"You three should stop arguing. With only Spiritual Root Layer One, it wouldn't be right for either of you to manage the two of us at Spiritual Root Layer Two. And you there, on the upper bunk—I'd advise you to stop arguing too. Your old man is Tie Dagang, heir to King Zhennan of Zihuo Country. I reached Spirit Nurturing Great Perfection at seventeen and Spiritual Root Layer One at twenty-five. Now I'm only twenty-nine, and I've already been at Spiritual Root Layer Two for two years. What about you? Why don't you tell us a little about yourself?"
The round-faced, burly man declared this unprompted, automatically narrowing the finalists down and laying out his own credentials.
Xu Yi was genuinely surprised. He'd thought he was advancing quickly, but he'd never imagined there was a monster like this, only twenty-nine years old.
"Brother Tie, that's quite a boast. What gives you the right to tell us not to compete? Do the rules say that people at Spiritual Root Layer One aren't allowed to try? I, Jiang Fei, am only twenty-two, and I reached Spiritual Root Layer One a year ago. As for who my old man is, there's no need for you all to know. Who here doesn't have an old man worth bragging about?"
The yellow-faced young man across from Xu Yi spoke with a cold snort. Tie Dagang's face flushed with anger.
Judging by their backgrounds alone, Jiang Fei certainly had Tie Dagang beat. The difference between them wasn't talent, but time.
"Hmph. I'm Duan Tiandai. I reached the Spiritual Root later than all of you, not until I was thirty-three. But I have a water-type mutant Spiritual Root."
The dark-faced man on the lower bunk beneath the yellow-faced young man spoke coldly.
As soon as he finished,