[After you agreed to participate in the Celestial Fiend Assembly, your father took you to the Wujiang Clan's ancestral grounds a few days later.]
[At this time, a full eight thousand members of the Demon Race who were going to participate in the Celestial Fiend Assembly had gathered in the ancestral grounds.]
[Then, under the arrangements of a Primal Fiend King of the clan, you were taken to your respective residences.]
[For the next forty years, you would all receive instruction here from the experts of the ancestral grounds.]
[The ancestral grounds placed great importance on you.]
[First, every month you could listen to a Primal Fiend King expound on the Dao. At the end of the year, Immortal Wusui, the Wujiang Clan's strongest expert, would personally expound on the Dao for you.]
[Second, until you reached Wanxiang, the ancestral grounds would provide everyone with all cultivation resources, including Essence Liquid, free of charge.]
[Of course, not everyone could enjoy such favorable treatment. The ancestral grounds would also eliminate people from time to time.]
[The basis for elimination was the Fiend Prison rankings.]
[Beneath the ancestral grounds lay the thirty-six layers of the Fiend Prison, where members of the Demon Race who had resisted the Wujiang Clan's rule over the countless years of the Wujiang Immortal Mansion's existence were imprisoned.]
[These members of the Demon Race were sent to different layers of the Fiend Prison according to their cultivation. The deeper the layer, the stronger the fiends imprisoned there. It was said that the deepest layer, the thirty-sixth, even held fiend immortals at the Void level.]
[Those who wished to remain in the ancestral grounds had to venture into the Fiend Prison from time to time to challenge the imprisoned members of the Demon Race. The deeper the layer of the prisoners they challenged, the higher their ranking among the reserve participants for the Celestial Fiend Assembly, and the higher their priority for instruction would be.]
[Those who repeatedly ranked near the bottom would be expelled from the ancestral grounds. In the end, only the three hundred best of the eight thousand would be retained to participate in the Celestial Fiend Assembly.]
"This training system..." Zhou Qing looked surprised as he read the simulation.
He had originally thought the members of the Demon Race of the Wujiang Immortal Mansion were all primitives who ate raw meat and drank blood, but judging by this well-developed system for nurturing geniuses, his prejudice had been a bit too strong.
[After receiving this information, the members of the Demon Race in the ancestral grounds reacted in all manner of ways.]
[Members of the Demon Race from extraordinary backgrounds believed themselves strong and went straight to challenge the Fiend Prison. As a result, quite a few met violent deaths there.]
[Quite a few members of the Demon Race from ordinary backgrounds, on the other hand, were much more cautious and did not rashly challenge the Fiend Prison. Most of them were waiting for the Primal Fiend King's lecture on the Dao a few days later, and you were one of them.]
[A few days later, the lecture began. The Primal Fiend King who expounded on the Dao for you had reached a considerable level of attainment, having attained the Domain Realm of the Dao in multiple Daos.]
[As he spoke of the Dao of Blazing Fire, you gained occasional insights and caught a wisp of the True Meaning of the Dao.]
[After the lecture ended, you immediately entered the Fiend Prison to challenge it, lest that insight vanish in an instant.]
[The seventh layer... the fourteenth layer...]
[Soon, you reached the limit a Zifu Greater Fiend could attain—the Twenty-first Layer. Any deeper, and all the prisoners would be Wanxiang Diremonster Kings like your father.]
[Since you had yet to comprehend the True Meaning of Blazing Fire and felt you were only one step away from a breakthrough, you resolutely charged into the twenty-second layer.]
[The moment you entered the twenty-second layer, you came under attack from a host of Wanxiang Diremonster Kings.]
[Although most of these Wanxiang Diremonster Kings had only just entered the Wanxiang stage and their levels of attainment were extremely poor, they were still not opponents you, a mere Zifu Qi refiner, could easily deal with.]
[After a bitter fight, you finally drove back the Wanxiang Diremonster Kings and, at the very edge of life and death, comprehended the True Meaning of Blazing Fire.]
[After clearing the twenty-second layer of the Fiend Prison, your name spread like wildfire through the ancestral grounds. In light of your performance, the ancestral grounds ranked you first among the eight thousand members of the Demon Race.]
[Paying no attention to the clamor outside, you continued to devote yourself to comprehending the Dao and cultivating. Ten years later, you also comprehended the Dao of the Gale to the level of the True Meaning of the Dao.]
[During this time, you also drew on your own insights into the Dao of Blazing Fire and the Dao of the Gale to create two ultimate techniques: Explosive Flame Claw and Fierce Wind Claw.]
[Your performance was noticed by several Primal Greater Fiends of the ancestral grounds. In particular, after you comprehended a second True Meaning of the Dao, Wuke, the foremost of the ancestral grounds' Primal Fiend Kings, took you to meet Immortal Wusui.]
[Immortal Wusui was very pleased with your comprehension ability and set aside time every month to expound on the Dao for you alone. Although Immortal Wusui had only risen to prominence within the past thousand years and his level of attainment could not compare with those powerful immortals, he was more than capable of instructing a Zifu Greater Fiend like you.]
[Five years later, your Dao of Rainwater also reached the level of the True Meaning of the Dao.]
[Moreover, because you had gained insights into both the Daos of water and fire, your Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens reached the fourth stage, and your Fiendgod Body Refining broke through to Xiantian. You were thirty-eight that year.]
[At the same time, you refined the Essence Liquid provided by the ancestral grounds, raising your Qi-refining cultivation to peak Zifu.]
[Afterward, feeling that you were in good form, you went to challenge the Fiend Prison again.]
[Although fifteen years had passed since your last challenge in the Fiend Prison, the record you had set at the twenty-second layer had yet to be broken.]
[This time, you fought your way all the way to the twenty-fifth layer of the Fiend Prison in a single, unbroken charge.]
[The Wanxiang Diremonster Kings imprisoned on this layer were already considered powerful among Wanxiang cultivators. Every one of them had mastered the True Meaning of the Dao, and with them closing in on you from all sides, you could barely fend them off.]
[In the end, you fought by trading injury for injury, killing several Wanxiang Diremonster Kings in succession with Explosive Flame Claw before narrowly clearing the twenty-fifth layer.]
[As expected, news that you had cleared the twenty-fifth layer of the Fiend Prison caused another sensation in the ancestral grounds. Nearly every Greater Fiend came to curry favor with you.]
[In response, you shut your doors to visitors. Then you began to reflect on your shortcomings in the previous battle.]
[A month later, you listened to Immortal Wusui expound on the Dao as usual. When you heard him say a few words about the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, your interest was suddenly piqued.]
[Your Wujiang Clan was now trapped inside the Immortal Mansion, unable to leave. But if you comprehended the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth to a profound level, could you force open the Immortal Mansion and travel to the Great Xia World?]
[With this thought in mind, you began reading the ancestral grounds' texts on the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, and often asked Immortal Wusui for guidance on comprehending it.]
[But a year passed, and you still found the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth rather obscure when you tried to comprehend it.]
[You chose: one, continue studying the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth. Two, give up on the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth and comprehend the Daos in which you had already glimpsed the path.]
"One," Zhou Qing chose.
There was no harm in trying. If he could embark on the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth early, he would have struck it rich.
[You chose to continue studying the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, but another five years passed, and your progress in it was still very slow.]
[At this point, Immortal Wusui noticed that something was amiss with you.]
[At first, Immortal Wusui merely thought your enthusiasm for the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth showed a strong desire to pursue the Dao, and paid it no mind.]
[But as you devoted yourself to studying the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, you neglected your cultivation of the other Daos instead. Immortal Wusui became displeased and ordered you to stop trying to comprehend the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth.]
[In response to Immortal Wusui's demand, you chose: one, heed Immortal Wusui's advice. Two, continue studying the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth.]
"Give it up." Zhou Qing shook his head.
[After giving up your study of the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, you continued to work on the three Daos of Blazing Fire, the Gale, and Rainwater. Thanks to your exceptional talent, you soon comprehended the Dao of Blazing Fire to a level just one step short of the Domain Realm of the Dao.]
[In the meantime, you also naturally cultivated the Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens to the seventh stage, breaking through to Zifu.]
[Another ten years passed, and you also comprehended the Dao of the Gale and the Dao of Rainwater to a level just one step short of the Domain Realm of the Dao.]
[By now, relying on your profound level of attainment, you had reached the twenty-seventh layer of the Fiend Prison.]
[The strength of the members of the Demon Race imprisoned on this layer far exceeded your expectations. Not only had most of these Fiend Kings mastered multiple True Meanings of the Dao, but quite a few also practiced Fiendgod Body Refining. As a result, even you at your current level could only flee in disarray when they surrounded and attacked you.]
[After another decade or so, you comprehended the Dao of Blazing Fire to the Domain Realm of the Dao.]