"See? I told you Old Ghost Li had a poor eye. Believe me now? First Lu Ren, and now Xu Yang has slapped him in the face. Xu Yang reached marrow cleansing so quickly that he deserved at least eighth place among the Ten Elites, yet he only gave him seventh," Firecloud said with a smile.
"I did misjudge him, though it wasn't entirely a misjudgment."
Li Songhe said, "I deliberated carefully before settling on the original ranking of the Ten Elites. After Kong Yu died, I replaced him with the Young Marquis. Later, when Wen Hao and Fang Yu died, I didn't observe the candidates closely and simply picked Xu Yang and Su Zhe to fill the list.
"Their talents were about equal, but I thought Su Zhe had more resources as a disciple of the Su Family, so I ranked him ahead of Xu Yang. Who would have thought this useless fool, with all his family advantages, would fall short of someone from a farming household?"
Du Qingpu laughed. "Old Ghost Ding, regretting it yet? Do you still dare say Xu Yang has no chance of making his way beyond the Violet Sun Gate?"
Ding Yuan knitted his brows tightly. Instead of answering Du Qingpu, he looked at Li Songhe. "Doesn't Xu Yang have a C-grade lower bone root? With a bone root like that, even with decent comprehension, he should have needed at least a year to grind through the marrow-cleansing bottleneck. How did he reach marrow cleansing so quickly?"
Most people had noticed nothing amiss, but Ding Yuan had personally directed the Ding Family's attempt to recruit Xu Yang, so he knew more about Xu Yang's circumstances than Du Qingpu did.
"Only a C-grade lower bone root?"
At his words, Elder Firecloud and Du Qingpu also