There was a neutral expression on Huang Xiaolong's face as he watched Zhao Lei Laughing exuberantly.
Chen Yirong had said he would make an exception to accept Huang Xiaolong as his disciple-in-name. It was seemingly more glorious than becoming Zhao Lei's personal disciple, but Huang Xiaolong was certain that Chen Yirong would not place much importance on a disciple-in-name, whereas Zhao Lei would definitely put effort in cultivating his personal disciple.
Hence, Huang Xiaolong had chosen to worship Zhao Lei as his Master instead.
There was another reason why Huang Xiaolong leaned towards Zhao Lei. He felt Zhao Lei's personality was similar to the Black Warrior Institute Principal in the lower realm, who was also his Master Feng Yang.
Watching Zhao Lei, Huang Xiaolong felt nostalgic as if he was looking at his Master Feng Yang.
Even though his first Master was the Asura Gates Sovereign Ren Wokuang, in certain aspects, his first true Master was Feng Yang in certain aspects. This was because he had never seen Ren Wokuang nor received any guidance from Ren Wokuang. He was merely a disciple who had inherited Ren Wokuang's heritage.
Other Hall Masters also selected their disciples from the top one hundred rankings.
Despite Liu Qin and Fu Feiyu's poor performance in the rankings competition due to Huang Xiaolong, and even though they had fallen out of the top one hundred ranking, the Enforcement Hall Master Gongsun Chi accepted both of them as his personal disciples.
After the Hall Masters selected the disciples they wanted from the top one hundred, it was the Grand Elders' turn to select their disciples from the top three hundred rankings.
And lastly, it was the Elders' turn to select their choice of disciples from the top one thousand rankings.
Some disciples were accepted as personal disciples, and some were merely disciples-in-name.
At the very end a simple apprenticeship ceremony was held for all of the disciples.
In the front row were Sun Shihai and Peng Xiao kneeling in worship as disciples towards Zhou Chen and Li Shan. After them was Huang Xiaolong's turn to kneel in worship to Zhao Lei as Master, then it was the other Hall Masters' disciples, Grand Elders' disciples, and finally, the Elders' disciples.
It was a simple ceremony, but after the ceremony, Zhao Lei and Huang Xiaolong's master-disciple relationship was ironclad. From that moment forward, Zhao Lei was Huang Xiaolong's Master in the Fortune Emperor Palace.
Zhao Lei was smiling from ear to ear looking at Huang Xiaolong, as he was clearly very satisfied with his new disciple. Even though Huang Xiaolong's godhead rank was not very high compared to some of the other disciples, Zhao Lei fancied Huang Xiaolong's potential.
When Huang Xiaolong advances to the Heavenly Monarch Realm, his godhead wouldevolve, maybe Huang Xiaolong would give him a big surprise at that time.
Even if there were surprising changes, based on Huang Xiaolong's current amazing battle power,Huang Xiaolong wouldn't lose to the average Emperor Realm masters at peak late-Tenth Order Heavenly Monarch Realm.
When the ceremony ended, the Fortune Emperor Palace's Sect Chief Fang Han briefly reiterated some general matters to the present disciples.
Fang Gan also mentioned that a grand apprenticeship ceremony would be held half a year later.
However, this grand apprenticeship ceremony was mainly going to be held for Sun Shihai and Peng Xiao, where various Emperor Palaces' Emperors and disciples were going to be invited.
This time around, the Fortune Emperor Palace had accepted two supreme godhead geniuses, so this was naturally something worth celebrating in a big way.
After Fang Gan finished his speech, Li Shan, Chen Yirong, and Zhou Chen spoke a few irrelevant words before they took Sun Shihai and Peng Xiao away, and the rest dispersed.
Upon watching Fang Gan, Li Shan, Chen Yirong, and the rest leave, Zhao Lei said to Huang Xiaolong, "Xiaolong, you follow me back to the Augmented Lightning Palace."
"Yes, Master." Huang Xiaolong complied.
With that, a supple lightning force wrapped around Huang Xiaolong. Huang Xiaolong barely felt his surroundings shift, when he had already left the Supreme Harmony Hall and arrived at an enormous lightning palace.
The palace in front of him was hovering on a sea of clouds. There were ribbons of lightning streaks through the sea of clouds, like a school of lightning dragons, forming an ancient symbol of a dragon.
Zhao Lei smiled amiably as he said, "This is Master's Augmented Lightning Palace. Master has spent several tens millennia collecting countless chaos lightning ores from a lot of places to build this place."
Zhao Lei's introduction sounded similar to the time Blood Knife Ancestor had proudly mentioned his Spiritual Blood Pool to Huang Xiaolong.
Zhao Lei smiled as he led Huang Xiaolong into his Augmented Lightning Palace.
Looming over the palace were numerous streaks of blinding chaos lightning. Someone had used some kind of secret technique to pool these different kinds of chaos lightnings into a piece of lightning sky.
Huang Xiaolong was genuinely astonished looking at the different kinds of chaos lightning above the palace. As if influenced by these chaos lightning, he felt something similar to excitement coming from his chaos Golden Dragon Lightning between his eyebrows.
Inside the hall, Zhao Lei said to Huang Xiaolong, "In my life, I have only received two personal disciples, one is your Eldest Senior Brother Chen Hao, and the other one is you. I'll call your Senior Brother Chen Hao, so you two can meet."
A while later, an honest looking young man walked into the hall. He respectfully saluted Zhao Lei, calling him Master. This young man was none other than Chen Hao.
Chen Hao turned and greeted Huang Xiaolong with a beaming face, "Junior Brother Huang, I watched your outstanding performance during the rankings competition, and even I couldn't help feeling astonished ah."
Chen Hao was sincere with his words. Huang Xiaolong's performance in the rankings competition had astounded people like Zhao Lei, Xu Wen, and the others, so it was natural for someone from a younger generation like him to feel that way.
As Chen Hao had followed Zhao Lei to the examination hall and watched Huang Xiaolong's performance throughout the competition, he already had an understanding of Huang Xiaolong; on the other hand, this was Huang Xiaolong's first time seeing Chen Hao.
Huang Xiaolong replied warmly, "My performance was mediocre, so I've let Senior Brother see a joke."
Though this was the first time Huang Xiaolong had met Chen Hao face to face, Huang Xiaolong had a good impression of him, just like his Black Warrior Institute's Eldest Senior Brother Liu Yun.
Upon seeing Huang Xiaolong's humble attitude, Chen Hao reacted dramatically, "I say, Junior Brother, you're being too humble. If your performance can only be described as so-so, then what should I say about Sun Shihai?"
Zhao Lei watched Huang Xiaolong and Chen Hao chatting happily, so did not interject their conversation. As their Master, he was happy to see them getting along well with one another.
Zhao Lei watched for a while before coughing dryly to catch his disciples' attention. He looked at Huang Xiaolong and said, "Xiaolong, Master has nothing good to give you, but this dragon lightning stone is a treasure Master came across by chance, so I'll give it to you as an apprenticeship gift." Zhao Lei took out a stone after he finished.
The stone was transparent like a crystal, and at the core of the stone was actually a tiny lightning dragon's soul.
The tiny lightning dragon was swimming around as if it was trying to find a way to break out from the stone.
Huang Xiaolong was delighted and quickly thanked Zhao Lei. With his judgement, he could tell that this lightning dragon stone was a rare treasure.
As an afterthought, Zhao Lei took out a spatial ring and said to Huang Xiaolong, "You haven't yet broken through to God King Realm. There are thirty thousand Fortune Divine Fruits inside this spatial ring, take it. Master hopes that for you to comprehend life and death and breakthrough to God King Realm in a thousand years time!"
One thousand years! This was Zhao Lei's expectations towards Huang Xiaolong.
Chen Hao on the side interjected, "Master, you want Junior Brother to break through to God King Realm in a thousand years; that's too severe."
Even though Huang Xiaolong had performed more than well in the rankings competition, and his cultivation speed was startling, breaking through to God King Realm in a thousand years was still quite difficult.
Zhao Lei looked at Huang Xiaolong and comforted, "It's alright, one thousand years is not enough, then take two thousand years. Half a year later is Sun Shihai and Peng Xiao's grand apprenticeship ceremony, there would be a lot of Divine World's Emperors and their disciples attending it, and you'll attend the banquet with me."