The Sword of Hithering Light was a sword technique, and it was also a sword, the Dao sword of the Heavenly Dao Academy. To be more precise, it was the sword that Vice Principal Zhuang kept at his side. This sword was not ranked on the Tier of Legendary Weapons, but its might was not far off from the weapons on the back half of the ranking. If a normal person received three blows from the Sword of Hithering Light, even if they had undergone a perfect Purification, they might be beheaded, or at least suffer severe injuries and be unable to rise. And yet Chen Changsheng managed to rise, using his hand to support himself on the stone wall.

But he had still taken significant injuries. The blood seeping out from the three wounds on his chest was somewhat terrifying to behold.

"Is this your best?"

Zhuang Huanyu impassively said. After a moment's pause, he said with increased severity, " With just this level, how can you have the right to be Her Highness's teacher?"

The Highness he spoke of here was naturally not the Princess of Ping, and it certainly wasn't Prince Chen Liu. It was Princess LuoIuo that he referred to.

"If you truly had a complete grasp over the Yeshi Step, perhaps you could make me feel some fear, but in the end, your Yeshi Step is either a fake or an imitation. If it only looks the part but it actually isn't, how can it be useful in battle? It's nothing more than an illusion. As long as I close my eyes, your movement technique cannot deceive this world."

Zhuang Huanyu continued, "Just like the method of true essence circulation you taught Her Highness, it seems exquisite, but it's really just an incorrect path that can't reach the highest level, just a clever trick. If you really wish for Her Highness to have an even better future, you should have her remain in the Heavenly Dao Academy and resolve her problem through research in the profound and orthodox methods."

Yes, this was the origin of his grudge against Chen Changsheng, why he was dissatisfied with him. He hoped that Chen Changsheng would be a little stronger so as to prove to the world and himself that he had the right to be the princess's teacher and not someone like this, someone who was easily defeated by him, nothing more than someone who deceived the world for his reputation.

"That is a matter of our Orthodox Academy. Thank you for your advice, but I won't necessarily take it."

Chen Changsheng raised his right arm and used his sleeve to wipe the blood off his chin as he replied to Zhuang Huanyu.

Zhuang Huanyu's straight eyebrows rose up as he unhappily scolded, "Don't tell me you continue to stubbornly persist? The facts are proof that no matter how perfect your Purification, how strong your defense, you are still no match for a true expert, because you have too little true essence and your cultivation is too poor."

Chen Changsheng fell quiet, his head lowered to the dagger tightly gripped in his hand.

Seeing no response, Zhuang Huanyu inexplicably felt even angrier and coldly said, "Cultivation relies on abstruse knowledge, but battles ultimately rely on true essence to fight. Since ancient times, cultivation has placed Purification as the first step, followed by Meditation, and then Ethereal Opening, each gate with its own reasoning. Purification is a prerequisite for Meditation, but it is not a method for fighting. Given the sparsity of your true essence, you're at no more than the initial level of Meditation, and yet you want to rely on the abilities given to you by Purification to defeat your opponents? How arrogant and ignorant. Was I wrong when I said that you were taking the incorrect path? It's fine if you walk it, but do you also have to bring Her Highness on this path of no return?"

All was quiet in the Hall of Washing Away Dust, the only sound being the icy and bold voice of the young expert of the Heavenly Dao Academy echoing through the hall and sinking into the sand.

"His cultivation is too low, so he is powerless no matter what he does. Just as expected, Chen Changsheng stops here."

In the gloomy room on the second floor, the Principal of Star Seizer Academy spoke, his voice somewhat sorrowful, somewhat regretful, and somewhat relieved.

This room was very large, and everyone in the room sat in their own in silence. As they listened to Zhuang Huanyu's voice coming from the window, they made the same assessment on this battle.

In the last round, Chen Changsheng had been able to defeat that young Shuang City expert ranked twenty-something on the Proclamation of Azure Sky only because he had deployed his movement techniques and speed to their maximum extent, and he had also suddenly used the Yeshi Step, catching the expert off guard, ultimately losing in terms of the close combat strength he could use.

But the opponent this round was Zhuang Huanyu.

Zhuang Huanyu was the most outstanding student of the Heavenly Dao Academy and cultivated the profound and orthodox methods of cultivation. He proceeded on every step of cultivation very firmly and steadily, never advancing prematurely. Coupled with the principal's instruction, he had abundant experience, so when he attacked, he had the absolute advantage in both true essence and techniques, directly overwhelming Chen Changsheng and giving him no chance to close the distance. Naturally, he also prevented any sort of surprise from occurring.

"As expected, Principal Mao Qiuyu's best student is extraordinary," the Bishop of the Temple Seminary sighed.

The important personages in the room had been spectating the matches for quite some time. They had seen both Zhexiu's and Gou Hanshi's performances, so they knew that Zhuang Huanyu was in no way the person with the strongest cultivation, but he did possess the most stable one. To put it another way, he might find it very difficult to explode and surpass cultivation levels to defeat an expert like Gou Hanshi, but those opponents with weaker cultivation had no means of defeating him.

This assessment was strengthened after this match. They even had this vague idea that Zhuang Huanyu was even stronger than rumored. Even if he were fighting against Princess Luoluo or Zhexiu, he would still have one fight in him, and it would be difficult to determine the outcome in advance. His opponent in this match was Chen Changsheng, so how could he possibly lose?

Yes, all the spectators, including the Li Palace priests in the other rooms, had determined that Chen Changsheng had lost.

After several matches, these people had already confirmed that this student that had not been able to cultivate several months ago had truly succeeded in Purification, but he was only at the initial level of Meditation. In quantity or purity of true essence, or in any other aspect, there was still a vast gap between him and the true experts participating in the Grand Examination.

That Chen Changsheng was able to last until now and enter the top eight had, other than luck, relied on his unimaginable speed and strength. Now, however, his luck had lost its significance, as all the opponents left were true experts, and the most inconceivable levels of strength and speed were meaningless, as those experts could use their cultivation and quantity of true essence to crush him. If that young expert from Shuang City had not made a massive tactical error, Chen Changsheng would have had no chance of victory. The gap in cultivation was not something that could be crossed using effort or courage.

...

...

"Is it truly quantity of true essence that's still the most important?" Chen Changsheng muttered to himself, his hand tightening its grip on the dagger.

Zhuang Huanyu slightly frowned, not understanding what he meant with these words.

Chen Changsheng's face was emotionless, appearing somewhat wooden. No one could tell that he was currently engaged in a mental struggle, wavering back and forth as to whether he should take that risk.

The true essence of cultivators arose from their star in the night sky. When they drew in starlight for Purification, star radiance containing astonishing energy would enter the body of the cultivator. There, it would wait for Meditative Introspection, where the spiritual sense of the cultivator would touch and ignite it, converting it into true essence that they could control and use as they pleased.

Chen Changsheng truly had little true essence, and it was very impure. His meridians were all fractured, so how could true essence move freely amongst them? But there was still a vast quantity of star radiance in his body. In other words, he could gain more true essence for himself, but it would pose an enormous risk.

In the underground cavern beneath New North Bridge's abandoned well, in front of the Black Dragon, he inexplicably broke through the bottleneck of Purification and succeeded at entering Meditation. His body now was much stronger than his body from that time, but he still found it very difficult to work up the resolve and perform Meditative Introspection once more, because a failure was highly likely to result in death.

The medical case mentioned in the annotation of the Meditation Classic and his own bitter experience were proof of this.

Fortunately, on the night of the Ivy Festival and on the night in which he forcefully attempted Meditative Introspection, in the underground cavern, in front of the Black Dragon, he had experienced two nearly fatal encounters, causing him to truly ponder twice the death that he had pondered for many years. As a result, he had comprehended many things. Before death, he still would not surrender, but now, he also no longer feared it as much.

It was just like how he would not surrender to, much less fear, a powerful foe like Zhuang Huanyu.

He raised his head and said to Zhuang Huanyu, "Since this is the case, then I'll try."

Try what? No one in the Hall of Washing Away Dust other than him knew the answer. They could rack their brains and never guess.

Chen Changsheng closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then exhaled all of it.

It was like bubbles emerging from a spring.

As he breathed, his lungs were almost devoid of air, instantly emptied so that almost nothing was in them.

His sea of consciousness awakened, its surface slightly rippling.

An extremely condensed spiritual sense emerged from his sea of consciousness and floated into the air towards some spot in the dark blue sky, as if it was about to depart this world.

In another instant, the spiritual sense traveled from the sky back down to the earth, drawing back towards his body, going from outside to the inside, sinking into his body and entering his small world.

His spiritual sense transformed into a cool breeze and freely traveled across this world.

The cool breeze was him, and he was the cool breeze.

He saw the nine mountain ranges with their ruptures, saw the endless wasteland, saw the lake suspended in the air.

Finally, he saw the snowy plain.

The snowy plain had been fractured by extremely deep cracks into several dozen pieces.

The mantle of snow had thickened compared to his last Meditative Introspection several days ago, and even now, snowflakes were drifting down from the sky.

In these past few days, he had not once stopped drawing starlight into his body.

This snow was extremely pure star radiance. As long as his spiritual sense touched and ignited it, it would become clear water that moistened this world. This clear water was true essence.

To use Zhuang Huanyu's words, to use the words of many other people, to use countless phrases in the Daoist Canon, the most important thing to cultivators was true essence.

Chen Changsheng hesitated for the briefest of moments.

At the moment, he truly was not very afraid of death, but he did not want to experience that pain again, because that pain was very likely to make him fall unconscious on the spot. Once this happened, he would naturally lose the match.

But this was still something he needed to do.

As he hesitated, the clear breeze did not remain still. It drifted towards a section of the snowy plain in the southeast and descended.

It was like a wildfire landing on a mountain covered in dried leaves.

With a boom, that part of the snowy plain began to fiercely blaze.

...

...

The room on the second floor was very dark and quiet. All the important figures sat in silence as they waited for Chen Changsheng to concede, for this match to conclude, for an ending to finally be written for this year's Grand Examination, for the ambitions and attempts of the Orthodoxy's conservative faction to be dealt the heaviest of blows.

But just then, a Qi suddenly emerged in the Hall of Washing Away Dust.

This Qi was somewhat wild and burned with a great ferocity, like someone had lit a bonfire on the first floor, and a most vigorous one.

Mo Yu became slightly apprehensive, her palace dress dragging a blur through the gloomy room as she instantly arrived in front of the window.

Her gaze pierced through the paper flowers covering the window and looked down below. Her face remained emotionless, but a strange expression appeared in her eyes.

The powerful personages present were all experts of profound cultivation, so they all understood what this Qi signified. Not a single one of them paid any attention to the strength that Mo Yu had just displayed, each making their way up to the window and looking down. As their gazes fell, their expressions instantly transformed, and for a moment, they were rather speechless.

In front of the stone wall, Chen Changsheng had closed his eyes and was standing in the sand, the sand by his feet soaked by the blood dripping from his body.

This wild and burning Qi was coming from his body.

They could sense that Chen Changsheng's cultivation level was advancing, the true essence in his body increasing, his Qi growing stronger.

Via spiritual sense, they could sense him growing brighter and brighter.

He was just like a true bonfire.

"How is this possible?"

"How is this possible!"

The spectators stood by the window and stared at this sight, the expressions on their faces extremely bizarre and abnormally shocked.

Chen Changsheng was performing Meditative Introspection, was converting star radiance into true essence!

The problem was that only when a cultivator was first moving from Purification to Meditation, igniting all the star radiance they had stored in the past into true essence, would such a fierce Qi seep outward. In the future, the true essence converted from the star radiance drawn in by the cultivator would just be a trickle. How could it possibly produce so much activity?

Was this Chen Changsheng's first time performing Meditative Introspection?

That was impossible. In last few rounds, they had all seen very clearly that he had already completed the move from Purification to Meditation, or else true essence would not be flowing through his body.

So just what was going on here right now?

Could it possibly mean that there existed someone in the world that could have two first Meditative Introspections?

A deathly stillness pervaded the Hall of Washing Away Dust.

Everyone was stunned, unable to speak.

This was the case for both the deeply experienced and important personages standing by the window and the Li Palace priests.

Zhuang Huanyu was even more flabbergasted.

The temperature in the hall instantly rose.

Chen Changsheng had his eyes closed, but the sand by his feet was floating up. The blood that had mixed with the sand had been broiled by the invisible heat and was now being distilled from the sand.

This blood was completely converted into steam.

Amongst the drifting sand, Chen Changsheng's face grew redder and redder, and one could sense his body grow hotter and hotter.

At this sight, one of the Sacred Hall archbishops slightly unfurrowed his brows, calming back down.

He did not know how Chen Changsheng was able to perform a first Meditative Introspection for a second time, but he could see that this youth was incapable of controlling the blazing of the star radiance in his body.

"If this continues, even if he doesn't burn himself to death, his mind will suffer problems from this heat," Prince Chen Liu said worriedly.

As long as they succeeded in Purification, the body of a cultivator could endure the heat and power produced by star radiance converting into true essence in the first Meditative Introspection. However, there was clearly something strange about Chen Changsheng's Meditative Introspection. The amount of star radiance blazing in his body was apparently a little too much, and the temperature of his body was irrepressibly surging upward.

The Hall of Washing Away Dust became hotter and hotter. Suddenly, cicadas began to chirp outside as if summer had come early.

...

...

Deep within the Li Palace was a palace hall.

In a corner of this hall was a gray pot.

There was a plant in this pot with several green stems, but only one green leaf.

The edge of this green leaf was somewhat withered and curled.

"One's memory truly does get much worse as one gets older. I've actually forgotten to water it."

The Pope walked up to the pot and sighed at the green leaf.

He grabbed a wooden ladle and dipped it into the pool of water next to the pot.