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This opportunity, then, was a chance to weigh each person's abilities and decide their ranking!
For Tang Changsheng, that was even more true.
To secure his position as Heavenly Emperor, he naturally had to produce results that would win everyone over. The Three Realms Mirror alone would not do!
But Tang Changsheng already had a plan firmly in mind. He merely smiled, returned the villagers' greetings, and drifted away.
"That Daoist priest seems different..."
"He does. He actually returned our greeting just now!"
The villagers began talking among themselves.
Later, they saw Tang Changsheng find a spot in the nearby woods and build a Thatched Cottage. From then on, he lived there.
Before long, the villagers discovered that this Daoist priest was a skilled healer.
Whenever someone in the village had a headache, a fever, a snakebite, or dysentery, they could go to him for treatment. Gradually, their respect for Tang Changsheng grew.
Word spread through the surrounding villages, and people came to him for treatment. Quite a few children from nearby households even became Tang Changsheng's disciples and trained under him.
Several years passed. The place was remote, and though lesser demons came to cause trouble, Tang Changsheng drove them off. Life remained peaceful.
By then, Tang Changsheng had taken on more and more disciples.
He taught without discrimination and turned no one away. Anyone who came to become his disciple could sit before him and listen to his lectures.
Now and then, he taught them exercises to strengthen their bodies or skills such as gathering herbs and treating illness.
Gradually, hundreds of people attended each of his lectures.
As their numbers grew,