The old man of the fifth realm, who had kept his eyes closed in repose, slowly opened them.
He looked at Lu Zhen with a complicated expression and sighed.
"Her Highness is right." The old man's voice was hoarse. "Though I am at the fifth realm, Void Hollow, in the end... I am merely a 'false Void Hollow.'"
Lu Zhen and Leng Qiu were both startled.
A false Void Hollow?
"When I attempted to break through to the fifth realm, I was too eager for quick success and took a wrong turn on the Great Dao." The old man shook his head, bitterness in his eyes. "Though I was lucky enough to survive, gaining a lifespan of ten thousand years and the combat strength of the fifth realm,
"the price was... my cultivation became forever fixed at early Void Hollow. I can never advance another half step."
The old man stared at Lu Zhen, his words earnest and weighty. "Your talent is peerless, and your foundations are deeper than any I have seen in my life. But remember, when you break through in the future, you must never take the wrong path on the Great Dao.
"If you force yourself down a crooked path for the sake of a momentary gain in realm, you will end up like me, with years to spare but all hope of the true Great Dao severed."
Lu Zhen merely smiled, unconcerned.
"Why sigh so deeply, sir?" Lu Zhen offered a casual word of comfort. "Didn't Her Highness just say that no one has even heard of the sixth realm in all these tens of millions of years?
"If there is no sixth realm at all, and the road ahead is already cut off, what hope of the Great Dao is there to speak of?