Chapter 156: The Beginning of the Tengxing Grand Assembly

Chapter 156: Chapter 156: The Beginning of the Tengxing Grand Assembly

This time, no one blocked their path. However, behind Chu Fan’s back, the members of those other sects were discussing the Celestial Heart Hall, and they had nothing good to say.

They were speaking so loudly that the eight Celestial Heart Hall disciples were tempted to attack on several occasions.

But Chu Fan held them back.

His purpose in coming here today was twofold. First, to get the Six Sects and Eight Gates to reach an agreement and impose constraints on the cultivators of the Eastern Domain. Second, to vindicate himself.

He had suffered such unjust treatment at the Lingyun Sect. He might not have it in him to mercilessly kill those in power there.

But he would make the people of the Lingyun Sect regret it. He would show them just how far the one they had cast aside like a worn-out shoe had come.

The Lingyun Sect didn’t dare to avenge his master and senior brothers. But he, Chu Fan, could do it on his own. And he would do it better than they ever could.

When he, Chu Fan, left the Lingyun Sect, it wasn’t him losing a sanctuary; it was the Lingyun Sect losing a pillar of support.

In three years, he had gone from a cripple to the Divine Separation Realm. Luck played a part, but during those three years, he had also teetered on the brink of life and death numerous times.

After Chu Fan and his group entered the plaza, they found their seats, marked by a sign that read "Celestial Heart Hall." Just then, Second Elder Shi Qingren and Third Elder Ni Wanping walked over.

Ni Wanping whispered to Chu Fan, "Did you just clash with several sects? I heard you even struck someone from Shui Yuntian?"

Chu Fan nodded.

Ni Wanping had been about to call Chu Fan impulsive, but then she remembered his capabilities. Plus, he was her own daughter’s master. She swallowed her words and said instead, "Shui Zebo is fiercely protective of his own."

"And then there’s Master Ni. Ever since the incident on Zao Ying Mountain, his standing in the Xuanming Sect has risen dramatically. He’s very likely the top candidate for the next Sect Leader."

Ni Wanping didn’t know the full extent of Chu Fan’s plans, so her concern was understandable.

Chu Fan just smiled. "I won’t say anything as grandiose as ’those who follow me prosper, those who oppose me perish,’ but those two have been on my kill list for a long time. Don’t worry, Elder Ni. This time, as a disciple of the Celestial Heart Hall, I will make sure all the sects of the Eastern Domain get a proper introduction to us."

Ni Wanping sighed and said no more.

The Cyan Cloud Sect’s Martial Arts Arena was enormous. Ten rings were erected in the center, encircled by rows of seats. Each sect was assigned its own section within this circle.

By tradition, the Tengxing Grand Assembly was a three-day event.

Each participating sect would send ten disciples under the age of thirty. Regardless of their Cultivation Realm, they would draw lots to be paired up for matches in the rings.

Winners would advance, and losers would be eliminated.

This would continue until the top three were determined.

In the past, only the Six Sects and Eight Gates participated in the Tengxing Grand Assembly, so the final results also determined their official rankings.

This time was different, of course, but the rewards for placing in the top three were still substantial.

It was also an opportunity for disciples to make a name for themselves.

The reason no one had intervened when Chu Fan’s group argued with the other sects at the mountain gate was that upon entering Taiyue Mountain, all the Sect Leaders and leading Elders had been invited into the Cyan Cloud Sect ahead of everyone else.

Even now, with Shi Qingren and Ni Wanping back in the Celestial Heart Hall’s designated seating, Jing’an had yet to return.

The other disciples didn’t understand why, but Chu Fan, of course, knew the reason.

Including the second-class and Third-class Sects, there were forty sects in total. Getting that many sects to agree on an alliance against the Red Blood Mansion was not something that could be settled in a moment.

’And are there spies from the Red Blood Mansion among these forty sects? How can they be identified?’

’All of this will take time.’

As soon as Ni Wanping finished speaking, she went to instruct the other Celestial Heart Hall disciples. At that moment, Chu Fan noticed something was off about Yun Xi’s expression.

Following her gaze, he saw the contingent from the Lingyun Sect.

The elders leading them were Yun Keji and Li Mosheng. Yun Xi’s mother was also seated prominently among them.

Besides them, Chu Fan also saw other familiar faces: Ji Ling, Yu Wanqing, and Li Qiong—people he had clashed with—as well as Chen Xiao and Shi Qing, with whom he was on good terms.

Seeing these people again, Chu Fan was suddenly struck by a sense of desolation, a feeling that the past was too painful to revisit.

The Lingyun Sect was still the same Lingyun Sect, completely unchanged. After the deaths of his master and senior brothers, the sect had become like a pool of stagnant water.

’Look at the Lingyun Sect disciples attending this Tengxing Grand Assembly,’ he thought. ’Including Chen Xiao and Shi Qing, which one of them didn’t get here through connections?’

Chu Fan looked away from the Lingyun Sect and scanned the other seating areas. He spotted Chen Qi’an, along with his master, Liu Huaguang, the Great Elder of the Zi Wu Gate.

He was surprised to see that in just three short years, Chen Qi’an’s cultivation had already reached the Golden Core Realm.

’Such talent is rather unexpected,’ Chu Fan mused. ’It seems the Zi Wu Gate has invested a great deal in him!’

He also spotted the five old men who had relentlessly hunted him after he had crashed the wedding at the Celestial Derivation Sect.

’Whether it’s the sects or the individual cultivators, how many of them are truly selfless?’

’Why did those people hunt me down that day?’

’Wasn’t it simply because they wanted to uncover the secret to my sudden surge in power? Their methods were just more despicable than most.’

’Should I take revenge for that?’

Chu Fan was inwardly conflicted. If he really killed these five, it would only sow more division among the Six Sects and Eight Gates.

The greater the rifts between the Six Sects and Eight Gates, the harder it would be to unify the Eastern Domain and to establish and enforce laws to govern cultivators.

’Would I really have to destroy those sects when the time comes?’

"I’ll just take it one step at a time," Chu Fan thought, muttering the words aloud without realizing it.

"What do you mean, ’one step at a time’?" Yun Xi asked, turning her head in confusion.

"If you draw lots in the next few days and get matched against Master Ni, I want you to forfeit immediately," Chu Fan said, changing the subject.

"Why?" Yun Xi asked, perplexed.

"Master Ni is two-faced. He was the one who betrayed me at the Celestial Derivation Sect. He’s an utterly despicable person, and his cultivation is now at the Soul Emergence Realm. I’m worried he’ll play dirty if you have to face him. Of course, with so many participants, your chances of running into him are about the same as mine. What if I get to him first? That’s why I said we’ll have to take it one step at a time."

"Oh, don’t worry," Yun Xi said. "If I run into him, I definitely won’t try to be a hero."

As they were speaking, the Sect Leaders of the forty sects emerged from the main hall in unison.

Deliberations were one thing, but they had to make an appearance for the opening ceremony. It served to rally their respective disciples and demonstrate the importance they placed on the grand assembly.

The opening address was not given by Wang Zhiheng, the Sect Leader of the Cyan Cloud Sect, but by Li Qingyuan, the Sect Leader of the Purple Gold Sect. He was the oldest and most senior of all the leaders of the Six Sects and Eight Gates.

Li Qingyuan was already an old man of one hundred seventy or one hundred eighty years, and his cultivation was currently stuck at the bottleneck of the Divinity Separation Realm Peak.

His cultivation was the highest among all the Sect Leaders of the Six Sects and Eight Gates.

"This session of the Tengxing Grand Assembly, though delayed by nearly a year due to certain unavoidable circumstances, has thankfully seen double the number of participating sects compared to the past. This clearly demonstrates the immense growth potential of our Eastern Domain Cultivation Realm..."

Li Qingyuan spoke eloquently for over a quarter of an hour. His main points were that convening this Tengxing Grand Assembly had been a difficult endeavor, and that going forward, an event of this scale would be held every five years.

He then praised the participating disciples, declaring that every one of them was brimming with vitality, and that the future of the Eastern Domain Cultivation Realm was sure to be brilliant, and so on and so forth.

Finally, he announced the rules of the competition and the prizes for the winners.

With his declaration that the Tengxing Grand Assembly had begun, a string of firecrackers erupted, and the event was finally underway...