Meanwhile.
Inside the Preaching Hall.
Taiqing and Yuanshi, who had been meditating, suddenly opened their eyes.
"Elder Brother!"
"Cultivators have arrived!"
"But compared to us, they're much slower!"
Yuanshi said.
A smile played on his face.
Taiqing gave a slight nod in agreement.
"Indeed!"
"We arrived here long ago. By comparison, they're several times slower than us!"
"But we are Pangu's Orthodox Lineage!"
"That's only right!"
"Elder Brother, you're absolutely right!"
Yuanshi's smile never faded.
He was brimming with pride.
As part of Pangu's Orthodox Lineage,
wasn't it only natural that they had arrived at Lei Jun Palace so much earlier than the other cultivators?
In fact, even if they'd arrived much earlier,
that would have been perfectly normal.
That was what Yuanshi thought.
However,
just as he was thinking this, a phantom appeared on the Prayer Mat beside him.
In the very next instant,
the phantom became solid. Taking a closer look, he saw that it was a cultivator.
But this cultivator's Dao Body was slightly different from Taiqing and Yuanshi's.
Though he had a humanoid form,
he still bore obvious traits of his true form: feathers grew from his body.
At once,
Yuanshi's eyes widened, and he snapped,
"This is Lei Jun Palace, the site of a Sage's Dojo. What right does a creature born from wetness and hatched from an egg have to sit in the front row, right beside me?"
"Get up at once!"
"Move to the back!"
Before his words had even finished,
the cultivator Yuanshi had scolded froze for a moment.
But soon,
the cultivator came to his senses, and fury and overwhelming presence poured from him.
At the same time,
an irritated voice rang out,
tinged with disdain.
"Heh."
"A Late Da Luo dares to be this arrogant?"
"I'm at Peak Da Luo. Where I sit is none of your business!"
"If you really get on my nerves..."
"Believe it or not, I'll make you give up your seat to me!"
This cultivator was none other than Kunpeng.
A long time ago,
he had found Lei Jun Palace.
But since the gates of Lei Jun Palace weren't open,
he had no choice but to sit outside.
And because of that,
he had spent the longest time comprehending the Plaque Inscription!
As for his cultivation...
it had naturally surged ahead of everyone else.
Just like his speed, he might not have been peerless, but few could match him.
Yuanshi, for instance,
was one minor realm behind...
Above Da Luo,
even a single minor realm made a huge difference.
So,
though the gap seemed small, under Kunpeng's imposing presence, Yuanshi's own presence faltered.
He was completely outmatched!
He'd tried to scold someone and ended up getting scolded instead.
The worst part was...
he hadn't even had time to react,
much less come up with a retort.
Yuanshi had never imagined that the cultivator beside him would be more powerful than he was!
And when he sensed the others,
he found that some of the cultivators who had entered after him were stronger too!
There were even countless cultivators at the same level as him!
What was going on?
Wasn't he of Pangu's Orthodox Lineage?
Why did it seem as if these cultivators had encountered better opportunities than he had?
At that moment,
Yuanshi was utterly dumbfounded.
This cultivator who had suddenly appeared was actually stronger than he was?
There had to be some mistake.
Even after coming to his senses,
Yuanshi still couldn't quite believe it.
His origins spoke for themselves.
He had been formed from Pangu's Primordial Spirit, and the Primordial Wilderness owed him Karma.
By rights,
even if he hadn't received the best opportunities, he should at least have had some of the very best.
Opportunities.
To a certain extent, they were equivalent to cultivation.
Those with good opportunities
couldn't possibly have low cultivation.
Therefore,
in Yuanshi's view, his own cultivation should have been just like his opportunities: among the best of his generation.
But now,
that belief had been shattered.
There wasn't just one or two cultivators whose cultivation surpassed Yuanshi's!
And if he counted those at the same level as him,
there were hundreds, even thousands!
Could it be...
that he'd sensed them incorrectly?
But the auras behind him gave him a definite answer.
That was right.
Of the more than two thousand cultivators, only a few had lower cultivation than Yuanshi.
There was that fellow with a long face, looking utterly miserable.
"Senior Brother!"
"Is our Western Region really doomed never to rise?"
"We arrived late at Lei Jun Palace, so we didn't even get the chance to comprehend the opportunity in the Daoist Script. And now we can only sit at the back of the hall, too!"
Zhun Ti cried out in despair.
His lament drew the attention of many.
Yuanshi was one of them.
But what caught his attention was the phrase "opportunity in the Daoist Script."
Daoist Script?
In an instant,
he understood.
He remembered.
When they had first arrived at Lei Jun Palace, the Daoist Script on the Plaque Inscription had indeed contained profound mysteries.
But at the time,
the gates of Lei Jun Palace had been open, and the two of them had believed that the opportunities inside were greater, so they hadn't lingered.
They hadn't paid the Daoist Script much attention either.
Now that he thought about it,
had they missed out on an opportunity?
At that moment,
not only Yuanshi but even Taiqing was dumbfounded.
So...
they'd arrived at Lei Jun Palace early, only to end up losing out?
Elsewhere,
other cultivators realized this too.
They stared at Taiqing and Yuanshi, seated on the two Prayer Mats at the very front, their expressions uncertain.
At the same time,
they couldn't help finding it amusing.
So what if they'd arrived at Lei Jun Palace first?
The opportunity...
was right outside the door!
For a time,
no one paid any attention to Zhun Ti's lament.
In fact...
even Yuanshi wanted to join in.
What kind of situation was this?!
At this point, all they could do was place their hopes in the Prayer Mats beneath them.
Somehow,
Taiqing and Yuanshi sensed that there was something mysterious about the Prayer Mats beneath them.
Jie Yin and Zhun Ti sensed the same thing.
That was one of the reasons Zhun Ti had lamented.
There were two opportunities, one inside and one outside. They had to get at least one of them, right?
Otherwise,
how could the Western Region ever rise?
It was impossible.
At that moment,
the cultivators on the six special Prayer Mats had changed considerably.
Taiqing and Yuanshi.
Needless to say.
They were ranked first and second.
Although neither of them had reached the pinnacle of cultivation, their fortune was second to none, which was astonishing.
On top of that,
Taiqing's cultivation was approaching Peak Da Luo, and a phantom of a Golden Small Pagoda hovered around him. It was clear that it was a Supreme Treasure.
So,
nobody chose to make trouble here.
Even Kunpeng only snapped back at them a couple of times; he didn't actually make a move.
Of course,
he didn't get up, either.
Kunpeng glanced sidelong behind him. As things stood, among all those in the Primordial Wilderness, the number of cultivators whose cultivation surpassed his could be counted on one hand.
Give up his seat?
What a joke!
So,
after Yuanshi, the next one was none other than Kunpeng.
Relying on his cultivation and speed,
he claimed the third Prayer Mat.
Further back,
there were two more cultivators at Peak Da Luo. They were a little slower than Kunpeng, but their cultivation was no weaker—in fact, it seemed to surpass his by a hair.
They were Di Jun and Tai Yi.
They took the fourth and fifth Prayer Mats, respectively.
As for the last one,
it was claimed by Dong Wang Gong!
As for...
the cultivators who should originally have been seated up front,
two were absent.
Two had the weakest cultivation.
They simply couldn't compete with the others.
As for playing the victim to secure a good seat,
that was out of the question.
There wasn't a single fool among the cultivators present.
Although quite a few were weighing up
whether the opportunity in Lei Jun Palace was better, or the opportunity offered by the Daoist Script,
for the moment,
none of them had any intention of getting up and giving up their seat.
Everything
would have to wait until after the lecture.
Seeing that "playing the victim" was useless,
Jie Yin and Zhun Ti had no choice but to find places to sit.
As they looked,
they tried to reassure themselves.
There were still hundreds of empty seats farther back.
Even if they were unlucky,
surely they wouldn't end up at the very bottom?
But in the next moment,
an unfathomable, irresistible aura suddenly descended, and the two couldn't help but freeze.
That was a Sage's aura, wasn't it?
Since the Sage had appeared,
didn't that mean...
the real lecture was about to begin?
And after that,
no more cultivators would be coming, would they?
So
they really had ended up at the bottom!
For a moment,
Jie Yin and Zhun Ti stood rooted to the spot.
But at that moment,
they weren't the only ones dumbfounded.
There was also...
Hongjun.
More precisely,
he hadn't come to his senses since earlier.
A long time ago,
he had calculated that Nüwa and the others were not in Heaven Beyond Heaven.
He had immediately made a decision
to seal the gates
and wait for them to arrive before making further plans.
But now,
he could no longer put off the lecture. Dragging it out any longer wouldn't work, either.
So
he had opened the gates.
Yet that very choice had made the changes even harder to control.
Who could have guessed
that just two Daoist Script characters on the Plaque Inscription could have such power?
They had raised the cultivation of all the cultivators present by an entire level!
This left Hongjun deeply vexed.
And when he looked at the seating order,
he was even more speechless.
It was all wrong!
Completely wrong!
According to the course of Fate,
half of the important figures hadn't even come!
To the point that he couldn't even say something like the seating arrangement would never change again.
At that moment,
Hongjun manifested himself and appeared on the high platform.
Below him were the Lei Jun...
two thousand guests?
More precisely, more than two thousand.
At any rate, fewer than three thousand.
"We pay our respects to the Sage!"
A chorus of greetings rang out, one after another.
No matter who they were,
none of them dared show disrespect to a Sage now. Even though the lecture had been delayed by quite a bit, they didn't dare ask about it.
In fact...
there were even cultivators who praised him.
"Thank you, Sage, for bestowing the Daoist Script opportunity. Dong Wang Gong has benefited immensely and broken through two minor realms!"
Dong Wang Gong, seated on the sixth Prayer Mat,
wore an expression of deep admiration.
But after he finished speaking, for some reason, he suddenly felt a chill.
The pressure had increased sharply.
Hongjun glanced at him.
His gaze was utterly indifferent.
"The Daoist Script did not come from this old Daoist!"
Speaking of that,
Hongjun couldn't help wanting to frown. If he hadn't already manifested himself in front of everyone, he certainly wouldn't have been able to keep his composure.
If not for the Daoist Script...
would the changes really have been this great?
Before you continue