When the little girl was about to foolishly leave, a wrinkled hand with sharp nails quickly grabbed her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.

“Huh?!” The girl raised her head and looked confusedly at Old Long, who had stopped her.

The poor dragon had a headache dealing with that little girl.

“Big sister, what are you doing?” he asked helplessly.

“Ah? Going to get what he asked for?” She looked at him confusedly, the happy blush from receiving praise earlier still on her face.

“Big sister… the reward for first place is only four inheritances, although there is no problem in giving a few more if you wish. But remember, Mahayana-Tier ones can only be accessed by those who have more than 90% of the authority in hand, and that was decided by the ancestors and made official with 100% authority in hand, so not even we can change that now.”

The old man rubbed his head helplessly, gently reminding her.

“Ah! That…” The little girl became embarrassed and looked timidly at Aotian with a complicated expression, for not being able to fulfill what she promised.

Fortunately, Aotian did not seem angry and even smiled at her.

“Don’t worry, beautiful little sister, I was the one who asked for too much. Since the Mahayana-Tier ones are out of the question, you can just bring me one or two dozen of the best ones you can give me.” He nodded, waving his hand kindly, with honest eyes toward her.

“H-Hmm! Thank you for understanding! I’ll do my best!” The little girl gave a happy little jump in relief at the request and the praise.

And then, before the jaw-dropped Old Long could stop her, she quickly disappeared from there, going to fetch what Aotian asked for.

The old man couldn’t help thinking that if the boy sold the big sister, she would even help count the money.

Rihai looked at her husband in speechless disbelief as he smiled innocently, hands clasped behind his back in pride.

“You… you don’t have even a bit of shame?” she asked, feeling a strong headache.

“Of course I do!” He nodded, smiling calmly, clearly not even knowing that word starting with s.

Aotian then looked at the old dragon and approached him.

The poor Old Long could only stare at him with serious doubts about whether he had made the right decision in intending to make him the Dragon Sovereign’s heir.

But as if he could read his mind, the boy winked playfully at him.

“Don’t worry, Senior Long, I’m not really taking advantage of her. After all, you’re here, right? If you don’t want me to, you can just stop her from giving me the inheritance. Then it wouldn’t just be me scamming her—it would be me scamming both of you.”

Aotian spoke fairly, stopping in front of the old man and cupping his fists, greeting him with a smile.

“I don’t know how that improves anything.” The old man closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in exhaustion, but it was possible to see that he relaxed a lot with the boy’s analysis.

“Of course it improves. I wouldn’t really scam a cute little girl like her. But if I do it shamelessly right in front of you, it’s just me testing whether Senior will let me take advantage,” he said, this time seriously.

Before, he was just joking, exactly for the reasons he said, but he would never truly deceive someone naive and innocent to profit, even if he imagines that receiving those inheritances should not cause real loss to the other party. Even so, he preferred to be sincere in his actions.

His explanation made the old man relax completely this time, lower his hand, and look at him with renewed light, with a faint smile returning to his face.

“Well, that makes sense.” Senior Long nodded, looking again with an elder’s fondness toward a junior. “Well, boy, I still haven’t heard your names. My name is Long Zhentian,” he introduced himself, smiling.

But as soon as he did, Rihai, Cang Song, and Hui Lang looked strangely at the old dragon and then at Aotian, who felt his eye twitch.

The old man’s name basically meant Dragon Who Shakes the Heavens, which was quite similar in terms of arrogance, but still lost a little to Long Aotian, or rather, Proud Dragon of Heaven.

“Ahem!” Aotian coughed into his fist, to hide the embarrassment. “Well, it’s good to find a kindred spirit around here. My name is Long Aotian,” he introduced himself awkwardly.

The three behind him held themselves back from laughing at his awkward introduction.

But they froze when they saw the old man simply nod seriously.

“Good name! It’s the same name as my grandfather,” the dragon spoke warmly, with a soft and nostalgic look, as if he was having good memories upon hearing the name.

Even Aotian was surprised to hear that and quickly felt more confident because of it, puffing out his chest.

‘Yes, why do I get embarrassed by the super arrogant name I gave myself? One thing was when I was a nobody, but now I’m basically a genius among geniuses, about to enter the Nascent Soul realm before thirty.’

With such a thought, his face brightened.

“That’s good, don’t worry, you don’t need to call me grandfather,” Aotian suddenly spoke with his nose raised, while nodding with clemency toward the old dragon.

“Uh… I wasn’t going to.” The old man was, once again, speechless seeing the boy start talking nonsense again.

Rihai, beside him, slapped her forehead helplessly, for what seemed like the tenth time that day. Only her husband would dare joke like that in front of a Tribulation Transcendent.

A certain old man inside a necklace also could not help but look with a sense of camaraderie toward the dragon.

‘Stay strong, friend, this boy can drive even an immortal crazy.’

Aotian laughed quietly at their reactions.

It was at that moment that the little girl reappeared, passing through the corridor with a pile of books floating behind her.

Everyone felt their mouths twitch when they saw the quantity.

There were at least thirty books there.

Even Aotian looked speechless at the little girl, but he was also happy.

“Little sister, you’re adorably amazing!” he praised sincerely, clapping happily.

Compliments cost nothing, but they could pay for three dozen books.

“Ah! That… well, ahem! Thank you!”

The little girl froze, blushed, and in the end coughed into her fist while happily accepting the compliments and landing on the ground with her little nose raised, full of confidence.

“Big brother, these are the inheritances I brought. Since, for participants, we cannot hand over any inheritance other than the ones created by the Dragon Sovereign, at least not before the heir gains complete authority, the variety is not very large, so I could only bring these few.”

She explained helplessly, which only made everyone look even more stunned. Apparently, she brought thirty only because she could only bring thirty, otherwise she would have brought much more.

The dragon girl, blinking her large bright eyes, did not care about what they thought.

She extended her little index finger toward the books floating behind her, which then, as if they had received a command, suddenly opened, with golden patterns shining on them, and at the same instant, spat green rays of light from their pages that flew directly toward Aotian.

As soon as they reached in front of him, they instantly stopped, finally revealing their appearances. Exactly thirty high-quality jade slips floated calmly there.

Aotian smiled and waved his palm over them, storing the slips in his storage ring, while listening to the little dragon girl. 

She placed a finger on her lower lip in thought as she narrated.

“In total, there is the complete inheritance created by my master of the four main arts, Alchemy, Forging, Talismans, and Formations, ranging from Refiner-Tier to Void-Tier.”

“There are also inheritances of Puppet creation, music, swordsmanship, the cultivation technique that the sovereign himself used, and finally, twenty-seven spells, all also going up to Void-Tier, which is what your current maximum Authority can receive.”

She narrated in succession, but Aotian began blinking in confusion at the end.

“Wait, I have a question.”

He quickly stopped her, with a large question mark appearing in his mind, and a serious look of doubt.

“I understand the inheritances of cultivation arts, even the inheritance about sword mastery and spells is understandable, after all, spiritual beasts can assume human form and shouldn’t have much trouble learning that, especially one as strong and talented as the Dragon Sovereign, a Mahayana, but… where did this cultivation technique come from?”

Aotian asked, perplexed. Beasts could not cultivate, having to rely on their bloodline and natural growth… well, except those from the Infinite Dao Sect, which had extremely powerful body refinement techniques that transcended species.

But the point was, why could the Dragon Sovereign use a cultivation technique?

The little girl and Old Long exchanged surprised looks at the question and then looked at him with amusement.

“Silly, the Dragon Sovereign wasn’t a real dragon. He was a human.” The girl laughed, amused as she understood the misunderstanding he had.

The four disciples of the Infinite Dao Sect were shocked by the revelation.

Beside them, Old Long smiled gently and explained to them.

“Big sister is telling the truth. The sovereign is indeed a human, but when he was little, his mother, at death’s door, entrusted us with the task of raising him, and he was always grateful and proud of that. That’s why he took on such a title, being a human of flesh, but a dragon of soul.”

“But if he had really been a dragon, it would have been impossible for him to reach the Mahayana realm.”

Old Long explained with a faint smile, but a bit of sadness and helplessness appeared in his eyes when he said the final sentence.

“Huh? Why is that?” Aotian was surprised and quickly asked.

“Hmm… well, that’s because only a divine physique can reach the Mahayana rank, and beasts don’t have spiritual roots to inherit such a physique.” The dragon shook his head bitterly.

This time, Aotian took a deep breath upon hearing the news and quickly exchanged a discreet glance with Rihai, who seemed equally attentive. Both of them knew they were finally about to discover the truth.

Liu Taixuan, inside the necklace, also knew this and closed his eyes with complicated feelings, but did not stop them from discovering it anymore.

Deep down, he no longer doubted the Infinite Dao Sect and Aotian, so if they were going to find out, then so be it. He could only pray that his judgment was not wrong.

“Senior, is it because of the Dao rhymes in the divine root? Why is that important?” Aotian asked, swallowing hard.

“You even know about that?”

Old Long was a little surprised, but then he shrugged.

“Well, it’s not a big deal that you know.”

“For you to understand better, you have to know that, when we reach the end of the Tribulation Transcendence realm, there is no more path ahead. It’s not like the previous realms, where you build a foundation, stay in a stronger spiritual vein, and then, relying on higher-level energy, open the path to a higher realm.”

“No, there is no energy higher than the seventh level in this world, or rather, there is. And that is Dao energy, which they say is the energy of immortals. But it is only born once every million years as a blessing of the world, and those are the divine roots.”

“That is why, throughout history, all Mahayanas were the divine roots of their generation.”

He explained simply, but his eyes were slightly lost, with longing and nostalgia for that divine realm he would never reach.

But for Aotian, his words were like lightning striking his mind.

The puzzle had finally clicked into place.

The need for Dao rhymes to advance, the Silent Cadaver Orchid that can suck the complete essence of a body, the madness of the cultivators who killed Rihai’s father, and finally, the memory of Lei Yun, a reborn Mahayana, who actually understood nothing about the Dao.

‘So that’s it! The people of this world are not familiar with the Dao, so they always saw it as a type of superior energy, and not as a pursuit of understanding about the world around them!’

‘For them, who always depended on a stronger ambient energy at each advancement, they would never imagine that, in the end, to keep advancing, what was needed was not that, but understanding!’

‘Of course, I could be wrong and, in this universe, the Dao really is a superior energy, as they said, having nothing to do with understanding, but I doubt it. When I talked about my understanding of the Dao, Lei Yun immediately entered an epiphany.’

‘With the knowledge I inherited from him, although they are only some perceptions of that realm, since he didn’t have many, which now I understand why, I can almost confirm that the Dao has to be comprehended, not actually needing Dao rhymes for such a task!’

‘That is also why I did not obtain any major additional insight into the Mahayana realm from Lei Yun’s feedback — only some insights about superior energy control and updates to Transcendent-Tier techniques to adapt to a stronger and more lively energy, which I mistakenly judged as being Mahayana-Tier. That happened because he simply used the Dao rhymes within his body to forcefully advance his realm, without truly understanding anything.’

‘The Dragon Sovereign’s techniques here, of Mahayana-Tier, must be the same thing, just some techniques that do not have real Dao comprehension inserted into them!’

At that point, Aotian almost laughed in disbelief at what he had concluded.

‘So, in the end, there are no more Mahayanas in this world… because of misunderstandings?!’

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep