Ning Cheng punched, and the surrounding space made small bursts of noises.
“Boom….” As the punch connected with the testing artefact, rays of light immediately erupted from the testing artefact. A moment later, the crystals of the two scales started to light up one after another. The celestial essence scale exceeded the sixth marking quickly and didn’t stop until it was close to seven. Even the spiritual consciousness scale climbed up to the sixth position.
A flurry of exasperations erupted. Although Ning Cheng’s celestial essence ratings didn’t exceed seven, they came infinitesimally close to seven. But more importantly, Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness rating had also exceeded six. It would be no problem for Ning Cheng to enter the Seven Star Sacred Shrine with such kind of strength.
Some cultivators who ‘knew’ Ning Cheng even came forward to express their congratulations. They had only come into contact with Ning Cheng for crafting artefacts. However, none of them expected that this Artefact-crafting Master would turn out to be so powerful.
Yan Xishuang looked at Ning Cheng with a bit of surprise. Ning Cheng didn’t seem to have high cultivation. Yet, he displayed such powerful strength. She knew very well that using a testing artefact to test a person’s cultivation wouldn’t give a very accurate result. But she knew a fact about it that hardly anyone here knew. That is, once the scale marking reaches five, it would become exponentially challenging for it to rise. Since Ning Cheng’s punch could nearly reach the seventh marking on the celestial essence scale, it proved that Ning Cheng did indeed have a solid foundation.
She quickly nodded at Ning Cheng, “What’s your name? You passed the test. Once these disciple enrolments conclude, you can come to the Seven Star Sacred Shrine with us.”
“Many thanks, Senior Apprentice Sister. My name is Nian Qiong. I’m just a wandering artefact-crafting master.” Ning Cheng quickly thanked her with cupped fists and then made his way to stand behind the other two selected candidates in the Seven Star Sacred Shrine’s station. Considering that the Barbarian Dragon Clan’s Dragon Emperor was looking for him, he decided to drop the characters ‘Ning’ and ‘Cheng’ entirely from his name.
“Junior Apprentice Sister Xishuang. It’s been a long time.” A man’s thick voice suddenly sounded out, and a purple-faced man suddenly appeared in front of Yan Xishuang with a big smile over his face.
Ning Cheng immediately felt a strong aura of water and water-attributed fluctuations from this man, which he had also felt from Man Jiuren. But unlike Man Jiuren, this person had a purple face without any wrinkles.
Yan Xishuang calmly returned a curtesy greeting and said, “It turned out to the Second Prince. It looks like the Barbarian Dragon Clan is taking this time’s disciple selection quite seriously.”
When he heard the words ‘Second Prince’ and ‘Barbarian Dragon Clan’, Ning Cheng immediately connected the dots. This person was Man Jiuren’s second brother and the son of Dragon Emperor Man Huishan. He had heard from that silver-haired woman that Man Huishan had more than a hundred children, which seemed entirely accurate.
The purple-faced man heard Yan Xishuang’s reply, but his face still showed a soft expression, “That’s right. I had a feeling that Junior Apprentice Sister Xishuang might come here, so I also came to ask you out.”
Ning Cheng glanced at the look on this purple-faced man’s face and understood that this guy wanted to pursue Yan Xishuang. He couldn’t help but smile in secret because of it. If Yan Xishuang agreed, it truly would be akin to a flower over a cow dung pile.
Yan Xishuang spoke up in a flat tone, “If there is nothing else, then Second Prince, please give me a little space. I still have other people to test.”
“It’s okay; it’s okay…..” The purple-faced man quickly stepped aside. He hesitated for a bit and spoke up once again. “I don’t know if Junior Apprentice Sister Xishuang can find the time to go to a rest stop with me for a cup of spiritual tea?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not free.” Yan Xishuang didn’t even bother to find an excuse.
“Second Brother, we’re all swamped with work, but you seemed to be quite free, hehe…..” A slightly mocking voice came from afar.
Ning Cheng immediately retracted his spiritual consciousness and gaze. He was too familiar with this voice and also the owner of this voice. He had even killed this person once, and Pan Qian had also smashed apart this person’s body. It was none other than Man Jiuren.
The purple-faced man smiled and spoke with a soft voice with Yan Xishuang, but he wasn’t so polite to the Ninth Prince. He gave a cold snort, “Old Nine, don’t you feel embarrassed in speaking those words? If you weren’t so useless, our Imperial Father wouldn’t need to come to this broken…..”
The purple-faced man stopped his words in time. But because Man Jiuren openly ridiculed him in front of his sweetheart, it made him quite upset.
Man Jiuren wanted to keep mocking his second brother, but then his gaze suddenly focussed on Ning Cheng standing behind Yan Xishuang. Once his eyes focussed on Ning Cheng, he carefully scrutinised Ning Cheng from top to bottom before he frowned and asked, “What’s your name?”
Yan Xishuang’s tone turned cold at this point, “This is my Seven Star Sacred Shrine’s newly recruited disciple, Nian Qiong. If the two princes have nothing else, then please stop interfering with my sect’s recruitment.”
The Barbarian Dragon Clan indeed had a Dao Perfection powerhouse, but the Seven Star Sacred Shrine wasn’t afraid of it. Although her Seven Star Sacred Shrine had no Dao Perfection powerhouses, it still had two mighty Dao Fusion experts. Moreover, apart from Man Suotian, the Barbarian Dragon Clan had no other experts. Even Dragon Emperor Man Huishan was just at the full-circle of Dao Essence Realm. One could even say that without Man Suotian, the Barbarian Dragon Clan wasn’t even worthy of entering the top ten sects. Let alone become the head of the four deep-sea forces.
The second prince, the one with a purple face, seemed to have turned even more unhappy when he heard Yan Xishuang’s tone and words. He quickly pulled Man Jiuren aside and said, “Old Nine, stop looking and follow me.”
This time, Man Jiuren didn’t speak any nonsense and silently followed the Second Prince out of the area. He still kept thinking about Ning Cheng in his heart, but he hadn’t seen or met this person before coming here. So why did he feel an unstoppable killing intent after looking at that Nian Qiong?
The Grand Essence Barbarian Dragon Clan had highly keen senses. It was one of the main reason for its fame and notoriety throughout the Grand Essence Realm. It was especially true when it came to killing intent perceptions. Ning Cheng had changed his appearance and even concealed his aura but still couldn’t entirely hide his instinctive killing intent from Man Jiuren.
Man Jiuren stopped suddenly. Who was the person who wanted to kill him the most? It had to be that cultivator named Ning Cheng. By this point, Man Jiuren felt 90% sure that Nian Qiong was Ning Cheng.
After guessing that Nian Qiong was Ning Cheng, Man Jiuren’s first thought was to inform his father, Man Huishan, about it immediately. However, the moment he got that idea, he put it down.
If he told this to his father, Ning Cheng would undoubtedly die, and he would also exact his revenge. However, the Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow would no longer belong to him. His old man hadn’t come to the Grand Essence Ruins to avenge him but came explicitly for the Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow. Man Jiuren knew about this point better than anyone else.
If he had no chance of obtaining that Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow, he wouldn’t have hesitated for even a bit. But now that he had a chance, he wouldn’t let it go. He wanted that arrow at any cost. Since Ning Cheng joined the Seven Star Sacred Shrine, Ning Cheng wanted to enter the Grand Essence Mystic Realm Competition. When the time came, he could just find a few people to kill Ning Cheng secretly in the Grand Essence Mystic Realm Competition. Who would know that the Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow had made its way to him?
Ning Cheng’s Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow contained immense power. But no matter how powerful the arrow, Ning Cheng could only shoot it once. As long as he grasped the timing, he wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to kill Ning Cheng.
The more Man Jiuren thought about this, the more feasible it felt.
……
The moment Man Jiuren looked at him and spoke those words, Ning Cheng realised that Man Jiuren most likely had started to suspect his identity. At that moment, Ning Cheng wished to leave immediately. But Man Jiuren didn’t make any moves and didn’t even put a Spiritual Consciousness Imprint on him. Seeing such actions, Ning Cheng started to doubt his previous thoughts.
But this doubt didn’t last long. Ning Cheng quickly felt sure that Man Jiuren had recognised him and that it wasn’t any fluke that he walked away. The reason Man Jiuren didn’t do anything was not that he didn’t recognise him, but because he didn’t want to tell his father about him. Most likely, Man Jiuren wanted to swallow his stuff and didn’t want others to know about it.
Thinking back to how Man Jiuren went to the Mysterious Yellow Starland alone, Ning Cheng understood that this person had quite lofty ambitions.
After understanding that Man Jiuren, most likely, was after his Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow, Ning Cheng no longer worried about it. If he didn’t know about Man Jiuren recognising him, he would have suffered much-unwanted trouble. But since he now knew that Man Jiuren had recognised him, he didn’t believe that he couldn’t get rid of this guy.
Even after three days, no one came to inquire about him. From this, Ning Cheng confirmed that Man Jiuren truly wanted to swallow his stuff alone.
Simultaneously, the rogue cultivator recruitment for all the major sects on the Grand Essence Public Square also came to an end after three days. Seven Star Sacred Shrine recruited twenty people, and Ning Cheng was just one of them. Moreover, Ning Cheng’s score ranked somewhere near the middle among these twenty people, which didn’t spotlight him.
The group from the Seven Star Sacred Shrine only had a single sect elder guiding it. Ning Cheng couldn’t see this elder’s strength, but he felt pretty sure that the power of this elder couldn’t match up to the patriarch of the Barbarian Dragon Clan, Man Huishan. As for Yan Xishuang, she probably came here just to help.
……
The Grand Essence Ruins was quite far away from the entrance of the Grand Essence Domain. But no matter how far away it was, it wouldn’t take long when using a teleportation portal.
In just a short while, Ning Cheng entered the Grand Essence Domain for the first time. After entering the Grand Essence Domain, he finally understood why Grand Essence Realm’s sects had decided to concentrate here. Just the density of spiritual qi in this place was ten times more than outside. Plus, this was only near the entrance. Most of the sect grounds here would have more concentrated Spiritual Qi.
Comparing this place to the Grand Essence Ruins and the Boundary Essence Spirit Sea City, Ning Cheng affirmed that growing stronger was the only truth of the world.
Half a day later, Ning Cheng and the other arrived at the Seven Star Sacred Shrine’s sect entrance.
The Seven Star Sacred Shrine looked majestic at first glance. Plus, the spirit qi here was also several times denser and more affluent than the outside. Standing here, Ning Cheng even had an illusion that the laws within the Seven Star Sacred Shrine’s sect grounds were much more stable than other places.
If the Seven Star Sacred Shrine gave such a feeling, then the Sacred Dao Pond and the Sacred Gate should also be the same.
After entering the sect grounds, Ning Cheng and others got assigned a chamber and a jade card. After that, no one even bothered to come and ask about them.
Ning Cheng swept the jade card with his spiritual consciousness after reaching the assigned chamber and quickly went through the messages and other instructions in it.
The Grand Essence Mystic Realm would open in five months. During these five months, they could roam around the Seven Star Sacred Shrine’s outer sect area. One could even go out of the sect if one desired, but one had to return before the Grand Essence Mystic Realm opened. The instructions even emphasised one particular point. That is, they were not allowed to enter the inner sect areas; otherwise, the sect restrictions would automatically activate and kill you.
Ning Cheng put aside the jade card and shook his head. The Seven Star Sacred Shrine didn’t even treat them like outer sect disciples from the looks of it. At best, they were just a batch of cannon fodder. To make cannon fodder, one needed to have a cannon fodder’s consciousness and mind and not run around.
But even without the warnings on the jade card, Ning Cheng had no plans of going out. He wanted to refine a set of fake Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrows during these few months. Man Jiuren should know about the Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow’s real power by now. Logically, if he knew about the Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow’s real strength, Man Jiuren wouldn’t risk coming after him directly. But since he wants to swallow his things, it also meant that Man Jiuren felt confident in his plans. In any case, Ning Cheng had to take some preventative measures.
Ning Cheng was just about to activate the restriction on his chambers when someone suddenly appeared outside.
