This sight held a different sort of amusement for the cultivators from every faction who had come to witness the ceremony.
Quite a few of them had come to the Northwest merely to watch the excitement. Now that they saw the two factions within the Yang Clan openly and covertly contending with one another, their expectations for the journey had truly been fulfilled.
Before long, however, a dazzling burst of magical light blossomed in the sky above the ceremony grounds, drawing everyone's gaze upward.
As the cultivators looked up, they saw five figures gradually emerge from that mass of magical light.
Some highly accomplished cultivators who had reached the Dao Awakening Realm also sensed an exceedingly dense power of spatial Daoist Magic within that radiance.
"It is the power of a magical treasure!"
"I have never seen such condensed spatial power even upon my master. This treasure must have come from the hands of some peak great expert of the Northwest."
"It seems our earlier guesses were correct. Dragon Lord's master truly has provided Dragon Lord's faction with no small amount of assistance."
As these thoughts flashed through everyone's minds, the figures within the magical light gradually solidified. When the radiance faded, they finally saw the appearances of all five people clearly.
The man standing at the center and slightly forward was the true protagonist of this Founding Ceremony: the master of Heaven-Clearing Academy, who was about to prove the True Intent Dao here—the Yang Clan's fourth cultivator of the Ling generation, Yang Lingshu.
He wore a flowing blue-and-cyan patterned Daoist robe. One hand rested behind his back, while the other held a pure white cleansing vase. Inserted into the vase were slender branches from three spiritual plants: willow, lotus, and bamboo.
The instant his aura revealed itself to heaven