The Heavenly Spirit Zone was, without question, the most mysterious of the four trial zones.
Only one hundred people were permitted to enter, and not a single one among them was a fraud. Here, you wouldn't find anyone below the fifth level of the Spirit Realm.
Even Long Juxue, who had been in the sect for only two years, had reached the fifth level of the Spirit Realm after half a year of cultivation and was already showing signs of breaking through to the sixth level.
Her Innate Azure Phoenix Body gave her an overwhelming advantage on the path of cultivation. No matter what she studied or practiced, she found it far easier than the other geniuses.
This powerful innate advantage left others caught between admiration and envy—yet utterly powerless to do anything about it.
An Innate Body was something that appeared perhaps once in a millennium across the Sixteen Kingdoms Alliance.
Even the four most powerful Origin Realm masters in the great sects did not possess Innate Bodies.
Over the past half year, Long Juxue had reaped tremendous gains—not only in her cultivation but also in her confidence.
She was no longer the cautious, timid Long Juxue who had first entered the sect. She no longer needed to curry favor with any senior brother, and she no longer had to watch anyone's mood.
Now, it was the others who had to watch her expression, tread carefully around her, and ingratiate themselves with her.
She thoroughly enjoyed this feeling. She loved being above others, loved seeing people grow nervous and self-conscious in her presence, desperately trying to please her.
Back in the Eastern Kingdom, she had basked in the reverence of noble scions bowing before her.
When she first arrived at the sect, her long years living in the mundane world had given her a degree of inferiority. She hadn't dared to act freely, and had even tried to suck up to certain senior brothers, hoping merely to avoid being bullied.
But now, as the bearer of an Innate Body, her talent had fully revealed itself, and her standing within the sect had soared.
Once again, she had found that feeling of being the center of attention—the moon surrounded by stars.
Being fawned over, admired, and feared. This goddess-like treatment had completely restored Long Juxue's confidence.
If there was still any crack remaining in her heart, it was the unspeakable humiliation she had suffered in the mundane kingdom.
She felt little affection for her family, but the grudge against her father and brother was carved into her bones.
And so, every time she thought of Jiang Chen, she was overcome with irritation.
She could barely contain herself—she wanted to find Jiang Chen, grind his bones to dust, and then return to the Eastern Kingdom to wipe out all nine branches of his clan.
The voice-transmission talisman had come from her master, Grandmaster Shuiyue.
The Grandmaster had recounted, with generous embellishment, everything that had transpired in the Earth Spirit Zone—the speculation about the mundane prodigy and his connection to Jiang Chen.
At the same time, Grandmaster Shuiyue had warned her: under no circumstances should she underestimate this boy. She had to do everything in her power to crush him in the Heavenly Spirit Zone, or the consequences would be dire.
"Could that mundane scum really be Jiang Chen?" Long Juxue had learned from the talisman the trajectory of this mundane prodigy's meteoric rise, but she still found it hard to believe. Could this really be Jiang Chen? Had her master gotten it wrong?
That Jiang Chen—could he truly be that formidable?
Long Juxue's impression of Jiang Chen had remained frozen at the Battle of Erdu Pass. The lucky brat had stumbled upon some trick for controlling spirit birds, and that was the only reason her Long family had suffered such a loss. Could he really have such extraordinary talent?
That was the trap of fixed thinking.
Her impression of Jiang Chen was so terrible, so firmly anchored to his days in the Eastern Kingdom, that she simply refused to believe this mundane prodigy could be him.
But since her master had said so—and said it with such conviction, even claiming that Jiang Chen was very likely a disciple privately raised by Ye Chonglou of the Tiangui Kingdom—Long Juxue, despite her lingering doubts, had to give the possibility at least a slimmer of credibility.
Even so, she quickly composed herself: "Hmph. Whether he's Jiang Chen or not, the fact that he humiliated my esteemed master like this is something I, as his disciple, absolutely cannot ignore. Besides, the master specifically instructed me—which means she wants me to act."
"If he is Jiang Chen, even better. Old grudges and new debts, all settled at once. If he dares show his face in the Heavenly Spirit Zone, I, Long Juxue, will make him regret ever being born!!"
Long Juxue was a woman who never forgot a slight. The thought of the losses she had suffered at Jiang Chen's hands made her pride flare up beyond endurance, and she could barely suppress the urge to fly into a rage.
…
In another courtyard within the Heavenly Spirit Zone, a cold-faced young man sat cross-legged, strange colors flickering through the depths of his eyes.
He stared at the voice-transmission talisman in his hand, momentarily dazed.
"Master was impeached in the Earth Spirit Zone? Stripped of her position as chief overseer? And the source of all this trouble was a mundane martial artist?"
A surge of fury rose in the young man's chest. He was none other than Grandmaster Shuiyue's eldest disciple—one of the top five geniuses among the elite of the Purple Sun Sect.