flstandardbreds 116 The competition is approaching
116 The competition is approaching
On this day, Ah Zhong, who was originally arguing with the Gu family about network encryption and monitoring systems in the training room, finally came out of seclusion.
The first thing he did after leaving the customs was, of course, to show the electronic contract he had signed with the Gu family regarding the profit-sharing arrangement in the online sector to Gao Zhun, who had already returned.
Gao Zhun looked at the contract and frowned, saying, "Ah Zhong, are you saying that the Gu family was absolutely unwilling to agree to this profit-sharing arrangement in the original contract, insisting on reducing it from 30% to 20%, but suddenly relented yesterday for some reason?"
Ah Zhong nodded: "I also find this matter very strange. Something must have happened that we don't know about."
Gao Zhun wholeheartedly agreed with this. However, even if the sky falls, there are always tall people to hold it up. As a mere Nascent Soul cultivator, she should still strive to fulfill the seven-year promise she made back then.
In fact, considering the fortuitous encounters of the past few years, Gao Zhun's advancement to the Nascent Soul stage is just around the corner. However, it is obvious which is easier: the chance of a half-step Nascent Soul cultivator winning a top ten spot in the Nascent Soul stage competition versus a newly promoted Nascent Soul cultivator winning a top ten spot in the Nascent Soul stage competition. Naturally, she would not give up her own advantages to pursue the so-called advancement.
Unlike the rapid advancement before the Nascent Soul stage, the younger generation in various families, sects and forces will unanimously slow down their advancement after advancing to the Nascent Soul stage. Those who really can't slow down will desperately suppress their advancement when they reach the peak of the late Nascent Soul stage.
This is because once the nascent soul is formed, it signifies the growth of the primordial spirit. Subsequent advancements in cultivation do not entirely depend on the accumulation of spiritual energy transformed into true essence, but rather on the cultivator's understanding of the Dao.
It can be said that the more insights into the Heavenly Dao a cultivator gains during the Nascent Soul stage, the greater their future achievements and the more supernatural powers they will possess.
The so-called supernatural power is the enlightenment of the Heavenly Dao that a cultivator gains in the Nascent Soul stage. With the accumulation of cultivation advancement and deepening enlightenment, when the cultivation breaks through to the Mahayana stage, the quantitative change leads to a qualitative change, forming a unique skill that belongs to each cultivator. There can be only one skill or multiple skills.
Of course, having multiple abilities is not necessarily better than having only one. If a genius with many opportunities has condensed all his insights into the Dao of Heaven over the past hundred years into a single supernatural skill, then that single skill can give him a pivotal position among Mahayana cultivators.
Conversely, if a cultivator with mediocre talent and opportunities accumulates insights into the Heavenly Dao from the Nascent Soul stage, and awakens a dozen or so unique skills after becoming a Mahayana-stage powerhouse, but the power of these unique skills is no different from an ordinary fireball spell, what use are there to have so many useless unique skills?
In conclusion, the Nascent Soul stage is the most important stage for cultivators, and Gao Zhun naturally cannot miss this opportunity to lay a solid foundation. Advancing to the Spirit Division stage is still a long way off.
Consider Gao Qi, Gao Yaobing, and others. In the previous family competition, they were already at the peak of the late Nascent Soul stage. After winning the top ten in the family competition, they did not rush to advance. Generally speaking, the juniors of the Gao family at the late Nascent Soul stage would participate in two family competitions with the cultivation of the peak of the late Nascent Soul stage. This suppression of their advancement would last for twenty years. Gao Zhun's cultivation had only just reached the peak of the late Nascent Soul stage a few years ago. He would have to participate in two more family competitions before he could advance.
In the world of cultivation, time flies by. In the blink of an eye, there are only half a month left until the Gao family's grand competition. In the past few years, Gao Zhun has faced countless situations where her cultivation was difficult to suppress, but she has gritted her teeth and persevered through them all. She has compressed her true essence again and again, and organized her understanding of the Heavenly Dao again and again. Fortunately, she has safely overcome each challenge, and her cultivation has become even more solid as a result.
It feels like just yesterday that I made a seven-year pact with the elders of the Elder Council. The core of the pact—Gao Ling—has reached the age where he can draw Qi into his body and truly begin cultivating immortality.
In the first few years of those seven years, Gao Zhun spent almost all her time in various secret realms and trials in order to improve her cultivation. In the later years, because her cultivation began to need to be suppressed, she devoted more of her time to her younger sister who had just hatched from an egg.
Gao Zhun hadn't forgotten that more than once, people had hinted to her that Gao Ling's identity was not simple. However, she still couldn't figure out what the so-called third son meant, even after entering and leaving the Gao family's library and even the Treasure Pavilion's collection room countless times over the years.
Of course, among the people she knew, the head of the Treasure Appraisal Pavilion, Jun Wuhen, seemed to know something. However, whenever she saw his arrogant and unfathomable appearance, Gao Zhun felt like punching him a few times on that seemingly handsome and resolute but actually irritating face. Therefore, she never asked him.
"No matter who you are, you are my dearest little sister, Ling'er, don't you agree?"
While instructing Gao Ling, who was sitting on his lap, on how to practice calligraphy, Gao Zhun spoke in her ear.
Gao Ling is different from other girls. She is wise and precocious. When she was only three years old, she was able to comfort herself when she realized that Qin Hanyuan and Hanyue were getting closer and closer. Now that Gao Ling is almost eight years old, Gao Zhun has long treated her as an equal adult.
Although she is only twenty years old now, in the Immortal Spirit Continent, where fifty is considered an adult, she is not considered an adult.
Upon hearing this, Gao Ling blinked, reached out her left hand and tightened her grip on Gao Zhun's right hand, which was holding her hand as she practiced calligraphy. Her voice still sounded childish, but the words she spoke made people want to trust her.
"Sister, don't worry. No matter who Xiao Ling'er becomes in the future, there is one thing that will never change: the bond between me and you, with Mother, and with Ah Zhong."
With the family competition approaching, Gao Zhun has been somewhat agitated due to nervousness. It is all for Gao Ling's sake, for the cultivation techniques she will need in the future, even if all she gets in the end is a trivial clue. She already knew all this several years ago.
After turning seven, Gao Ling seemed to have inherited some memories in her spiritual center, which were about her cultivation techniques. Many times she couldn't help but want to tell Gao Zhun about this, but when she thought about how much effort he had put into her for so many years, she felt she couldn't bring herself to say it.
Actually, she wasn't that precocious, and the so-called innate wisdom that outsiders believed in her didn't actually exist.
Gao Ling recalled the time since her birth. The first three years were hazy in her memory and her thoughts were muddled. When did everything change?
It was that day, that reality show created by the Heavenly Mirror, that one glance from the woman named Di Ling.
The woman's gaze was like a beam of light, shining into her clouded mind and dispelling the thick fog that had been obscuring her thoughts. Her previously chaotic mind suddenly became orderly, and she officially gained the agile thinking of an adult.
That is precisely why she is able to recognize her own uniqueness more intuitively than Gao Zhun.
At the age of seven, the first layer of her memory inheritance was unlocked, and what awaited her was the cultivation technique that she could practice when she turned eight—the "Vast Expanse Technique".
The preface written before the beginning of the cultivation method made her realize that this was a cultivation method and mental manual that transcended the scope of ordinary immortal cultivation.
If the cultivation methods that ordinary people use to cultivate immortality involve comprehending the Dao of Heaven and gradually forming their own Dao, thus transcending the mortal realm and becoming a saint, then the "Vast Expanse Technique" would give her a higher starting point than everyone else on the Immortal Spirit Continent, but it would also subject her to more limitations than anyone else.
Despite her turbulent thoughts, Gao Ling's right hand maintained the correct posture, and under Gao Zhun's guidance, she wrote one square character after another that was beginning to show its character.
Gao Zhun didn't notice that her apprentice, who was practicing calligraphy, seemed somewhat distracted; instead, she herself was letting her thoughts wander.
She had heard this from her master, Elder Lei, a few days ago; otherwise, she would still be kept in the dark, living each day in a daze.
After Gao Ling revealed her crush on Qin Hanyuan and successfully guided her, Gao Zhun would discuss any relationship problems with Gao Ling. At this moment, she thought of her coming-of-age ceremony thirty years later.
Unlike on Earth, the coming-of-age ceremony in the Immortal Spirit Continent is very elaborate, with a lot of red tape. Not to mention the aristocratic families that maintain their family honor through bloodline inheritance, there is an extra step that Gao Zhuncai is unaware of and finds quite troublesome—engagement.
For her, Qin Hanyuan was originally just a vague feeling of affection. Over the years, she had long since given up on that feeling and turned her attention to the various beauties around her.
Sure enough, apart from Qin Hanyuan, she preferred beautiful women to handsome men. However, her family was like a mountain weighing on her, making it hard for her to breathe.
If Gao Zhun were just an ordinary member of a family and didn't want to get married, it would be simple: she could leave the family and join a sect that wouldn't force her to marry.
However, she happens to possess the top bloodlines of both the Gao and Xuanyuan families, two families with the longest histories, and even has a slight prophetic power because of the Yun family's bloodline.
Therefore, her marriage was already being prepared intensively by dedicated personnel almost as soon as her talents began to emerge.
Gao Zhun didn't know what kind of partner her family would ultimately arrange for her, but no matter who it was, it would always be a male, so she could never be satisfied.
Gao Zhun could even imagine that with her bloodline talent, not to mention other aristocratic families, she would be a highly sought-after woman among eligible men outside of her own family's three generations of in-laws.
After Elder Lei let slip the secret, he went on to say even more, because there were so many men vying to be her husband that the Elders' Council would probably set up a special arena thirty years from now for a martial arts contest to find a husband.
At the time, Gao Zhun felt like she was being struck by lightning. Now, thinking about what she would face in the future, she couldn't help but shrink back and pout. She told Gao Ling about it briefly, feeling somewhat aggrieved.
Gao Lingxiao: "A contest to recruit a bride? Are the male participants aged between 30 and 70? Then Ling'er and I will disguise ourselves as men and beat up those crooked melons and jujubes who covet my sister. If my sister marries me, won't the matter be settled smoothly?" 166 Reading Network