Yan Zhaoge seemed to transform into this stone pillar as he experienced the ravages of time along with it.
Suddenly, the world before Yan Zhaoge’s eyes lit up as an indistinct figure appeared before him!
History's Strongest Senior Brother Chapter 230: A discovery that causes Yan Zhaoge’s heart to beat wildly
HSSB230: A discovery that causes Yan Zhaoge’s heart to beat wildly
The scenes in Yan Zhaoge’s current field of vision did not truly exist, instead being from the ‘memories’ of the pillar of the divine palace.
Therefore, when he saw an indistinct figure appear in his field of vision, Yan Zhaoge could not help but take notice.
This meant that somehow had discovered the stone pillar.
This person strolled over slowly in the midst of the Black Nightmare Storm, as though just walking along leisurely.
Seeing this, Yan Zhaoge knit his brows slightly, because distinguishing carefully, he discovered that this person had arrived precisely when the Black Nightmare Storms of the Great Western Desert were at their most ferocious.
Walking along so relaxedly and leisurely, this person’s unfathomable strength caused a feeling of apprehension in others.
Especially when observing carefully, Yan Zhaoge discovered that he couldn’t clearly see the person’s appearance.
The other party seemed to have been enveloped by a clear layer of light, such that only the body’s contours were visible. It was a young woman, but her exact appearance and garb was a complete mystery.
This woman now came before Yan Zhaoge, or should it be said, before the stone pillar.
She gently reached out and stroked the stone pillar’s exterior, sighing lightly as words seemed to resound within Yan Zhaoge’s very heart, “Vast oceans to boundless fields, objects everlasting yet people faceless…”
Yan Zhaoge’s pupils dilated abruptly, because listening to this person’s words, he actually didn’t feel like he was viewing a re-enactment of that time, but like this person was actually in the same era as him, right beside him as she spoke softly by his ear!
Hearing the person’s words, carefully considering the meaning within, Yan Zhaoge’s heart beat wildly.
Vast ocean to boundless fields, objects everlasting yet people faceless…
Stabilising his mind, Yan Zhaoge continued viewing the illusory scene.
That girl traced the patterns on the surface of the stone pillar, seemingly talking to herself, “Is the path that we will be walking the right one? When we die, will we be able to look our ancestors in the eye?”
She sighed lightly once more. She pressed down with her hand, not taking away the stone pillar, but pushing it such that it sank down even deeper, buried within the vast desert.
Gazing over carefully, Yan Zhaoge saw that the girl vaguely seemed to be wearing a crown on her head.
The scene very quickly vanished, but Yan Zhaoge’s mind shuddered slightly once more.
“If I’m not wrong, that seemed like…the Extreme Yin Crown?” Yan Zhaoge’s eyelids twitched as his expression turned rather strange.
While he had not personally seen it, Yan Zhaoge had viewed images of the Extreme Yin Crown quite a few times before.
The accessory on that girl’s head, whilst seeming blurry and unreal, was clearly extremely similar in size to the Extreme Yin Crown.
Yan Zhaoge sucked in a deep breath as he awoke, breaking from the memories left behind in the stone pillar.
His expression was calm as innumerable thoughts flashed through his mind.
After a while, Yan Zhaoge recovered, his eyes squinting slightly as he raised his head and gazed over.
While the changes were slight, with Yan Zhaoge’s current vision, he could accurately tell that the pillar of the divine palace before him was now a little shorter than before.
This meant that some results had already been seen in his second refinement of the pillar.
However, if he wanted to completely do what he had set out to do, it was not like the initial refinement earlier in the Great Western Desert, which could be done in a single leap.
This second refinement would require quite a bit of time and grinding to complete.
Yan Zhaoge reached out, pressing his palm on the surface of the stone pillar, his mind moving slightly as the stone pillar instantly became taller once more, resuming its former appearance, with no signs of anything out of the ordinary having happened.
However, it was indeed already different from how it was before. Accompanied by Yan Zhaoge’s thoughts, the length and size of the stone pillar could already see some limited changes.
Accompanied by refining it further day by day, the extent to which the stone pillar could change in size would also increase unceasingly.
Yan Zhaoge looked at the pillar of the Divine Palace, not speaking for a long time.
In the days ahead, Yan Zhaoge remained stationed within Suzhou City. Other than for Elder Li’s funeral, he remained cultivating, as well as refining the pillar of the Divine Palace.
Before the new Acting Elder of Suzhou got here, Broad Creed Mountain’s martial practitioners in Suzhou would report to Yan Zhaoge on anything that happened.
However, everything here had long since been decided, and Yan Zhaoge was of no mind to mess around with the order of things. He just followed that which had been set in place earlier, peacefully going on with the status quo for this transition period.
Broad Creed Mountain losing an Acting Elder had already given its martial practitioners here bellies full of fire, and there was no one blind enough to provoke Broad Creed Mountain at this time.
After allocating the tasks that Yan Zhaoge had asked him to handle, Ah Hu returned to Yan Zhaoge’s side.
Viewing the inscribed patterns on the stone pillar, Ah Hu also gradually quietened his heart, his gaze flickering as he seemed to have had some gains.
One fine day, the meditating Ah Hu suddenly opened his eyes, a sharp light flickering within as that tangible spiritual light above his head shot straight up into the horizon, its momentum surging.
Sitting where he was, Yan Zhaoge watched this scene calmly.
The spiritual light above Ah Hu’s head gradually receded into the crown of his head, the gaze within his eyes also beginning to retract.
Finally, the spiritual light above Ah Hu’s head vanished, the sharp light within his eyes also gone without a trace.
Ah Hu got up and punched out with a fist, the resulting scene formed of his aura-qi and fist-intent virtually solidified into solid form.
The spiritual qi of his aura-qi could not be seen from the outside, inside being accumulated within the heaven and earth formed of his fist-intent, heavy and vibrant.
It was like a patch of fertile soil, able to nourish boundless life. As soon the seeds were planted, they could then be nurtured, next growing roots and birthing sprouts.
That forceful, heavy power on Ah Hu’s entire body was yet also extraordinarily intelligent, having risen greatly from how it had been before!
He seemed to have switched his bones and been reborn, entering a completely new heaven and earth.
The spiritual light above his head vanished, not having been intentionally kept hidden like before, but instead truly having vanished.
The spiritual light vanishing did not mean that he had weakened. On the contrary, Ah Hu had grown even stronger, because now, as every single one of his acupoints pulsed slightly, they seemed like they could communicate with the heavens and the earth, not just that one spiritual light above his head that was connected to the heavens any longer.
The sharp light within his eyes having been retracted, leaving it warm and smooth like jade, also shared this principle of the resuming of simplicity.
This was precisely the sign of a martial practitioner succeeding in their breakthrough from the Martial Scholar realm to the Martial Grandmaster realm!
Ah Hu leapt up from the ground, rushing before Yan Zhaoge upon which he broke out laughing, �
��Young Master, I’ve succeeded!”
Yan Zhaoge also laughed joyfully as he patted Ah Hu’s shoulder, “Heavenly Connection to Spirit Vessel, heavens and earth no longer the same-good!”
Like the Martial Scholar realm, the Martial Grandmaster realm also contained three major stages.
The ten levels of the Martial Grandmaster realm, counting from the bottom, consisted of the Spirit Vessel stage, the Essence Spirit stage and the Essence Talisman stage, each stage also individually divided into early, mid and late.
The final, peak stage of the Martial Grandmaster realm was the Transcending Mortality stage.
Like Ah Hu today, Heavenly Connection Martial Scholars, in breaking through that final bottleneck, stepping from Heavenly Connection into Spirit Vessel, would rise from a Martial Scholar to a Martial Grandmaster, achieving a cultivation base of the early Spirit Vessel Martial Grandmaster realm.
The spirituality of the aura-qi resuming simplicity, the heaven and earth of the fist-intent turning from illusory into real, spirit soil beginning to form.
When a spirit seed was condensed, increasing in strength as it grew within the spirit soil, one would have stepped into the mid Spirit Vessel Martial Grandmaster realm.
As Yan Zhaoge felt happy for Ah Hu, he had also long had an idea regarding his own upcoming cultivation progress, “From the late Xiantian stage to the Heavenly Connection stage is not hard, but if I want to quickly get from the Heavenly Connection stage to the Martial Grandmaster realm, some things will have to be prepared beforehand.”
History's Strongest Senior Brother Chapter 231: Coming over to apologise
HSSB231: Coming over to apologise
Cultivating from the late Xiantian stage to the Heavenly Connection stage as well as the supreme bottleneck that lay after, that between the Martial Scholar and Martial Grandmaster realms, the main thing that was required was comprehension, rather than being simply about grinding, slowly accumulating one’s foundation.
Of course, some accumulation was still required, but it was definitely not something that could be achieved through pure bitter perseverance alone.
Especially for the breakthrough from the Heavenly Connection stage to the early Spirit Vessel Martial Grandmaster realm, whose difficulty surpassed that of any single breakthrough in the Martial Scholar realm before this.
The distance between the two realms truly lived up to its name of a heavenly gulf. Ever since ancient times, the number of martial practitioners who had been stuck at this bottleneck, wasting away the rest of their lives was far too many to count.
Let alone other powers, even many martial practitioners from Broad Creed Mountain and the other five Sacred Grounds remained stuck at this bottleneck, unable to improve any further.
In this current world, this bottleneck between the two realms was an important benchmark for judging an outstanding genius of the younger generation who possessed great potential.
It was hard to ascend to become a Martial Saint, but as long as one became a Martial Grandmaster, this was at least already enough to say that this young hero and genius was most likely not wasting his or her innate potential as well as talent.
People often said that only those geniuses who were able to convert their potential into true strength could truly be considered geniuses.
The benchmark here was actually usually agreed through tacit agreement as stepping into the Martial Grandmaster realm, or more accurately, breaking through the heavenly gulf and reaching the Martial Grandmaster realm whilst still young and fit.
And generally speaking, when a young genius became a Martial Grandmaster, the way they were looked at would also change, with them no longer seen by the world as younger generation disciples.
Someone like Yan Zhaoge who was already viewed like this before having reached the Heavenly Connection stage was someone that you could search for but never find, an exception amongst exceptions.
After all, the Martial Grandmaster experts outside of the six great Sacred Grounds could already more or less occupy a spot of their own.
With Ah Hu able to become a Martial Grandmaster, Yan Zhaoge was naturally happy for him.
As for Yan Zhaoge himself, he still had to perform a little more accumulation before breaking through from the late Xiantian stage to the Heavenly Connection stage.
To Yan Zhaoge, refining the pillar of the Divine Palace was not simply about viewing the images sealed within, or shrinking it as he liked.
Yan Zhaoge did not find the patterns on the pillar foreign, but it was rich in spirituality as well as mysteries, having a unique use of its own as he remained in actual possession of it.
As the one refining the pillar, he was the one benefiting the most from it.
As compared to Ah Hu, much, much more.
If he wanted to reach the Martial Grandmaster realm within a short period of time, Yan Zhaoge would have to use some special methods.
The crux of the matter was some things that he would have to prepare, which were currently rather rare and hard to seek out.
Yan Zhaoge was similarly confident of grasping it slowly himself, but it was just the current changes in the global situation were just too quick, with him having to increase his strength as soon as he could.
Especially after viewing the remnant memories of the pillar of the divine palace, whereupon many thoughts had surfaced in Yan Zhaoge’s mind.
The reason he was interested in that half a jade coin was that the jade coin was an object of before the Great Calamity.
The information contained within its spirit formation might possibly lead him to some hidden realm.
Following the Great Calamity, many precious natural treasures had dwindled or even become extinct. If he could find a store of them in a hidden realm of before the Great Calamity, perhaps it might still contain something that he wanted.
That way, gathering them would be much more convenient, and he would also not have to wrack his brains on possible substitute materials.
Of course, this hidden realm could have been destroyed along with the Great Calamity, or might have been beat to the draw by others.
However, as compared to searching for virtually extinct things all around, this path was still rather more reliable.
In his spare time, Yan Zhaoge also remained up to date on things in Suzhou City and the entire Sand Region.
The new appointed Acting Elder of Suzhou arrived much later than Yan Zhaoge had thought he would, but when he learnt of whom the other party was, he too was a little surprised.
The news relayed over was that the new appointed Acting Elder of Suzhou City, was actually someone whom Yan Zhaoge could not possibly be more familiar with-Xu Fei!
The ‘Heavenly Roc’ Xu Fei, a disciple of Shi Tie, a leading figure of Broad Creed Mountain’s younger generation, just past the age of thirty, having stepped into the Martial Grandmaster realm following the Heavenly Connection Meet.
Hearing the news, Yan Zhaoge’s first thought was, “Has senior apprentice-brother Xu committed any error?”
Acting Elder positions were generally taken up by Martial Scholars. A Martial Grandmaster like Xu Fei who possessed an incalculable future being thrown into Suzhou City by the edge of the Sand Region as an Acting Elder-however he looked at it, it seemed like a waste of his talents, not befitting of them at all.
Xu Fei was still young. Also, just having become a Martial Grandmaster, his potential was still limitless, and it was precisely the time for him to be working hard in his cultivation.
Even for tempering, if they wanted to place him outside, they should have waited for his cultivation to have improved a bit more before directly giving him the position of a Principal Elder. Being an Acting Elder was just an impossible thing.
Yan Zhaoge was momentarily sent into a daze upon hearing the news, but he very quickly recovered.
“Is it because of the matter of the Decimating Abyss and Black Nightmare Mountain that I reported earlier?” Yan Zhaoge narrowed his eyes slightly, “Bac
k at the clan, Grand Master, father, eldest apprentice-uncle and them all believe that the Decimating Abyss will be acting in the Wind Domain soon?”
Ah Hu scratched his head, “I fear it must be so.”
Yan Zhaoge nodded- it could be explained this way then. Xu Fei’s arrival was only to temporarily take up the position of Suzhou’s Acting Elder, as special times called for special measures.
Having just tried to assassinate Yan Zhaoge by the border of the Sand Region earlier, if the Decimating Abyss and Black Nightmare Mountain still wanted to create trouble, Suzhou would be the frontline of their actions.
Other than in some extreme few unique circumstances, like that with Yan Zhaoge, if a Martial Scholar were to take up the position of Suzhou’s Acting Elder, it would seem a little flimsy.
Viewed in that light, sending over a powerful figure was an understandable decision.
Yan Zhaoge was also here, but his situation was too special, his authority shockingly at the level of a First Seat Elder. Placing him in Suzhou would make things a little awkward for the Principal Elder of the Howling Wind Sword Sect.
Therefore, the clan had decided to let Yan Zhaoge continue moving freely.
Coming over to Suzhou, Xu Fei had deep ties with Yan Zhaoge, also having good coordination with him.
Sitting on a chair, Yan Zhaoge gently tapped on its armrest, “The Decimating Abyss had been keeping extremely low key before this, only gradually becoming more and more active following that incident in the Sealing Dragon Abyss. Now, the frequency of its activities has been getting higher and higher.”
“The situation over at the Earth Domain still cannot be said to have been completely resolved, and following the incident at Clear Concealed Lake, they have made plans to act in the Wind Domain once more.”
Yan Zhaoge’s fingers suddenly ceased their tapping, “Are there any special reasons for this? Could it be related to the Nine Underworlds over on the other side?”
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