Yellow Maple Valley, Hundred Mechanisms Hall.
Steward Ye sat in his study, reviewing a jade slip containing this month's affairs for the Hundred Mechanisms Hall.
As a Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator, he had lived for over eighty years, yet he was still in the early Foundation Establishment Stage.
Back then, he had only managed to reach the Foundation Establishment Stage with his four spirit roots through sheer luck. After passing the Blood Forbidden Trial, he had obtained a Foundation Establishment Pill.
Then, against one-in-ten-thousand odds, he had been lucky enough to achieve Foundation Establishment.
But he knew his own limits. Reaching the Core Formation Stage was absolutely impossible; there had never been such a precedent in the entire Cultivation World.
Even the descendants of the Seven Great Sects' Core Formation Stage elders had never reached Core Formation under those circumstances. Foundation Establishment was already their ceiling.
So Steward Ye had decided to become a steward of the sect.
Later, he happened to learn that his ancestors had belonged to a mortal branch of the Ye Family of Qin Ye Ridge. He acknowledged his ancestry and became a member of the Ye Family.
But what did that change? The Ye Family could not possibly provide him with the resources to reach Core Formation. Instead, they relied on his position as a Yellow Maple Valley steward to secure favors for themselves.
Several years ago, while visiting his mortal relatives, he had discovered by chance that his grandnephew also possessed spirit roots. He had decided to support the boy, but unfortunately, Naruto had ruined everything.
That was why resentment welled up whenever he thought of Naruto.
He understood that the Ascension Conference's arena matches were contests of individual ability, but when his own family ended up being eliminated, he could never quite let