In the courtyard, Zhuo Rusui watched the scene before the stone pagoda with somewhat mixed feelings.
Those green leaves seemed to have all fallen onto Gu Qing, but in fact, a tiny gap remained between them and his clothes, about the thickness of a few pages.
This was a sign of Sword Intent leaving the body, and of his Sword Ghost approaching its complete form. It meant he was very close to Wandering the Wilds, Middle Stage, probably only a few dozen days away.
He and Zhao Layue had entered Wandering the Wilds, Middle Stage many years ago and were now both attempting to reach the Wandering the Wilds Upper Realm, far ahead of Gu Qing, but Gu Qing's speed of cultivation still surprised him somewhat.
Even if the divine consciousness spilling out as the Zen Child and Jing Jiu sat discussing the Dao in the Chan Room had greatly helped Gu Qing, cultivation ultimately depended on oneself.
Zhuo Rusui knew that Gu Qing had once been Senior Brother Guo Nanshan's Sword Attendant, and was Gu Han's younger half-brother, born of a concubine. He was indeed talented and had been singled out for training by Twofold Forgetting Peak. But however gifted Gu Qing was at cultivation, he could not possibly be more gifted than Zhuo Rusui, nor was there anything special about him compared with the outstanding disciples of Twofold Forgetting Peak. Moreover, all these years, Gu Qing had been busy handling Divine End Peak's affairs, then had stayed in Chaoge City to teach Crown Prince Jing Yao, and lately had been busy helping Jing Jiu handle Green Mountain's affairs...
Under such circumstances, his cultivation had actually remained largely unaffected. How had he managed it?
Watching those leaves that seemed to have fallen yet had not, Zhuo Rusui suddenly had