A Resounding Figure

"What are you doing?" The Three Hu Brothers shuddered, trembling like chaff in a sieve. Vice Cult Master Jin wore a textbook sneer. "Do you know who we are?" "N-No, we don't." "You don't even know who we are? You deserve to die!" The Three Hu Brothers hurriedly cried, "No, no, no, we know who you are!" "Since you know our identities, you certainly can't be left alive!" The three brothers were on the verge of tears. Were they supposed to know their identities or not?! No longer playing with the Three Hu Brothers, Vice Cult Master Jin crushed them to death with ease. The three brothers were merely a minor interlude on their return journey. After the flying boat traveled for a while longer, several formidable auras engulfed the vessel, ranging from the half-step Soul Formation stage to the early Soul Formation stage. "The Three Hu Brothers were supposed to contact us at scheduled intervals, but they failed to do so. Only you passed through during that time. Did you kill my subordinates?" The Three Hu Brothers' boss had arrived to avenge the trio. Lu Yang looked thoughtful. "Is this what they call 'beat the young, and the old comes along'?" Lu Yang had long heard tales of this sort: a young hero acts righteously and beats up a bully; then the bully's father shows up; once the bully's father is beaten, the bully's grandfather shows up; once the grandfather is beaten, the great-grandfather shows up—an endless line of generations. Lu Yang was deeply moved by this spirit of the Foolish Old Man Moving Mountains. Needless to say, the Three Hu Brothers' boss was likewise crushed to death by Vice Cult Master Jin. The flying boat traveled for another while, and an aura even more formidable than the last engulfed the ship. "Did you kill—" Vice Cult Master Jin: "...Is there no end to you people?" As a mighty Body Integration stage powerhouse, he could not tolerate being provoked time and time again. Throwing caution to the wind, he struck straight at the dragon's lair and wiped out the fierce bandits' nest in one fell swoop. ... When the flying boat returned to headquarters, Vice Cult Master Jin held a brocade banner with a look that said he had nothing left to live for. The brocade banner had been issued by the official authorities. No one suspected that Vice Cult Master Jin belonged to a demonic cult anyway—after all, what demonic cult would rid the people of a scourge? When the cult members learned of this, they murmured among themselves, utterly full of admiration for Vice Cult Master Jin. "As expected of the Vice Cult Master! Getting the righteous path to award him a brocade banner! Having influence in both the black and white worlds—his reach is truly boundless!" "Tell me about it! I heard that before entering the demonic cult, Vice Cult Master Jin was a resounding figure in the righteous path!" Hearing this, Lu Yang was rather astonished. So Vice Cult Master Jin was famous in the righteous path as well? He hurriedly asked, "He has that kind of background? What did the Vice Cult Master do in the righteous path back then?" "He was a night watchman." "..." "So when Vice Cult Master Jin was in the righteous path, he could even control time, right?" Lu Yang finally managed to say after a long pause. The cultist chatting with Lu Yang gave him an astonished look. "Now that's an angle no one ever thought of!" The cultist ran over to Vice Cult Master Jin and relayed Lu Yang's idea. Vice Cult Master Jin was thrilled, finding Lu Yang and praising his open-minded thinking. "What a great idea! From now on, when talking to outsiders, I'll say that I was once a resounding figure in the righteous path, capable of controlling the time of an entire city!" For those in the demonic path, the most important skill was to tell the literal truth while making oneself sound as formidable as possible. Although Lu Yang had caused a ruckus during the cult entrance trials he had designed, that was all in the past. Now, the more Vice Cult Master Jin looked at Lu Yang, the more he liked him. Because the flying boat had been delayed somewhat on the road, the Foundation Establishment and Qi Refinement prodigies from various places had mostly arrived. Lu Yang's trio were among the last. Lu Yang bypassed the Qi Refinement prodigies—they posed no threat—and focused his attention on the Foundation Establishment prodigies. From the introductions of bystanders, he learned of several of the most famous Foundation Establishment prodigies. "Look at that monk with hair and a beard, wearing robes and holding a golden alms bowl. That's the Wine and Meat Monk. I heard he originally had the opportunity to enter Hanging Temple, one of the Five Great Immortal Sects, but he resolutely gave it up and made a boundless grand vow to seek the path to Buddhahood on his own!" "And the one carrying a saber beside him—could that be the rumored Saber Demon Gu Zha? Rumor has it that his demonic saber is extremely bizarre. The moment the blacksmith finished crafting it, the demonic saber hovered in midair and killed the smith. Afterward, several of the saber's subsequent masters suffered its backlash, with even Soul Formation stage experts being no exception. Only Gu Zha has wielded it to this day!" "The most formidable one is Yan Fei. Everyone says he is a genius personally nurtured by the Cult Master himself. He excels at crafting talismans, and he even once trapped several Golden Core stage cultivators with them, toying with them, mocking them, and finally killing them with utterly brutal methods!" Needless to say, all three were at the late Foundation Establishment stage. Lu Yang sent a voice transmission to the other two: "Let's not get too close to each other for now. Pretend we don't know one another. We don't know what the trial entails yet, so we'll see whether we should team up based on the situation." Only the Cult Master and a few higher-ups knew that the three of them had deeply ingrained demonic natures. None of these Foundation Establishment prodigies had ever heard of the three of them. The Cult Master appeared in the air with his hands behind his back, an indifferent expression on his face as he announced the rules of the competition. Everyone discovered a mark had appeared on their hands, with the numeral '1' inscribed in the center, though no one knew when it had appeared. "In this trial, you may slaughter at will. Slaying one person grants you the number on their mark. "Whoever has the highest number on their mark will be the final victor, and the final victor shall receive the blessing of the Immortal Celestial." Fervent expressions surfaced on everyone's faces. Aside from Lu Yang's group of three fake believers, everyone else genuinely worshiped the Immortal Celestial. Receiving the blessing of the Immortal Celestial was the supreme reward of the Immortal Cult. "The Foundation Establishment stage shall form one group, and the Qi Refinement stage another. Each group will have one winner, and the trial period is two days." Lu Yang thought to himself that it was truly just like a demonic cult—the test was simply killing people. Weren't they afraid of killing everyone off and leaving themselves without a new generation of talent? With a wave of the Cult Master's sleeve, everyone was left with no room to resist. They vanished from their spots and reappeared inside a dense forest. "This place is a tract of woodland dating back to the Great Yu era, concealing all manner of heavenly materials and earthly treasures. You may slaughter one another, or you may search for opportunities to achieve breakthroughs. "Remember, the Immortal Celestial is watching you." The Cult Master gave everyone a hint, whose true meaning only Lu Yang understood. "The competition begins now." After announcing the start of the competition, the Cult Master respectfully asked the Immortal Celestial why he chose this method to select a vessel for body seizure. Wouldn't selecting directly based on aptitude be far more convenient? The Immortal Celestial smiled benevolently. "Child, what do you think it takes to become a supreme powerhouse? A single spiritual root? An Immortal Physique? None of that matters. "Even with a trash constitution, as long as this immortal is willing, I could cultivate all the way to the Tribulation Transcendence stage or become an immortal after seizing the body. "What matters most is affinity with this immortal. "In trials of life and death, a person's potential is revealed most clearly. What this immortal requires is for them to display themselves as much as possible, so that through observation, this immortal can select whichever lucky soul has the highest affinity with me." The Cult Master asked again, "Does the one with the highest affinity have any distinctive traits?" "Whoever is pleasing to this immortal's eye." "Then do I please your eye?" "This immortal finds you least pleasing to the eye." "B-But I am your most devout believer!" the Cult Master cried in protest.