Chapter 1014: The Guest

Late night.

The Dao law elders of each sect gathered again.

It was still that great hall.

It was still those elders.

On the shadow-copy map, there was still ink painting.

Only, this time the competition situation was different.

The "victim" was also not the same.

The shadow-copy map displayed the scene of ink painting hiding in the small grove, teasing the five disciples of Dragon Cauldron Sect.

The five people from Dragon Cauldron Sect each held a spying-hidden mirror in their hands.

But in the mirrors, there was nothing at all.

The five people looked at each other, like five "big fools"...

"It's not that Shi Tiangang was wronged, that he is simple-minded and cannot see through hiding, but rather that ink painting's hiding technique is indeed strange..."

"Even the spying-hidden mirror can't shine it out... This means the principle of this hiding technique is different from general inheritances."

"Then which kind? Light hiding, spirit hiding, eye hiding, five colors hiding, five elements hiding, or Bagua hiding technique?"

"This... separated by the Fangtian Shadow Painting and this shadow-copy map, it's not easy to see through..."

"Only by being personally present, perceiving the Qi mechanism, or spying with divine sense can one distinguish the true from the false..."

"Lun Dao Mountain has a five-grade great array, which isolates all external spiritual power interference and divine sense spying. We also cannot intervene and cannot distinguish..."

The five-grade great array isolates everything outside the field.

This kind of great array isolation is to protect the sect disciples, ensuring that the sect techniques, superior Dao laws, and some other rare inheritances used in the sword discussion are not stolen by some cultivators with malicious intent and high skills through divine sense perception, law derivation, or cause-and-effect reversal and other treacherous methods.

After all, the Qianxue sword discussion features heavenly prides. What heavenly prides learn are all superior Dao repositories.

If they were truly stolen through "perception," "reversal," or "derivation," it would leave endless trouble.

But like this, these Dao law elders, for a time, could not figure out the details of ink painting's hiding technique.

"Does Tai Xu Gate have an exclusive hiding inheritance?"

"According to my knowledge, it shouldn't have..."

"Then this hiding technique of his must have a source, right?"

"Are there any sects skilled in hiding within the entire Qianxue State?"

"There were some before, but most have disappeared without a trace. Now there are no sects that specifically cultivate this hiding technique; it's too useless..."

"Then the only way now is to try using different hidden-breaking spirit tools?"

The development of skills in the cultivation world is extensive, and the types of refined tools are subdivided.

There are also many varieties of spirit tools.

Hidden-breaking spirit tools, according to the difference in the principles of hiding and the means of hiding, are also subdivided into many types.

There are those that break spirit hiding, those that break water hiding, those that break color hiding, those that break light hiding... and so on.

Alternative, niche, and scarce hiding techniques have very few inheritances, are difficult to learn, and those who know them are as rare as phoenix feathers. Generally, they are not encountered.

Therefore, what is generally used in the cultivation world are still "universal" grade shadow-breaking spirit tools.

For example, the spying-hidden mirrors used by the disciples of Dragon Cauldron Sect are this type of universal shadow-breaking spirit tool, and their grade is still very high.

Generally speaking, even if targeting rare hiding techniques, the "spying-hidden mirrors" used by Dragon Cauldron Sect disciples will still take effect; it's impossible to truly see no trace at all.

But ink painting is special.

His small five elements stealth technique, after years of tempering and rich hiding experience, has already reached a state of perfection.

Especially now, his divine sense has already formed a core, and the small five elements stealth technique has undergone a qualitative change, achieving a hint of the perfect realm.

Therefore, unless it's a precise and targeted superior shadow-breaking spirit tool for the five elements, it fundamentally cannot break his hiding.

"But, trying one by one..." one elder frowned, "how long will this take?"

"One team of five people, one person with one type of hidden-breaking spirit tool, shine it on him once respectively. In just a few matches, we can quickly figure it out..."

"What if he doesn't hide?"

"This kid is cunning. If he detects something is wrong, he will definitely 'hide his clumsiness' again. He might not use this hiding technique again..."

"If he doesn't hide, what's the use of us shining on him?"

"Then formulate tactics, conduct an encirclement, force him to hide, and then think of ways to use spirit tools to break his hiding..."

"To target one disciple, no... to target one of a disciple's techniques, do we need to expend so much effort?"

"With the tactics set and the spirit tools chosen like this, we are inherently restricted. How can we still win?"

"As I said, this is not for winning, but for determining exactly which school this kid's hiding technique belongs to."

"That is to say... tactically abandon several matches of the Xuan character sword discussion, giving points to Tai Xu Gate?"

"We can only do so."

"This is the Xuan character sword discussion, one less is one. Just waste it like this?"

"One cannot catch a wolf without giving up a child."

"The problem is, sacrificing whose child to catch whose wolf?"

"Who are Tai Xu Gate's opponents in the next few matches of the sword discussion?"

"Xuan Qi Gate, Break Gold Gate, and Ling Xiao Gate..."

"Xuan Qi Gate and Break Gold Gate are still alright, but Ling Xiao Gate might not be so easy to talk to..."

"There's nothing not good to say, just give them a little more benefits. It's nothing more than each sect bleeding a little..."

A crowd of elders was silent, obviously all a little hesitant.

"You may not have realized the seriousness of the problem yet..."

The elder in charge had a solemn face, "Don't underestimate this hiding technique. This hiding technique may be more troublesome than you think..."

"This exclusive hiding, coupled with his ridiculous divine sense and his perfectly mastered five elements techniques, can, to a certain extent, truly stand on 'undefeated' ground."

"Especially in a beheading match, there is basically no solution."

"If you can't spy through his hiding, you absolutely cannot win."

"If we don't think of a solution now and drag it to the Di character match, or even the Tian character match, the trouble will be big."

"In the Di character match and the Tian character match, the victory in every match is extremely precious."

"Especially in a beheading match, this ink painting, as long as he can hide, is invincible. Whoever encounters him is unlucky."

"No matter whether he can win or not, anyway, he will not let you win."

"Even if he encounters the heavenly prides of the top four sects, if he can't win, as long as he hides, no one can do anything to him. If they end up with a draw, Tai Xu Gate can accept it, but can you?"

A draw means no points are won, equivalent to a double loss.

The four sects will also compete with each other.

Whoever "draws" a match with ink painting is equivalent to losing one match themselves, falling behind by one match in the competition of the four great sects.

Truly reaching this point, they can only pray their luck is not too bad and that they don't encounter this "plague god" ink painting.

Thinking like this, everyone's head hurt.

They also didn't think that these Dao law elders of great sects would one day be so flustered by a hiding technique.

The hall was silent for a moment, then a virtuous and prestigious elder spoke:

"Then let's do this."

"Sacrifice some Xuan character matches to break ink painting's hiding technique. As for compensation, we four great sects will provide it."

"The shadow-breaking spirit tools will also be arranged by us."

"We cannot let Tai Xu Gate continue to develop like this."

"And this kid called ink painting, the Qianxue Array Dao chief, must absolutely not be indulged. We must figure out all his abilities early on and think of ways to suppress him..."

The elders of the other sects heard this and nodded in agreement.

The plan was thus set.

Each sect temporarily joined hands and communicated with each other, making "cracking" ink painting's hiding technique the first tactical key point of the next few Xuan character sword discussions.

After the first match, Xuan Qi Gate faced ink painting.

The disciples of Xuan Qi Gate each held a spirit mirror of a different shape, used to spy on and break hiding techniques of different principles.

In addition, they were also equipped with special hidden-breaking arrays.

All tactics were centered around "ink painting."

This kind of tactic obviously had major drawbacks.

Only targeting ink painting and neglecting Linghu Xiao, the strength of Xuan Qi Gate, which was not very strong to begin with, made it impossible to win.

This was not even a beheading match; it was a match that could be won without beheading ink painting.

This made ink painting also a little puzzled.

He didn't quite understand what Xuan Qi Gate meant by this.

Were they... giving points?

During the sword discussion, ink painting was surrounded and had to display his hiding.

The five disciples of Xuan Qi Gate immediately urged their spirit tools without a word.

Five different mirrors, following different hidden-breaking principles, emitted various different lights, all shining towards ink painting.

Lonely Mountain Refining Tools Workshop was revitalized by ink painting.

He participated in designing many refining tool blueprints.

Therefore, although his actual refining tool level was very low, his theoretical knowledge of refining tools was quite good.

Ink painting only took one glance at these spirit mirrors and suddenly realized.

"Xuan Qi Gate simply doesn't intend to win. The purpose of this match is to use different spirit tools to break my hiding technique..."

Ink painting's mind moved, and he immediately canceled his hiding, appearing openly and letting the light of the five mirrors shine on his body.

Hidden-breaking spirit tools are used to break hiding techniques.

If he didn't hide, naturally nothing could be broken.

The disciples of Xuan Qi Gate were furious and made a move to kill ink painting.

Ink painting used the Flowing Water Steps, pulling open the distance, and immediately shouted to Linghu Xiao and the others:

"Xiao Xiao, come and protect me."

Linghu Xiao and the other four no longer hesitated and gathered towards ink painting. Their tactical center also became protecting ink painting.

In this way, the pressure on the disciples of Xuan Qi Gate was great.

Their strength was originally biased towards weakness, and their physical defense was far inferior to that of the disciples of Diamond Gate and Dragon Cauldron Sect. They fundamentally dared not withstand Linghu Xiao's sword Qi to forcefully kill ink painting.

And ink painting also hid and appeared sometimes.

When Xuan Qi Gate used mirrors to shine, he would appear. When they didn't use mirrors to shine, he would hide.

The most hateful thing was that the time it took for ink painting to switch between hiding and appearing was shorter than the time it took for the disciples of Xuan Qi Gate to take out their spirit mirrors and urge the mirror light.

This left the disciples of Xuan Qi Gate utterly frustrated.

The Dao field elders of each sect outside the field also secretly cursed ink painting as a "little slick," despicable, shameless, and cunning as a ghost.

Xuan Qi Gate was defeated just like this.

Next was Break Gold Gate.

Break Gold Gate's strength was stronger than Xuan Qi Gate's, and they learned from Xuan Qi Gate's lesson, optimizing their tactics targeted at ink painting.

Break Gold Sword Art is also a superior sword art with strong killing power.

Although ink painting, according to the core inheritance of Break Gold Gate he had mastered, customized "Break Gold Armor" to shield against its spear, it could to a considerable extent be immune to the harm of Break Gold sword Qi.

But ink painting couldn't wear this armor.

Because his physical body was too weak.

Even if this "Break Gold Armor" reduced the damage, the remaining Break Gold sword Qi could still take his life.

And under the new and old grudges, the disciples of Break Gold Gate truly hated ink painting to death.

Therefore, in this sword discussion match, they almost exhausted all their strength with hatred added to their hearts.

Break Gold sword lights filled the sky, pulling out sword flowers like snowflakes, all flying towards ink painting.

Ink painting fundamentally could not withstand them and could only rely on his hiding technique to protect his life.

Moreover, he had to hide completely and could no longer tease Xuan Qi Gate by sometimes hiding and sometimes appearing.

Because once he appeared, even for an instant, five people would chop at him with chaotic swords.

Like this, Break Gold Gate had enough time to use different hidden-breaking spirit mirrors to gauge ink painting's hiding technique.

But under this measurement, there were still problems.

The five disciples of Break Gold Gate quickly discovered that the spirit mirrors in each of their hands were sometimes effective and sometimes not.

Sometimes they could shine out ink painting.

But after a while, the figure on the mirror would disappear, and suddenly they could no longer shine him out.

After another while, they could suddenly shine him out again.

The five people from Break Gold Gate were completely confused.

The Dao law elders outside the field also successively frowned.

"What's going on?"

"Is there a problem with the spirit mirrors, or is there a problem with ink painting's hiding technique?"

This problem troubled them greatly.

Even after Break Gold Gate was defeated, the crowd of elders still couldn't figure it out and couldn't even sleep.

Late night.

The sect great hall.

A crowd of Dao law elders gathered in the hall, staying up late to look at ink painting's shadow-copy map, examining it frame by frame, staring at it point by point. Finally, someone still understood.

A thin and sharp-eyed Dao law elder slammed the table and suddenly realized, "Damn..."

He blurted out a dirty word and then realized he had made a slip of the tongue.

The crowd of elders didn't mind either, because they also wanted to scold people.

"Quickly say it!"

This Dao law elder then explained with gritted teeth:

"This stinky kid, he has learned two kinds of hiding techniques! One low-end, one high-end."

"He mixed the low-end hiding and the high-end hiding together..."

"So when you use shadow-breaking spirit mirrors to shine, it's sometimes hidden and sometimes appears, sometimes you can shine it out, and sometimes you can't again..."

The hall erupted in an uproar.

"It's actually that simple... I really am..."

"I'm convinced by this stinky kid."

"How did this little bastard's brain grow?"

"How can he think of such ghostly ideas..."

"This isn't called ghostly ideas, this is called the myriad Dao laws, no division of superior or inferior, the wonder of application, lies in one's heart..."

"It's just ghostly ideas..."

Once ink painting's little trick was seen through, it was naturally easy to handle.

They began to research ink painting frame by frame again, judging which kind of hiding technique he used at that time, picture by picture.

But unfortunately, they had only fought one match, and the "samples" were still a bit few.

These Dao law elders were still not good at judging for a while.

"Wait until Ling Xiao Gate finishes fighting and then see..."

"That's the only way."

So in the next match, ink painting and the others encountered the disciples of Ling Xiao Gate.

Ling Xiao Gate is one of the eight great gates. Its disciples specialize in techniques and are said to be of the same origin as Wan Xiao Sect, one of the four great sects. Only later did they have a rift and divided.

Ling Xiao Gate's tactics were simple and crude.

The five of them went out together and conducted a large-scale "technique bombardment" on ink painting.

Gold light, fire stones, hail, water arrows, covering the sky and earth.

Ink painting had no room to hide and had to use his hiding technique to evade.

The battle with Ling Xiao Gate continued for quite some time, and ink painting's hiding technique was also almost fully exposed.

After the sword discussion ended, ink painting's every move was again placed on the shadow-copy map for the Dao law elders of each sect to research.

And after a bout of careful discernment and comparison, several sharp-eyed and experienced Dao law elders finally sighed and said resolutely:

"We see it, it's a five elements class hiding technique."

"Five elements, ah..."

"Merging into the five elements, hiding in heaven and earth... So he specifically chose to hide in a small grove, in order to borrow the wood, earth, and water three classes of five elements Qi within the grove for convenient display of his hiding."

"Indeed... I already guessed this was a five elements class hiding technique before."

"Then why didn't you say so before?"

"Before, there was no evidence, and it wasn't good to arbitrarily judge. Now there is evidence, and I can assert..."

"But... there are quite a few five elements hiding techniques. Which one is this kid using?"

A crowd of Dao law elders each held their own views, guessing all sorts of things, but some people truly saw through it:

"According to my observation, it's a bit like... Five Hidden Sect's small five elements stealth technique."

"Isn't Five Hidden Sect gone?"

"The inheritance should have been lost. It's estimated this kid had good luck and got his hands on it..."

"No matter what, knowing the principle is good."

"We'll prepare some five elements class hidden-breaking spirit tools. In the next sword discussion match, we'll make this kid fully exposed!"

"Good!"

The crowd of elders successively agreed.

Someone else asked: "Who are they competing with in the next sword discussion match?"

"Xiao Yao Gate... They have a disciple from the Feng family."

The crowd all slapped the table and cheered: "A disciple from the Feng family of Xun State, excellent! This time this kid ink painting can't escape. Once his hiding is broken, he'll definitely be sent to a place with no door to heaven, no road to earth, and no burial ground."

"This kid ink painting should also die once."

"Every day he makes us elders stay up late holding meetings. If he doesn't die once, where do we put our face?"

"Feng family... Good, ah. This kid is fated to have one death."

"Let him also know how sinister this sword discussion is..."

The crowd of elders set the strategy, their hearts filled with great joy.

At this time, it was late night.

Within the Qianxue State, in the cave mansion of the Feng family.

A lean Feng family elder, braving the cool wind of the moonlit night, guarded outside the cave mansion, seeming to be waiting for someone.

Half an hour later, the sound of horse hooves came from afar.

The Feng family elder's spirit shook, and he concentrated his gaze, then saw a carriage slowly driving in the distant hazy night.

The carriage was not ostentatious, low-key and luxurious, with some dust, seemingly having rushed from thousands of miles away to attend the meeting.

A flag, flashing with flowing light in the night, had a Kan trigram hanging above, with the character "Zhang" written on it.

The Feng family elder saw the form, immediately stepped forward, and welcomed them with a smile.

The carriage also slowly stopped, the door curtain lifted open, and several cultivators with not bad cultivation got off one after another.

Leading them was a man with a childlike face and white hair, with an extraordinary bearing.

The Feng family elder hurriedly cupped his hands and said with a smile: "Great Elder, long time no see."

The cultivator called "Great Elder" also said with a slight smile: "Brother Feng, you and I have been Dao friends for many years, why be so polite?"

The Feng family elder shook his head: "Where are the words? Friendship is friendship, etiquette is etiquette."

He looked at the Great Elder, then at the several young talents behind the Great Elder, and hurriedly reached out to invite them, saying:

"It's late. Everyone is covered in dust from the journey. Please enter my humble abode to rest temporarily."

The Great Elder cupped his hands: "Then I will trouble you greatly..."

"Where, where? Brother Zhang's visit illuminates my humble abode. Please."

"Please."

Both sides were polite for a bit, then collected the carriage and entered the Feng family's cave mansion.

The Feng family is a family in Xun State. From the outside, this cave mansion doesn't show any mountains or reveal any water, but inside, there is another world. The pavilions are elegant, the flowers and plants are abundant, and it has another cultivation interest.

Zhang family's Great Elder and the Feng family elder chatted idly as they walked.

"That side of Kan State has not been peaceful recently..."

"We were also delayed on the road... That's why we came late."

"Calculating the time, the sword discussion has already started?"

"It has already started."

"What a pity..."

"No harm, this is just the Xuan character match. The good show is still behind..."

The crowd entered the hall, sat down one after another, and then a boy came forward to serve tea.

Zhang family's Great Elder drank the tea, slowly nodded, and then asked Feng elder:

"Kan State is not peaceful, and various matters are entwined. Thinking back, I haven't come to Qianxue State for nearly three hundred years to watch the sword discussion assembly. I wonder which talents have emerged in this session of Qianxue Discussing Dao?"

Feng elder then cupped his hands and said in a proud tone:

"Qianxue is a place where Dao learning is prosperous, gathering the talents of the nine provinces and collecting the outstanding people of the world, with innumerable heavenly prides."

"If we talk about the most outstanding, it is naturally still the four great sects."

"In this session of the sword discussion assembly, Qian Dao Sect's Shen Linshu, Tian Jian Sect's Xiao Wuchen, Dragon Cauldron Sect's Ao Zhan, and Wan Xiao Sect's Duanmu Qing are all top heavenly prides. Up to now in the sword discussion, they have swept all directions and have not tasted defeat..."

"Below the four sects, in the eight great gates, there are also quite a few heavenly prides, such as Linghu Xiao, Shi Tiangang, and Qin Cangliu, all very good..."

Feng elder counted them one by one, and after pondering for a moment, he said again:

"Instead... there is still one person. If calculated, he should actually be an absolutely unique monster, just... he has talent but no virtue, and his reputation is not good."

Zhang Great Elder was a little surprised, "Who?"

Feng elder said in a deep voice:

"This child, in the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment, has a divine sense at the peak of nineteen patterns, suppressing the four great sects and seizing the Array Dao chief position. His aptitude and cultivation are average, but his five elements techniques are used like a god, and his hiding technique leaves no trace..."

"There is actually this kind of genius?"

The crowd was shocked to hear these words.

Zhang Great Elder was also moved by it and asked: "What is his name?"

"Ink painting!"

Among the people of the Zhang family, a green-clothed cultivator immediately sprayed out a mouthful of tea.