"What peerless genius? Did you discover some Innate Dao Body or promising cultivation seed on Chess Mountain?"
Mei Xuan happened to walk in from outside. Hearing Li Chen's murmur, she could not help asking.
"Nothing of the sort." Li Chen told her about Wang Dou.
Mei Xuan could not help saying, "How does that count as genius? At most, he's rather clever and suited to studying the Array Dao and your Rune Script Dao."
"Not so," Li Chen said. "The people of antiquity considered those with strong bodies, keen ears, and sharp eyes geniuses, because they could kill wild beasts, track prey, and bring their tribes the most food."
"Back then, food was the most important cultivation provision, and a person's worth lay in their contribution to the tribe."
"Those who were frail and sickly, or even born with impairments, might well have been drowned at birth."
"Once cultivation flourished, genius came to be measured by spiritual root aptitude, Dao Bodies, and comprehension. Those with poor spiritual root aptitude could only sink to the bottom."
"This shows that, under different circumstances and conditions, the standards for judging genius can be entirely different."
Li Chen genuinely believed this. In another environment, even the Ancestral Yan Shi, forefather of Puppet Masters, and all those Grandmaster- and Grandmaster Artisan-level figures would not have counted as geniuses in cultivation and pursuit of the Dao. They would merely have been buried in obscurity in a cultivation world dominated by the Spell Dao, Sword Dao, and the like.
In the Ancient Cultivation World, where Great Powers strode unchecked, there would have been even less room for people like them.
Yet it was precisely because their spiritual root aptitude averaged below the middle ranks that hardship drove them to seek change, giving them greater interest and motivation