"It's only been a few minutes! I didn't notice what happened!"
"I wasn't paying attention either, I was only looking at Senior Brother Chen's side..."
"Who is this person? He looks unfamiliar. He seems to have just broken through to the mid-Foundation Establishment stage. He looks rather ordinary, but he must be extraordinary to have won so quickly."
"Even those arenas for late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators are still in the midst of battle, which shows that this person is definitely not simple."
"Could he be a low-profile disciple of some aristocratic family?"
"That's probably it. It's the fastest victory in a century."
Among the crowd, Xu Hua snorted coldly at a cultivator who looked like a young woman. While the others hadn't paid attention to Lin Xiuyuan and didn't know what had happened earlier, she had seen it all clearly.
Moreover, she had a fairly good understanding of Lin Xiuyuan's strength.
"Ha, what a despicable person. Despite his obvious strength, he acted like a weakling, then launched a powerful counterattack, catching everyone off guard. What a shameless scoundrel..."
The commotion below caused a stir among the disciples, creating a small commotion that naturally attracted the attention of the elders on the high platform.
"Is this the rogue cultivator from thirty years ago? He seems to be a member of the Zhou family, right? Not bad, not bad."
Deacon Huang looked in surprise toward Lin Xiuyuan, his eyes showing a hint of appreciation, and he couldn't help but nod in praise.
These words attracted the attention of many people, including Sect Leader Shen and Deacon Wu, who all turned their gazes toward Lin Xiuyuan.
Although they had been observing the other arenas, the divine sense of the Purple Mansion stage experts was incredibly powerful, covering almost all fifty arenas. They only focused on observing a few arenas, and for the others, they simply used their powerful divine sense to cover them first, and understood them clearly when they withdrew.
At this moment, with a slight shift of his divine sense, he clearly knew everything that had happened on Lin Xiuyuan's arena.
Sect Leader Shen shook his head slightly and said, "It's just some petty tricks, nothing special. He was originally a talisman master, right? It seems he obtained some kind of secret talisman technique in the outside world in his early years and activated ten spirit talismans at once to seize the initiative. There's nothing remarkable about it, just some cleverness!"
However, after pausing, Sect Leader Shen nodded and gave a fair assessment, saying, "However, it is clear that this young man is not simple. The three of us saw him in the main hall before. He performed well in the Heart-Questioning Formation, with a dense white light around him, which shows that his Dao heart is stable. Only some ancient figures have had such outstanding performances. It's just that his aptitude seems to be average?"
"But now it seems he's quite extraordinary. To break through to the mid-Foundation Establishment stage in just thirty years, going from a new disciple to someone competing for a spot in the main branch—not bad at all. If his methods were even more advanced, and he used spirit talismans, he might just become a main branch disciple in one fell swoop. In that case, he'd certainly be a rising star, making a name for himself in the main branch!"
Although for cultivators with three or more spiritual roots, it normally takes about twenty or thirty years to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage.
However, as newly recruited disciples, they possess inherited Taoist cultivation methods and various superior spells. Basically, without forty or fifty years of experience, they wouldn't have the ability to participate in the Grand Competition. Even accumulating experience generally requires one or two decades of refinement, mastering their own Taoist techniques and stabilizing their cultivation. Otherwise, they would be defeated as soon as they entered the arena, naturally eliminating the possibility of accumulating experience.
Lin Xiuyuan's aura clearly indicates that he recently broke through to the mid-Foundation Establishment stage, yet he has already mastered the Dao of Spirit Talismans, successfully crafting a high-powered, mid-grade initial-level spirit talisman. Presumably, he's also proficient in other spells; otherwise, he wouldn't have come to participate in the competition.
In the eyes of Sect Leader Shen and Deacon Huang, although Lin Xiuyuan's aptitude was relatively ordinary and could not compare with those geniuses, he seemed to have an extremely good talent in the Dao of Talismans. He had already refined a very high-quality first-grade mid-level spirit talisman after breaking through to the mid-Foundation Establishment stage.
As for his comprehension of Taoist principles, it's not clear yet, but I estimate he won't be too bad.
Regardless of anything else, based solely on his talent in talismanic arts, Lin Xiuyuan was already considered a prodigy in their eyes, and he was expected to excel within the Lingxiao lineage in the future.
That's why Steward Huang kept saying it was right, and why Sect Leader Shen nodded in approval.
At this moment.
After securing his first victory, Lin Xiuyuan slowly walked back to the front and sat down cross-legged.
He naturally felt the gazes from all directions converging on him, but this was not his intention; in fact, it had backfired.
"This junior brother is truly skilled. He won so quickly, even faster than those in the late Foundation Establishment stage."
“In the past, in cases like this, we usually ended up securing one of the thirty spots.”
"Looks like it's time to congratulate my junior brother in advance?"
Lin Xiuyuan sighed inwardly. The saying "People fear becoming famous, just as pigs fear growing fat" perfectly describes the current situation.
Regardless of whether he could have seized the initiative so easily that time, everyone in this competition would probably treat him as a formidable opponent.
I'm afraid they'll go all out from the very beginning.
It's clear that winning the next few rounds of the competition won't be so easy for Lin Xiuyuan; he'll need to use up a large number of spirit talismans...
But as I said before, it wasn't my intention; it really backfired.
Who would have thought the opponent would admit defeat so easily... By sheer coincidence, they bumped into a cultivator who came to gain experience and participated in the competition with a try-it-out attitude!
At that moment, Lin Xiuyuan could only cup his hands in a gesture of respect and say modestly, "It was just luck, just luck..."
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