"Disciple pays his respects to Elder Liu!"
The gray-robed elder known as Elder Liu stroked the beard on his chin and carefully sized up the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger.
"Interesting."
A flicker of surprise crossed the elder's eyes.
"There's a trace of spatial-law fluctuations on its body, and that bead on its tail seems to contain a tiny hint of temporal energy."
"On a cultivation planet like Vermilion Bird Planet, mutated spirit beasts with such mixed attributes are quite rare."
The elder nodded in satisfaction, his tone carrying a hint of approval.
"You brats were lucky to find such a promising specimen."
"Our Primordial Immortal Court's supreme founding ancestor, Lin Changsheng, was especially fond of studying the laws of space and time."
"The sect has long had a rule: whenever anyone encounters an unusual spirit beast with such attributes, they must capture it and bring it back for careful cultivation."
"This black tiger is a little weak, but if I keep it at my Beast Taming Peak and feed it various pills for a few hundred years, perhaps I can raise it into a decent guardian spirit beast for the sect."
With that, the elder swept out his broad sleeve.
A black cloth pouch covered in runes flew out from his sleeve.
The pouch opened in midair, releasing a powerful suction force.
The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, sprawled on the ground, didn't have the slightest chance to resist. It was sucked straight into the pouch.
The pouch quickly shrank and flew back into the elder's hand.
The elder glanced at the three disciples on the ground and snorted.
"Three Qi Condensation cultivators who can't even subdue a beast. You've brought shame upon the Primordial Immortal Court."
"Get yourselves to the Discipline Hall and accept your punishment!"
As his words fell, the elder's figure gradually faded, then disappeared completely into thin air, as if he had never appeared at all.
The scene on the Sky Screen gradually darkened.
Blood-red words once again announced the outcome without mercy.
[The Star Dou Great Forest explorer, the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, was suppressed and captured by a Nascent Soul elder of the 72nd Branch of the Primordial Immortal Court. It became a captive spirit beast. Exploration judged a failure.]
The screen in the middle turned a despair-inducing grayish white.
The entire Douluo Continent fell silent for a long while.
The tiny glimmer of hope that had just arisen was instantly crushed to pieces by an invisible giant hand.
On the Shrek Academy training field, Yu Xiaogang's stiff face looked as unpleasant as if he had just swallowed a dead fly.
His grand theory of crushing opponents in close combat had just become a colossal joke in the face of this Nascent Soul elder, who could teleport and suppress a Ferocious Beast with a single word.
Everyone understood a cruel truth.
In that Renegade Immortal World,
beating up a junior really did bring out an old monster.
And the strength of those old monsters had completely surpassed the limits of human understanding.
While everyone was still immersed in shock and fear,
the screen at the far right of the Sky Screen, which had been silent all this time, suddenly blazed with dazzling red light.
The scene gradually came into focus.
The perspective of Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan, a level-95 Titled Douluo of Spirit Hall, officially appeared before the entire continent.
The surroundings where Yue Guan now found himself sent a chill down the backs of everyone watching.
On the Sky Screen, the screen at the far right, which had remained dark, finally lit up with a soft glow.
As the light gradually sharpened, the perspective of Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan, a level-95 Titled Douluo of Spirit Hall, was displayed before the billions of living beings across the continent.
In the scene, heavy snow drifted down from the sky.
A bitterly cold wind swept past, whipping snowflakes off the ground and scattering them against the gray-tiled roofs and green brick walls on either side.
It was an ordinary-looking street in a mortal town.
Low shops lined both sides of the street, some with faded cloth banners hanging outside, flapping in the wind.
Most of the pedestrians wore thick cotton-padded coats of coarse cloth. They tucked their hands into their sleeves, hunched their shoulders, and hurried along.
Now and then, a few vendors selling roasted sweet potatoes at the street corners stood by their stoves, rubbing their hands and blowing warm breath onto them.
The air was filled with the distinctive, homely scent of mortal life.
Yue Guan landed at the entrance to a secluded alley.
His fine, thin golden robe looked completely out of place in the freezing snow.
When the cold wind blew, the dignified Titled Douluo couldn't help shivering.
"What bitterly cold weather..."
Yue Guan raised his fair fingers and rubbed the tip of his nose, reddened by the wind. His brows knitted slightly.
He had always preferred warm, humid places and hated snowy days like this.
However, after cautiously releasing his spiritual power and scanning the surrounding area for several miles,
the trace of displeasure on his face instantly turned into barely restrained delight.
"No energy fluctuations..."
"They're all ordinary people with feeble life force!"
Excitement gleamed in Yue Guan's narrow eyes, and even his breathing quickened.
Before being transported, he had witnessed the miserable fates of the first two batches of explorers with his own eyes.
Those cultivators who could fly on swords, casually toss fireballs, and suppress Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts with a single word had truly unnerved him.
He had thought that after being transported, he would surely run into some monstrous old freak, too.
He hadn't expected the heavens to favor him so much.
They had sent him straight to a city of mortals!
In a place full of ordinary people, without spiritual energy or cultivators, wasn't a level-95 Titled Douluo like him practically a god, high above them all?
"Hehehe... It seems my luck really is quite good."
Yue Guan covered his mouth and let out a delicate giggle.
He straightened his back, the tension and apprehension from earlier vanishing completely.
Inside Pope Palace in Spirit City, Douluo Continent.
Seeing this, the heavy, oppressive atmosphere in the great hall finally eased considerably.
The body Gui Mei hid within the black mist visibly relaxed.
"Your Holiness, that old rascal Yue Guan is really lucky."
Gui Mei's hoarse voice held unmistakable relief.
"That city looks like some remote settlement of ordinary people."
"There isn't even a single disciple carrying a wooden sword."
"With Yue Guan's level-95 cultivation, as long as he doesn't go looking for trouble, he'll have no problem staying somewhere like that in peace for a year."
Bibi Dong, seated on the throne, also breathed a long sigh of relief.
The scepter clenched in her hand slowly relaxed.
At last, a faint smile appeared on her beautiful face.
"So this is what the Sky Screen meant by randomness."
Watching Yue Guan looking so at ease in the scene, Bibi Dong's tone grew considerably lighter.
"Since the Renegade Immortal World is so vast, it must also have great stretches where ordinary people live."
"Not everywhere is filled with cultivators who can casually destroy the heavens and the earth."
"As long as Yue Guan can make it through this year, Spirit Hall will have firsthand information about that world when he returns."
A glint flashed in Bibi Dong's eyes. "He might even be able to gather some rare treasures from that mortal city that we don't have on Douluo Continent."
It wasn't just Spirit Hall.
The commoners and Soul Masters across the continent also felt a glimmer of hope as they watched.
So the Renegade Immortal World had safe places like this, too.
As long as you were lucky enough to draw a mortal city, it would be like going on vacation.
In the scene on the Sky Screen, Yue Guan straightened his golden robe and walked out of the alley with graceful steps.
He strode down the snowy street with a haughty air, like a king inspecting his territory.
When the surrounding mortals saw his strange attire and his feminine face covered in makeup, they hurriedly moved out of his way.
They sneaked glances at him as if he were a freak, and no one dared approach.
Yue Guan relished being treated with such reverence.
It restored the dignity he had enjoyed as an elder of Spirit Hall.
Just then, he came to an unremarkable shop.
The shopfront was tiny, without even a proper signboard.
Some scraps of wood were piled by the entrance, giving off a faint scent of pine.
At that moment, a sturdy young man in a thick cotton-padded coat ran past Yue Guan, carrying a jug of wine and half a roast chicken. His face was wreathed in a simple grin.
The young man stepped straight over the shop's threshold and called out in a loud voice.
"Uncle Wang, my pa told me to bring you a jug of hot wine. It's snowing so hard—have a drink to warm yourself up!"
Yue Guan stopped and curiously glanced into the shop.
The light inside was rather dim.
Behind the counter by the window sat a man wearing a gray robe.
He didn't look very old, yet half his hair had already turned white. His face bore a hard-to-describe air of weathered weariness.
He held a carving knife in his hand, head lowered as he concentrated on carving a piece of wood.
Wood shavings fell from his fingertips onto the tabletop, bit by bit.
Hearing the young man call out, the gray-robed man known as Uncle Wang stopped carving.
He raised his head, revealing a plain-looking face, and smiled warmly at the honest young man.
"Daniu, thank your pa for me."
The man's voice was calm, like a glass of boiled water left to cool, without the slightest ripple.
Daniu set the wine and roast chicken on the table, chuckled twice, then turned and ran back into the snowstorm.
Yue Guan stood outside and narrowed his eyes as he sized up the gray-robed man.
"Not a trace of energy in his body. His life force is even weaker than that Daniu fellow's."
"Looks like a sickly weakling."
Yue Guan made his judgment.
This really was nothing more than an ordinary mortal who owned a woodcarving shop.
The snow outside was falling harder and harder, and the cold wind kept sneaking down his collar.
Yue Guan had been pampered all his life and really didn't want to stand out in the street freezing.
Seeing a brazier inside the woodcarving shop, he simply stepped in.
"Shopkeeper, I'm borrowing your place to rest my feet for a while."
Yue Guan casually pulled over a chair and sat down beside the brazier.
He didn't even bother to look properly at the gray-robed man. His attitude was utterly arrogant.
The gray-robed man didn't seem to mind.
He simply glanced calmly at the strangely dressed customer, then lowered his head and continued carving the piece of wood with the knife in his hand.
The shop was very quiet.
Only the occasional crackle from the brazier and the soft scrape of the carving knife against the wood broke the silence.
After warming himself by the fire for a while, Yue Guan grew bored.
His gaze wandered casually around the shop.
Various woodcarvings stood on the wooden shelves.
There were birds and beasts, as well as landscapes and figures.
Suddenly, Yue Guan's gaze stopped on a woodcarving in the corner of the counter.
It was a chrysanthemum carved from a single block of rosewood.
Its petals were layered upon one another, and the carving was quite fine. Even the veins of the flower's stamens had been rendered clearly.
But Yue Guan loved flowers more than life itself.
On Douluo Continent, he had spent his whole life studying rare flowers and plants.
Seeing the wooden chrysanthemum, Yue Guan gave a disdainful snort.
"The carving is passable, I suppose, but in the end, it's just a piece of dead wood."
Yue Guan stretched out his slender fingers and pointed at the wooden chrysanthemum, commenting in a condescending tone.
"Flowers are living treasures of heaven and earth."
"They should have life and an aura of nobility all their own."
"What you've carved has only a lifeless, rigid shell. You haven't revealed the soul of the flower at all."
"You mortals spend your whole lives rolling around in the dirt. What could you possibly know about the true beauty of flowers?"
Yue Guan's words were barbed, brimming with contempt for mortals.
Shrek Academy, Douluo Continent.
Tang San watched Yue Guan on the screen, his brows creasing slightly.
"This Chrysanthemum Douluo is far too arrogant."
Tang San lowered his voice and said to Dai Mubai beside him, "That Renegade Immortal World is strange in every way. Even if he was transported to a mortal city, he shouldn't be acting so brazenly."
Dai Mubai was still brooding over his earlier disgrace when he heard Tang San speak. He let out a cold laugh.
"Xiao San, stop worrying over nothing."
"That Daniu and the shopkeeper called Uncle Wang don't have a trace of spiritual energy on them. We all saw it with our own eyes."
"Yue Guan may be a Titled Douluo of rank ninety-five, but even if he struts around a city full of ordinary people, who could possibly do anything to him?"
Dai Mubai wasn't the only one who thought so.
Except for a few particularly astute people, ninety percent of the audience across the continent thought there was nothing wrong with Yue Guan's behavior.
Wasn't it only natural for the strong to put on airs in front of the weak in Douluo Continent?
Inside the woodcarving shop.
The man Daniu had called Uncle Wang kept his head lowered, carving the wood in his hands.
He seemed not to have heard Yue Guan's taunts. Even the rhythm of his carving knife didn't falter in the slightest.
Being ignored by a mere mortal immediately put Yue Guan in a foul mood.
He rose and walked to the counter, a mocking smile curling his lips.
"Very well."
"Since fate has brought us together today, I'll let you, an ignorant bumpkin, open your eyes."
"I'll show you what a true peerless flower is, and what a true miracle looks like!"
As his words fell, dazzling golden light suddenly burst from Yue Guan's narrow eyes.
An immense pressure, befitting a rank-ninety-five Titled Douluo, erupted from within him and swept in every direction.
The windows of the entire woodcarving shop rattled under the shock wave.
"Martial Soul, Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum!"
At Yue Guan's soft shout, a huge, magnificent golden chrysanthemum slowly blossomed above his palm.
Golden light instantly illuminated the woodcarving shop, which had been dim until then.
Next came yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black, black, black.
Nine Soul Rings radiating terrifying energy rose one after another from beneath Yue Guan's feet, slowly revolving around his body.
Holding aloft the radiant Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum, Yue Guan felt the surging Soul Power within him, his expression smug beyond measure.
He lifted his chin slightly, ready to enjoy the comical sight of the mortal shopkeeper dropping to his knees in fright, kowtowing and begging for mercy.
"Do you see?"
"This is the Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum of our Douluo Continent..."