47: Surviving the fire disaster, participating in the Heavenly Ranking Competition

Just by looking at the name, one knows that Yunzhou City is the provincial capital of Yunzhou.

"Could it be that the rumors from back then were instigated by the Great Qian Dynasty royal family?" However, you quickly dismissed this conjecture.

Because if it had been instigated by the Great Qian Dynasty, this line of Karma should now extend toward the Imperial Capital, and without the royal family's instigation, the officials of Yunzhou City would be even less likely to scheme against Divine Sword Mountain.

Your Primordial Spirit operated at high speed, beginning to calculate the target's information through the lines of Karma.

After calculating, you discovered that you and the other party had generated Karma thirteen years ago.

Well, the results were out, and you knew who the other party was. Wasn't this the Heaven-Grade Demon, Moon Venerable, that the Moon Demon had spoken of? You had originally thought that after so many years, you would not intersect with the other party again.

You did not expect that the mastermind was actually it.

You continued to calculate the specific location of the other party, but discovered you could not continue the calculation. You only knew that the other party was within Yunzhou City and had never left. This meant that the other party had stayed in Yunzhou City for at least a dozen years; they hadn't even emerged during the Demon turmoil a few years ago.

After knowing who the mastermind was, you were not in a rush to find it, because without a specific location, it was too difficult to find a Demon that had been disguised for seventeen years—or even longer, as it had been over thirty years if counted from when the Moon Demon met the Moon Venerable—among the hundreds of millions of people in Yunzhou City.

Secondly, you might not be the other party's match right now. The current situation was that you were in the dark while they were in the light, so you were not anxious.

As for why the other party had stayed in Yunzhou City for so many years, it was highly likely they had some conspiracy. You thought that if it hadn't been completed in over thirty years, it surely couldn't be completed in just a few years, right? That was impossible.

You planned to just keep watching and remain motionless, waiting until you became a Martial Saint before going to find it.

Time passed quickly until the end of the year, and the new Heavenly Prodigy Ranking tournament officially began.

Afterward, following a period of exciting battles, the rankings for next year's Heavenly Prodigy Ranking were finally decided.

At 35 years old, you checked the newly released Heavenly Prodigy Ranking.

Ranked first was still Dao Wuchen, the Dao Child of the Supreme Dao Sect, and in second place was the Demoness of the Heavenly Demon Sect, Mo Hongxiao.

Here she was, the classic Demoness from novels. Her appearance also fit the image of a Demoness—dressed in red, enchanting and graceful.

Unfortunately, the other party was an eighty-year-old Demoness, not an eighteen-year-old one. If she were eight hundred years old, that wouldn't be an issue, but she happened to be eighty.

Although for an Innate Realm cultivator with a Lifespan exceeding five hundred, being over eighty was comparable to a young girl under eighteen for a normal person, you just felt a bit awkward.

The third place was unexpected; it was actually the Seventh Prince of the Great Qian Dynasty, who was also the current Crown Prince.

Fourth place was also somewhat unexpected; it was actually Jin Xiangtian! It seemed that battling your Dao Soldiers had brought him quite a boost, as his ranking had moved up by one.

Fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth places were, respectively, Mo Yao, the current Heavenly Secret Walker of the Heavenly Secret Pavilion; Yun Wuji, the Sword Child of Divine Sword Mountain; Qing Wuyue, the Saintess of the Taiyin Sect; and Wangchen, the Buddha Child of Wuyou Temple.

The subsequent rankings also partially consisted of people from the eight top Sects, and the rest were all from large Sects and major powers. There were only one or two Loose Cultivators, and none reached the top twenty.

At 36 years old, the coverage range of your Divine Thought reached a radius of 1,700 li, and the number of your Divided Souls reached 7,000.

You felt that the improvement of your Primordial Spirit and Dharma Power was becoming increasingly difficult, so you decided to start preparing for Undergoing Tribulation.

You triggered the Fire Tribulation. Yin Fire rose within your body, burning your Physical Body and Primordial Spirit. Perhaps because your strength was too great, you felt that an ordinary Primordial Spirit Realm cultivator could not last a minute under your Yin Fire, let alone the three hours required for Undergoing Tribulation.

As time passed, the Yin Fire burned more and more fiercely, but you were not panicked at all because the rate at which the Yin Fire damaged your Physical Body could not compare to your self-healing speed. As for the Primordial Spirit being burned by the Yin Fire, other than feeling a bit of scorching heat, it was completely unaffected.

Soon, the time was up, and you had survived the Fire Tribulation. Your Physical Body had strengthened to a certain degree, and your Divine Thought had increased from 1,700 li to 3,500 li. Now, you could split into 12,000 Divided Souls.

At this moment, you felt that your strength could officially rival a Martial Saint.

At 37 years old, Ancestor Tianji contacted you through your Clone, asking if you wanted to participate in this year's Heavenly Ranking.

Heavenly Ranking? You were very interested when you heard this, so you asked him how the Heavenly Ranking was determined.

Ancestor Tianji told you that the Heavenly Ranking was not like the Heavenly Prodigy Ranking where everyone just fought. The destructive power of a Martial Saint was not something the Innate Realm could compare to.

The ranking for the Heavenly Ranking was just like when you first met Ancestor Tianji—they were ranked through Dao discussion. Moreover, most Martial Saints, just like you back then, attended the discussion through their Divided Souls.

The reason Ancestor Tianji found you this time was because when the two of you discussed the Dao back then, he sensed that your strength was not weak and that you should be able to make it onto the Heavenly Ranking.

Hearing that you didn't need to go in your true body, you decided to participate in this Heavenly Ranking, mainly because you wanted to witness the Dao practiced by other Martial Saints.

Thus, your Divided Soul transformed into a stream of mysterious yellow mist and flew toward the Heavenly Secret Pavilion.

Soon you rendezvoused with Ancestor Tianji, and afterward, you flew together toward the direction of the Imperial Capital. That's right, the Heavenly Ranking was decided in the Imperial Capital.

During the flight, you asked Ancestor Tianji how many Martial Saints there were in the world right now.

Ancestor Tianji was not surprised by your question; in his view, it was very normal for a Loose Cultivator to ask this question.

According to Ancestor Tianji's knowledge, there were currently about fifty-plus Martial Saints in the world in total. When you heard that there were over fifty Martial Saints, you were very surprised—it was so few.

Indeed, it was few. You had to know that the entire Great Qian Dynasty possessed a population of hundreds of billions, yet there were only over fifty Martial Saints. This meant that it took ten billion people to produce one Martial Saint.

It couldn't be that they were all wiped out in the Demon war a thousand years ago, right? But that wasn't right; although it was said that the Human Race had indeed encountered a catastrophe a thousand years ago.

But the actual situation back then was that the Human Race's top experts had been trapped by some unknown means of the Demons, and then the Demons launched a massacre against the ordinary people of the Human Race.

In the end, it was Emperor Qianyuan who broke through the Demons' means, and after the Human Race's experts broke the seal, the Demons naturally retreated steadily.

Therefore, the Human Race at that time was actually far from reaching the point of being exterminated; otherwise, it would have been impossible to recover to this state in a thousand years.

Ancestor Tianji seemed to sense your astonished emotion. In the end, he told you that the reason why there were so few Martial Saints was because of the Three Tribulations.

Many in the Primordial Spirit Realm had fallen on the path of Undergoing the Three Tribulations. The Three Tribulations treated everyone equally; even top Sects like the Heavenly Secret Pavilion could not guarantee that the Primordial Spirit Realm members under them would definitely be able to survive the Three Tribulations.

In fact, this was also the reason why he valued you, this Loose Cultivator Martial Saint, so much. For a Loose Cultivator to become a Martial Saint, they not only needed peerless talent but also great Luck and great Opportunity. Such people could absolutely be called the Child of Destiny of this generation.