Falsely Reporting His Cultivation? I Casually Said I Was a Sixth-Stage Qi Disciple, and the Dou Emperor Expert Lost His Composure

Nalan Yanran patted her still-underdeveloped chest and said with a serious yet proud expression:

"I'll beg Master, and she'll definitely let you stay in the Cloud Mist Sect to cultivate! I'm already a Three-Star Dou Practitioner! And I'm Master's personal disciple—the future young sect master of the Cloud Mist Sect! With me protecting you in the Cloud Mist Sect, no one will dare bully you!"

An Yi looked at her strangely. "...Pinkie, are you planning to make me live off you?"

"What do you mean, live off me? I'm repaying the kindness you showed me back then!"

Nalan Yanran rolled her eyes at him, then examined An Yi curiously. "By the way, three years have passed... What cultivation level are you at now, exactly?"

An Yi pulled out a silk handkerchief and wiped his mouth, raising a brow with a smile. "Take a guess."

Remembering the terrifying brute strength he had used to rub her into the ground back then, Nalan Yanran tentatively asked, "Three-Star Dou Practitioner?"

An Yi shook his head. "Nope."

"Four-Star?"

"Nope."

"Could it be five-star?!" Nalan Yanran was stunned.

"Still no."

Nalan Yanran sucked in a breath and widened her eyes. "Don't tell me you're already a Six-Star Dou Practitioner?!"

An Yi coughed lightly, raised his right index finger, and wagged it. "You got the number right, but... the realm is wrong."

"What do you mean?" Nalan Yanran froze.

An Yi straightened his back and announced in an extremely proud, clear voice:

"My current cultivation is—Sixth-Stage Qi Disciple!"

"..."

The air in the pavilion immediately fell into deathly silence.

Nalan Yanran looked at An Yi as though he were an idiot, her face plainly asking, "Are you messing with me?"

Three years ago, she had been an eighth-stage Qi Disciple genius!

Yet on the streets of the Holy City of Jia Ma, she had been disarmed in a single exchange by the guy in front of her and pinned to the ground without the slightest ability to resist.

Back then, this guy had definitely been far stronger than her!

Now, three years later, she had become a Three-Star Dou Practitioner, and this guy actually had the nerve to say he was only a Sixth-Stage Qi Disciple? Who was he trying to fool?!

"Really, I'm not lying." An Yi blinked his innocent blue eyes. "If you don't believe me, check for yourself."

The Heaven-Devouring Art had long since perfectly disguised and concealed the Dou Qi within his body. Unless someone possessed sufficiently powerful soul perception, they simply could not discern his true strength.

Nalan Yanran clearly refused to believe it. She grabbed An Yi's wrist, closed her eyes, and sent a thread of Dou Qi through her fingertips into his meridians to examine him.

A moment later, she abruptly opened her eyes, her face looking as if she had seen a ghost.

It really was only at the strength of a Sixth-Stage Qi Disciple?!

"H-How is that possible?!"

Nalan Yanran was completely dumbfounded. "You were stronger than me three years ago! How could you only be a Sixth-Stage Qi Disciple now?"

An Yi shrugged. "I was just born with great strength. I'm only a tiny bit stronger than ordinary people, but my talent for cultivating Dou Qi is indeed pretty average."

Nalan Yanran's expression shifted unpredictably. In the end, she imagined an entire family drama about a genius being suppressed.

"It must be because the Xiao Household doesn't value you! They gave all the cultivation resources to other people and refused to let you use any, right?!"

Nalan Yanran grabbed An Yi's wrist tightly in return, her tone anxious.

"Then you have even more reason to come back to the Cloud Mist Sect with me! Our Cloud Mist Sect has the best resources in the Gama Empire. As long as you come with me, I guarantee you'll get the finest pills and train in the best cultivation arts!"

"No, no, no. Let go."

An Yi jerked his hand back as if he had been electrocuted, shaking his head wildly. "Big sis, I'm already being targeted in a tiny place like the Xiao Household just because I'm handsome. If I went to a major sect like the Cloud Mist Sect and spent every day hanging around you, the future young sect master..."

In an instant, An Yi pictured countless brainless villains, jealous over love, chasing him with swords. He could not help but shudder.

"If I really went there, I'm afraid I wouldn't survive three days before someone put a sack over my head in the middle of the night, beat me half to death, and toss me straight off Cloud Mist Mountain!"

"So, thanks for the kind offer."

After exchanging a few more nonsense remarks with Nalan Yanran, An Yi saw that the girl had been thoroughly fooled by him. He stretched, patted his backside, and stood up.

"Alright, you've heard the story. I still have things to do, so I'll be going."

An Yi glanced at the two stunning young women beside him, each beautiful in her own way, and sighed solemnly.

"If I stay with you two any longer, those jealous idiots outside might lose their minds and actually do something as insane as forming a group to put a sack over my head tonight."

"For the sake of this little life of mine, farewell!"

With that, An Yi waved without the slightest hesitation and swiftly slipped away along the courtyard wall. In the blink of an eye, he had vanished.

Once An Yi left, only Xiao Xun'er and Nalan Yanran remained in the pavilion, staring at each other.

The two did not know each other to begin with, much less share any common topics. After sitting awkwardly for a while, Nalan Yanran also felt the atmosphere was somewhat uncomfortable, so she rose and politely took her leave.

As the courtyard gate closed once more, the small courtyard returned to its usual tranquility and serenity.

Xiao Xun'er sat beside the stone table, her slender fingers gently rubbing the smooth teacup.

A moment later, the girl's cool, pleasant voice quietly rang through the empty courtyard:

"Elder Ling."

The moment her voice fell, a strange spatial ripple suddenly appeared within the shadows at a distant corner of the wall.

Immediately afterward, an aged figure emerged soundlessly like a ghost.

The newcomer wore a black robe, and his aura was unfathomable. He was Xiao Xun'er's personal guard, the mighty Dou Emperor—Ling Ying.

"Miss." Ling Ying bowed slightly, his manner respectful.

Xiao Xun'er took a sip of the tea that had already gone slightly cold and softly asked, "Elder Ling, when Brother An Yi was here just now, could you sense his true cultivation?"

As for An Yi's claim that he was a "Sixth-Stage Qi Disciple," she did not know whether Nalan Yanran believed it, but Xiao Xun'er did not believe even a single punctuation mark of it!

Over the years, An Yi had gone outside the city every day. The Xiao Household all thought he was out playing wildly or messing around in the mud, but through Ling Ying's secret observations, Xiao Xun'er had learned An Yi's movements like the back of her hand!

How could a ruthless person capable of tearing apart first-rank Magic Beasts with his bare hands, and even daring to chase a pack of Magic Beasts through the mountains alone, possibly be just a mere Sixth-Stage Qi Disciple?

Hearing this, a rare look of strangeness and helplessness appeared on Ling Ying's aged face. He shook his head and said:

"In reply to Miss, the cultivation art Young Master An Yi practices is extremely strange and overbearing. Its concealment of Dou Qi is nearly perfect. Even I cannot clearly discern his true strength unless I deliberately use soul power to forcefully probe him."

"However..."

"Some time ago, when Young Master An Yi was chasing down several first-rank Magic Beasts at the edge of the Magic Beast Mountain Range, the Dou Qi fluctuations erupting from within him had already reached the peak of a Nine-Star Dou Practitioner. Judging from how restrained and seamless his aura was today, this old servant suspects... he has most likely already broken through to the Dou Master realm."

"Dou Master?!"

A trace of barely concealed shock flashed through Xiao Xun'er's autumn-water eyes, which were usually as calm as an ancient well.

A fifteen-year-old Dou Master!

The entire Wutan City, even the entire Gama Empire, had marveled at Xiao Yan's past achievement of "forming a Dou Qi Vortex at eleven," hailing him as the greatest genius.

Yet those blind members of the Xiao Household had no idea that right beneath their noses was hidden a peerless monster whose talent far surpassed Xiao Yan's, yet who had always worn the disguise of an "ordinary good-for-nothing"!