Meanwhile.
Somewhere countless billions of miles from Hidden Sword Mountain.
Green Luo Continent, Jade Dais Palace.
Amid cloud-wreathed mountains, a graceful young man sat cross-legged on a stone platform, Immortal Essence circulating slowly around him.
Not far away.
A pretty young woman waited quietly, dressed as his maid.
Her name was Ning Zhiwei.
She gazed at the young man's figure, a hint of anticipation in her eyes.
A moment later.
The young man slowly opened his eyes and let out a long breath.
Whoosh-
The sprawling mountain mist abruptly parted to either side!
The entire stone platform, and even the mountain beneath it, trembled gently!
"Amazing..."
Ning Zhiwei's heart tightened slightly.
The pressure radiating from his every movement was even greater than that of some mighty Path Opening Realm cultivators she had met!
Yet the aura surrounding him unmistakably still bore the qualities of the Heaven-Grasping Realm!
There probably isn't a stronger Heaven-Grasping cultivator than the Palace Heir anywhere in this world.
Ning Zhiwei marveled inwardly, then hurried forward and said with a smile:
"Congratulations, Palace Heir. Your cultivation has advanced again."
"What good does that do?"
Pei Xuandu stretched and slowly rose, putting on a helpless expression as he said:
"The higher-ups still won't let me break through."
"If this drags on for another hundred years, people will start saying I'm deliberately refusing to advance just to hold on to first place in the rankings a little longer."
Ning Zhiwei frowned at his words:
"You're right, Palace Heir."
"You've clearly accumulated enough, yet the True Cultivators keep putting it off. Who knows what they're worried about?"
"Do they really intend to make you keep guarding that ranking forever?"
Pei Xuandu glanced at her with a smile:
"I can say that, but you shouldn't speak so carelessly."
"My master can