Ye Xianyu asked again, "Then do you know how many times it should ring?"
"Are you testing me?"
"If you say so."
Xu Xian answered casually, "Six rings announce joy, twelve rings announce mourning. Since I am entering the Immortal Pavilion, it is naturally a joyous occasion, so it should be six rings."
Two disciples nearby lowered their eyes and stifled their laughter.
Ye Xianyu waved her hand and said, "No, no, no."
"I was wrong?" Xu Xian was confused and surprised.
Could he have remembered it incorrectly? That shouldn't be possible.
Ye Xianyu gave a charming smile, paced to the edge of the pavilion, and looked down at the surrounding peaks. "Six rings for joy and twelve for mourning is correct, of course. However, you are entering the fifth floor of the Immortal Pavilion. Therefore, it is not six rings—it should be nine!"
"Fine then!" Xu Xian said flatly. Whether it was six or nine, the sentiment was the same; it was a trivial matter.
"Do you mind?" Ye Xianyu asked for some reason.
Most mortals who cultivate do not like to flaunt their progress, and Xu Xian, in particular, was moving far too fast.
Six years in the sect, four years of meditating on the Dao, and two years of cultivation—yet he had broken through five major bottlenecks in succession.
He had traveled a path that others could not finish in a lifetime.
It was far too conspicuous, far too abnormal.
Xu Xian also walked to the edge of the pavilion, leaning his hands on the railing. As he felt the autumn wind that blew coldly at such a height, the corners of his mouth curled. "What is there to mind? It's not like it's something shameful. As long as you aren't afraid of crushing the confidence of the other disciples in the mountains, it's fine."
Ye Xianyu chuckled. It seemed she had indeed been meddlesome to ask.
Xu Xian was never the type to hide his light under a bushel.
"You can rest assured on that front. It won't happen."
"Oh? You're that confident?"
Ye Xianyu teased, "No matter who they compare themselves to, they won't compare themselves to you. You are the Little Grand-Uncle. Unless they have a screw loose, they wouldn't even try."
Xu Xian found himself agreeing for once.
"True!"
His seniority was right there, after all.
To use a simple analogy: no matter how a group of concubines fought for favor, they wouldn't grow jealous of the Empress Dowager, right?
They were simply in different leagues!
"Sect Master, should we strike it now?" one of the disciples asked at the appropriate moment.
Without turning around, Ye Xianyu simply replied, "Strike it!"
Having received the order, the disciple struck the ancient bell.
It was high noon in autumn; the sun was bright, and the sky was a deep azure.
Inadvertently, the bell of the Wendao Sect's Immortal Pavilion was rung. The sound drifted far and wide, echoing leisurely through the hundreds of miles of green mountains.
Dong!
Dong!!
Dong!!!
Every disciple in the mountains who heard the sound turned their gaze toward Tianjian Peak.
"It's the bell of the Sword Pavilion. It seems someone has entered the great ascension stage again. Our Sword Pavilion is about to gain a new Pavilion Elder!"
"Who could it be?"
"It should be Martial Uncle Zhang. I heard the old senior has been in secluded meditation for several years now."
"Hmph, don't be so sure. My master has been stuck at the seventh stage for over eight hundred years; he might finally have his chance."
"..."
Initially, most disciples were excited to hear the bell of the Immortal Pavilion. It was different from the bells of Zhujian Peak, Sword Inquiry Peak, or Zhijian Peak.
Most disciples knew of the ancient bell on Tianjian Peak.
Even if they hadn't heard it themselves, they had inevitably heard their senior brothers or masters mention it.
If having one's lamp enshrined in the Immortal Pavilion was the goal of every Wendao Sect disciple, then placing that lamp on the fourth floor by breaking into the great ascension stage and having the sect ring that ancient bell for them was the ultimate dream.
It was no exaggeration to say that even if they had never heard it in reality, such a scene frequently appeared in their dreams.
Thus, when the bell rang, the thought naturally jumped into their minds: someone must have broken through to the great ascension stage.
However, when the bell did not stop at six rings and the seventh rang out, all the clamor instantly died down.
Regardless of who they were, every face in the sect became exceptionally solemn.
Their previous excitement vanished instantly, replaced by a feeling that the thing they had been dreading had finally happened.
There were two types of bell tolls for the Immortal Pavilion.
Six rings for joy.
Twelve rings for mourning.
If it didn't stop at six, it could only be...
Yet, just as they were consumed by anxiety and fear, the bell suddenly stopped.
It stopped at nine rings!
Their thoughts, much like the bell, came to a grinding halt.
"How many rings?"
"Nine!"
"Did you count wrong?"
"I didn't!"
"It wasn't six, and it wasn't twelve. Nine rings... what does that mean? Halfway between?"
In the span of dozens of breaths during the nine rings, the emotions of the disciples across the entire sect had been on a roller coaster. First came the joy and celebration of the six rings, followed by the shock and panic of the seventh, the grief of the eighth, and finally, the utter confusion of the ninth!
Bafflement, incomprehension, surprise, and daze were intertwined in their eyes. They felt as if they were lost in a thick mist, completely dazed!
However, not everyone was ignorant of the meaning of nine rings. At the very least, the seniors in the mountains who were over a thousand years old knew exactly what it meant.
They understood the significance of nine rings very well.
Beyond relief, their eyes were filled with even greater shock.
Nine rings had sounded once a thousand years ago. Back then, Ye Xianyu was not yet the Sect Master; she had just entered the nascent soul stage. She had placed her soul lamp in the Sword Pavilion, going straight to the fifth floor, which triggered nine rings.
Today, a thousand years later, the same bell sounded again. They could guess with their toes who the bell was ringing for.
Six rings for the great ascension stage; nine rings for the completion of tribulation transcendence.
But no lightning tribulation had descended upon the mountains, so how could a master have survived one?
There was only the Little Martial Uncle, the Little Grand-Uncle, Xu Xian. The same Xu Xian who had broken the endgame and meditated on the sword stele six years ago, returned with an immortal sword a year ago, and slain a nascent soul stage great snake while only at the foundation establishment stage six months ago.
Yes. The nine rings could only be for Xu Xian.
This also meant that Xu Xian had already broken through to the nascent soul stage.
They had lived for over a thousand years and had seen all walks of life. They told themselves they had seen every kind of genius and heard of every kind of miracle. They weren't surprised by the nine rings themselves, nor were they surprised that Xu Xian could reach the nascent soul stage.
They simply couldn't fathom what kind of person could break through both core formation and nascent soul in a mere half-year.
Was the cultivation path Xu Xian followed different from theirs?
They were utterly perplexed. Brows furrowed, they sank deep into thought. The disorientation of having their common sense overturned far outweighed the joy of a genius being born.
At this moment, though the bell had stopped, the clamor between the Seven Peaks had only just begun, and it was growing more intense by the second.
After the appearance of the red sword aura yesterday, the Wendao Sect was once again seething because of the nine rings today.
Just as most disciples were wondering what exactly was going on, someone in the crowd suddenly shouted at the top of their lungs:
"There is only one truth! The Little Grand-Uncle has reached the nascent soul stage, his lamp is on the fifth floor, and the bell rang nine times!"
Then, like the wind, this voice instantly swept across the thousand mountains.
In the blink of an eye, it blew through the north and south of the mountains. It was confirmed and affirmed by one senior disciple after another. And then...
Exclamations grew louder; arguments grew more heated!
"What?"
"What?"
"What?"
"You're saying the Little Grand-Uncle broke through to the nascent soul stage?"
"That's impossible, absolutely impossible! I just ran into him a few days ago, and he was only at the early core formation stage. You must be lying to me, right?"
"Heavens! Six years... reaching nascent soul in six years? Is he even human?"
"No, let me correct you. To be precise, it was one year and nine months—less than two years. Don't forget the Little Grand-Uncle spent four years meditating on the sword stele."
"Hearing you say that makes me feel even worse! Waaah!"
"I'm just a piece of trash!"
"How did he do it?"
"To be honest, is the cultivation the Little Grand-Uncle is doing even legal?"
"Is this right? He isn't a demonic cultivator, is he?"
Shock filled the world as the news spread. A youth reaching the nascent soul stage and placing his lamp in the Immortal Pavilion became known to everyone in an instant. It added another magnificent stroke to Xu Xian's already legendary life.
In the Immortal Pavilion Register, which recorded the history of the Wendao Sect, a Pavilion Elder picked up a brush and wrote line after line of ink.
Autumn of Year 32456 of the Immortal Calendar: Xu Xian entered the nascent soul stage. His soul lamp was lit on the fifth floor of the Immortal Pavilion, and the bell rang nine times.
At the time, Xu Xian was eighteen years old. Under the Sword Ancestor's name, he is ranked eleventh.
With just a few words and a few lines, a legend was written.
The old man put down his brush and stroked his long beard. Staring at the page filled with the youth's name, he laughed heartily.
"A new star is rising!"
"What I am writing is not just history, but the future of Fanzhou!"
"Hahaha!"
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