A series of pagodas was erected over a giant floating piece of land covered from end to end with a thick spiritual barrier formation. Dense and powerful spiritual energy was almost palpable, and every breath felt refreshing.
Xu Meilin landed in front of the medicinal pagoda. During the journey, she pinched Wang Feng's cheeks non-stop. She couldn't get enough of her new junior's puffy cheeks.
"Wang Feng, you are going to take a proper examination here." She caught a medicinal disciple inside the pagoda.
"Senior brother Tan Zhong! I've got a new junior here! Can you measure his spiritual root quality?"
Tan Zhong had a scholarly aura about him. He responded to Xu Meilin's high enthusiasm in a slow and dignified manner.
"Hmm... Follow me."
Tan Zhong guided Wang Feng in front of an iron plate fixed on top of a pedestal. He flicked his fingers and produced an energy pill.
"Here, eat this."
Wang Feng ate the pill and they waited about a minute for it to take effect.
"Put your hand on the iron plate," Tan Zhong commanded.
Wang Feng did as he was told. The energy in his body began to get sucked into the plate. Tan Zhong nodded.
"You have below-average spiritual root. However, it doesn't mean your cultivation path is cut. If you cultivate diligently, there is no reason for you to fail on your path."
Wang Feng asked out of curiosity. "Brother Tan, do you know what these patterns are?" The strange patterns with metallic hues engraved on Wang Feng caught Tan Zhong's eye. He actually didn't know. Tan Zhong pondered a bit.
"Hold on, Feng. Let me get the elder."
10 minutes later, a middle-aged man with wild, Einstein-like hair walked in. Tan Zhong was getting curious now.
"Elder Li, what is it? What are these marks?"
Elder Li was dumbfounded. Those were dao marks! A nearly complete set at that.
There was a bi-yearly pill conference in the Wuzhang province. In this pill conference, some participants had these dao marks. In fact, they would display these marks proudly, even if it was just a small one, because these marks signified one very important thing. They signified that the owner of this mark had their dao attainment recognized by the heavens! If one knew everything about swords, they would have a complete sword dao mark. If someone had a significant understanding of the sword but it was not complete or outright wrong on some parts, they would get a small dao mark.
However, this child in front of him had a nearly complete dao mark.
It takes a lot of time to master a craft. It takes a lot longer to become proficient in its dao. The reason is, when a practitioner tries to research a subject, the very thing they try to learn about gets affected by the practitioner's own spiritual energy. It is very hard for a cultivator to attain a correct and complete understanding of a subject on their own.
Elder Li frowned.
"Come with me, boy, or should I say old monster?"
Wang Feng flinched. He did not expect his greatest secret to be revealed just like that. His heart palpitated for a moment.
"W-where?"
Elder Li paused for a moment before answering.
"To see the sect master."
Among the pagodas in the Shoushan sect, the tallest and fanciest belonged to the sect master. It housed the administrative staff, treasury, personal quarters of the sect master and his family.
Elder Li brought Wang Feng to the sect master's pagoda, and at that moment, Wang Feng felt something brush past him, causing his hair to stand on end.
"Li! What is so important that you have to bother me while I am...," the sect master began, but his eyes drifted to Wang Feng, and his pupils dilated. A hundred thoughts ran through his mind.
"This junior met a Senior! May I know the senior's name?" Wang Feng was dumbfounded, unsure of what to say. This was so out of the blue. Seeing that Wang Feng didn't answer him, the sect master assumed the worst. "Senior, please, at least let us negotiate the terms of our surrender."
The dao patterns on Wang Feng flickered, and he saw different strings made of light in his mind. He instinctively knew that different strings symbolized different events.
One path involved keeping up the act of being a reincarnated old monster. In this path, he would not fix the misunderstanding and would bask in undeserved glory until reality put him to his grave. The string representing this path was murky and black.
The second path was to come out about being a reincarnate, a powerless mortal back then, and everything. In this path, he would not hide his dao marks and would become the center of attention wherever he went. However, this string was murky, gloomy, and dark too. He would be targeted very often, dodge some of the malicious machinations yet eventually fall, suffering the terrible fate of having his soul refined into an artifact.
The third string was relatively normal. This time, Wang Feng comes clean about everything to the sect master and Elder Li, but he keeps the dao marks from being seen in public. He lives as an inner sect disciple for twenty years, as shown by the string.
Wang Feng snapped back to reality.
"My name is Wang Feng. Yes, I am a reincarnated person, but I'm nothing fancy. I was a mortal back then," Wang Feng said.
"Oh!?" Sect master was intrigued. "My name is Shi Hong, sect master of the Shoushan sect. I don't understand. Why do you have all those dao marks? You are far too young to attain that much understanding of the world." Wang Feng touched his forehead. The marks were related to his understanding, then it can only be the chaos theory.
"I was a meteorologist," Wang Feng explained. Sect master Shi Hong gave him a confused look, not knowing what that was. Wang Feng continued, "I used to predict weather patterns using algebra. It is probably something related to that. I know nothing about cultivation."
Sect master was beside himself with joy. This boy was a divination expert!
Wang Feng didn't mention the afterlife or how he was likely way older than Shi Hong because of that.
Shi Hong gestured to Elder Li. "Master Li, can you escort our new sect member to the scriptures hall?" Elder Li was conflicted. Normally, becoming an inner disciple was an arduous task. With the lad skipping all that, he would become the target of envy and perceived injustice, both of which were killers of men.
After a bit of deliberation, he decided to trust the sect master.
He then stared at Wang Feng in shock. He noticed that the kid's spiritual energy was almost depleted! What did he do?