Yang Kai chuckled: "Then I really need to work twice as hard."
After joking around with Yang Xue for a while, warmth filled both siblings' hearts.
Yang Kai then turned to Yang Xiao, who had been standing nearby the whole time.
"Father!" Yang Xiao straightened his back ramrod-straight, a bead of sweat the size of a bean sliding down his forehead.
Yang Kai narrowed his eyes slightly: "Nervous?"
"No! Absolutely not!" Yang Xiao denied vehemently. "Seeing Father in such a dire situation fills my heart with joy and excitement."
Yang Kai let out a soft hmph.
Yang Xiao shivered involuntarily.
"Cultivate well, and ascend to the Sacred Dragon Body as soon as you can." After regarding him for a moment, Yang Kai finally spoke.
"Yes, I will not let you down!" Yang Xiao answered resolutely.
"Go." Yang Kai waved his hand.
Yang Xue led the stiff-legged Yang Xiao away, then suddenly turned back to call out: "Big Brother, be careful!"
Perhaps due to the unique bond between their bloodlines, she seemed to sense that Yang Kai was about to do something dangerous, her brows full of worry.
Yang Kai nodded gently: "Make sure you take care of yourselves too."
Watching Yang Xue and Yang Xiao depart, Yang Kai finally turned to look at his three disciples.
"Greetings, Master!" The three knelt in unison, performing a full kowtow.
Yang Kai stood in place, accepting their salute, then extended a hand to gesture them up. "Rise."
Zhao Yebai and the others rose to their feet.
His gaze sweeping over each of the three, Yang Kai broke into a smile.
Most of the disciples in the Void Dao Academy had inherited a portion of his teachings, enabling them to achieve accomplishments in the cultivation of various Grand Daos. In that sense, every warrior who emerged from the Void Dao Academy could be considered his disciple.
But only these three before him had received his direct, personal instruction.
It wasn't that Yang Kai had held anything back when imparting the Grand Daos — it was simply that apart from Zhao Yebai and the others, no one else had undergone the formal process of becoming his personal disciple.
Each of the three had inherited one of Yang Kai's primary Grand Daos, and Yang Kai had always placed great expectations upon them. Judging by the results over so many years, they had not betrayed his expectations nor squandered their own talents.
"You three are about to break through?" Yang Kai suddenly noticed that the auras of the three seemed off — regardless of which one he looked at, their energy fluctuated unsteadily, suppressed by some external force while they themselves were also straining to restrain it.
Zhao Yebai said: "Reporting to Master, we are indeed close to breaking through. However, Senior Wu Kuang said that the Ink Purge Army is currently in hiding and it wouldn't be wise to cause too much of a commotion. So Senior Fu Guang placed some restrictions on us to delay the timing of our ascension."
Yang Kai nodded slightly: "As it should be."
The Ink Purge Army was in a dire situation — concealing their tracks already consumed a great deal of Wu Kuang's mental energy. If Zhao Yebai and the others were to break through at this time, they would almost certainly be exposed, bringing yet another round of trouble.
However, it seemed that the timing of Zhao Yebai and the others' breakthroughs was roughly as he had anticipated. If they hadn't been swallowed into the Great Primordial Ban this time, the three would surely have already ascended to the Ninth Grade, at which point both they and the Ink Purge Army as a whole would have seen a tremendous surge in strength.
"Come, come, come — ascending to the Ninth Grade, your Master does have some insights worth sharing. Let me tell you a few things." Saying this, Yang Kai produced several meditation cushions from his Small World, tossed them on the ground, and sat cross-legged alongside his three disciples.
Zhao Yebai and the others hurriedly straightened up and sat properly, listening with full attention.
Although Yang Xue had previously shared some of her experiences with them, the circumstances each person encountered when ascending to the Ninth Grade were different. Hearing their Master's guidance now would surely prove beneficial for their future breakthroughs.
After imparting the key points and personal insights for ascending to the Ninth Grade, Yang Kai sent out a pulse of divine sense to communicate briefly with Wu Kuang, then said with a warm expression: "It's rare to have some free time — is there anything about your cultivation that you need clarified?"
The three perked up immediately. Zhao Yebai was the first to speak: "Master, my Dao of Space seems to have reached a bottleneck. I was hoping to ask Master for guidance."
Yang Kai nodded: "Channel your spatial power. Let me see."
Zhao Yebai complied at once. As Yang Kai felt the fluctuations of his spatial power, his eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise.
In terms of cultivation talent, Zhao Yebai was arguably the weakest among the three disciples — his aptitude was even inferior to many of the Void Dao Academy's students.
The only reason he had been able to cultivate all the way to his current realm was his extraordinarily high affinity with the Grand Dao of Space — he seemed to have been born for the Dao of Space.
The reason Yang Kai had taken him as a disciple years ago was that while traversing his own Small World, he had detected that the unborn Zhao Yebai, still in his mother's womb, had resonated with his Grand Dao of Space.
At that time, Zhao Yebai hadn't even been born yet!
A warrior so naturally attuned to one particular Grand Dao would find it twice as hard to cultivate any other path, but cultivating a compatible Dao was an entirely different matter.
His affinity with the Dao of Space smoothed over many of his shortcomings in raw talent.