Jin Se

Chapter 19

The imperial court's emissary was indeed the man who'd been present five years ago at the lighting of the lanterns. He was Yan Zhen, the new Grand Mentor, son of Yan Huaipu, the one who'd died at the peak of Jiulu Mountain. Whenever people spoke of his talents, they'd all concur that his surpassed his father's.

Right then, Yan Zhen was looking at someone: the person sitting in the last-most seat amongst Jiulu Mountain's first-generation disciples.

The Grand Mentor himself knew not why this person had drawn his attention. Many years later, when he looked back on the past, Yan Zhen would almost believe that fate itself had been prying his head to turn in that direction, forcing his gaze to land on that person.

The venue was bustling with noise and excitement. Xuan Sect's distinguished disciples were, of course, a cut above the rest. There were many amongst them possessed of true skill.

Yan Zhen himself was a Dao cultivator, though very few people knew of it since he'd been a disciple of the Mi Sect of Xiji Gorge. The Mi Sect's cultivation was different from the Xuan Sect's, but even so, Yan Zhen couldn't deny that Xiji Gorge couldn't match up to Jiulu Mountain's might and prestige. They also didn't have very many promising young disciples.

To see what the future of a sect looked like, one only had to see who its leader was, and whether their newest generation had potential. Two days ago, Yan Zhen had silently set his sights on a few Xuan Sect disciples. When he'd called them over to interview them, they'd all been confident and sure in their responses. It seemed they cultivated both scholarly and martial skills.

The third day of the conference was the most climactic, the best of the best would enter the field. The competitors would no longer be juniors, but Xuan Sect's first-generation disciples. Even the twelve masters might get in the ring to fire up the atmosphere.

Shi Wuduan, sitting alone, glued to his seat and unmoving as a mountain, became somewhat conspicuous.

Bitan had ordered that no one was to disturb Shi Wuduan, so of course, no one had defied the sect leader and given him any trouble. He sat there, idly snacking, while his mind drifted a thousand miles away. Even when Jiang Chongwen, esteemed disciple of Banya, and one of the "twelve masters," shocked the audience with the Lotus Seat Illusion, he only gave it a brief glance.

Illusory arts were unique in that they were amongst Xuan Sect's secret arts. It was created thousands of years ago by the founder of the sect - each blade of grass in the illusion could be real or false, rain and snow could fall simultaneously, the sky and earth could merge into one. The key was whether the caster had the ability to create a perfectly flawless "order." If they could, then "illusion" became "reality" and could persist indefinitely.

However, the art of illusion had gradually fallen to the wayside as the years passed.

Though Shi Wuduan didn't understand the illusory arts, he was an expert at astral calculations; he even had a decent grasp of the great array that his shifu had left behind. His understanding of "order" was therefore extremely deep. I

n a single glance, he perceived the holes in Jiang Chongwen's "Lotus Seat" - the ascent of the lotus seat, the falling of petals; for the sake of aesthetics, Jiang Chongwen had suspended the petals in mid air instead of letting them fall, but the dewdrops on the petals had splattered to the ground.

Behind his wooden expression, Shi Wuduan thought: so he's an idiot who doesn't even know how gravity works. While everyone was busy being mesmerized by an illusion that he could break with the snap of his fingers, Shi Wuduan's chopsticks blurred as he swept all his favorite snacks into his own plate - there was no point in not eating it.