[You couldn’t care less about the jeers from those around you.]

[A bunch of young whippersnappers in their teens and twenties, mocking a big shot who has lived four lives and is currently at the Martial King Realm?]

[How amusing.]

[If it weren’t for the rumor that becoming a Saint meant the Holy Land would definitely help you step into the Martial King Realm, you wouldn’t even bother participating in this Saint Selection Ceremony.]

[Joining the Holy Land through regular channels would be the same anyway.]

[Thankfully, the Free and Unfettered Holy Land didn’t say anything.]

[After all, they themselves stated that the only requirement to participate was being "under thirty years old." There was no rule saying those with mediocre talent couldn’t join.]

[Soon after, another group of prodigies took the stage.]

[These were the internal Saint and Saintess candidates of the Free and Unfettered Holy Land.]

[They didn’t need to participate in the earlier rounds of selection; they were already candidates, so many of them were already over thirty years old.]

[You need to compete with the first group first to snag a candidate spot, and then ultimately vie for the positions of Saint and Saintess against all the other candidates.]

[Among the Saintess candidates from within the Free and Unfettered Holy Land, you saw a woman who looked like your Second Sister—Wu Yue.]

[Even amidst a group of radiant prodigies, Wu Yue’s bearing was transcendent and ethereal, making it impossible to look away.]

[From the chatter of the people around, you heard she was also a strong contender for the next generation’s Saintess, and many had high hopes for her.]

[Wu Yue glanced at you a couple of times more than the others, probably because she thought you looked a bit like Yi Qianjun—the one who didn’t understand romance she’d met in the Starry Domains a few years ago.]

["It seems no more outstanding talents will be joining. Allow me to announce that this grand ceremony is officially beginning!"]

["Bang, bang, bang…"]

[All around Yunshu Island, tens of thousands of massive fireworks shot into the sky, bursting into a riot of colors, signaling the official start of the Free and Unfettered Holy Land’s sexagenary grand event.]

[The Holy Land first conducted a bone-age test on the hundred participants of the selection.]

[Unsurprisingly, no one had lied; the ages they reported matched their true ones.]

[To become a Saint or Saintess candidate, one had to pass three trials.]

[The first trial: aptitude.]

[The Holy Land wasn’t looking at how high your talent was, meaning they weren’t testing Innate Talent, physique, family background, or the like.]

[But there was no way they’d really pick a useless failure who could work their whole life and never even reach the Spirit Condensation Realm.]

[The aptitude trial would last three years.]

[The Holy Land recorded everyone’s initial cultivation level and then, three years later, recorded their final levels.]

[They would rank everyone based on the total increase in cultivation level during this period and eliminate half of them outright!]

[Something to note:]

[During these three years, all participants were to cultivate on islands arranged by the Holy Land.]

[No one was allowed to use any additional martial resources; they had to rely entirely on natural cultivation.]

["This object is called a Recording Stone. It will record everything that happens around you to prevent cheating. Everyone must carry one, and the Holy Land will verify the recordings after the trial."]

[You and all the other participants were sent to "Strive Island," and each given a crystal-like stone.]

[Someone asked a question.]

["This trial is unfair. Our levels are vastly different; the highest are at the Spirit Sea Realm, while the lowest haven’t even started cultivating! If we’re comparing natural cultivation, how can a Spirit Sea Realm cultivator’s improvement over three years compare to someone who hasn’t even started?"]

[A person from the Holy Land said with a faint smile.]

["How can an improvement from the First Stage of Body Refining to the Ninth Stage be equated with an improvement from the First Layer of Spirit Gathering to the Ninth Layer? The Holy Land has been passed down for over ten thousand years and has long established standard benchmarks for measuring cultivation levels. You needn’t worry about fairness. The Holy Land will not favor anyone. The entire island beneath your feet is actually a massive formation. It will test everyone’s cultivation level once every hour. Now, look at the 'Ranking Stone' in the center of the island…"]

[Standing in the center of Strive Island was a massive stone monument, a kilometer tall, radiating countless strands of auspicious light and boundless brilliance.]

[Displayed on its surface were a hundred names.]

[These were precisely the one hundred people participating in the ceremony’s selection.]

["Everyone’s names are currently arranged randomly. As your cultivation levels increase, the ranking on this stone will update in real-time. Ultimately, the top fifty in the rankings will advance to the next trial. The duration is three years!"]

[Murmurs rose from the crowd.]

["Three years of natural cultivation? What a waste! With family resources supporting me, I could improve much more during those three years!"]

["Only a medicated puppet would be obsessed with resources. True experts rely on their own innate talent to cultivate!"]

["Well said! The cultivation from natural training is the most solid. What you build with resources is just an inflated bubble, fragile and easily crushed!"]

[The prodigies all had different opinions.]

[For them, whether or not they had resource support, the heights they could reach in this lifetime weren’t necessarily low; it was just a matter of time.]

[As for anything above the Martial King Realm, it was no longer about talent or resources but involved mystical factors like opportunity and fate.]

[No matter how much of a genius you were, facing the Martial King Realm was like facing an insurmountable mountain.]

[A ten-thousand-meter mountain and a hundred-thousand-meter mountain were essentially the same.]

[Ninth year. Age: twenty-eight.]

[The Saint Selection Ceremony had officially begun.]

[The geniuses from all sides were diligently cultivating on Strive Island.]

[The names on the Ranking Stone changed every day, everyone chasing and overtaking each other, no one willing to yield.]

["Long Yang is first? Hmph! The Long family is resting on its laurels. Our Ji family has been the number one clan since ancient times! Watch me surpass him!"]

["Me, Baili Su, actually outside the top ten? How is that possible?! Rise for me!!"]

["You’re all just eating my dust back here, hahaha!" said Long Yang.]

[Everyone was busy cultivating.]

[You were busy coasting by on your position.]

[Only the top fifty get through, right?]

[You checked the ranking once a day, and then used "Playing the Pig to Eat the Tiger" to slightly adjust your own aura’s cultivation level, just enough to coast along between fortieth and fiftieth place.]

[You were a master at this kind of operation.]

[Of course, you were also cultivating.]

[However, because of the Recording Stone, it wasn’t convenient for you to enter the Cauldron Realm, and the Free and Unfettered Holy Land wasn’t like the Shen Family, providing resources.]

[You were currently at the Seventh Layer of Spirit Condensation, so trying to improve through natural cultivation was extremely slow.]

[So you were pretty laid back.]

[You cultivated when you felt like it, and when you got bored, you studied formation arrays.]

[The research notes on the eighteen different techniques from the Shen Family Founding Ancestor were all memorized in your mind.]

["Photographic Memory" allowed you to construct a memory palace in your mind, where all sorts of knowledge were preserved like books in a library.]

[You could browse whichever book you wanted to read whenever you felt like it.]

[Your mastery in the Dao of Formations was advancing by leaps and bounds.]

[Tenth year. Age: twenty-nine.]

[You were still coasting by position and studying formations.]

[Among the people participating in the selection, some, seeing their names constantly at the bottom of the rankings, had already voluntarily withdrawn.]

[The fact that someone with your High-Grade Bone Structure could consistently hang on to a qualifying position did catch the attention of some geniuses.]

["That Chen Dong still hasn’t left?"]

["How is the natural cultivation speed of this High-Grade Bone Structure faster than my Earth-Grade Bone Structure? This isn’t martial dao at all!"]

["Does he have some physique like an 'Ascetic Spirit Body'?"]

["Probably not, right? Didn’t the Holy Land test our physiques? Could they have failed to detect it?"]

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