"Father, you're joking, right?" Chu Lingxi asked.
The reason she asked was because she found it hard to believe that Chu Xuanyuan's strength had truly reached that level.
"Does your father look like the kind of person who would lie to you about something like this?"
"Most of our Chu Clan already knows about this. It's just you juniors who don't," Chu Xuanzhengfa said.
"Then if Chu Xuanyuan was really that powerful, how could he have been imprisoned in the Lower Realm of Ancestral Martial?" Chu Lingxi said.
Chu Lingxi knew that Chu Xuanyuan had been expelled from the Chu Clan and imprisoned in the Lower Realm of Ancestral Martial over thirty years ago.
Over thirty years ago, her father Chu Xuanzhengfa had just turned nine hundred. Even though Chu Xuanyuan was sixteen years younger, he had still been over eight hundred years old when he was expelled.
If Chu Xuanyuan had truly possessed the strength to serve as the Hall Master of the Chu Clan's Punishment Hall at the age of twenty-nine, then by the time he reached over eight hundred years of age, what level of strength would he have attained?
Likely, even if the Clan Chief of the Chu Clan and all those Supreme Elders joined forces, they still would not have been a match for Chu Xuanyuan.
But the fact remained that Chu Xuanyuan had been imprisoned in the Lower Realm of Ancestral Martial.
That very fact seemed to prove that Chu Xuanyuan's strength was inferior to that of the Chu Clan.
In short, none of it made any sense.
"Lingxi, what do you think of the Dao Palace's strength?" Chu Xuanzhengfa asked.
"The Dao Palace? It has very few disciples, but only accepts elite ones, so its overall strength is quite good."
"If we set aside our Chu Clan, in my opinion, the Dao Palace's strength ranks third among all the upper realms of the Great Thousand World."
"It's a pity that the Dao Palace's current Palace Master, Perfected Golden Crane, is far too irresponsible."
"For some reason, he actually went off to seclude himself in the Hundred Refinements Realm—nothing but a backwater—and contentedly left himself as a figurehead, meddling in none of the Dao Palace's affairs."
"Otherwise, the Dao Palace would probably have a chance at second place," Chu Lingxi said.
"I didn't realize you were so well-informed about the state of affairs in the Great Thousand World's upper realms," Chu Xuanzhengfa said.
"Of course I am," Chu Lingxi said, raising her little face with pride.
"Then what about the Dao Palace's previous Palace Master—the Perfected Golden Crane's Master. Do you know of him?" Chu Xuanzhengfa asked.
"I only care about current affairs, not things of the past. Besides, I'm always out on missions and don't stay in the upper realms of the Great Thousand World all that often. How would I know so much about all of that?"
"And weren't we talking about Chu Xuanyuan? Why are you bringing all this up?"
Chu Lingxi pouted her small mouth, looking quite put out.
Clearly, her father's questions had stumped her, and she was not happy about it.
"The Dao Palace's previous Palace Master, Perfected Jingtian, was hailed as the strongest Palace Master in the entire history of the Dao Palace."
"You yourself said that if we set aside our Chu Clan, the Dao Palace's current strength ranks third among the upper realms of the Great Thousand World."
"But when Perfected Jingtian held the position, then… if we set aside our Chu Clan, the Dao Palace's strength was first—undisputed first."
"When Perfected Jingtian visited the Star Field's Main Realm back then, he was even… able to sit as an equal with our Chu Clan's Clan Chief, receiving the same treatment," Chu Xuanzhengfa said.
"An equal? The same treatment?"
"Then back then, the Dao Palace would have been a threat to our Chu Clan's position as the overlord of the upper realms of the Great Thousand World!" At this, Chu Lingxi's little face finally showed genuine shock.
She knew full well that the Star Field's Main Realm was the true ruler of this entire star field. Every year, the overlord of each upper realm had to attend the Star Field Court Assembly in the Main Realm.
In addition to the overlords of each upper realm, certain renowned powerhouses within the star field also received invitations.
But no matter how powerful those experts might be, the treatment they received could never be the same as that afforded to the overlords of the various upper realms.
If such a thing were to happen, it would mean that the person or faction in question had become a genuine threat to an upper realm overlord's status—and had received the tacit approval of the Star Field's Main Realm to do so.