Comprehending the sixth Glazed Stele granted Young Master Ji an additional six months of extension time. Jiang Chen likewise gained another six months, and combined with the two years he already possessed, his time within the Glazed King Pagoda was now truly ample.
Time had suddenly become plentiful.
Most of the young master-ranked geniuses who had originally been in the same zone as Young Master Ji had already exhausted their time and departed from the Glazed King Pagoda. Those who could remain now were either those who had received time extensions, or those who had possessed at least a year's allowance from the start.
After comprehending the sixth Glazed Stele, the handful of top geniuses on the Young Master Rankings clearly had no intention of continuing their challenge for the time being.
With the exception of Li Jiancheng, who had entered secluded cultivation, the other three all decided to venture into the other two secret realms.
After all, staying here offered nothing beyond cultivation — they had no realistic path to challenging the seventh Glazed Stele. They possessed enough self-awareness to know that without some new insight, pressing onward to the seventh stele would end in nothing but failure.
And so they resolved to seek inspiration in the other two secret realms.
Since all three secret realms had opened this time, they believed there had to be a reason. Perhaps the other two realms would yield some gain — even a stroke of extraordinary fortune — that could help them break through the seventh Glazed Stele, or even assault the eighth, accomplishing the feat that even the Peacock Great Emperor had never managed.
Though the younger generation all knew the Peacock Great Emperor was the undisputed foremost figure of the Glazed King Pagoda over the past three to four thousand years, youth was never short on confidence. Deep down, they could not help but fantasize — that they were heaven-blessed prodigies, born to ride the fortune of heaven and earth, and that surpassing the Peacock Great Emperor was not entirely impossible.
Jiang Chen, however, did not leave the Legacy Secret Realm.
He chose to remain in secluded cultivation. Before comprehending the sixth Glazed Stele, he had already spent several months in seclusion and reaped tremendous gains.
He decided to press on without pause and assault the ninth level of the Sacred Realm.
After comprehending the sixth Glazed Stele, the area he now occupied had spiritual energy concentration clearly superior to all previous zones.
Training here for a single day was truly equivalent to twenty days of cultivation in the outside world.
Jiang Chen resolved to break through to the ninth level of the Sacred Realm in one decisive push.
Young Master Ji's decision was much the same. After comprehending the sixth Glazed Stele, his confidence had surged. Moreover, the True Dragon blood continuously refined his consciousness and flesh, transforming his body and spirit day by day, pushing ever closer to the limits of his martial potential.
Before he knew it, a powerful calling arose from within him — a summons to assault the Imperial Realm.
Young Master Ji had lingered at the peak of the ninth level of the Sacred Realm, at the half-step threshold of the Imperial Realm, for quite some time already.
All along, he had been searching for a catalyst to break through into the Imperial Realm. But such a catalyst was not easily found. For years, Young Master Ji's cultivation had remained stuck at this bottleneck.
Yet the wondrous creative power of the True Dragon blood had acted like a great hammer, shattering the bottleneck to pieces and propelling his martial potential to a level he himself could not have measured.
It was precisely because of this that the Imperial Realm, which he had never before been able to find the inspiration to reach, now urgently summoned him.
Young Master Ji knew he had to enter seclusion and seize this opportunity.
If he took this step, he would cross wholly into the Imperial Realm — and from there, the sky would be the limit!
In this world, the Sacred Realm was merely where the martial path truly began. The Imperial Realm, however, meant ascending to a higher tier — earning the right to challenge even greater peaks.
The Imperial Realm had always been the threshold for the true elite.
Without breaking through into the Imperial Realm, one could not be called a top-tier powerhouse.
Young Master Ji had never lost faith in his ability to reach the Imperial Realm. However, the age at which he broke through would determine his future achievements and the pace of his martial progress.
The True Dragon blood had completely shattered his original rhythm, ushering him directly into an entirely new world of martial cultivation. His understanding and realm had leaped upward by several tiers.
What he had once believed to be a nearly unbreakable bottleneck crumbled with a resounding crash.
With the awakening of the True Dragon bloodline, Young Master Ji's breakthrough into the Imperial Realm proved far simpler than he had imagined. He had originally prepared for at least four months.
In the end, the entire process took only two months.
Moreover, those two months were not spent solely on the breakthrough. They also allowed him to solidify his position within the Imperial Realm multiple times over, continuously integrating and refining his various martial techniques.
"Who would have thought that I, Ji the Third, would break through into the Imperial Realm before the age of forty? Ha ha — setting aside the direct-line geniuses of the Great Emperors, among the scions of the great clans, I should be the first in nearly three thousand years!"
It would be a lie to say Young Master Ji felt no pride whatsoever.
He knew that with his breakthrough into the Imperial Realm, the Panlong Grand Clan would rise in prominence along with him, and their hope of becoming the eighth Great Emperor of the Glazed King City had greatly increased.
"Now, all I need is Brother Jiang Chen's Pine Crane Pill. As long as the Clan Head can extend his lifespan by a thousand years, he will surely break through into the Sovereign Realm and become the new Great Emperor. And when that time comes, with my own sudden rise, the Panlong Grand Clan's elevation to the eighth Great Emperor will be fully justified — no one will be able to stop it."
In that moment, Young Master Ji's mind opened wide. All those years of fighting over the position of successor within the Panlong Grand Clan suddenly seemed quite childish and laughable in hindsight.