Great Yin Academy, rear courtyard.
Along the broad avenue paved with white stone.
Xu Yan walked with calm composure, followed by a group of academy scholars who stared intently at him and whispered among themselves.
Some scholars who had arrived late ran into them just as they were planning to observe the teachings. Only then did they learn that the assembly had already ended, leaving them utterly dumbfounded.
The Great Yin Academy instructors wore complicated expressions, their brows tightly furrowed.
Zhuxi Kingdom had indeed come prepared for this doctrinal assembly.
They had invited Xu Yan only because they lacked confidence, but they had never expected it to end so quickly—so abruptly it was almost perfunctory.
"Are we really taking him to the Heavenstone?" one instructor asked in a low voice, his face full of gloom.
"The Master has already spoken. Are we supposed to go back on his word?"
"At any rate, we did not let the Zhuxi people observe and seek the Dao. No matter what, Xu Yan is still a scholar of our Great Yin," the leading elder said gravely.
After passing through the rear courtyard, they arrived at a place within Great Yin's central courtyard.
Tall red walls rose on all four sides, enclosing the area, with only a single white-stone archway left open.
Beyond the gate.
A sunken Dao field shaped like a mountain ravine appeared before Xu Yan. Steps extended downward from every direction, plunging a hundred zhang deep. At the very center stood an ancient stone twenty zhang tall, exceptionally conspicuous.
It was oval in shape, mottled snow-white in color. The dark derivation script upon it seemed wrought by nature itself, radiating a dim spiritual glow.
The vital currents of heaven and earth around it seemed to surge along with the inscriptions on the