"Hmm, Great Perfection Earthly Sovereign. Looks like all of you have been doing better than me during this time."
Xiao Yan patted Xiao Jiu's solid shoulder and sighed with emotion.
"Us? Brother, you've already met the others?"
Xiao Jiu pushed Xiao Yan away in delighted surprise.
"Mm. I already know the whereabouts of the other eleven, and I've met four of them. You're the fifth. Soon, I'll be meeting the sixth."
Xiao Yan took Xiao Jiu by the arm and walked toward the counter.
Five minutes later.
"You're saying this Xiao Jiu really is your younger brother?"
The Grey-Robed Elder stared blankly at the two people before him, whose features bore some resemblance.
"Isn't Xiao Jiu just Xiao Jiu? If he isn't my, Xiao Yan's, younger brother, then whose is he?"
Xiao Yan smiled and asked in return.
"Hey, Old Ghost Liu, you never said your Thunder God Palace's Young Pavilion Master was also a lower-plane prodigy who broke through the shackles of a lower plane."
The Grey-Robed Elder turned to look at the Heavenly Sovereign from Thunder God Palace and complained.
"You never asked, did you?"
The elder in a lightning-patterned robe stroked his beard and smiled.
"Brother, this is Elder Liu of our Thunder God Palace. He has the cultivation of a Spirit Grade Heavenly Sovereign. For this trip into the Ancient Holy Abyss, the palace sent Elder Liu to come and protect me."
Xiao Jiu scratched his head and shyly introduced him to Xiao Yan.
"Xiao Jiu, you really were in Thunder God Palace. Previously, when I borrowed the Northern Heavens Spiritual Academy's detection-type Divine Artifact, the Mirror of Judgment, to investigate your whereabouts, what I saw in the Mirror of Judgment was the Ancient Thunder Palace, the Saint Grade Peerless Sacred Object controlled by the Heart