Xie Yuan looked at so many grandmaster elders gathered in one place, and his first reaction was: Had they discovered that he had disguised himself to secretly learn divine arts, and were now holding a joint tribunal?
But then he remembered that he was no longer secretly playing someone else. He had finally returned to his true identity—even a hidden identity he himself had not known about. It could not have been more genuine.
Xie Yi, the Martial Guardian Elder, naturally stood at the front. Many of the elders beside him were great figures Xie Yuan had grown familiar with after returning to the Xie Family's ancestral grounds. Even if he had not met them, he had seen their portraits, lest he inadvertently offend them.
There was also that elderly man with drooping white brows and a benevolent face. Xie Yuan remembered him as the figure seated in the place of highest honor during the previous sparring session, someone even Xie Yi had treated with utmost respect.
He had heard that this elder belonged to Xie Yi's great-grandfather's generation. He had left home in his youth to travel and seek the Dao, then later returned to the family. He was one of the clan's foremost experts in Daoist cultivation arts and also its most senior member. He was likely already over a hundred and fifty years old.
So many grandmasters... all on the eighth floor. There were not even enough manuals to give everyone one.
Xie Yuan thought to himself.
Though the Xie Family was powerful and had many grandmasters, it did not have dozens of them. Excluding the elders stationed at various branch properties and secret grounds, there were around ten grandmasters remaining in the clan. Today, they had likely all come.
Wouldn't this leave the ancestral grounds poorly