The Founder of Qi Cultivation, Reincarnates?

All of a sudden Ye Fei shifted his attention to the left of him, as if had sensed something.

Chuckling a bit, he turned back to look down at the stage while saying, “First Elder Lang, I didn’t expect to see you here. Haven’t you moved away from worldly affairs so you could sever your mortal shackles and reach a breakthrough in your Dao Law? That’s why I agreed to appoint you to watch over the Techniques Library in the Inner Academy Sword Pavilion.”

As Ye Fei spoke, the figure of an old man Xi Shen would recognize as the person he saw at the front desk inside the Sword Pavilion Techniques Library, appeared in an illusory projection beside him.

Hearing Ye Fei’s words, First Elder Lang snorted and said, “A bit of snooping on the younger generation once in a while isn’t so bad. I should be the one asking Vice Headmaster why he's here. Have you taken an interest in our second prince?”

Ye Fei was used to this bag of bones ignoring his position as Vice Headmaster of the Sword Pavilion and speaking to him so informally. He let it go since he was technically his senior given his old age.

Looking at Xi Shen, Ye Fei’s eyes flickered a bit as he said, “Did you see the second prince use the Soul Art Illusion?”

First Elder Lang turned to look below and nodded, before saying, “I saw it very clearly. I knew he was going to make massive waves if he becomes a Soul Cultivator given his Supreme-grade soul, but him using only a single zither note to incapacitate four elite Inner Disciple was a slight surprise for me. He hadn’t received the Soul Art long, but he was already strong enough to battle the top disciples in the Inner Academy.”

Ye Fei then added, “What’s even more, he was holding back. Even I can’t fully estimate what level his Soul Arts have reached, but Illusions is my specialty and can say that the illusion he cast was extremely complex, despite it being very simple on the surface. It was able to devour a person’s consciousness and bring them into an illusory realm in their minds where their deepest desires are fulfilled.”

First Elder Lang had a solemn look on his face as he heard Ye Fei's explanation of Xi Shen’s Soul Art manipulation.

“I think people are underestimating the second prince’s talents. Soul Cultivators aren’t so simple. With his affinity for Soul Cultivation, and given the frightening ones I had the misfortune of coming across in this world, he would become an absolute monster for Qi Cultivators if he gets his hands on them...”

Ye Fei smiled a bit and said, “You think so too? But I wonder why he was sent here then. Those techniques you spoke of are well accessible to him in the Divine Star Academy, so why send him here? And his method of recruiting disciples even resembles the Divine Star Academy Music Department's Ten Thousand Illusion Forest, though on a much smaller scale. It was said that their Music Department only accepts disciples who can successfully reach a thousand meters inside. One would have to have strong willpower and mental fortitude to be able to resist those illusions and reach that level. Because of that, not many disciples have been qualified to enter their Department, well, not that many were signing up to join them anyway.”

After that, silence pervade between them before First Elder Lang spoke up and said, “I heard that it was our Head Master that told you to accept him into our Sword Pavilion.”

Ye Fei immediately let out an exhausted sigh at the mention of their Head Master, before saying, “That woman is beyond anyone’s comprehension. It’s obvious the Emperor was planning something by forcing his son into our Academy and the Academy Leader wanted nothing to do with the Royal Family. But she went ahead and made him an Inner Disciple, which ultimately led to this very situation where the second prince is trying to create a Faction. This is going to cause chaos in the Academy since the Seven Major Clans would feel threatened that the Li Royal Family is planning to encroach on what’s theirs.”

First Elder Lang snorted loudly which caused the void around him to tremble slightly, and then said in discontent, “Nothing in this Academy is the property of those Seven Major Clans in the first place. I have no idea why the Academy Leader would sit on the sidelines so passively while watching them leaching their way into every crevice of our Academy. Seeing it makes my blood boil to no end.”

The illusory form of the First Elder had an expression of anger on his face.

Looking down at the stage to see Xi Shen carry out his antics, he turned to Ye Fei and asked, “Since this is going to cause problems in our Academy, are you going to stop the second prince's actions?”

Ye Fei stared at the stage for a moment, before he shook his head and said, “Why should I?” His gaze then glanced towards a few disciples who had just made their way into the crowd, before he continue, “He’s already going to have his hands full, with those who don't wish for him to succeed in the shadows. Plus, unless the Academy is being threatened, then I abstained from interfering with anything relating to the Seven Major Clans.”

Ye Fei then turned to First Elder Lang, and while waving his hands between them he said, “Instead, why don’t we continue our game of chess where we left off?”

A table with a chessboard on it along with two chairs on either side then materialized between them.

Seeing the unfinished game on the chessboard, First Elder Lang frowned as he knew he was on the losing side.

He was going to open his mouth to suggest starting another game, but all of a sudden his pupils dilated into the size of pin needles, as he stared at the chess set in front of him.

The more he looked at it, the more his heart began to race uncontrollably.

Completely shocked, First Elder Lang’s head shot up to stare at Ye Fei.

Seeing the First Elder Lang’s surprised expression, Ye Fei smiled at him with a rather smug expression.

First Elder Lang’s voice then stammered out, “Y-you’ve reached the realm of turning illusions into reality?!”

Ye Fei shrugged his shoulders and took his seat, before he said, “I have made some progress but creating this is somewhat my limit... For now at least.”

Ye Fei’s smile became wider after he said that.

Seeing the smug look on his face, First Elder Lang's heart was filled with indignation at the unfairness of this world.

“This little brat has only been in the early Soul Transformation Realm for a few decades and yet he’s already making so much progress on his chosen Dao Law. I have reached the mid Soul Transformation Realm for nearly a thousand years now and had gone into seclusion numerous times to make even the slightest of progress. The heavens are really unfair to give so much talent to one person, while the rest of us struggle beneath their feet to catch up.”

First Elder Lang let out a defeated sigh in his heart before he begrudgingly sat opposite Ye Fei and continued their unfinished game of chess.

Unsurprisingly, Ye Fei won against him, however, in the second round of the game, First Elder Lang played a brilliant game, showing his tactical experience, and defeated Ye Fei.

Like this, the two played chess in the void while ever so often would look down at the stage below at the show Xi Shen was putting on.

Xi Shen had easily placed the young man under an illusion spell, and he deemed him not fit for his Faction.

As soon as this disciple left, another from the crowd who was in a higher position on the Inner Disciple ranking yelled his desire to try.

All of a sudden, a situation occurred where Sea Expansion Realm disciples in the crowd were competing with each other to see who was higher on the rankings and was going on stage to accept Xi Shen’s challenge. They wanted that Nine Revolutions Pill, and as one disciple fell into Xi Shen’s illusion and lost, another one thinking they could definitely beat Xi Shen’s challenge appeared.

Down in the crowd of disciples, several betting stands had popped out of nowhere to accommodate disciples betting on whether the person who went up on stage would get the pill.

This situation Xi Shen created was slowly starting to spiral out of control, and now news of Xi Shen willing to give anyone on the Inner Disciple Rankings who could beat his challenge, a Nine Revolution Sea Expansion Pill, started to spread among the rankers.

Those on the rankings were now eager to compete in Xi Shen’s challenge after seeing that he hadn’t chosen anyone to join his Faction when they lost. And like this Xi Shen watched as chaos unfolded in the crowd as the rankers in the lower thousand argued with each other on who was the highest on the rankings and was eligible to battle Xi Shen in a ranking match.

As a consequence of this, Xi Shen’s rank on the Inner Disciples Rankings started to go up as he defeated his challengers. But he was more interested in finding members to join his Faction, while at the same time seeing the results of his Soul Arts training.

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Word Count: 1608