Yue Guan Achieves Enlightenment and Breakthrough in a Single Glance, Little Niu Steals Wine!

If even the man closest to godhood on the Douluo Continent admitted he could not achieve such a feat, it meant the strength of that man in the grey shirt had far surpassed the scope of anything they could comprehend.

"Does the Great High Priest mean that the man sitting in the woodcarving shop is even more powerful than a god?" Bibi Dong took a deep breath and voiced the question in her heart.

Qian Daoliu shook his head, his eyes filled with awe.

"I do not know if he is a god."

"But I can be certain that the realm he occupies is one that none of us on the Douluo Continent could ever reach, even if we exhausted our entire lives."

Qian Daoliu walked to the edge of the great hall and looked at the Angel Statue that towered into the clouds outside.

"Yue Guan, that old ghost, is usually arrogant and conceited; this time, he has truly kicked a steel plate."

"However, this can also be considered a blessing in disguise."

Qian Daoliu turned around, his tone becoming serious.

"That senior was clearly only punishing Yue Guan for his rudeness; he had no intention of killing him."

"Otherwise, with his strength, a single glance would have been enough to leave not even ashes of Yue Guan."

"To be able to sweep the floor and serve tea for such an unfathomable senior is Yue Guan's good fortune, and it is the good fortune of our Spirit Hall."

Although Qian Daoliu's words sounded like he was inflating the prestige of others while diminishing their own, everyone present knew that this was the wisest judgment.

In front of a powerhouse of that level, dignity was worth nothing.

Being able to survive and bask in the reflected glory of such a person was the greatest opportunity of all.

Bibi Dong nodded, and the anger in her heart slowly subsided.

"The Great High Priest is right."

"Pass down the order: everyone in Spirit Hall is to carefully observe every move Yue Guan makes in that woodcarving shop."

"Especially the techniques the man in the grey shirt uses to carve wood, and every word he speaks; everything must be recorded word for word."

A glimmer of ambition reignited in Bibi Dong's eyes.

"For a powerhouse of that level, even a casual word of guidance would be an invaluable treasure that would benefit us infinitely."

The northernmost part of the Douluo Continent, the Far North.

This was a forbidden zone for humanity, covered year-round in thick ice and snow, with temperatures low enough to freeze steel into brittle shards.

On the vast, desolate snowfield, a wild wind howled, whipping up sand and snow that filled the sky.

At the summit of the highest ice peak stood two stunning figures.

The woman on the left wore a long, snow-white dress; her skin was fairer than the snow, and her long, silver-white hair danced in the wind, making her appear like an elf born from this world of ice and snow.

She was the ruler of the Far North, the Snow Empress, who possessed nearly seven hundred thousand years of cultivation.

Standing beside the Snow Empress was a petite woman in a jade-green dress.

She had a pair of crystal-clear green eyes, and the faint phantom of a scorpion tail swayed behind her.

She was the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion, the Ice Empress, with four hundred thousand years of cultivation.

These two overlords of the Far North rarely concerned themselves with the movements of the human world.

Yet today, they stood upon this ice peak, heads tilted back, watching the images on the Sky Screen.

The Ice Empress rubbed her small, reddened hands, her eyes filled with shock.

"Big Sister, that human old man... he can actually make time flow backward?"

The Ice Empress's voice was filled with profound disbelief.

"We soul beasts struggle through hundreds of thousands of years of cultivation, living in fear every day, guarding against the arrival of the heavenly tribulation."

"To put it bluntly, the heavenly tribulation is just the heavens refusing to let us live so long, coming to take back our time."

The Ice Empress turned to look at the Snow Empress, her tone tinged with bitterness.

"But that man... he treats time as if it were his own possession, controlling it at will."

"If he were to come to our Far North, would a mere wave of his hand be enough to wipe away our hundreds of thousands of years of cultivation?"

The Snow Empress watched the Sky Screen silently, saying nothing.

Her cold, beautiful face no longer held its usual aloof chill.

She extended a fair hand, catching a snowflake falling from the air.

The snowflake slowly melted in her palm, turning into a drop of cold water.

"Time is the most ruthless blade."

The Snow Empress sighed softly, her voice sounding ethereal amidst the cold wind.

"We consider ourselves invincible existences here in the Far North, capable of controlling the wind and snow, and freezing all things."

"But in the face of the true laws of heaven and earth, what difference is there between us and the weeds by the roadside?"

Snow Empress lowered her hand, her gaze fixed intently on the man in grey robes within the Sky Screen, who was currently bowing his head to carve wood.

"That world is far too vast."

"That man is merely sitting in a remote, ordinary city, yet he can render a level-ninety-five human powerhouse completely helpless."

"If a true hegemon from that world were to step out, what kind of presence would they possess?"

For the first time, a sense of awe toward the unknown appeared in Snow Empress's eyes, along with a trace of imperceptible yearning.

For fierce beasts like them, who had lived for hundreds of thousands of years, witnessing a higher level of power was, in itself, a tremendous shock.

The images on the Sky Screen continued to play slowly.

In the Renegade Immortal World, within a mortal city battered by wind and snow.

Yue Guan held a somewhat tattered broom, diligently sweeping wood shavings from the corner of the shop.

He worked with great care, not daring to miss even a speck of dust, terrified of displeasing the senior sitting behind the counter.

After finishing the floor, Yue Guan found a rag and carefully wiped the wooden carvings on the shelf.

When he reached the wooden chrysanthemum he had once mocked, his movements froze.

He swallowed hard and, emboldened, fixed his gaze on the texture of the wooden petals.

He had only glanced at it casually before, without looking closely.

Now, observing it up close, Yue Guan suddenly realized that this wooden chrysanthemum seemed somewhat strange.

The surface of the wood appeared dull, lacking any luster, and seemed rather lifeless.

However, after his gaze lingered on the center of the flower for a moment, his pupils contracted violently.

He felt as if the wooden flower had suddenly come to life.

An indescribable aura of vicissitudes surged along the grain of the wood and rushed directly into Yue Guan's mind.

In that instant, Yue Guan seemed to see a seed falling into the soil, slowly sprouting, growing leaves, and finally blooming into a brilliant flower.

Then, the autumn wind blew, the petals withered and fell one by one, eventually turning back into soil.

The cycle of life and death.

The alternation of growth and decay.

This Great Dao law, pointing directly to the origin of life, was displayed before Yue Guan's eyes without reservation.

Yue Guan's hands began to tremble violently.

He felt his very soul shivering along with the wooden flower.

"This... this is..."

Yue Guan gasped, a cold sweat instantly soaking his back.

He finally understood just how absurdly wrong he had been.

He had mocked the man for carving wood without a soul.

Yet, a dead wooden flower, carved casually by the other, actually contained such a terrifying artistic conception of life and death.

If he had truly been ignorant enough to destroy this carving with his soul power just moments ago, he feared he wouldn't even have the chance to be reincarnated; his soul would have long since been shredded into nothingness by this artistic intent.

Yue Guan set down the rag with trembling hands, his legs went weak, and he knelt once more before the wooden shelf.

This time, he was not begging for mercy.

Instead, he stared at the wooden chrysanthemum with a gaze bordering on pilgrimage, not daring to even blink.

Inside the wood carving shop, the whistling of the wind and snow outside seemed to have faded away.

Yue Guan knelt on the ground, his entire body like a stone statue, not daring to blink his eyes.

That most fundamental law of nature transformed into an indescribable, profound artistic conception, rushing through Yue Guan's eyes and directly into the depths of his mind.

Yue Guan's body began to shake uncontrollably.

He had spent his entire life studying flowers and plants; his martial soul was the Extraordinary Velvet Chrysanthemum.

He had always believed that as long as he increased his soul power and made his martial soul harder and sharper, that was the most perfect development for a plant-type martial soul.

Only now did he realize how narrow the path he had walked truly was.

A true flower is a cycle of life!

At the very moment he grasped this realization, the level-ninety-five soul power within Yue Guan, which had been stagnant for over a decade, suddenly began to churn violently like boiling water.

"Pop."

A faint, muffled sound, audible only to him, echoed from the depths of his dantian.

The cultivation bottleneck that had plagued him for countless days and nights, the one he thought he would never overcome in this lifetime, had shattered at this very moment!

A vast and pure surge of brand-new power instantly coursed through his limbs and bones.

Level ninety-six!

Just by staring at a piece of wood for a while, he had actually broken through the bottleneck of a Title Douluo in this mortal shop devoid of even a shred of spiritual energy!

Yue Guan forcibly suppressed the fluctuations of soul power threatening to burst from his body, terrified of disturbing the senior behind the counter.

His eyes turned completely red, and large, heavy tears rolled down his cheeks.

At this moment, on the Douluo Continent.

Inside the Pope Palace in Spirit City, it was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.

Bibi Dong stood up abruptly from her throne; the movement was so sudden that the purple-gold crown atop her head swayed slightly.

Her beautiful eyes were wide open, her face filled with disbelief.

"He broke through?"

There was a trace of tremor in Bibi Dong's voice.

As a powerhouse of the same level, she knew all too well how difficult it was for a Title Douluo to advance even a single level.

It required not only a massive accumulation of soul power but, more importantly, an epiphany.

Many people could exhaust their entire lives and still fail to step from level ninety-five to level ninety-six.

Yet, the Yue Guan in the Sky Screen had just walked the edge of life and death, only to turn around and advance directly after glancing at a piece of scrap wood?

Qian Daoliu, standing in the center of the great hall, drew a sharp breath.

His hands, clasped behind his back, tightened into fists.

"That is the inheritance of an artistic conception."

Qian Daoliu took a deep breath, his tone filled with profound awe.

"What that gray-clad man is carving is not wood at all, but his own insights into the laws of heaven and earth."

"That old fellow Yue Guan has truly turned a misfortune into a blessing; he has stumbled upon a heaven-sent opportunity!"

Qian Daoliu sighed and looked up at the light screen.

"A mere handicraft left in a corner is enough to allow a Title Douluo to break through."

"The foundation of this Renegade Immortal World is truly enough to make one feel despair."

Inside the woodcarving shop.

Yue Guan regained his senses. With his face covered in tears, he turned around and kowtowed three solid times to the gray-clad man behind the counter.

His forehead struck the bluestone floor, producing a rhythmic "thud, thud, thud."

"Thank you, Senior, for clearing my confusion!"

"This junior was dull-witted. Today, I have received a stroke of fortune bestowed by you, Senior. Your great kindness and virtue, this junior will never forget!"

Yue Guan was now completely and utterly prostrate before the man in front of him.

He even felt that being able to sweep the floors in this shop was the greatest blessing he had cultivated in his entire life.

The gray-clad man set down his carving knife.

He gently blew the shavings off the wood, looked up, and gazed at the kneeling Yue Guan with calm eyes.

"You have mistaken me for someone else."

The man's voice was flat, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.

"I am merely a mortal running a shop in this city."

"I do not understand any 'Dao,' nor do I know anything about guidance."

"I am simply using my carving knife to record what my eyes see."

Upon hearing these words, Yue Guan was stunned for a moment.

Then, his sharp mind began to race at lightning speed.

Senior is hiding his identity!

Yue Guan thought to himself.

In the world of cultivation, many peerless experts enjoyed wandering the mortal realm to experience ordinary life.

If he were to be ignorant and insist on exposing the Senior's identity, thereby displeasing him, that previous opportunity would turn into a death warrant.

Thinking of this, Yue Guan hurriedly followed Wang Lin's lead.

"Yes, yes, yes, the Shopkeeper is right to scold me."

Yue Guan wiped the tears from his face and put on a fawning smile.

"I was muddled. The Shopkeeper is a master of woodcarving; this craftsmanship is truly a work of divine skill."

"I'll go sweep the backyard right away!"

Wang Lin watched Yue Guan's sycophantic display without saying another word, lowering his head once more to continue carving the block of wood in his hands.

Just then, the heavy cotton curtain serving as a windbreak for the woodcarving shop was flung open from the outside.

A gust of cold wind, mixed with snowflakes, poured in.

A small boy ran in from the outside.

The child looked to be about five or six years old, with a sturdy, spirited build. He was wearing a thick, floral-patterned cotton jacket and a tiger-head hat on his head.

His little face was flushed red from the cold, and he was carefully cradling a small clay jar in his hands.

"Grandpa Wang!"

As soon as the little boy entered, he called out in a crisp voice.

"I've secretly brought you the wine you wanted!"

Seeing the little fellow barge in, Yue Guan hurriedly retreated to the side with his broom, afraid of blocking the way.

He dared not underestimate this mortal child; in this shop, one couldn't even provoke a piece of wood, let alone someone acquainted with the Shopkeeper.

Hearing the voice, Wang Lin stopped his work.

He looked up at the little boy who had run to the counter, and a genuine, gentle smile appeared on his face, which had previously been as still as an ancient well.

This smile was completely different from the cold indifference he had shown earlier when looking down upon the masses; it was filled with a deep sense of humanity.

"Little Niu is such a good boy."

Wang Lin stood up, reached out to take the steaming little clay jar, and placed it on the charcoal brazier nearby.

He extended his slightly rough hand and gently rubbed the tiger-head hat on Little Niu's head.

"The wind and snow are so heavy outside; you must be frozen, right?"

Little Niu sniffled, smiled foolishly, and shook his head.

"I'm not cold! I ran really fast!"

Wang Lin looked at the child's small hands, which were frozen purple, and a trace of affection flashed in his eyes.

He reached into his gray sleeve and fumbled around for a moment.

When he pulled his hand back out, there was a pill the size of a soybean resting in his palm.

The pill was a pale, milky white, and its surface was not smooth; it looked just like an ordinary maltose candy ball.

"Come, Grandpa Wang will treat you to a candy to warm you up."

Wang Lin smiled and handed the pill to Little Niu.

Little Niu's eyes lit up, and he cheered, "Thank you, Grandpa Wang!"

He reached out his little hand to take the pill and, without a second thought, tossed it straight into his mouth, chewed it twice with a crunch, and swallowed it.