There had been no surprises. With the end of the battle at Xiansha Island, everything that had happened in that battle first spread like wildfire through the South Sea Cultivation World, sparking enormous discussion.
Then, carried by the escalating flames of war in the South Sea, it rapidly spread outward!
It caused an immense sensation.
After more than a decade, Zhang Qingyuan's name once again returned to the sight of Yuzhou cultivators.
More than ten years ago, during the Cloud Water Sect's Inner Sect Grand Competition, Zhang Qingyuan had performed brilliantly. In particular, his exceptionally young cultivation career, his defeat of the newly renowned Yan Kuangtu, and his unexpected rise as a dark horse to claim third place in the Inner Sect Grand Competition had stunned everyone.
The strength and potential he displayed in the process
made some people believe
that his talent
was probably the greatest among the younger generation beneath Qi Yiming, the Water Sword Immortal, the peerless prodigy said to appear only once in a thousand years over the past three hundred years!
Although some senior True Essence Realm cultivators in Yuzhou had made such an assessment at the time, the road of cultivation was long, and no one knew what the future might bring.
A genius who had once shone brightly might not necessarily perform well after decades of cultivation.
Especially since Zhang Qingyuan's Cultivation Realm at the time was merely at the True Essence Fifth Layer Peak, still a long way from the True Essence Realm Late Stage.
Most people believed that no matter how talented he was, it would be difficult for him to break through to the True Essence Late Stage without twenty or thirty years of effort.
After all, that threshold had trapped and killed who knew how many genius cultivators. It