The Art of Conversation
The Divine Temple of the Ganwu Secret Realm.
The Ganwu Kingdom Lord stood in front of the door, repeatedly rubbing his palms on the hem of his brocade robe, a smile plastered on his face.
He now turns pale at the mere mention of "debt," after all, as the ruler of a nation, he still has to save face.
The next moment, a clear, sweet girl's voice suddenly exploded between heaven and earth, carrying an undeniable pressure that made the Divine Temple tiles tremble slightly. "Ganwu, it's been a million years, but your charm remains unchanged."
Before the words were even finished, a figure dressed in black appeared out of thin air at the bottom of the steps.
It was a little girl of about seven or eight years old. The hood of her black cloak covered half of her face, and her exposed skin was as white as warm jade. Her lips were as red as rouge. Most striking were her Double Pupils, which seemed to hold the light of stars as they moved.
She was petite and stood there gracefully, yet she seemed to possess an inherent gravitational pull, causing the surrounding light and air currents to flow around her, making her the undisputed center of the world and the protagonist of time and space.
The Ganwu Kingdom Lord's fake smile instantly turned into a sincere and enthusiastic one. He rubbed his hands together and stepped forward. "Oh my! It's Wind-Thunder Venerable! Ten thousand years ago, I heard that old Nan Hu say that you managed to snatch a Heavy Treasure in the Floating Cloud Secret Realm by withstanding the siege of more than a dozen Venerable. I was so impressed at the time!"
"Enter the palace quickly! Enter the palace quickly!"
He stepped aside to lead the way, his tone as warm as if he were hosting a close relative, "After you left last time, I specially had a cellar of 100,000-year-old Purple Marrow Brew stored up, and I also hired a top-notch culinary team. We have all kinds of delicacies from land and sea, and rare ingredients from the earth, guaranteed to suit your taste!"
Wind-Thunder Venerable's gaze swept across the hall. A thin layer of dust covered the offering table, and even the bronze lamp in the corner hung crookedly.
With a slight lift of her delicate white hand, visible ripples of spacetime spread from her palm, engulfing the entire Divine Temple like a tidal wave.
Wherever the ripples reached, dust turned into stardust and vanished, the tilted bronze lamps automatically returned to their places, and even the cracks in the ground were smoothed out by an invisible force. In an instant, this long-abandoned Divine Temple became bright and clean, spotless.
The Ganwu Kingdom Lord was not surprised.
Who among those who reach the Venerable Realm doesn't have some peculiar quirks? The path of cultivation spans billions of years, and without some kind of obsession to support them, they would eventually go mad in desolation. For example, he was addicted to gambling, while this Wind-Thunder Venerable was known for his love of cleanliness and intolerant of even the slightest disorder.
The banquet was held in a side hall, and the jade table was quickly filled with all kinds of delicacies. There Star Marrow Fruit, which could only be produced deep in the earth's core, Dragon-Patterned Fish, which swirled with spiritual mist in a glass bowl.
The Ganwu Kingdom Lord didn't stand on ceremony. Holding his wine cup, he launched into "praise mode," starting with how Wind-Thunder Venerable slaughtered Alien Race on the Black Abyss Battlefield millions of years ago, and how she had seized treasures from the Cosmic Secret Realm a few years ago using her unparalleled escape techniques.
Every time he heard about a thrilling scene, he would slam his hand on the table and shout, "Great!" His fawning manner was so overt that even the thirteenth servant standing nearby dared not look at him.
Wind-Thunder Venerable couldn't help but smile slightly from time to time, clearly enjoying the flattery.
However, she ate with great care. With each bite of food, a pale blue aura of light would flash from her fingertips, thoroughly cleaning away the oil stains on her lips and the crumbs on her clothes, and even straightening the curl of her hair.
Having spent countless years together, the Ganwu Kingdom Lord naturally had a deep understanding of his old friend, and would give him a knowing look every now and then.
The maids around them understood immediately and quickly cleared away the leftover dishes. New dishes had already been prepared and were placed back on the table in the blink of an eye.
For the Venerable, time seems to stand still; for them, a single meal lasting decades is but a fleeting moment.
The anecdotes from the past million years were retold by the Ganwu Kingdom Lord until he ran out of new topics. He could only grit his teeth and continue with old stories like the Genius Tournament and the training in secret realms.
Just as Ganwu was racking his brains for words, Wind-Thunder Venerable had been casually fiddling with the jade bowl, suddenly looked up, a hint of interest flashing in his Double Pupils: "Has anyone still been able to comprehend the Wind-Thunder Monument I left in the Stele Forest all these years?"
The Ganwu Kingdom Lord was taken aback, then suddenly looked at Thirteen, who was standing to the side.
His genius from the Ganwu Secret Realm was, to put it bluntly, a "tool to pay off debts." The Immortal Monument Forest was forged from Dark Spirit Evil Stone, a material originally intended to aid in possession, but it had one advantage: it could directly infuse laws and secret techniques into a martial artist's sea of consciousness, making it a veritable "genius shortcut."
Its greatest use is to mass-produce geniuses from this stele forest and then sell them to Virtual Universe Company to pay off debts.
This method is like forcing a child to eat food that has already been chewed by someone else; the advantage is that it works quickly, but the disadvantage is that it may diminish the potential of geniuses.
The Ganwu Kingdom Lord didn't care at all: firstly, the Virtual Universe Company only looked at the immediate combat power when recruiting geniuses, and they had their own training system for the future; secondly, geniuses who could truly comprehend the Law Essence on their own were extremely rare, and most people could only learn from other people's secret techniques step by step.
If he were to stumble upon a once-in-a-million-years genius, he could personally take them on as a disciple and nurture them carefully. He could then sell them for an even higher price and gain favor in return. Why wouldn't he do that?
Hehe~
Thirteen bowed in response, his mind racing. "Reporting to Your Venerable, in the past million years, there have been 151 geniuses who remain within the secret realm to dedicate themselves to studying the Wind-Thunder Monument. Among them, there is 1 World Lord Rank, 18 Domain Lord level, and 132 Universe Level."
He paused, then added, "The Wind-Thunder Monument is one of the few Venerable Level inheritance steles within the secret realm. If the threshold for the Wind and Thunder Laws weren't so high, even more geniuses would have chosen it."
"Oh? Are there any outstanding performers?" Wind-Thunder Venerable was clearly intrigued.
A hint of hesitation flashed across Thirteen's face.
These guys have been lurking in the secret realm for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years, neither being sold nor breaking through to immortality, so they really have nothing to offer.
As he pondered how to phrase it, his eyes suddenly lit up. "There's a special student named Tang San, a top-tier student at the Universe Level. While others need at least a hundred or a thousand years to digest the Wind-Thunder Monument's inheritance after receiving it once, he can receive it every 5 to 10 years, a frequency far exceeding that of others."
His tone became more certain. "I suspect he has a special talent at the soul level, enabling him to quickly understand and digest the inheritance, and his compatibility with your Wind-Thunder Monument is extremely high."
Whether it's true or not, let's just keep bragging!
"Interesting." Wind-Thunder Venerable leaned forward slightly, his Double Pupils shining even brighter. "Has he comprehended the higher-level Time Law? What level of the Heaven-Reaching Tower has he reached?"
This question left Thirteen momentarily speechless. Surely they couldn't say that, according to the data, Tang San hadn't even scratched the surface of the Time Law?
Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. After a moment of quick thought, he bowed and replied, "Your Venerable may not know, but Tang San's temperament is very similar to yours. Both of you are composed, aloof, and unperturbed."
He cleared the 35th floor of the Heaven-Reaching Tower shortly after reaching the Universe Level, and never challenged it again.
He changed the subject, his tone becoming increasingly certain. "Being able to receive inheritances so frequently must mean he's hiding his strength, perhaps waiting until the selection process in the Universe Level secret realm decades from now to suddenly unleash it, so he can stay within the secret realm to continue comprehending your inheritance."
The Ganwu Kingdom Lord listened from the side and nodded repeatedly, his gaze towards Thirteen full of approval.
See? That's what you call the art of speaking!