Aotian blinked and immediately found himself in another place.

It was a dimly lit room, with tall bookshelves filled with books, stretching up to a ceiling at least ten meters high and extending far into the distance. Apparently, they were standing in the corridors of a vast library.

He could not help but roll his eyes at the dragon, who kept taking them from one place to another as he pleased.

Looking around, he soon noticed Rihai, Cang Song, and Hui Lang, which made him sigh internally in relief.

But thinking about it carefully, it was normal for them to be among the top five.

The other competitors, even while conserving energy, did not last even ten minutes of combat under the exhausting Weather Control spell in that environment. But they, disciples of the Infinite Dao Sect, spent an entire hour bombarding non-stop, as if their energies were infinite. Even if their realms were lower than the Dragon Peak disciples, under such energy output and duration, they still ended up gaining more points than the others.

And finally, besides the four of them, there was, to their misfortune, a fifth person lying on the ground, gravely injured and unconscious.

Who else could it be, if not young master Chun.

“This guy… I don’t know if he’s unlucky or lucky,” Rihai could not help but murmur with a perplexed look, which made Aotian amused.

“I’d say lucky. The Dragon King, or whatever his name is, is quite patient for not killing him after his continuous offenses. It’s rare to find someone so patient in this world, and not even I, who consider myself quite likable, would be so merciful,” Aotian analyzed, shrugging.

“Calling yourself likable is very narcissistic, and it seems offensive for you to call the mighty Dragon King ‘whatever his name is’.” Rihai rolled her eyes at him with a smile.

“That depends on the tone I use when I say things,” he joked, winking at her.

“If that’s the case, yours hit the tone of being annoying perfectly,” she mocked back, which made him frown and stick out his tongue childishly, to her amusement.

“I thought so too!”

A clear and childish voice suddenly sounded, as the head of a little girl with horns emerged directly from the bookshelf, her body passing through things without problems, in an incorporeal way.

Aotian widened his eyes and pointed at her, surprised.

“Look, Cang Song! A ghost!!” he suddenly exclaimed, stunning the little girl with the sudden situation.

“Ah!!” A startled scream rang out as Cang Song vanished from sight and reappeared behind Hui Lang, using him as a shield. Old Hui could only twitch his lips helplessly.

“Hey! I’m not a ghost!” the little girl, furious at seeing such a reaction, shouted, showing her teeth, which literally turned into large shark fangs.

This time even Aotian was genuinely startled by that.

‘What the hell?! Am I in an anime?!’ he wondered in shock.

Fortunately, he quickly composed himself when he realized that, considering the little girl’s origin, it was easy for her to change her body however she wanted.

“I-It really is a ghost! And it wants to eat us!”

Unfortunately, Cang Song did not seem to have reached a similar conclusion, and even his head was now completely hidden behind Hui Lang.

And, as if that were not enough, something yellow simply flew over old Hui’s shoulder and landed at the ghost little girl’s feet.

All eyes suddenly fell on it, and when they saw what it was, black lines appeared on their foreheads.

It was a yellow talisman with red drawings, made to expel evil spirits. But if it were a real one, that would be fine, but it was clearly one of those made by mortals without any spiritual energy, simply used to scam money from superstitious people.

Aotian seriously wondered why the hell Cang Song would carry something like that in his storage ring, and where he got the courage to even dare to use that in the field.

But someone did not have so many questions, only one statement.

“I-am-not-a-GHOST!!” the little dragon girl shouted furiously, grinding her sharp teeth, trembling with rage, her fists clenched tightly at her sides as she stomped her feet.

Unfortunately, nine more talismans flew in response, silencing the scene.

Cang Song peeked from behind the perplexed Hui Lang and, when he saw the little girl still there, looking darkly at him with ten talismans at her feet, he turned pale.

“Damn! That damned old fortune teller scammed my 10 taels of silver! I shouldn’t have believed it when she said I would live a long and safe life if I bought it.” He ground his teeth as he felt cheated and quickly hid again, almost making the little girl faint from rage.

“Uh… you’re a lively bunch,” another unknown voice suddenly sounded there, helpless.

At the same instant, an old man with blue, slit-pupiled eyes appeared out of nowhere beside them, massaging his forehead as if nursing a headache. Two small dragon horns protruded from his brow, just like the little girl’s.

“Old Long, they’re bullying me!” the little girl complained, crossing her arms and puffing her cheeks, irritated.

“They’re just playing with you, big sister, don’t be angry,” the old man could only pat her shoulder, consoling her helplessly.

“Hmph!” she snorted in response.

Aotian was amused seeing the interaction between the two and immediately understood why there was not so much danger in that small world, even with such a powerful guardian. It was because that very guardian was very kind.

Then, he greeted them, smiling softly.

“You must be the Dragon King we saw earlier. And this little girl… she must be the World Formation Spirit of this mansion, correct?” he asked, his tone gentle yet firm.

The two immediately looked at him, surprised. Rihai, Cang Song, and Hui Lang also blinked, stunned, at the two of them.

As for the old man, they already had some suspicion about who he was because of the voice, eyes, and horns, even though they could not feel any aura from him now. But the little girl was a real surprise.

“How do you know?” the formation spirit asked, widening her eyes curiously, completely forgetting the previous fact of being called a ghost.

“Just a guess. But I’ve been analyzing the formations here for quite some time and felt a gaze the whole time. I figured it was you when I saw you passing through the wall without using a drop of spiritual energy, which shows that your body is truly incorporeal, and not a state created through a spell,” he explained sincerely, which only served to scare the two even more, and then he smiled. “Also, thank you for increasing the number of slots so my companions and I could enter the challenge together,” Aotian sincerely thanked, remembering that.

“Are you serious? Analyzing the formation? This formation was created by a Mahayana—how is that even possible?” the girl asked quickly, her eyes shining with curiosity, not denying that she had increased the number of slots for them to enter.

In truth, she believed him. Before, she had already heard Aotian declare to the others that he had analyzed the matrix. There was even another silver-haired young man in his group who seemed to do the same, and it was not just random talk, but correctly saying things they absolutely should not know.

Because of that, for quite some time she had been frantically wondering about only one thing — how?

For that, Aotian only smiled mischievously.

“Well, it’s simple. My sect’s inheritance is very strong. Would you like to join? We can strengthen spirits and improve beast bloodlines. Are you tempted?” he asked, his eyes shining at the two of them, who were startled by the proposal.

The two, under that hungry recruitment gaze, could not help but shrink slightly.

“Ugh… no, thank you,” the old dragon spoke awkwardly, actually not believing any of that.

They imagined that maybe, for weaker beings, his sect might really be able to do that, but for beings at their level, it was basically impossible.

Aotian seemed to see their disbelief and quickly struck while the iron was hot.

“Wait, wait! Don’t be so quick to refuse, why don’t we make a bet? If it works, you join; if it doesn’t, you lose nothing. How about it?” he offered, with a serious and confident face, which embarrassed the two there.

If Lei Yun, the ex-Mahayana disciple, were there, he would purse his lips feeling a strong déjà vu from such an approach. Wasn’t this how he was recruited?

The two recruitment targets ended up taking a slight step back under Aotian’s intense shine, which seemed to scream: “I’m scamming you! Just accept quietly!”

Quickly exchanging glances and sound transmission, the old dragon finally answered for both of them, smiling awkwardly.

“Well, there’s no need. Let’s talk about something else.” He shook his head gently.

First of all, they concluded that Aotian was not trying to scam them, because they saw that he truly believed what he was saying. Instead, they assumed he simply did not fully understand their powers, which led him to think his sect could help them—something that was impossible.

As for the biggest reason, it was that even if this were true, the world was already ending, and a small increase in strength would make no difference to them at that point.

Thus, so as not to embarrass him or themselves, they decided to drop the subject, even though they did not get an answer to how he could obtain information from the small world’s formations. They could only assume it was some method of gathering superficial information, one that could not truly uncover much or fully manipulate the formation.

Sometimes, ignorance is really unfortunate.

Aotian’s mouth twitched at their response, and he knew it would not help much to insist for now. He would try again later.

“Well then, we can discuss this later. For now, let’s look at the inheritances.”

The old dragon sighed in relief seeing the boy stop causing trouble. He then pointed his wrinkled finger, with a pointed nail, toward the long corridor of bookshelves there.

“This is the great library that belonged to the Dragon Sovereign. Since the amount of knowledge here is very large, you can ask big sister, and she will help you find what you need.”

After finishing speaking, he smiled at them and went to the corner to wait.

As if it were her cue, the little girl stepped forward in front of them, with her hands behind her back and her chin raised proudly.

“Hmph! I know everything that is here, come on, ask this big sister and she will help you with mercy,” she snorted arrogantly, but to the four of them, she was just incredibly cute.

“How adorable!” Aotian laughed at her, while crouching down to look at her.

Rihai looked helplessly at her husband. One thing was thinking it, another was saying it.

The little girl might seem harmless, but the truth was that she was the spirit of a terrifying Mahayana-Tier matrix with probably millions of years. Caution was necessary when dealing with such a being.

But she did not stop him. She knew Aotian had a sense of measure, always knowing when to advance and when to retreat in serious matters.

And indeed, the arrogant little girl immediately froze at the sudden praise. Then, she blushed deeply, lowering her head almost as if she wanted to merge it into her chest, dragging her foot on the ground in embarrassment, unable to say anything.

No one had ever praised her like that.

“Big sister…” the old dragon placed his hand on his forehead, helpless, and called her.

“Ah!” She snapped awake with a tiny, cute cry, then glanced shyly at Aotian, still blushing, and spoke quietly. “Uh… well, what kind of inheritance do you want? As champion, you can choose five.”

Her cute voice was low as she extended the five little fingers of her right hand, embarrassed.

Even so, everyone there was a cultivator and clearly heard what she said, which made them immediately twitch their lips. They were sure the first-place reward was four inheritances, not five.

Aotian’s eyes shone, amused. Who would have thought praising could take someone so far.

“Okay, okay! Beautiful little sister, please bring me respectively the inheritances of alchemy, formations, artifact refining, talismans, a cultivation technique, and a Mahayana-Tier attack spell. Bring whichever ones you want from that level, I trust your good taste.”

“H-Hmm!” The little girl, almost releasing smoke from her head, nodded quickly, obediently, and immediately prepared to leave.

Everyone looked, speechless, at Aotian’s shamelessness.

He clearly asked for six things.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep