Chapter 4301 — A Familiar Face

"That's right—above the Profound Ascension stage lies the Mountain-Opening stage. Look at the platform: Dean Ling Yuanqing and the two vice-deans beside him are all Mountain-Opening experts!" the man in the yellow hat said with a nod.

"The legendary Mountain-Opening experts—they say a casual palm strike from one of them can split a mountain. Is that really true?" someone nearby asked.

"What's so strange about splitting a mountain with one palm? Without a protective formation, even someone at my Golden Core stage could cleave a mountain with a full-force blow," someone immediately scoffed.

"Tch, what do you know? The mountains I mean aren't the little hills you're picturing—I mean those towering peaks that stretch for dozens or even hundreds of li. Go on, split one of those and give us a show, why don't you?" the man retorted with scorn.

"Uh, that I can't do. A towering mountain stretching dozens or hundreds of li—its foundations must run unbelievably deep. The likes of us couldn't scratch the surface. If someone could split one of those with a single palm, their power would be absurdly exaggerated," several of them said, exchanging uneasy glances.

"Don't any of you doubt it—he's actually not wrong about this. A so-called Mountain-Opening expert is precisely one of those heaven-defying beings who can split a mountain with a single palm. But experts of that caliber are simply not to be seen in ordinary life. Apart from the Eastern Continent, even the four great islands of the Heaven Tier put together have only a handful. I heard my cousin say that our Southern Continent, counting even the spirit beast clan, has only a pitiful few," the man in the yellow hat boasted to the crowd, showing off his knowledge.

"If that's the case, then if we're selected this time to become disciples of their Morning Star Yellow-Tier Cultivator Academy, that really would be a magnificent future!" The people around them were suddenly rubbing their hands together in excitement.

Even if they currently knew little about these so-called academies of the Eastern Continent, the Morning Star Yellow-Tier Cultivator Academy had Ling Yuanqing and those two other Mountain-Opening experts presiding over it—surely it couldn't be too shabby. If one could win their approval and join, the future would be utterly immeasurable.

"Heh, that's called building castles in the air, you know—wishful thinking. Open your eyes and look carefully at how many people have already gathered here. I dare bet there are geniuses everywhere in this crowd. Golden Core cultivators are worth less than dogs. Ordinary Golden Core experts like us—they won't even spare us a proper glance, and you still dream of being chosen? What a beautiful fantasy!" someone beside them said, half sneering, half mocking themselves.

"That's where you're all wrong. They've come here to recruit, and what they value isn't strength but potential—it's your innate aptitude. As long as your aptitude is outstanding, anything is possible," the man in the yellow hat said, shaking his head in rebuttal.

"Right, right—we're already here anyway, so there's no harm in trying. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky. Perhaps I have extraordinary aptitude and just never had anyone notice it before," the crowd chimed in with laughter.

Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao sat behind the crowd, and only by listening to their discussions did they finally learn that the stage above the Profound Ascension stage was called the Mountain-Opening stage. And all three on the platform—Ling Yuanqing and the others—were Mountain-Opening experts.

Across a distance of several hundred zhang, Wei Zhao carefully observed the three of them once more. He found that although all three were Mountain-Opening experts, there were clearly differences in strength among them.

Seated in the center of the three was Dean Ling Yuanqing, whose aura was plainly more vast and profound than those of the two beside him; his strength was likely the greatest of the three.

The vice-dean seated to his left was a woman who appeared to be around forty years old. Of course, to have reached such an exalted realm as the Mountain-Opening stage, her true age must surely be far greater than that—though exactly how old she was, there was no way to know.

Still, by Wei Zhao's understanding, a face of about forty could mean only one of two things: either this woman deliberately chose not to restrain her appearance, or she had only finally advanced to the Heaven Tier around the age of forty.

Yet on reflection—was there any woman under heaven who did not cherish beauty? Among the cultivators Wei Zhao had seen, there were many male cultivators who made no effort to control their looks, but of female cultivators, he had truly never met a single one!

Cherishing beauty was the nature of every woman. Unless one's face had been ruined or one had suffered some trauma that left a psychological scar, no woman would willingly let her looks wither with age—and the woman on the platform showed no such disfigurement or injury.

By this reasoning, Wei Zhao was eighty percent certain that the woman on the platform was deliberately maintaining control over her appearance. Otherwise, why hadn't she turned into an old crone?

But if that were so, only the second possibility remained: that this woman had not finally advanced to the Heaven Tier until she was around forty.

Such aptitude might just barely pass in the secular world, but set against Cloud-Tier Island, it could not even compare with cultivation geniuses—it was not even middling; her aptitude could only be counted as inferior. Yet how could a woman of such aptitude possibly have reached such an absurd height as she now occupied?

For a cultivator of inferior aptitude, reaching the Foundation Establishment stage was normally the limit; even the Golden Core stage was a vain hope, let alone the Mountain-Opening stage, several levels above Golden Core.

Surely one could not claim that this woman's aptitude had been poor early on and grew ever better as time went on, as if she became more enlightened the further she progressed?

That defied all common sense and all logic. Wei Zhao marveled inwardly, though such a question could only be answered by asking the woman herself—otherwise he supposed no answer would ever be found.

Apart from this woman, the vice-dean seated to Ling Yuanqing's right had an entirely different style of presence—a man with a rather fierce, domineering countenance.

Dressed all in austere black, with a head of slicked-back hair gleaming with oil, at first glance he looked like a bandit from the wilds, and at second glance like a village bully—in short, he did not look like a good man, and crucially, not even a respectable sort of villain. Setting aside the aura he radiated at that moment, on the surface he looked for all the world like nothing more than a petty bandit chief unfit for polite company.

Yet this fellow with such a face was, in fact, a legendary top-tier Mountain-Opening expert. One had to remark: truly, a man cannot be judged by his appearance—the ancients did not deceive me.

After observing the three carefully, Wei Zhao's gaze ultimately returned to the woman. One thing struck him as rather odd: the aura emanating from this woman faintly struck him as somewhat familiar, as if he had seen her somewhere before—seemingly very familiar, yet for the moment he could not place it. (To be continued~^~)

...R640