Xuandu had no time for further thought as the images on the light-screen continued to play.
When Chen Zhou faced Hong Xiu, the rules descended, and Hong Xiu's soul age was suppressed to match his.
The assembled ghosts watched as the aura on Hong Xiu's body began a cliff-like plunge.
With every realm she dropped, her appearance grew younger.
She transformed from a seductive, mature Courtesan Queen into a youthful girl, and then into a sallow and thin little child.
“This kid's talent is truly staggering. To think he could force Hong Xiu back to her appearance from before she died... This soul age must be less than a hundred years, right?”
“I remember she looked like that back then,” the obese, pig-like malevolent ghost said in a thick, simple voice. “She nearly starved to death at the gates of the Music Registry. She didn't even have a cheap coffin to her name. If the Ghost Emperor hadn't been soft-hearted...”
The ghost as thin as a bamboo pole shook his head. “A pity. Hong Xiu had a hard life before she died.”
The footage continued. Hong Xiu's form shrank again, going from seventeen or eighteen to three or four—the age of a toddler.
The smiles on the ghosts' faces froze.
How was such a leap even possible?
Hong Xiu, collapsed on the ground, tried to crawl up, but she shrank once more. She became an infant who had just learned to walk, her tiny legs trembling so much she couldn't even stand straight, left only to crawl on the floor.
The chain-wrapped ghost's voice wavered. “This isn't right... this can't be right...”
Chen Zhou stood by her side, then raised his hand to condense a bone spear. With a casual toss, the spear pierced through Hong Xiu's body, and the footage ended.
A deathly silence fell over the hall; not even the sound of breathing could be heard.
The withered ghost lowered his head, covering his eyes with his hand, his shoulders shaking slightly—it was unclear if he was stifling a laugh or trembling in shock.
The thin ghost murmured, “One year... a soul age of one year, with a cultivation at the seventh-stage... is this something a one-year-old human can do?!”
The fat ghost scratched his round belly, his face full of bewilderment. “That's not right. One year? What can you even do at one year old? You can't even speak properly at that age. How did he cultivate to the seventh-stage?”
“What was I doing when I was one? I think I was still nursing?”
The chain-wrapped ghost grabbed Zhao Lie’s arm. “Old Zhao, say something!”
Zhao Lie remained silent for a long while before finally speaking slowly. “I told you already—my loss was not a fluke.”
As he spoke, the expression on his face was incredibly complex.
There was a bit of frustration and a bit of resignation, but mostly, there was a very subtle sense of awe.
If Chen Zhou really only had a soul age of one year, then a cultivation at the seventh-stage five contracts was beyond extraordinary; it was world-shaking.
One had to remember that in life, Zhao Lie had been an exceptionally talented general. His talent was so high that even the Xuandu Ghost Emperor had praised him without end.
How long had it taken him to reach the seventh-stage?
Three hundred years. To reach the seventh-stage first symbiosis contract within a thousand years was already considered the mark of a genius; in his era, he was the pinnacle among geniuses.
And this young man before them?
One year.
He had reached the seventh-stage five contracts in a single year.
The crucial point was that during their clash just now, Zhao Lie could feel that the boy hadn't even used his full strength.
Hong Xiu enlarged her silk fan and curled her body into a ball, trying her best to hide herself completely behind it.
How much big talk had she just spouted?
“Brother Zhao Lie was too careless,” “I won't go easy on you,” “My pride has never been low.”
Thinking back now, every single word felt like a slap, one after another, right across her own face.
She had cultivated for over one hundred and twenty thousand years and had once prided herself on her extraordinary talent. In the end, she had been reverted to her original form in such a manner by a young man with a soul age of less than a year.
Hong Xiu just wanted to flee this world. She didn't want to be a ghost anymore; she just wanted to dissipate quickly.
On the high platform, the Xuandu Ghost Emperor’s long black hair hung to his waist, his green vine hair-tie perfectly still.
He hadn't laughed from the very beginning.
Xuandu was the master of the Seven Evils and the ruler of this ghost mansion. Before Chen Zhou entered the trial, he too had thought the boy arrogant.
With such meager cultivation yet such a flamboyant attitude, a newly ascended deity who had accumulated some merit and allowed himself to be flattered into hubris by the ignorant fools of the outside world.
That old geezer Zhaoye had even given him a ghost decree.
Fortunately, he had kept these thoughts to himself and hadn't said them to the boy's face, allowing him to preserve some of his dignity.
At the time, he truly believed this junior had simply been lucky, happening to gather enough merit and faith, and that Zhaoye had been mistaken.
But what was he seeing now?
A soul age of one year, a cultivation of the seventh-stage five contracts, a first stage where he took down Zhao Lie in seconds, and a second stage where the rules had barely landed before Hong Xiu was turned into a literal infant.
Anything in this world could be faked.
A skin, a shell, even bone age, a heart, or a divine soul.
Appearance could be faked.
For those on the path of cultivation, maintaining eternal youth was the most basic of techniques.
Xuandu himself had the face of a man in his twenties, but he had lived through countless such spans of time. A physical form was something that could be molded and changed at will.
Bone age could also be faked.
Beings in the ninth-stage Truth-Usurping realm could alter their bone age, their lifespan, and even certain characteristics of their divine soul. Through possession or reincarnation, there were many ways to make one's bone age appear young.
All manifestations could be deceptive.
Except for one thing.
The longevity count.
Unlike lifespan, a person's soul age was calculated from the very moment the soul was born. How long one had lived was the longevity count; how much longer one could live was the lifespan.
There were many ways to increase one's lifespan, but the longevity count was immutable. It began counting the moment of birth, and every breath, every instant, was recorded under the gaze of the Underworld's death.
The soul was the First Cause, the signpost of all fate. Faking a soul age meant faking karma itself. If anyone in this world could fake their soul age, they would need a cultivation that reached the heavens and an overwhelming authority that could completely blind the Underworld and the laws of karma.
No technique could alter soul age, and no divine ability could deceive the Underworld.
Even the Northern Great Emperor back then could not have done it.
Xuandu opened his eyes and reached out, his five fingers spreading as the force of laws in the entire hall suddenly converged.
He would test it personally.
In hundreds of thousands of years, the Xuandu Ghost Emperor Mansion had never made a mistake, and no one could hide any secret in this hall before the Underworld rules left behind by the Northern Great Emperor.
A dark green light surged from Xuandu's palm, passing through the ghosts and landing on Chen Zhou.
The light circulated around Chen Zhou for several breaths.
Then, Xuandu withdrew his hand. The Seven Evils all looked toward the high platform in unison.
Xuandu stood there as if nailed to the spot, motionless.
After a moment, he raised a hand to tuck a stray hair behind his ear, his movements very slow, as if he were using the gesture to hide something.
“Soul age... very well, I have seen enough.”
Xuandu spoke only those few words, but his voice was no longer as cold and flat as before.
“The trial result... is valid.”
His gaze became very subtle, like a man who had walked through a desert for years and suddenly saw an oasis.
How long had he been searching?
Since the Northern Great Emperor fell, the divine path withered, and the Great Emperor's Palace sank into the depths of dreams, the Five Direction Ghost Emperors had become grave-keepers. They guarded the Emperor's legacy, the fragments of the Six Paths, and a high platform that no one could ascend to anymore.
Over the years, it wasn't that no descendants of the divine path had stumbled in, but none had been able to reach the end. Some lacked merit, some had impure faith, some lacked talent by a wide margin, and some had unstable dao hearts.
Xuandu had gone from initial expectation to subsequent disappointment, and finally to numbness.
It had been a long time since he had felt any hope.
But now, he stared at Chen Zhou with a burning gaze, as if he wanted to see through every corner of his being.
A soul age of one year, a seventh-stage cultivation.
What did that mean?
It meant that from the moment of his birth until now, this person had used only a single year to traverse a path that ordinary cultivators took hundreds or even thousands of years to finish.
Genius? That word doesn't do him justice.
Xuandu had lived so long he could no longer remember clearly. In the span of an eon, he had seen countless geniuses, countless monsters, and countless juniors who prided themselves on their extraordinary talent and talked big in front of him.
He had always just listened, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
Geniuses? He had seen plenty.
Those who could step into the ninth-stage Truth-Usurping realm within ten thousand years were considered brilliant even in the ancient era. Those who could reach the eighth-stage Siming within three thousand years were enough to make every divine race fight over them.
But what were those geniuses compared to the person before him?
Xuandu took a deep breath, his mind in a state of disarray.
Suddenly, Xuandu understood why Zhaoye had given him the ghost decree. That old loudmouth might talk too much, but his judgment of people was always spot on.
For such a figure to be left to cultivate on his own outside would be a crying shame. He had to find a way to keep this person in the Great Emperor's Palace!
The legacy of the Great Emperor's Palace must go to him!
Xuandu walked down from the high platform. This was the first time in hundreds of thousands of years that he had proactively descended before a trial had ended.
The Seven Evils watched him descend the steps one by one, all of them stunned.
Xuandu walked up to Chen Zhou. Only when they stood together did he realize this junior was about his own height. Xuandu lowered his eyes slightly, looking into Chen Zhou's eyes, and spoke warmly, “Your name is Chen Zhou?”
Chen Zhou nodded. “Yes.”
Xuandu added, “Your foundation is excellent.”
Xuandu spoke these words slowly, but the Seven Evils could all hear it—the Ghost Emperor's tone had changed. It was incredibly gentle, as if he were speaking to his own kin.
Xuandu raised his right hand, signaling Chen Zhou not to speak yet.
“But this is only the starting point.”
“True talent is not measured by how far you have already gone, but by how fast you can go.”
He raised his right hand and tapped the void gently with a long finger.
Beneath the ceiling of the hall, countless light orbs suddenly lit up.
The orbs were dense and layered, like the debris of a galaxy covering the entire ceiling.
Xuandu said, “With your talent, this third stage likely won't stop you either, but we must still go through the formalities.”
“These are the talents that I have stripped from countless descendants of the divine path over tens of thousands of years.”
“There is the comprehension of techniques, the application of divine abilities, the mastery of alchemy, the layout of arrays, the drawing of talismans, the tempering of artifacts, and more.”
“Every light orb is the manifestation of a talent, and every talent represents the life's blood of a genius.”
“The trial of the third stage is to select three from these tens of thousands of talents and completely master them within three sticks of incense.”
“The standard for mastery is being able to use that talent to defeat a wisp of my divine sense left within the light orb.”
Xuandu looked into Chen Zhou's eyes and spoke word by word.
“Master three within three sticks of incense and defeat the three wisps of divine sense, and you pass the trial.”
“Lack even one, or exceed the time limit, and you fail.”
“Do you understand?”
Chen Zhou nodded. “I understand.”
The Ghost Emperor looked at him and suddenly asked, “You do not ask about the price of failure?”
Chen Zhou replied, “There is no need. I will not fail.”
Xuandu was stunned for a moment, then he chuckled. If anyone else had said this before, he would have surely thought them ignorant of the heights of heaven, young and impetuous, arrogant simply because they possessed a bit of talent.
But the one saying this now was a young man with a soul age of barely a year, who was already at the peak of the seventh-stage and had crushed Zhao Lie and Hong Xiu head-on.
Xuandu suddenly felt that these words weren't so arrogant after all. He was reminded of something the Northern Great Emperor had said many years ago.
“The truly talented are not those with more arms or eyes than others; it is that their dao hearts are as indestructible as their talent.”
Back then, Xuandu hadn't understood what those words meant.
Talent was talent, and a dao heart was a dao heart. How could they be the same?
He had seen many geniuses who cultivated as easily as drinking water, only to shatter into pieces at the first sign of a setback.
He had also seen many whose dao hearts were like iron, but whose talent was mediocre, never even touching the peak despite a lifetime of bitter cultivation.
But the Emperor had said they were equally indestructible.
It wasn't that talent was higher than the dao heart, nor the dao heart higher than talent, but that the two matched. However high the talent, the dao heart was just as resilient.
Xuandu only truly understood that sentence today.
The young man before him had a soul age of one year and a seventh-stage cultivation. He had passed two stages without a change in expression, and even standing before a Ghost Emperor who had lived for an eon, he remained neither humble nor arrogant.
This was because his talent and his dao heart were one and the same. He no longer needed to use modesty to prove his humility, nor did he need to spout threats to bolster his courage.
Xuandu withdrew his thoughts, and the faint smile on his lips deepened slightly, like a fine crack appearing on a ten-thousand-year-old frozen pond.
“Good.”
“Then I shall wait and see.”
Xuandu watched as Chen Zhou stepped into the void where tens of thousands of light orbs floated. He didn't look away until the boy's back was completely swallowed by the cyan mist.
He raised his right hand, and a speck of dark gold light lit up at his fingertip. He flicked it gently into the void.
The light vanished into the void, sending out a ripple.
From the other side came the voice of the Zhaoye Ghost Emperor, sounding somewhat hurried. “Xuandu? Why are you contacting me all of a sudden? Did something go wrong with the trial?”
“Did something happen to that kid?”
“You didn't seriously injure him, did you?”
“Hey, hey, I told you, don't be so stiff and pedantic. I already said he's only been a god for a very short time; he's still very young.”
“But he really has potential. Can't you go a little easy on him? Even if he fails, at least let it not look too bad.”
“Kids have strong self-esteem.”
Xuandu’s brow furrowed into the shape of the character for 'river' from the noise, and he interrupted Zhaoye's rambling.
“You said just now that he has been a god for a very short time and is still very young.”
Zhaoye’s voice paused. “Yeah, so what?”
“How short is 'very short'?”
“Uh...”
“And how many years is 'young'?”
“Well...”
Zhaoye hemmed and hawed for a long time before finally coughing, as if giving up the struggle. “Fine, I didn't ask for specifics, but his cultivation is only at the seventh-stage five contracts. To us, that's definitely very young.”
“I'd guess he's probably not over ten thousand years old, but his merit and faith are the real deal, no faking at all. Why? Is there something wrong with his soul age?”
Xuandu replied with certainty, “There is something wrong. Something very wrong.”
Rate on N.U.
