"I need to fight others, to find my own shortcomings within their intents, and thereby find my direction!" Chen Fan said.
"Hehe, not bad at all! In truth, I watched your battle in the Heavenly Prodigy Battlefield ten years ago. Not only I— the master of the Immortal Palace, the headmaster of Shu Mountain, and even other great figures were watching as well! You need not be surprised. At our level, it is no longer difficult to see anything wherever our thoughts may reach!"
"So that was it!" Chen Fan nodded. He was likewise shocked by the power of the late Soul Division Stage, yet he did not know why the Nine Palaces Elder had brought this up.
The Nine Palaces Elder fell silent again. Only after a moment did his voice continue, "I saw you erase your name from the Heavenly Prodigy Rankings. I must say, your action at the time took me by surprise. I imagine no one else could have foreseen it either! Yet the result proved that what you did was right, and it also resolved a problem that had plagued countless powerful cultivators for tens of thousands of years!"
"At the time, this disciple felt that the Heavenly Prodigy Rankings were stealing my intent, so I directly severed every connection! This disciple dares to speculate that the humanoid lightning may very well have been born from that. But... what problem did this disciple resolve?" Chen Fan asked gravely. He did not know why his action had made the Nine Palaces Elder attach such importance to it.
"Actually, no one knows when it began, but this realm came to be restricted in every way, as though a layer of shackles had been placed upon every powerful cultivator. Do you know why I, the headmaster of Shu