since we had anyone with the surname ‘Chu’ in our Ancient Realm,” the Ancient Realm’s chief recalled some distant memories and remarked.

“I don’t think that we have offered a personal invitation to such a person. Did he come using an open invitation?”

“Just like Miss White, he didn’t write down the power he’s affiliated with. The fact that he’s able to stand out even though we have invited so many people over shows that he does have some skills.”

“Now that I think about it, the name ‘Chu Feng’ sounds quite familiar.”

The elders in the palace began discussing amongst themselves.

“There’s no way his name wouldn’t sound familiar. He’s the one who won the title of the strongest late Martial Exalted level cultivator in the Trial of the Strongest,” the elder who had appeared in front of the wooden gate earlier spoke up.

“Elder Lai, is it really that Chu Feng?”

The faces of the elders turned grim. The Ancient Realm’s chief turned his gaze to him. Some of them even took out a portrait of Chu Feng they had acquired from their extraordinarily efficient intelligence network to do a comparison.

“It really is him. I saw him in person. Even though he failed to overcome the red gate, I noticed that his complexion remained unchanged even as he walked out. There’s no way he could have been any ordinary cultivator. I’m certain that he’s the real Chu Feng,” Elder Lai said.

“Hoh. It looks like we have with us a splendid group of prodigies. It’s just that…” One of the elders suddenly thought of something and turned to the Ancient Realm’s chief. “Lord Chief, would our Ancestral Stones be able to withstand the presence of so many outstanding juniors?”

“You shouldn’t worry about it. The Ancestral Ritual is arranged by our Ancestral Idol; nothing could possibly go wrong. I do think that the Ancestral Stones will react differently from usual. Perhaps…” The words of the Ancient Realm’s chief abruptly stopped here.

However, the other elders already caught his drift.

“Lord Chief, is it possible for the Ancestral Divine Monuments to emerge?”

Boom!

Thunderous rumbling suddenly echoed outside.

The Ancient Realm’s chief quickly opened the palace gates with a wave of his sleeves before leading the crowd out. Black runes had started appearing on the brick tiles of the gigantic field right outside the palace. These black runes were squiggling by themselves as if they had a life of their own.

Those from the Ancient Realm didn’t seem to be surprised by these mysterious runes. Instead, their attention was focused on the center of the square, where dozens of stones sat. Many of these stones had started cracking.

“It’s shattering. Our Ancestral Stones are shattering. It’s almost like a reenactment of what happened that year! Does this mean that the Ancestral Divine Monuments are going to emerge again?”

The elders were excited.

As the Ancestral Stones rumbled, light poured out from the earth. Soon enough, eleven monuments rose from the ground. These monuments stood imposingly at over a thousand meters in height, and the material they were made of was incomparable to those shattered Ancestral Stones.

A name was carved on each of these eleven monuments, and they were all the same name.

Chu Xuanyan!

“It’s the Ancestral Divine Monuments! They have finally reappeared after eight hundred years!”

Everyone from the Ancient Realm was exhilarated.