Shi Yi issued a challenge

Days passed, and in the still-flourishing Heaven Mending Pavilion, ripples once again stirred the chaos outside the Ancient Sacred Academy. Shi Yi emerged, but he was respectfully leading the way for a gray-clothed woman.

The woman wore gray garments of an ancient style, her hair hanging loose. Her eyes looked utterly ordinary, their divine radiance deeply concealed, giving her an air of having returned to the simplicity of her true nature.

She was an Ancient Double Pupils Holder.

At present, Shi Yi believed he was the only one who knew this.

He had gained tremendously in the Ancient Sacred Academy. Not only had he completely reconstructed his Cave Heavens, he had also attempted to open Cave Heavens within his double pupils.

He had done the latter under the Ancient Double Pupils Holder's guidance. This had given him early access to the power of opening small worlds with his double pupils-a devastating trump card until he could truly use them to split heaven and earth.

He had also learned the Heaven-Mending Art there, allowing the Supreme Bone to develop anew within his body and truly become one with him. He no longer feared Wu Gensheng's external-demon tricks.

Moreover, after that renewed development, some of the supreme blood in his body finally belonged to him. Even if circumstances beyond his control forced him to return the Supreme Bone someday, he would eventually be able to obtain another.

There was nothing left to fear. Neither Shi Hao nor that girl named Aman had the right to threaten him.

Except for that unfathomable Wu Gensheng.

Innate constitution and talent determined everything. Any amount of effort was beneath mention in the face of an inborn advantage.

Shi Yi returned to the outside world, solemnly bade farewell to the elders of the Heaven Mending Pavilion, and paid his respects to the sacrificial spirit before preparing to return to the Martial King Manor.

Yet the Ancient Double-Pupil Woman actually stayed behind, sitting opposite the Gourd Vine. No one knew what they were discussing.

In the Void God Realm, within the Primordial Sacred Mountain's territory, it was another day of ghostly wails and wolfish howls.

Yet amid it all, a young man dressed as a novice monk remained serene, quietly reciting sutras. He treated the pitch-black tentacles around him as though they did not exist. With a solemn, sacred bearing and faint golden light shining all around him, he seemed like a reincarnated eminent monk who had awakened memories of past lives and seen through the mortal world.

He no longer had those worldly desires.

"Holy shit! Did they break that baldy?"

"I think he's achieved enlightenment."

"Are you nuts? Enlightenment about what? He's obviously been drained dry."

"He's been drained dry, so enlightenment is all he has left."

"Do you think we'll end up like that someday?"

"Don't say something so terrifying!"

"Shut up. Before we ended up like that, my dad would beat Wu Gensheng to death. He's already frantic about how few offspring we have. If we went straight to 'form is emptiness,' wouldn't he go insane?"

A group of young descendants of ancient beasts chattered away, discussing the monk in the distance, who had grown considerably thinner.

"Hey, Three-Eyes, you haven't actually made any progress, have you?"

"I have. My physical eyes are going dark now, but my primordial spirit is clear, and my vision remains unobstructed. My divine ability has advanced another step. Soon, I'll be able to withstand the calamity afflicting my body," the youth from the Three-Eyed Tribe said.

"What about that Azure Phoenix? Didn't he say his muscles were weak? How is he now?"

"Even worse. Completely paralyzed, and the spirituality of his flesh is almost extinguished. His primordial spirit even left his body just now. His elders took him away and said he wasn't allowed out to embarrass himself again until he'd achieved something in fleshly body becoming spirit. The old Azure Phoenix's face went black. My dad laughed at him for ages."

"Why?"

"Because I don't have a fever anymore! My fleshly body has become spirit, my cultivation has reached perfection, and I've attained the level of those heaven-tier fierce beast cubs of old. Wu Gensheng? What a joke. He can't hurt me anymore!" It was Bifang speaking, his hands in his pockets as he looked down on the other beasts.

"But I heard your dad was so happy that he gave Wu Gensheng all the Foundation-Building Treasure Medicine he'd originally prepared for you."

"Shut your fucking mouth!" Veins bulged on Bifang's face.

"Y'know, y' wouldn'ta made yer fleshy body spirit even if y' used it. Let 'im give it away. Th' guy really did help ya." A Nine-Headed Lion poked his head out.

He did not belong to the sacred mountain's forces, but came from another major beast faction and had recently come over to join the fun.

His father, a king of the Array Formation realm, had dumped him here to train his Lion's Roar.

Now he had been silenced, his throat so hoarse that he could barely speak. Supposedly, once he broke through this constraint, his Lion's Roar would soar into the heavens, placing him above all his peers.

Wu Gensheng can shove that bullshit up his ass. If this thing can train me, I'll turn my own heads into braised lion's-head meatballs and eat them. The Nine-Headed Lion gritted his teeth. He had thought Wu Gensheng might go easy on him for the sake of the friendship forged back in the Hundred Broken Mountains, when he and Shi Hao had gotten to know each other through fighting and eating lion heads. Instead, Wu Gensheng had fleeced an old acquaintance.

"Rua~" He gave a dry howl, his magical power unable to form a precious technique, drawing roaring laughter from everyone nearby.

"Ah, it still isn't much of a coherent system. Blindness, silence, and deafness only target specific attributes. They lack versatility."

Chen Yao sighed, fiddling with the seeds he had collected.

"I still need some more universally applicable powers. Poison or withering would be good."

"But where should I start..."

"Wait, perhaps I could start with curses?" Chen Yao narrowed his eyes.

"The Immortal-Breaking Curse, the Bronze Curse, and all kinds of Cursing Arts. Some can even take effect from afar. In the original story, even the chicken keeper was killed by a bunch of Dark Immortal Kings piling on curses through sheer numbers."

"Good stuff, but hardly anyone specializes in it. I can't exactly go ask the darkness for instruction. I can't beat them."

Chen Yao counted on his fingers, then dug a few more Cursing Arts out of the Pu Demon King's methods and decided to try them first.

"My techniques are getting more and more sinister and nasty. First came external-demon invasion, then Heavenly Demon Seeds, and now even curses are coming into play. Fate really does toy with people. The direction my Eight Extraordinary Skills are evolving in keeps getting stranger."

"No, curses can also be called the poison of Daoist arts. They're merely closer to the Great Dao than ordinary toxins, which primarily affect the body and occasionally the primordial spirit. Every medicine is three parts poison, so if you round things off, curses are a kind of medicine too. There we go. I practice curses openly and honorably. I can absolutely count as a Medicine God of my generation, hanging out my physician's shingle to heal the world."

Chen Yao gradually came to understand everything.

"Brother Yao! Shi Yi's looking for you in the Void God Realm!" A little brat came to his door.

"Huh?"

"Wu Gensheng, this battle concerns nothing else. It is only to truly determine which of us is superior. Win or lose, I will return the Supreme Bone afterward." Shi Yi sat calmly on the dueling platform, his gaze unruffled as he stared at Chen Yao.

In the distance, Lord Bird and Lord Crystal Wall, who never minded making a spectacle even bigger, were waggling their eyebrows at Chen Yao.

Even thinking with his toes, he could tell that these two old geezers had opened the Sky Battlefield used for decisive battles between prodigies.

And it was the highest-grade one at that. Something seemed to have reinforced it, making it sturdier than in the original story.

"Do you dare fight?" Shi Yi asked again.

"You lunatic. You really have too much time on your hands." Chen Yao flashed onto the platform, but there were few people around. To put it plainly, only Lord Crystal Wall and Lord Bird were watching from afar, along with the bowing and scraping Domain Envoy. Everyone else had been barred. "Why didn't you invite more people? Afraid of losing? Or does the Martial King Manor disapprove of this?"

"I want to know your strength. I've suspected that perhaps you, too, are an Innate Supreme. Only someone like you could possibly become my lifelong rival. You should understand perfectly well that apart from Innate Supremes, everyone else is beneath mention. Without exceptional innate constitution and talent, they can only fall into the dust." Shi Yi rose and attacked immediately.