Once Upon A Time, There Was A Spirit Sword Mountain

“Fellow Daoists, today we hold celebration mainly to celebrate Daoist Master Luo Xiao’s ten consecutive victories in the Grand Competition. On the one hand, we should earnestly sum up Daoist Master Luo Xiao’s successful experience. On the other hand, we should take this opportunity to correctly understand the current situation. Finally, we should guide the next step according to the advanced experience of Daoist Master Luo Xiao, and strive for the ultimate victory in this Grand Competition. With this, I will elaborate on these three aspects.”

“1. Report on Daoist Master Luo Xiao’s exemplary deed. (1) Courageous enough to offer to volunteer to participate in the competition repeatedly…”

“(2) Cultivates diligently and continuously improve the strength to…”

“(3) Wonderful performance and brilliant victories…”

On the celebration ceremony of Luo Xiao’s ten consecutive wins in Purple Cloud Hall in Immortal Five Area, Wang Lu read aloud the manuscript in his hand in a solemn tone. His sound reverberated back and forth in the all, shocking many people.

Purple Cloud Hall was a place for the senior elders of the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals to hold a meeting in Immortal Five Area. Not only its outward appearance looked solemn and dignified, but its internal facilities were also perfect. The host sat on the rostrum and spoke, spreading out his voice through a built-in array. Moreover, in order to guarantee the quality of the meeting, Wang Lu had requested the Earth Immortals as the builder of the hall to build extraordinarily tricky array so that when the voice passed through the array, it went straight into the mind of the people. The sound was loud and clear, so loud that even the deaf could hear. Let alone pretending not being able to hear, even being absent-minded was impossible.

This most hateful design now made everyone who attended the ceremony miserable beyond description. Each and every person that sat there revealed their painful expression. Their buttocks chaffed from the frictions with their seats as they wiggled around as if they were trying to bore into the ground so that they could hide from the voice.

It was not that everyone was not interested with Luo Xiao’s amazing deeds. It was just that Wang Lu’s official style in reading it was really boring. He split the story of Luo Xiao very carefully. Wang Lu even went so far as describing the details of Luo Xiao’s clothing, food, living, and transportation during this period. Such as the menu of his breakfast and lunch, daily clothing, the zen books that he read, and so on… In fact, these contents were put in tabloid gossip, it would definitely drive the fans crazy. But, any tabloid gossip would not be written in such an official style.

However, when everyone finally survived the first part, they began to look forward to Wang Lu’s analysis of the current situation of the Grand Competition.

“2. Views on the current situation. (1) From the internal point of view, a united and positive competition atmosphere has been formed. Firstly, the plans of the Organizing Committee of the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals have been effectively implemented, including the following aspects…”

“(2) From the outside, the killing frenzy of the earth immortals has been effectively curbed.”

“At present, on the whole, opportunities and challenge coexist.”

These three points were clear and logical. The only problem was that: The amount said was the same as the amount not said.

Everyone had been looking forward to Wang Lu’s analysis of the current situation. They didn’t blindly believe that he had the divine ability of foresight, but rather they valued the vast amount of information that his position could reach. For example, the knowledge of which sects had trained rare troop… and so on. Unfortunately, after reading for the whole two hours, there was not even a little bit of interesting thing. He summarized the current situation from zero to zero, every word said was without leakage, which made it impossible to pick out any problems… this was in itself a skill.

At the end of the second part, some of the people sitting in the back of the Purple Cloud Hall had already started to slip away. The people who stayed at the front helplessly watched them leave, showing their deep sorrow and regret of the past mistakes.

However, soon, the remaining people stopped feeling miserable and began to look at the rostrum with interest.

Because after a long nonsense, Wang Lu finally got to the point.

His speech remained unchanged, and every word was still a no-nonsense official talk. However, this time, even a cultivator who had no interest in such issues could hear to its implied meaning.

“… First of all, we must organize all the cultivators to seriously study Daoist Master Luo Xiao’s exemplary deeds carefully, and then set up a special working group, headed by myself, with members from various sects’ representatives, to push for deep learning of the deeds. In this period, we should organize a number of seminars and let Daoist Master Luo Xiao personally tell us his own experience, so that more cultivators could benefit from it.”

“… In addition, we should give a generous reward to Daoist Master Luo Xiao and publicize it wildly to attract more cultivators to participate in the competition.”

As Wang Lu went through the list one by one, Luo Xiao who sat beside him looked more and more ugly.

If one looked at it literally, there wasn’t any fault in Wang Lu’s report. Instead of suppressing Luo Xiao’s achievements, it had been raised to a certain extent.

The problem was that, this report was tantamount to putting Wang Lu in a higher position.

In the organization of the special working group, Wang Lu was the leader, while Luo Xiao was only an ordinary member of the group. Moreover, he also had to accept Wang Lu’s assignments, holding a number of seminars, just like a monkey playing tricks… It was clear at a glance who had the higher status here.

In fact, from the perspective of the official document itself, it was already full of tall and cold postures—Indeed, this style, born under the advocacy of the Union of Ten Thousand Immortal’s vernacular movement was essentially a highly simple and concise text with no unnecessary rhetoric or expression, and requiring preciseness and rigor, and more accurate than books about cultivation. However, it was precisely because the document was too practical, it sacrificed the aesthetic ness and readability. Nowadays, with the exception of high ranking leaders, few people were willing to use such accurate but lacking in aesthetic style.

When Wang Lu announced the document in this official style, he was actually announcing the fact that no matter how brilliant Luo Xiao was, he was only a soldier, while Wang Lu was a leader sitting on the rostrum being eloquent.

As the genius of Jindan Stage of the present age, there was an insurmountable gap between them. With the momentum of ten consecutive victories, Luo Xiao tried to cross the gully to challenge Wang Lu. However, ain’t seemed that he was too hasty.

The challenge was launched with great enthusiasm, but Wang Lu simply did not have the interest to fight.

At the same time, the Elders sitting on the rostrum had been watching Luo Xiao’s reaction with great interest, wondering how he would deal with such setback, or whether he could clearly recognize the reality and cool down from the overheated state.

In their view, the whole incident was a farce—from the public opinion fever of Luo Xiao to Wang Lu’s response to this ceremony. From the beginning to the end, they did not feel that there was any problem between Wang Lu and Luo Xiao, or even the need to compare them. Because they were not equal at all. Only some tabloid gossips would be keen on hyping such a topic and even kept speculating that if the two had the same starting point, who would be better than the other now.

Indeed, Wang Lu’s innate conditions were much better than that of Luo Xiao. Whether it was spirit root quality or the cultivation method, Luo Xiao, who came from a mediocre sect, could not be compared with Wang Lu. The starting point of the two was very different, so it was meaningless to forcibly eliminate this gap to talk about the advantages and disadvantages. Otherwise, why did the cultivators of the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals who were born after the end of Age of Chaos, bother to struggle against the ancient earth immortals who were born in the glorious era? If you have the ability, go and live after the Age of Chaos!

If Luo Xiao wanted to challenge Wang Lu, they at least should be in the same position first. And to achieve this position, Wang Lu was basing on his previous numerous brilliant victories… From his appearance at Spirit Sword Sect to the exchange meeting with the disciples from Ten Thousand Arts Sect to now, Wang Lu had subverted people’s common sense again and again. He kept on triumphing in the face of all his enemies, which made him qualified to be looked at favorably by Daoist He Tu and the others that they entrusted him with such a heavy task despite he was just a Jindan Stage.

On the other hand, Luo Xiao’s outstanding performance was only a recent matter, and it was only this ten successive wins in the Grand Competition. Moreover, these ten successive wins were borrowed from Wang Lu’s success. In this case, what would be the need for Wang Lu to play the challenger game with Luo Xiao?

As Wang Lu’s report gradually came to an end, the look on Luo Xiao’s face was constantly changing. From the initial dismay to indignation, to gradually calm down and even showing a gentle smile.

Finally, after reading the report, Wang Lu patted Luo Xiao on the shoulder in a gesture befitted of an elder. “Keep working hard, Luo Xiao, we look forward to more of your wonderful performance!”

One was called we, while the other one was you. These two pronouns marked the boundaries of their different classes.

Luo Xiao seemed to have stabilized his mind and said with a broad smile, “I will certainly not disappoint the great expectation.”

At this point, the Purple Cloud Hall finally had the atmosphere of guests and hosts having a good time. Seeing Luo Xiao’s fast transformation in mood, Wang Lu no longer said anything more and just whispered a sentence, ” Do your best¹ , young man.” Then he no longer paid attention to him. Turning around, he announced the end of today’s report session, which was to be followed by a splendid entertainment show.

The entertainment shows were really wonderful. The singing and dancing performances arrange personally by Daoist Master Miao Yan made the cultivators who were about to get hemorrhoids from grinding their buttocks against their seat became addicted to the show and felt that the previous hardships were worthwhile.

However, several key characters of the ceremony had already left the venue ahead of schedule.

With Wang Lu’s extremely busy schedule, dedicating half a day to the ceremony for Luo Xiao was already extremely generous. To spend more time watching singing and dancing performances was simply a dereliction of duty.

On the other hand, Luo Xiao was apparently not in the mood to enjoy the show, so he left the Purple Cloud Hall after he found an excuse.

However, before he walked out of the hall, he was surrounded by a group of bald-headed zen cultivators.

“Senior Brother Luo Xiao! Are you okay?”

Luo Xiao was shocked to find that they were all his fellow students in Hua Yan School.

“Why are you guys here?”

A tall bald-headed man couldn’t help but smile. “Today is your big celebration day, Senior Brother, how can we not come?” After that, he sighed, “But, looking at the ceremony, it seems to be different than what we think.”

Someone among them chimed in, “I heard that there’s a contradiction between you and Daoist Master Wang Lu and that you have been targeted by him. Is that true?”

Someone beside him replied, “Senior Brother Luo Xiao has a positive attitude and generous personality. He can make friends with anyone. How could he offend Wang Lu without any reason? I think it’s all just rumors.”

“But I just listened to an elder whispering in the hall that said Daoist Master Wang Lu’s report was aimed at Senior Brother Luo Xiao… Senior Brother, is that true?”

Luo Xiao smiled and said, “Don’t listen to them. If there’s a contradiction, why should Daoist Master Wang Lu give me such a grand ceremony? I’m ashamed actually.”

“Senior Brother, you are too modest. Why is there any shame? Your ten successive wins are unique now. Although those Daoist Masters of Deity Stage and Supremes of Unity Stage had profound cultivation base, none could accomplish what you have done in your situation.”

Luo Xiao was just about to speak when he heard an eager younger brother said, “Senior Brother, Daoist Master Wang Lu has given you such a big ceremony. Does it mean that he likes you very much? Will he continue to reuse you in the future?”

Luo Xiao couldn’t help but smile bitterly. “I am now the disciple of Four Element Supreme, so I don’t really need the attention of a Daoist Master of Jindan Stage so much…”

“Daoist Master Wang Lu is not an ordinary Jindan, he can do many things that a Daoist Master of Jindan Stage couldn’t do. With his help, your path of cultivation would surely be much smoother, Senior Brother!”

Luo Xiao didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he heard his fellow disciples begin to discuss with interest how to make himself look good in front of Wang Lu to gain his favor in the future.

After a while, when the enthusiastic discussion had faded a little, Luo Xiao suddenly said, “What would you guys think if I say I want to challenge Wang Lu?”

In response to this was dozens of shocked look.

“Senior Brother, are you kidding?”

Luo Xiao thought for a moment. “Do you guys think it’s impossible? He is a Jindan, and I am also a Jindan. There’s absolutely no gap between us.”

One of the youngest among them hesitantly said, “But he is Wang Lu.”

He is Wang Lu, and you are not… The words of this junior brother of him, who had always been known for his frankness, could not help but make Luo Xiao really depressed.