Flying was much faster than walking. In barely a minute, Pan Long found the two figures hurrying through the night with a windproof lantern.
A sweep of his divine sense told him their ages and cultivation levels. "Fourteenth Brother" was a little over twenty, with strength roughly equal to Pan Long's when he had first entered the Martial World. "Nineteenth Brother" was only fifteen or sixteen—about the age Pan Long had been when he started out—yet his cultivation had nearly reached the Innate realm.
This "Nineteenth Brother" was timid and cautious, but he was a young genius!
Great Xia had long had a saying: "Innate by thirty, True Person by sixty." It meant that reaching the Innate realm by thirty gave one hope of becoming a True Person, while becoming a True Person by sixty gave one hope of Longevity. In practice, scarcely anyone managed it. The saying existed precisely because almost no one could.
Innate by thirty, True Person by sixty: that was the threshold for genius.
Pan Long himself had been exceptionally gifted. Having lived two lives, he had studied and trained hard since childhood. At sixteen, he had been a match for that young man from the Zeng Family, who was already in his early twenties. He had been hard-pressed to find a rival under thirty anywhere in Dingfeng Town, and everyone had reckoned he could reach the Innate realm before thirty. He had been a genius through and through.
But barring an accident, this "Nineteenth Brother" would reach the Innate realm by eighteen or nineteen at the latest. Even with delays, he would certainly manage it by twenty.
From their earlier conversation, his father had died when he was young, and he clearly held no special standing in his clan. There was no chance he had