CHAPTER 5
Rising Rumors
Whispers spread like wildfire across the Azure Cloud Sect. What happened in the training arena yesterday had shaken the balance of the sect.
A nobody… a waste… Ye Tian, the disciple mocked and beaten countless times, had defeated his rivals in a single strike.
"Did you hear? Zhao Ming was sent flying like a rag doll!"
"Impossible! Zhao Ming was at the peak of Foundation Establishment! Ye Tian was trash who couldn't even stabilize his qi!"
"I saw it with my own eyes," another whispered, trembling. "His aura… it wasn't human."
The once ridiculed name of Ye Tian was now on every disciple's lips. Yet where admiration sparked, envy and fear festered stronger.
Inside a small, dimly lit room on the far edge of the sect's disciple quarters, Ye Tian sat cross-legged. His eyes were shut, his breath steady, but around him, a torrent of qi surged wildly.
[Ding! Quadrillion Attribute Points detected. Host's cultivation base is eligible for immediate ascension.]
"Ascend," Ye Tian muttered calmly.
At that single word, an unseen force crashed down. His meridians expanded like rivers, his dantian roared like a storm. What should have taken decades, perhaps centuries, was completed in mere seconds.
His qi burst outward, shaking the walls of his chamber. His aura soared past the Foundation Establishment Realm, breaking into the Core Formation Realm.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the stone floor. The sheer density of his spiritual pressure caused nearby disciples to stagger and clutch their chests.
"What is this pressure?!"
"No way… someone is breaking through realms this quickly?!"
From afar, an elder sensed the disturbance. Elder Shen, a gray-haired man with piercing eyes, rushed to the scene. The moment he stepped inside Ye Tian's chamber, his expression froze.
Ye Tian slowly opened his eyes. They gleamed with an otherworldly brilliance, as though a supreme sovereign had awakened.
"You… Core Formation?!" Elder Shen's voice trembled. "This… this is not possible! You were trash just days ago!"
Ye Tian stood, his figure straight and unyielding. With every step forward, Elder Shen felt an invisible weight pressing on his shoulders.
"I was trash," Ye Tian said, his tone calm yet sharp as a blade. "But from this day forward, the heavens themselves will bow to me."
Elder Shen swallowed hard. This was no longer the boy he had dismissed. This was a storm in human form, a calamity waiting to unfold.
That night, rumors intensified further. Some disciples trembled in awe, some elders plotted in secret, and from distant sects, spies began to take notice.
Ye Tian did not care. Sitting silently in his chamber once more, he glanced at the glowing interface only he could see.
[Ding! New Mission Unlocked: "Establish Dominance in the Inner Sect."]
[Reward: 10 Quadrillion Spirit Stones + Random Divine Technique.]
Ye Tian smirked. "The sect trembles… but this is just the beginning."