Chapter 342: Advancing into the Earth Spirit Quadrant
Master Fang was indeed an open and upright gentleman. The two talked for a long time, but he never asked where Jiang Chen was from nor wanted to recruit Jiang Chen on behalf of his sect.
This kind of demeanor made Jiang Chen admire him from the bottom of his heart.
The two chatted late into the night before Master Fang rose to take his leave, still feeling that he hadn’t fully expressed all that he wanted to.
He hadn’t thought either that he would be able to chat so harmoniously with a young man from the ordinary world.
What he’d thought had been the oddest was that the knowledge and bearing of this young man, and his insights into many matters, had surprised him multiple times as well. The level and breadth in which he approached a question made even him, a senior executive in the sect, feel a bit inadequate.
Just what kind of freak genius was he? Was he really a secular disciple?
Master Fang laughed wryly in his heart, but his confidence in Jiang Chen was further affirmed. The rise of this kind of young man, even if he’d been born in the ordinary world, was inevitable.
“Alright, here is good. You will be reporting to the earth quadrant tomorrow. I will say only this, the keeper of the earth quadrant is Master Shuiyue of the Purple Sun Sect.”
An explosive went off in Jiang Chen’s mind. As the saying goes, a careless word may reveal much to an attentive listener.
Master Fang’s kind reminder was definitely without any other connotations. Master Fang had no idea of his true identity, and even if he did, he wouldn’t necessarily know of Jiang Chen’s past grudges with Master Shuiyue.
Master Fang’s key point of emphasis here was actually the Purple Sun Sect.
When it traveled to Jiang Chen’s ears, however, it became Master Shuiyue.
Master Fang clapped Jiang Chen’s shoulder, “Rest well. Report to the earth quadrant in your most well-rested state. I believe that with your potential, the earth quadrant won’t be able to keep you down either.”
……
A list of names made it to keeper Shuiyue.
There were only ten names on the list—those who had emerged from the mystic quadrant. Master Shuiyue gave it a cursory glance and immediately frowned.
“There are actually two secular disciples?”
Master Shuiyue was a beneficiary of the ordinary world as her most prized disciple had emerged from the Eastern Kingdom.
However, even though this was the case, she still couldn’t fully cast off her prejudices against the secular disciples, particularly as all sorts of rumors had traveled to her ears from the mystic quadrant during this time.
Although Guo Ren wasn’t of her faction, it was still reprehensible that a vaunted sect disciple had ended up in such ignoble straits!
Master Shuiyue had privately cursed that Guo Ren was trash for throwing away the sect’s face when she heard of this, but she truly didn’t have a good impression of this secular disciple either.
“I’d like to see if this freak genius of the boulder’s heart truly has three heads and six arms?” Master Shuiyue threw the list away to the side.
She raised her hand and sent out a few commands, turning them into a cloud of light and having it vanish into the air.
Four disciples arrived in front of Master Shuiyue before too long.
“We greet our honored master.” The four disciples were all Master Shuiyue’s prized favorites.
“No need to stand on ceremony.” Master Shuiyue’s noble features held traces of stern dignity. “You four number amongst my ten major disciples, yet not a single one of you have made it into the sky quadrant in the first three months. This truly is disappointing.”
The four of them were the very depiction of shame and felt quite fearful.
“It’s a good thing that three other major disciples of my Shuiyue faction are retaining face for me in the sky quadrant. Now, I’m setting a target for you. No matter what, one of you must make it into the sky quadrant within the next three months. Do you have confidence in doing so?”
Master Shuiyue asked faintly.
These were all Master Shuiyue’s personal disciples. Apart from the three disciples in the sky quadrant, they were the strongest level of existences beneath Master Shuiyue.
“Your disciples will do all in our power to do so!” The four disciples bowed.
“Hai Tian, you rank third amongst my ten personal disciples, second only to first senior brother Ceng Shi and second senior brother Chu Xinghan. Of course, Long Juxue has an innate constitution and I will not mention her in the same breath as all of you. Apart from the three of them, you’re the strongest amongst the disciples left. I hope you can focus your concentration in these three months and don’t disappoint me. Strive to make it into the sky quadrant in the next three-month period.”
A young man with no eyebrows standing on the left hand side nodded firmly. “Honored master, your disciple will try his best to obtain a placement in the top ten for the sky quadrant, even if my bones are all shattered in the process.”
“The three of you can’t be remiss either. The competition within the earth quadrant is exceedingly high and our Shuiyue faction counts as an important party within the Purple Sun Sect. If you four don’t deploy your talents well, as strong and dominating Long Juxue and Ceng She might be in the sky quadrant, others will still say that the Shuiyue faction only has a few geniuses and the others are all quite mediocre. Are you willing for others to poke at you like this?”
“Your disciples are unwilling!” The four answered in unison.
“Right. Ten have arisen from the mystic quadrant this time. No attention needs to be paid to the others, but you must pay some attention to a secular freak amongst them.”
Hai Tian asked out of curiosity, “Honored master, what kind of incredible person has come from the mystic quadrant, and from the ordinary world at that?”
“Don’t you underestimate your enemy. Although I’ve never met this secular freak, he’s made quite a name for himself in the mystic quadrant. He’s defeated all in that quadrant, and first seed Guo Ren of our sect was frightened into forming internal demons. He grew so angry that he spat out blood and is completely wasted.”
“What? Something like this happened?!” The four disciples all had a look of surprise on their faces.
They’d been consumed by the nervous atmosphere of the competition in these three months. The earth quadrant disciples were all highly capable and strong, with minuscule differences between each other. Therefore, the battles were abnormally fierce. They didn’t have time to spare on matters in the outside world.
They were all shocked when they heard Master Shuiyue mention this.
“Mm. You must pay attention when you meet this person.” Master Shuiyue warned them again.
The four of them feigned a servile manner but were privately dismissive. They all felt that Guo Ren was true trash; he’d fallen without even fighting and had been frightened into forming internal demons. How embarrassing!
As four of the ten personal disciples beneath Master Shuiyue, they were on a completely different level than Guo Ren.
Although they nodded their assent, they were still very unaccepting of this.
“You are dismissed.” Master Shuiyue waved her hands and dismissed the four disciples, but waves of irritation rose in her heart.
She, too, knew where the irritation came from. It’d started ever since she’d seen this list of names.
This irritation was due to the secular genius.
Master Shuiyue herself didn’t know either why she would be this sensitive to that secular genius. However, this kind of irritation came from the intuition of an expert, and it made her feel slightly uneasy inside.
Master Shuiyue suddenly recalled something and a stunning thought raced through her mind.
“It can’t be that much of a coincidence that this secular genius might be Juxue’s rival from the ordinary world?” This notion suddenly dashed through her mind.
It became uncontrollable after it’d taken root.
“What is there to worry about even if it is him?” Master Shuiyue comforted himself. “As extraordinary as he is, all is nothing in front of an innate constitution. None of the ordinary geniuses can measure up to an innate constitution. Juxue has already set foot into the fourth spirit realm after two years under my care, and the trials of the first three months have surely helped her cultivation progress another step forward to at least the fifth level spirit realm. That is a level of existence that no one can ignore in the sky quadrant. With her talents, there’s a seventy to eighty percent chance that she can assail the sky spirit realm in these three years. When she breaks through, she will be a bird flying where it should in the skies, and a fish jumping where it would in the seas. The seat of champion of the great selection is destined to be hers!”
Master Shuiyue’s irritated feelings slowly calmed down when she thought of Long Juxue. This unparalleled disciple had given her boundless confidence, allowing her to daydream about the future of the Shuiyue faction.
Perhaps, there might come a day in which the disciple that she had so sagely taken in would become the second origin realm expert after forefather Sunchaser.
Master Shuiyue was full of excitement when she thought of that. At that time, her Shuiyue faction will surely leap up as well and become an unsurpassed existence within the sect!
……
A new day finally arrived as the top ten of the mystic quadrant was led to the earth quadrant by an examiner.
Impressive and magnificent buildings greeted their eyes when they set foot into the boundaries of the earth quadrant. The atmosphere was quite imposing. All sorts of towering trees that reached to the sky or rare fruits and flowers could be seen along the way.
The environment of the mystic quadrant was immediately shown as inferior in this regard.
“The earth quadrant is indeed superior to the mystic quadrant. The spirit power concentration here is at least twice that of the mystic quadrant. It looks like the sky, earth, mystic, and yellow quadrants are divided appropriately by level.” Jiang Chen’s senses perceptively captured the differences between the two areas along the way.
“We’re here.” The examiner brought them to the entrance of the earth quadrant and seemed to be afraid of Master Shuiyue. He didn’t want to go in and only said, “You can make your way inside.”
An enormous public square greeted them after the entrance. There were some lifelike sculptures scattered around the public square, giving one a thick sense of great history.
A group of candidates had gathered there much earlier. There was also a group of people wearing the outfits of examiners standing in front of the candidates. There was a woman in their center with a noble set of features, looking roughly thirty or so years old.
This lady was wearing plain clothes and was still attractive despite her age as she had a tantalizing air to her. However, her frosty countenance made her rather unapproachable.
Jiang Chen didn’t need to think at all to know that this person was the keeper of the earth quadrant, Master Shuiyue.
She was also Long Juxue’s teacher in the Purple Sun Sect, her backer.
Master Shuiyue’s gaze shot over like lightning, a powerful bearing encompassed within it even from such a far away distance. This single gaze made the ten newcomers shiver all over, apart from Jiang Chen.
“What a cold woman.” The thought struck Jiang Chen as he became on guard. This woman was putting them down as soon as they’d met. It seemed like she was absolutely not someone easy to get along with.
According to the experiences of Jiang Chen’s past life, these kinds of girls who liked to play dress up were all hypocrites. They yearned for adoration, but had to pretend to be cold as ice.
“You there, get over here. Are you expecting me to go and fetch you?” Master Shuiyue’s voice was cold, and the temperature around her seemed to decrease by seven to eight degrees when she opened her mouth, making the listeners shiver.
Jiang Chen paid attention to the reaction of the others. He was neither humble nor pushy as he walked over.
There were far fewer candidates in the earth quadrant than the spirit quadrant. There only five hundred in number.