The entire city of New Festival was shaken by that earth-shattering blast.
That scene of ultimate splendor, the blazing grandeur of a super-grade Daoist art, bloomed atop the city walls and seized everyone's sight.
In clashes between the very greatest prodigies, a super-grade Daoist art might find it difficult to decisively settle victory or defeat.
That was because, compared to Supernatural Powers and certain bloodline secret arts, Daoist arts possessed one greatest distinction: their universality—at least in principle, anyone could cultivate them.
This was where their superiority lay, and also where their fragility lay.
Universality meant they could arm more people and strengthen the Human Race to a greater degree.
Universality also meant that anyone could master them, anyone could study them, anyone could analyze and crack them... As a result, Daoist arts were innovated upon and discarded at an extraordinarily rapid pace.
A Daoist art was always at its strongest the first time it was displayed before the world.
That was why, in the Great Void Illusion Realm, the rules of the Dao Evolution Platform placed the greatest value, in terms of Daoist arts, upon originality.
That was why the courts of every nation sealed so many Daoist arts away in their Technique Vaults. They would rather not bestow them as rewards than hand them out indiscriminately. The fewer people who understood the same Daoist art, the more precious it became.
All the great powers of the world poured immense resources into their Art Academies to maintain their lead in Daoist arts.
There was no such thing in this world as mastering one overwhelmingly powerful Daoist art and sweeping all before oneself.
And amid the vast ocean of Daoist art systems, what was a super-grade art?
It was that which the conventional four ranks and twelve grades of Daoist