"Broke through on the outskirts of Yuhua Sect.
Is it possible she's someone from Yuhua Sect?"
Since there wasn't much known information, Prince Li immediately began to speculate wildly. After all, the information was so scarce. What else could be done but to extrapolate from the known facts?
"Unlikely. Although Yuhua Sect has a very long history, it's even said that a Celestial Human once emerged from their sect, but that was over five hundred years ago. After the great martial world catastrophe of the previous dynasty, their sect went into decline. Currently, there isn't even a Grandmaster within the sect, so how could they possibly cultivate a Celestial Human expert? I suspect that person just happened to pass by, had some epiphany, and broke through there."
The sect leader of Huating Sect wasn't speaking up for Yuhua Sect out of any special connection. He was saying this purely because he genuinely felt Prince Li was talking nonsense. Even if one were to speculate, it should be in a plausible direction. Otherwise, wouldn't that be just causing trouble?
"You said it has a long history. Who knows if some elder from the old generation survived and took in talented disciples from outside to train, only returning after they became accomplished? We went to so much trouble to kill those genius survivors from overseas and foreign lands. Who can guarantee there weren't any who slipped through the cracks, hiding on some small island that we wouldn't know about?"
That's right. While martial artists might not know who was responsible for the deaths of their genius disciples, they were all well aware that genius disciples were dying unnaturally. Thus, as early as seventy or eighty years ago, some had already begun sending their genius disciples to remote areas for education, only to send them back after they had developed some self-preservation capabilities. However, even with this, they couldn't withstand the combined efforts of the three major sects and the imperial court, with the Demonic Cult acting as a hidden hand to assassinate the genius disciples of all other sects.
But Prince Li's words weren't his true thoughts. He was primarily annoyed that the Huating Sect leader kept undermining him, so he made up reasons to deliberately contradict him.
"Have you ever seen any sect raise genius disciples outdoors until they were on the verge of breaking through to the Celestial Human realm, only to have them return to acknowledge their ancestors? If they had such capability, wouldn't they already have a Grandmaster?"
The Huating Sect leader retorted fearlessly, almost directly mocking Prince Li, implying he had some sort of problem.
Facing their bickering, the abbots of Wanfo Temple and the masters of Jiutian Temple were truly rolling their eyes as they tried to mediate and steer the conversation back on track, wanting everyone to work together to discuss concrete solutions. However, even so, the discussion ultimately led them to decide to first continue investigating the identity of that Celestial Human. All other decisions would have to wait until their identity was known.
Meanwhile, Ding Yun had quietly returned to Yuhua Sect, but she didn't notify the sect leader. It wasn't until the next day when the sect leader received news that the Demonic Cult elder had been killed by a mysterious Celestial Human expert. He had specifically intended to send disciples to find Ding Yun and tell her not to seek revenge, as someone had already avenged her. Only then did he learn that Ding Yun had already returned from her leave yesterday.
Indeed, True Person Feihe didn't think for a moment that the person who acted would be Ding Yun. He thought Ding Yun had received the news even earlier than him and had returned because of it. Furthermore, others who knew that Ding Yun had enmity with that Demonic Cult elder, and even knew she had gone out yesterday, also didn't believe she had anything to do with it. Instead, they congratulated Ding Yun, thinking her wish had come true and that someone had resolved it for her without her doing anything. Some even jokingly asked which deity Ding Yun had worshipped for such effective results.
To this, Ding Yun was too lazy to explain and decided to go with the flow, acting as if it were indeed the case, as if she were just lucky. She then settled into a leisurely retirement, teaching her daughter-in-law martial arts and bonding with her granddaughter. She planned to wait until her granddaughter grew into adulthood and had the ability to protect herself. If her aptitude wasn't enough, she would simply feed her more Golden Fruits to ensure her daughter-in-law could protect herself before plotting how to gain enough influence to complete the task of engraving the brand. After all, children grow up quickly, and with her guidance, they should be able to protect themselves within ten years. Ding Yun could afford to wait this long.
However, in this vast martial world, who could truly remain aloof? Especially since Yuhua Sect now had over eighty innate Grandmasters, it was destined that Yuhua Sect wouldn't remain peaceful for long. Even if they could lie low for a while, they couldn't stay hidden forever. Not to mention the three major sects and the imperial court were already cooperating to investigate the Celestial Human expert.
So, more than a month later, even though Yuhua Sect had been as low-key as possible, the news of a large number of new innate Grandmasters emerging from their sect still spread. This was particularly attention-grabbing during this crucial period. Even though there were no clues or evidence at the moment indicating that the previous Celestial Human had any connection to Yuhua Sect, speculation didn't require evidence. Many people naturally assumed that Yuhua Sect had received the help of a Celestial Human to produce so many innate Grandmasters. This was because, according to legends and ancient records, Celestial Humans were capable of mass-producing innate Grandmasters at the cost of their internal energy and essence, which matched the scenario of Yuhua Sect suddenly having a large number of innate Grandmasters. Apart from this legendary possibility, they couldn't think of any other method that could help Yuhua Sect cultivate so many innate Grandmasters at once.
However, even with such speculation, ordinary people wouldn't dare to do anything. They were even trying to curry favor with Yuhua Sect. Only the three top sects and the imperial court had different ideas. After careful analysis and judgment, and even secretly apprehending a few Yuhua Sect disciples to test the specific attributes and feel of the internal energy within their bodies, they finally became completely certain that the Celestial Human was indeed likely from Yuhua Sect. This was because the sword energy remaining at the site where the Demonic Cult branch elder died faintly contained a trace of the unique aura of Yuhua Sect's Yuhua Precious Scripture's internal energy.
The reason the three top sects and the imperial court hadn't noticed this before was that the auras of many righteous cultivation methods were roughly similar. The core of the Yuhua Precious Scripture lay in the naturalness of the Dao, with its internal energy being upright and peaceful. Its similarity to most Daoist-like cultivation methods was as high as eighty to ninety percent, making it difficult for them to distinguish. After all, there were too many similar cultivation methods. The intensity of internal energy might differ depending on the technique, but the specific aura perception was generally similar. However, now that they had already strongly suspected Yuhua Sect and specifically captured two or three Yuhua Sect disciples to carefully compare the internal energy within their bodies, finding some similarities was perfectly normal, and it solidified their certainty about the origin of that Celestial Human expert.