Chapter 559: Is This Really What a Fresh High School Graduate Should Be Going Through?
“My name is Jiang Li, from the Nine Provinces World.”
“So it’s actually the Nine Provinces World…” Skeletal Devil Venerable was just about to express his admiration and praise for the Nine Provinces World when Jiang Li interrupted him.
“Alright, alright, Radiant Enlightenment Daoist has already marveled about it once, you don’t need to do it again.”
“Oh.”
“If you’re not from the Immortal Realm, how is your strength so unfathomably profound?”
“I opened up a new realm after the Tribulation Transcendence Stage, called the Mahayana Stage.”
“What!”
Skeletal Devil Venerable and Radiant Enlightenment Daoist reacted very similarly—the more powerful one was, the more one could comprehend what Jiang Li’s brief statement truly meant.
Becoming an immortal was no longer the sole pursuit; the special nature of the Immortal Realm was thus shattered.
This was practically an earth-shattering event.
Skeletal Devil Venerable had seen Earthly Immortals before, but they were far less terrifying than Jiang Li. This great expert from the Nine Provinces was likely a heaven-sent prodigy who could rival or even surpass Celestial Immortals.
“Does the Immortal Realm know about this?” Skeletal Devil Venerable cautiously asked.
“They probably don’t know yet.”
Skeletal Devil Venerable nodded. The Immortal Realm definitely shouldn’t know. If they knew someone could surpass immortals without actually becoming one, they would undoubtedly send immortal envoys to deliver divine punishment upon Jiang Li.
This was inevitable.
If Earthly Immortals couldn’t handle it, then Celestial Immortals would come; if Celestial Immortals couldn’t, then Golden Immortals; if Golden Immortals couldn’t, they would summon Primordial Chaos and Limitless Immortals. No matter how powerful the Mahayana Stage was, it couldn’t possibly defeat the Immortal Realm with its vast numbers of immortals.
The haunted house owner lifted his hood, revealing a somewhat youthful face.
He had been wondering why these people clearly didn’t seem ordinary, yet according to normal circumstances, his master would avoid meeting them.
But this time, his master hadn’t taken any action, allowing them to come.
So there was such an important figure among these people, no wonder his master reacted this way.
“Yang Ping, so this is your haunted house?” Wen Quan recognized the haunted house owner’s identity.
“No wonder it looked so familiar—isn’t this your high school deskmate Yang Ping? He even came to our house to play before.” Wen Qing’er slapped her forehead as she remembered too.
“Haven’t seen you since high school graduation, you didn’t answer calls either. I heard you got into university but didn’t go. Everyone thought you had gone missing.”
Seeing his old classmate, Yang Ping also felt indescribable emotions. He sighed and said, “Originally, I got into a pretty good university. Just before going to university, my parents went out, had an accident, and were in a car crash. This haunted house is the only inheritance they left me.”
“At that time, my master had just possessed me and said my parents’ deaths weren’t an accident—they had learned some incredible secret, and a certain tech company wanted to eliminate them.”
“And the research company worried that my parents had told me the secret, so they wanted to eliminate me too.”
“The only way to solve the problem was to become stronger.”
“Following my master’s instructions, I avoided the research company’s assassination attempts, used the haunted house to collect negative emotions, practiced other cultivation methods simultaneously, and my strength grew rapidly through both approaches.”
“I also fought against the research company’s mutants. The mutants were extraordinarily powerful, with the strongest reaching Qi Refining peak. According to martial arts rankings, that would be top-tier Transformation Realm masters.”
“The research company wanted to create controllable mutant soldiers for sale, to become regional warlords.”
“I broke into the research company’s basement and engaged in a life-or-death battle with the mutants. At Qi Refining peak myself, I fought against the five strongest mutants.”
“I used my ultimate techniques and overpowered the five mutants. Just when I thought the situation was settled, the research company executives injected the mutants with a new formula, causing their strength to surge dramatically, with physical bodies comparable to Foundation Establishment.”
“Perhaps because the new formula hadn’t been properly tested, the mutants became extremely emotionally unstable and no longer under the research company’s control.”
“Five mutants with Foundation Establishment-level physical strength were more than I could handle. At that critical moment, I broke through during battle—my Qi transformed into liquid, achieving perfect Foundation Establishment, and it was the most flawless Heaven-grade Foundation Establishment at that.”
“After reaching Foundation Establishment, I could use many more supernatural abilities and effortlessly dealt with the five mutants.”
“Finally, I successfully destroyed the research company’s plans, punished the culprits, and avenged my parents.”
“After everything was over, I continued operating the haunted house, living an ordinary daily life.”
Wen Quan: “…”
His classmate’s experiences were simply too extraordinary—was this something a high school graduate should go through!
By comparison, Wen Quan felt quite ordinary—just ordinarily having a stunningly beautiful sister, ordinarily meeting Radiant Enlightenment Daoist, ordinarily meeting Senior Jiang Li.
Wen Qing’er thought these two truly deserved to be deskmates—their incredible encounters were absolutely ridiculous.
“What’s your cultivation level now?”
“Late Foundation Establishment stage, just one step away from Core Formation. My master wants me to consolidate further to facilitate cultivation after forming my golden core. What about you? With Radiant Enlightenment Senior guiding you and that great expert who opened new realms, what level have you reached?”
“Qi Refining, fourth layer.”
“…Forget I asked.”
“Your response is even more discouraging.”
“Skeleton, this doesn’t seem like you. Fellow cultivators from the Mutual Aid Society told me you established the Destruction Alliance, and that the one operating this haunted house was Sorrowful Daoist.”
Hearing this, Skeletal Devil Venerable’s expression changed noticeably. Anyone could tell this indicated low spirits.
“Radiant Enlightenment, we’re both Tribulation Transcendence Stage cultivators. We must have had our own reasons for becoming powerful. I never asked you before, and I don’t mean to ask you now either.”
“What I want to say is, I became strong to protect my family. For this, I didn’t hesitate to stain my hands with blood, becoming the fearsome leader of the demonic path that makes people tremble at the mention of my name.”
“But even so, in the end it was all for nothing. Facing that Earthly Immortal monster, facing the creature that devoured my master, I was completely powerless.”
“As the monster wreaked havoc, I watched helplessly as my wife and children died tragically, without any means to save them. Can you understand this feeling?”
“I don’t know what you comprehended or created that allows souls above Nascent Soul stage to temporarily avoid reincarnation in the Underworld, but I’m very grateful.”
“Because of you, my wife and children’s souls also came with me to this new world.”
As the leader of the demonic path, Skeletal Devil Venerable naturally had methods to enhance his wife and children’s strength.
“After coming to the Qixin World, I had no intention of competing for world domination or destroying worlds. That’s too exhausting. I just wanted to find a quiet place to spend my remaining years.”
“For this purpose, I came to the haunted house, possessed its owner, and my wife and children also became part of the haunted house, using negative emotions to recover their strength.”
Sorrowful Daoist was a member of the demonic path, and Skeletal Devil Venerable also knew his cultivation methods.
“Later, people from the Destruction Alliance came looking for me, hoping I would come out of retirement to take charge. I refused. Even when Destruction Alliance members claimed I had joined them, I paid no attention.”
“People from the Mutual Aid Society also approached me, saying they wanted to know Skeletal Devil Venerable’s whereabouts. I found it troublesome and didn’t want to get involved in the conflicts between these two forces, so I claimed to be Sorrowful Daoist, maintaining a neutral position—I wouldn’t interfere in their struggles nor provide assistance to either side.”
Radiant Enlightenment Daoist could understand Skeletal Devil Venerable’s actions. He had seen many people who experienced extreme despair and lost faith in life, but he hadn’t expected Skeletal Devil Venerable to be among them.