Chapter 82: The Difference Between Heavenly Talents and Ordinary Geniuses, The Unfathomable Chen Ch
Chapter 82 – The Difference Between Heavenly Talents and Ordinary Geniuses, The Unfathomable Chen Ch
The battle among the Eastern Wasteland’s Heavenly Talents concluded in short order.
Once Su Tian had thoroughly battered the rest of them into the dirt, Chen Changsheng returned to his little stool.
He sat back down, casually enjoying the spectacle just as he had before, his demeanor completely unbothered.
Seeing this, Su Tian narrowed his eyes.
Given the sheer scale of the commotion caused by their group, a Dao Guardian should have intervened by now.
Yet the dust had settled, and no Guardian had shown their face.
It didn’t require profound insight to deduce what had transpired in the shadows.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk!”
“They are your comrades, after all. How could you be so utterly ruthless?”
Looking down at the Heavenly Talents coughing up blood on the ground, Chen Changsheng began to hypocritically lament their plight.
The fallen youths ground their teeth, utterly loathing his shameless display.
“Vile scoundrel!”
“We know not what demonic arts you employed to bewitch Brother Su and Brother Ye.”
“But this matter ends not here. The Night Moon Country and the Xuanwu Kingdom will carve their honor back in blood.”
Hearing this venomous threat, Chen Changsheng could not help but burst into a sudden laugh.
“You must truly hate me to the marrow. Why else would you concoct such a vicious joke, hoping to slay me with laughter?”
“Do you have any idea where you stand?”
“This is the Middle Heavens, tens of millions of miles from the Eastern Wasteland.”
“Do you truly not comprehend the meaning of the whip being too short to reach the horse’s belly?”
“Even if I ordered you beaten to a pulp—nay, even if I slaughtered you where you kneel—the powers of the Eastern Wasteland could not touch a single hair on my head.”
“I had you beaten solely to spare you the humiliation of walking outside and disgracing yourselves.”
“Ten of you could not even suppress two. What qualifications do you possess to step foot in the Heavenly Talent Assembly?”
At his icy rebuke, a flicker of profound shame pierced through the battered pride of the injured geniuses.
They all knew Su Tian and Ye Hensheng well; they had crossed blades often enough back in the Eastern Wasteland.
Yet, they had always believed that any gap in their cultivation was merely a narrow trench, not a gaping abyss.
Only after this crucible of blood did they finally grasp the insurmountable gulf between apex Heavenly Talents and ordinary geniuses.
Observing the shame brewing in their eyes, Chen Changsheng gave a satisfied nod.
A measure of arrogance in the young was the natural way of the Dao. But a fool who refused to awaken after having his bones cracked was truly beyond salvation.
With this in mind, he spoke again, “Now you know the true weight of your own worth.”
“Seclude yourselves and mend your shattered meridians.”
“To sever whatever lingering delusions you might harbor, I will grant you one final truth.”
“Those two standing there must appear as the pinnacle of your generation.”
“Yet, upon the stage of the Heavenly Talent Assembly, their might is far from unique. At a casual glance, one could find ten or twenty peers capable of rivaling them.”
“And that does not even account for the chosen scions of the Holy Lands and ancient, primordial clans.”
“Should you cross paths with those true monsters, trash like you could swarm them by the thousands and still end up as nothing but blood on their robes.”
The crowd was rendered speechless.
They knew his words carried the absolute weight of reality, but the delivery was merciless.
Could he not preserve even a shred of their dignity?
Swallowing their pride, the bruised and battered Heavenly Talents dragged themselves from the floor and limped back to their respective chambers in absolute silence.
Chen Changsheng’s methods were tyrannical and entirely lacking in grace, but they wisely chose to bury their resentment deep within their Dao hearts.
Ten had fallen to two. Even if they commanded the mandates of heaven itself, they possessed no right to speak.
Once the courtyard emptied, Chen Changsheng waved a dismissive hand. “You two withdraw as well.”
“The Heavenly Talent Assembly commences the day after tomorrow. Consolidate your gains.”
“Lest their pathetic display today mirrors your fate tomorrow.”
Leaving those words hanging in the air, he turned and crossed the threshold of his room.
Su Tian and Ye Hensheng watched his retreating back, their eyes swirling with an ocean of doubt.
Neither could pierce through the profound fog obscuring Chen Changsheng’s true nature.
He acted with the ruthless calculation of an old monster and wielded unfathomable power. Judged solely by his disposition, he was unquestionably an exalted Senior.
Yet, stepping onto the stage of the Heavenly Talent Assembly required the irrefutable measurement of one’s bone age.
The cultivation world harbored countless Secret Arts to disguise one’s aura or reverse the decay of the flesh, but the rings of time etched into a cultivator’s bones were immutable laws of heaven.
Or so they believed.
When Chen Changsheng’s bones were examined, the verdict was absolute: he had breathed the world’s Qi for no more than twenty-five years.
It was this very anomaly that originally caused Su Tian and the rest to dismiss him entirely.
A cultivator who had barely seen a quarter of a century simply could not have accumulated such terrifying combat experience or worldly malice.
In the endless lifespan of true cultivators, Chen Changsheng was an infant still smelling of his mother’s milk.
Complex thoughts churning within, Ye Hensheng let out a hollow, self-deprecating laugh.
“Brother Su, venturing into the wider world has finally taught me the meaning of ‘heavens beyond heavens, and masters beyond masters.’”
“Little wonder my honored master always looked upon my Foundation with a sigh.”
“I had assumed he was merely tempering my Dao heart. Now I see how shallow my puddle truly was.”
Su Tian’s gaze remained locked onto Chen Changsheng’s closed door as he replied with chilling calm,
“The ancients decreed: ‘Embrace humiliation to forge true valor.’”
“Perceiving this chasm is merely the first step to leaping across it.”
“I shall not let my Dao heart fracture simply because I am inferior today. For I know that one day, I will tread upon their summits and cast my shadow over them.”
His resolve crystallized, Su Tian pivoted and vanished into his own quarters.
When dawn broke, Chen Changsheng would return to the Kunlun Stone Workshop. It was there that the true elite of the Heavenly Talents would converge, a gathering destined to draw even the elusive Purple Mansion Saintess.
……
The bloody subjugation within the Eastern Wasteland’s courtyard rippled out like a stone in an ocean—completely unnoticed by the Kunlun Holy Land.
Or rather, the giants above cared nothing for the squabbles of ants below.
With innumerable prodigies swarming the holy grounds, vicious clashes erupted with every breath. Who possessed the time to care about a rabble of useless trash from the desolate east?
Yet, Chen Changsheng himself had stirred an undercurrent of tempestuous rumors throughout the sanctuary.
Casually squandering millions of God Source as if scattering dirt, only to unearth a primordial anomaly from the deepest sanctums of the Kunlun Stone Workshop.
Such tyrannical wealth and esoteric sight drew the hungry gazes of countless factions.
Peerless jade beauties sought his audience, and the arrogant scions of ancient clans burned with the desire to test his Dao.
Yet among the myriad schemers and suitors, barely a soul could trace his roots.
They could not even discern from which of the Five Continents this monster had crawled out.
The truth was deceptively simple: his name was utterly absent from the Eastern Wasteland’s official registry.
The so-called prodigies of the east had previously scoffed at his tender age, arrogantly refusing to walk the same path as a “child.”
Because of their blind arrogance, Chen Changsheng’s connection to the Eastern Wasteland remained a buried secret.
……
A night passed in dreamless void. When the golden brilliance of morning breached the horizon, Chen Changsheng rose from his bed and stretched his limbs.
He absentmindedly stroked the slumbering Little Black before cleansing himself of the night’s stagnation, preparing for his return to the Kunlun Stone Workshop.
Little Black’s injuries had ravaged its very foundation. If he failed to secure the divine medicines sealed within the God Source, the creature’s rotting essence would be nearly impossible to salvage.