: Chapter Five Hundred and Forty-Four: Truth

It is noon on October 17th, 1780 of the Longzhou Calendar.

As the allied forces of the Cao, Bai, and Mi Families are retreating from a counterattack led by the First Head of the Martial Hall. Both the Bai and Cao families suffered losses with one death each in the Fierce Realm and multiple severe injuries. With the support of multiple Martial Ancestor teams from the Tang Clan, Mi Hai, the Sect Head of the Mi Clan, had to cut off the rear of the army to retreat, his spirit was severely damaged.

Tang Sen, the Sect Head of the Tang Clan, wanted to pursue and attack them but was blocked by the three Fierce Realm teams that the Mi Clan had sent as reinforcements. More than thirty Fierce Realm elites started a huge battle over the original Xiling City Wall.

The battle lasted for several hours, both sides suffered casualties, and retreated in silence.

At this point, Tang Luo, with over a thousand attendants, had already returned safely to the North Mountain Community under the escort of the Divine Martial Guard on their warship.

Upon returning to the clan, the first task was to report back to the Clan Chief. Unexpectedly, Tang Zhi the Clan Chief, as well as Tang Zu, the Sect Head, and Elder Tang Hongtao were already present, causing Tang Luo to freeze momentarily as he entered the council chamber.

The three of them wore strange expressions on their faces – hesitation and anticipation, as if dealing with a difficult decision.

Has the situation unexpectedly changed? Tang Luo wondered secretly, although he remained calm on the outside, and respectfully greeted the three: “Greetings to the Sect Head, Clan Chief, and Elder.”

Battles are uncertain by nature. Even the most seamless plans can shatter to a loss due to a minor flaw. Even if some eerie event occured, Tang Luo would not be surprised.

“No need for formalities.” The Sect Head, Tang Zu, struggled to keep his emotions in check. He raised his hand for Tang Luo to stand, and with a trembling voice asked, “Tang Luo, have you awakened the Taiching Divine Pupil?”

Clan Chief Tang Zhi and Elder Tang Hongtao, full of expectation, looked at Tang Luo. The hope and anticipation in their eyes were almost unbearable to look at directly.

Though reluctant to disappoint them, Tang Luo could only stick to the truth and say, “No, it is not the Taiching Divine Pupil.”

Sounding like the shattering of something, Sect Head Tang Zu incredulously asked, “If not the Taiching Divine Pupil, then what criteria did you use to select members of the Marshal Star Pavilion? Weren’t you rewarding them so richly because you foresaw their inevitable bloodline awakening?”

It seems that even though Tang Luo had a lot of autonomy, the clan’s several leaders were not oblivious to every rustle on Red Cloud Mountain. However, they inferred something entirely different according to three different standards. Just as expected, this certainly originated from the mind of Clan chief Tang Zhi.

It is not that Tang Luo deliberately concealed his actions from the clan or speaking privately to outsiders. All the potential within the clan had already been thoroughly exploited. The remaining prodigals were even too lazy to cultivate, if they did, they were either taken to the Martial Hall or to Sect school.

That’s why the first cultivation ground has only about thirty to fifty people, mostly with talents of 1.1 and even 1.2 levels. Considering these people to be the cream of the crop amongst their peers in the Tang clan, there wouldn’t really be any point in notifying the clan about who has high or low talent. They have already reached the highest level of martial arts training. Therefore, Tang Luo wanted to create the Marshal Star Pavilion to find hidden talents amongst the common folk.

However, it’s clear that his actions have been misunderstood, due to the sudden visit of Elder Xu, they believe that he has awakened the same Taiching Divine Pupil as Xu Sheng.

Despite there never being any records of the Taiching Divine Pupil, subsequent generations have discovered some clues from Xu Sheng’s life. Among them, there are two most talked-about characteristics.

The first is the power to see through illusions. The reason why Xu Feng was known as the “saint in the swords” was because he was always able to spot vulnerabilities in the spirit art and physical bodies of his opponents. So his entire life was filled with defeating stronger enemies with weaker powers. As a result, people later said,

“If your cultivation is much greater than that of Xu Sheng, there may be a chance of a draw. But if your cultivation is on par with or lower than his, don’t ever try to compete. It’s not interesting to be beaten.”

The second quality is transparency. In his life of just two centuries, Xu Sheng walked the world as a Master and accepted 72 disciples. Among them were scions of famous clans, highway robbers, and even disabled orphans abandoned at the roadside.

The one thing that these disciples of varied backgrounds, birth and characters have in common is that they all eventually awakened Heaven-level bloodlines. History refers to them as ‘The 72 Heavenly Kings’.

One or two may have been coincidences, but all 72 having Heaven-level bloodlines was too significant to ignore. Even the most naive could see the possibility that the Taiching Divine Pupil could identify those with Heaven-level bloodlines. So, during the later years of Xu Sheng’s life, countless powerful clans and holy land masters would bring groups of young people to pay their respects to him each year. They all hoped that Xu Sheng could discern whether their descendants had the potential to awaken a Heaven-level bloodline.

That’s why the few leaders of the Tang Clan interpreted Tang Luo’s actions in creating the Marshal Star Pavilion as a recruitment strategy based on his ability to measure bloodline potential. But the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment. The hypothesis that Tang Luo might possess the Taiching Divine Pupil was just a conjecture after all. It was now denied, and the light of expectation in the eyes of Clan Chief Tang Zhi and Elder Tang Hongtao had faded. Only Sect Head Tang Zu continued to inquire, “If you haven’t awakened a divine pupil, and can’t see the potential of a bloodline, then what criteria did you use to choose the members of the Marshal Star Pavilion?”

There is a reason for the Sect Head’s persistent questioning. Although the Taiching Divine Pupil is a Heaven-level bloodline that can only be awakened in the Fierce Realm, the few of them were prepared for the misunderstanding. However, Tang Zu had a feeling that it might just be possible that Tang Luo had awakened another type of eye technique. Perhaps it couldn’t see those with Heaven-level bloodlines, but if it could perceive Earth or even Human-level bloodlines, that would be great too.

Since this was his own conjecture, he didn’t discuss it with Clan Chief Tang Zhi and Elder Tang Hongtao beforehand, and directly questioned Tang Luo.

“That’s precisely what I wanted to discuss with you all.” Tang Luo began to explain, “I did awaken a bloodline, but it’s not the Taiching Divine Pupil. It’s a rather… peculiar eye technique. This eye technique doesn’t have any battle capabilities. Its only function, as of now, is to allow me to see everyone’s spiritual power.”

“See the spiritual power?” The three of them looked at each other in bewilderment. Elder Tang Hongtao, being a seasoned researcher of martial arts, was the first to ask, “What do you mean by ‘seeing the spiritual power’? Are you able to see heavenly and earthly spiritual power or attribute spiritual power? Or perhaps the flow of spiritual power during the execution of a Spirit Art?”Text © 2024 .

“None of those.” Tang Luo shrugged, and began to explain to the three of them one by one, “Simply put, I can see the total amount of spiritual power within a person. For instance, I can see that the Clan Chief currently has a spiritual power of 9999 (12127), at the peak of the Mortal Realm and is accumulating spiritual power to reach the Fierce Realm. The Sect Head has a spiritual power of 91224, which is almost at the peak of the Fierce Realm, and Master, you have 75883, it’s as simple as that.”

Even though martial artists cannot describe precisely how much a unit of spiritual power equals, all researchers consider spiritual power absorbed while in the Mortal Realm as the basic unit. Since Tang Luo’s original talent level was a ‘one’, his eyes automatically considered everyone’s spiritual power in his own units, equivalent to his ‘one’.