The colors of dusk filled the skies as the sunset.
The Celestial Ascension Convention held once in 10 years at the Unyielding Sword Celestial Sect on the Questioning Mind Peak was underway.
Countless young, capable ones from tens of thousands of miles radius from the peak gathered there on that day, waiting for their own 'Celestial Fate Evaluation Result.'
36 'Celestial Ascension Registration Booths' were lined up all over the Questioning Mind Peak, handled by the sect's disciples.
At the peak of the place, the Ascending Heaven Building measured nine zhang (about 32 meters) in height.
A flighty tune was heard from the building.
The mystical, psychedelic tune sounded like music from the heavens.
…
"The day has finally come after 10 whole years!"
"The Unyielding Sword Celestial Sect was the top cultivation force of the Taicang Residence, where celestial swordsmen gathered.
"Anyone who would be able to join the Unyielding Sword Celestial Sect would gain exceptional longevity, and ascending to become a higher being would no longer be a pipe dream."
"I heard that the sect places very great importance in the convention this year, so much so that they put the eldest true disciple in charge."
"The eldest true disciple, you mean the 'number one dashing man in all of Taicang' then?"
"Who else other than him? The Fallen Celestial of Taicang, Li Hanguang. It was said that peculiar astronomical phenomenon happened during his day of birth, so he was suspected to be the reincarnation of some ancient big shot."
"That eldest disciple is right now in the Ascending Building. I'd die happy if I could even see him personally."
…
Almost everyone at the Questioning Mind Peak was talking about one thing.
Li Hanguang, the eldest disciple of the Unyielding Sword Celestial Sect.
His father was the most powerful cultivator in the sect, gaining the title of Vast Ocean Swordmaster. His 'Long River Sword Aura' was more than enough to strike fear into the hearts of all who do evil within tens of thousands of miles radius.
His mother was the eldest princess of the Thousand Miles Trade Association of Taicang Residence, who had unimaginable amounts of resources, contacts and was wealthy enough to match the wealth of nations.
Li Hanguang himself was very diligent and capable.
Not only was he able to drive girls of his age crazy since young and guys to shame due to being unnervingly dashing looks, but his talents in cultivation were also a cut above those of his peers.
He had top-grade Water Spiritual Root at birth, doing Spiritual Qi Refinement at three years old, establishing his foundations at five years old, and conjuring top-grade Golden Core at 12 years old, earning him the title of Spiritual Master.
He then cut down a demonic wolf on his own at 13 years old, cementing his renown.
Li Hanguang then returned to the peak to begin enclosed cultivation.
There wasn't any word of his exploits for three years since then.
Despite so, he wasn't forgotten within the span of those three years, and many had instead looked forward to his accomplishments from then on out.
Everyone in the Unyielding Sword Celestial Sect believed that something big would happen when their eldest disciple emerged out of enclosed cultivation.
The entire Taicang Residence would be stunned.
…
"It's the ninth day."
The music from the building at the peak stopped.
A figure rose after a sigh was heard from behind the blinds.
That was a young man, and he was shrouded in a faint blue glow, making him look rather dreamy.
He wore a plain white robe, and silver water patterns were embroidered on the ends of the sleeves, which shimmered under the mystical light.
The glimmer faded, leaving behind a calm, elegant-looking face with extremely chiseled features.
There were a lot of people within the world of cultivators who were of perfect looks.
Yet the ones who possessed looks and bearing as exceptional as he were few and far between.
He stood around and did nothing else.
Yet, the attraction factor was still off the charts, enabling him to catch the attention of all around him, and none could resist doing so.
That man was none other than the eldest disciple of the Unyielding Sword Celestial Sect, Li Hanguang.
A transmigrator.
…
Everyone thought Li Hanguang didn't care for fame and glory, so he chose to distance himself from worldly renown to focus inward.
Only he himself knew without a doubt that he had been duped.
As for how he had been duped…
That was a long story.
A bronze mark was hanging off of his neck when he was born.
All of the higher-ups of the sect thought that the mark was anything but simple, harboring great secrets.
Yet, regardless of how they looked into it, the mark never reacted, and so they continued to leave him to wear it as an accessory.
Li Hanguang trained diligently for 13 years and finally managed to become renowned through his exceptional skills with the sword.
It was then that the bronze mark finally acknowledged him as its master.
The mark melded with his body and brought him two mystical powers.
First of all, he discovered that he gained the ability to view information regarding everything in the world.
For instance, he had initially thought that his top-grade Golden Core was already powerful enough.
He checked onto it only to find: 'Flawed Golden Core with One Attribute: Not pure enough, not vast enough. No hopes of ascension using such a core for foundations. A piece of trash that is better off shattered.'
One could imagine the scale of his trauma when he saw that.
The Golden Core was but the first of the cases to come.
The way he saw the world was turned upside-down ever since the mark acknowledged him as the master.
Another example would be his father's gift for his 12-year-old birthday, a high-grade spiritual weapon-grade longsword.
Such a treasured piece would have made Revered Nascent Soul Cultivators salivate.
Li Hanguang was initially rather happy about it.
However, he looked and found, 'Shabby Longsword: Crafted of common materials and poor artistry. Only when refined at places like ***, and ***, could it at least become top-grade a spiritual weapon. A piece of trash among all trash, better dispose of it.'
Long story short, Li Hanguang fell sick ever since the bronze mark acknowledged him as its master.
He was afflicted with a sickness called 'everything looks like trash syndrome.'
…
Omniscient Observation. That was the first ability that the bronze mark brought him.
Secondly, he discovered that when he focused his sight onto someone, not only would there be information relevant to the person popping up, there would also be Admiration Points towards him displayed.
When someone's Admiration Points to him reached 100, he would get a chance to copy that person once.
That chance would allow him to copy the abilities of the other person and make it his own.
The ability might be constitutional potential, combat techniques, or maybe any skill regarding the arts, medicine, astronomy, and even menial tasks like washing clothes and cooking.
For example, Li Hanguang initially only had top-grade water spiritual roots, enabling him to conjure water elemental top-grade Golden Core.
After earning the mark's acknowledgment, Li Hanguang went about the sect making acquaintances.
He then copied from the other disciples a top-grade Wood Spiritual Root, two high-grade Metal and Earth Spirit Roots, respectively, and a low-grade Fire Spiritual Root.
At present, Li Hanguang had gathered spiritual roots of all five elements, becoming an exceptionally rare cultivator with all elemental attributes in him.
Such a physique was so rare and precious that he was worth beyond 1000 times what he had been before.
One could definitely say that he had undergone a total transformation.
…
That was how it was with people.
People had to live with what they got if they weren't given choices.
If one were to be allowed options, no one wouldn't want to go for the best after all.
After gathering all five spiritual roots, he became increasingly displeased with his Water Golden Core.
Then finally.
He went on to shatter his Golden Core during one night.
It hurt a lot doing so.
Yet, he toughed it out all the same.
No pain, no gain, especially when one was out to gain something extraordinary. Success was never going to come easy.
After shattering that Golden Core, all of his training for the past 10 years had gone to waste.
He returned to the very first level of Spiritual Qi Refinement.
However, he wasn't saddened by that. Due to the help of that bronze mark, he became capable of gathering new spiritual qi through all five spiritual roots.
All five metal, wood, water, fire, and earth elemental spiritual qi were melded through special means.
The resulting spiritual qi all had their strengths, such as the sharpness of metal, the life of wood, the permeation of water, the explosion of fire, and the earth's resilience.
He tried to make use of them.
He activated any combat techniques that belonged to any of the five elements using that resulting spiritual qi.
The power that was brought about was increased by more than 10 times over.
The Omniscient Observation also told him that using that all-rounded spiritual energy of the world to establish his foundations would result in a Golden Core formed with all energies of the world.
Such a Golden Core brought about the potential of longevity and ascension to become higher beings.
It was indeed something powerful enough to render top-grade Golden Core inferior completely.
…
Yet, it didn't take him to discover that he had celebrated too early.
Such consolidated spiritual qi was nonetheless powerful.
But, producing such spiritual qi was anything but easy.
He needed to use specific methods to manipulate the five elements, keeping them in absolute balance along the way.
Any imbalance, however slight, wouldn't only result in him unable to produce such spiritual qi, it would probably also lead him astray from the path.
Doing so required a very formidable ability for controlling spiritual qi.
That hadn't initially been much of a problem. Having literally destroyed all that had been built before and started all over, his control of spiritual qi became far more advanced than his peers at the same level.
Controlling and keeping the spiritual qi of the five elements in balance wasn't that much of a problem, so long as he was careful about it.
However, the most headache part about it was that to keep the five elements in absolute balance, the total amounts of spiritual qi needed to be absolutely equal.
With that said, the ratio of spiritual qi of all five elements needed to be at 1:1:1:1:1.
That was where things became tricky.
His Water Spiritual Root was top-grade, while his Metal and Earth Spiritual Roots were high grades.
Yet, his Fire Spiritual Root was low-grade.
The implications of that one low-grade spiritual root were severe.
If the total amount of spiritual qi capable of being refined by a top-grade were 1000 units, then high-grade ones would yield 100 units, and mid-grade ones 10 units.
Low-grade ones then… would only yield one unit.
That was a severe, brutal problem, without a doubt.
If the world's spiritual qi, in that case, were to be taken to be a bucket of water, then it wouldn't be the highest piece of wood that decides the volume.
It would be the lowest piece instead.
That was to say that all four spiritual roots of metal, wood, water, earth elements needed to be tuned down to match that of the fire element, dialing down the speed all the way to one unit.
It wouldn't matter if his speed of refining all five spiritual qi were to have amplified by five times over.
That was because, at the moment, his rate of cultivation would still be stranded only at five units, which paled in comparison to even those of common mid-grade spiritual roots.
When compared to his previous rate of 1000 units, his rate at cultivation became 200 times slower.
His exceptional achievement had been due to that.
Thanks to such a frightening rate, he managed to successfully establish his foundations by the age of five, despite only having begun training at the age of three.
Having destroyed his previous power yet very familiar with how things worked, he was still stranded at Spiritual Qi Refinement level three, despite having worked three whole years at it.
…
Spiritual Qi Refinement level three.
Even in the Unyielding Sword Celestial Sect alone, such a level would definitely be deemed to be among the weakest, let alone the entire Taicang Residence.
Li Hanguang had not actually cooped up at home for three whole years because he wanted to do so.
He did so only because he didn't dare to venture outside.
Before the age of 13, he had been young and foolish, throwing his weight around and beating up anyone who refused to admit how powerful he was.
Almost all those so-called geniuses in the Taicang Residence had been beaten badly by him before.
Those renowned and even revered geniuses were beaten up by a kid who barely reached puberty.
No one would be able to take such an insult.
He had been making enemies like there was no tomorrow.
There was naturally no one who dared to get on his bad side due to how powerful and renowned he had been before.
However, with all of his powers gone, it was still invisible for him to beat up those who had gotten to the level of consolidating Golden Cores, regardless of how powerful said spiritual qi formed by the world's energies would be.
If anything, of those people, were to find out that I'm now just a small fry…
Damn…
The sight was so harrowing that he didn't dare to imagine it.
…
But then again, it wasn't like there wasn't a way to go about it.
The one spiritual root that dragged his rate at cultivation down was that Fire Spiritual Root.
So long as he could find a genius at fire elemental powers and gain their admiration, then being able to draw a spiritual root as the prize successfully, he would be able to make up for his inadequacies right away.
If he were to draw a mid-grade Fire Spiritual Root successfully, his rate at cultivation would be enhanced by 10 times over instantly.
If he were to draw a high-grade Fire Spiritual Root successfully, his rate at cultivation would be enhanced by 100 times over instantly.
Everything would be solved by then.
That was also why he took the initiative to participate in the convention at the Questioning Peak in the first place.
However, things didn't go as planned. The convention had gone on for nine whole days.
Yet, those of the most formidable in fire elemental powers were only of the mid-grade spiritual root.
There had indeed been one who had a high-grade Wood Spiritual Root, but that wouldn't do him any good.
"Fire, I won't fire!"
He walked up to the front of the building, looking down at all of the people going about below, and couldn't help but sigh.
…
However, he frowned slightly all of a sudden.
He saw that the registration booth at the southeast corner seemed to be having a commotion going, looking rather rowdy.
He was even able to vaguely hear words like 'trash' and 'annulling the marriage.'
The atmosphere was then filled with the peppy air of gossip.