Not to mention the elders directly involved—even the academy masters were shocked by Zhang Tie's words to a degree no less than when they had heard of his exploits on the Plain of Ten Thousand Gods over a month ago.
Throughout the countless ages of the Sky-Piercing Realm's history, more than one Demon Emperor had been slain by human experts, and more than one Human God Emperor or expert had forged their supreme renown in the Sky-Piercing Realm by killing Demon Emperors. Yet no one had ever heard of anyone enabling an expert whose cultivation had stagnated at the Fire God General stage to break through that most crucial barrier and become a Primordial Spirit General.
In the Sky-Piercing Realm, to become a Primordial Spirit General, one had to condense a complete formation wheel—the Sacred Wheel—use it to communicate with the Elemental Realm, and freely gather the Four Great Killing Formations—domains. Many Fire God Generals could not break through this bottleneck and condense a complete formation wheel even in their entire lives. They remained at the Fire God General rank for a lifetime, wasting away their years—a pitiful sight indeed.
The reason condensing a formation wheel had become the greatest hurdle on the road to advancing as a Primordial Spirit General was that this process could not be accomplished through mere bitter cultivation.
When condensing the four great chakras of earth, water, wind, and fire, bitter cultivation was indeed necessary. But after the four great chakras had been condensed, to go a step further required not dogged cultivation, but insight—a meeting of minds and spirits—the wisdom and ability to comprehend from flowers blooming and falling, waves rolling and clouds flying, mountains and rivers, and the rising and setting of the sun and moon, the laws of heaven and earth and