He pondered for a long, long time before finally snapping out of it.
But when he thought of what Nian Wanzhou said about her elixir turning golden, the sect leader became very excited. Didn't that mean she was the first child prodigy on the entire continent to reach the Golden Core stage in just twenty years?
That's way too exaggerated.
"Are you sure it's a golden elixir?" the sect leader asked repeatedly. "It's not that your spiritual power turned golden? Really?"
"Please double-check!"
Nian Wanzhou nodded solemnly: "Sect Master, you can take a look." As she spoke, she stretched out her hand, intending for the Sect Master to use his spiritual power to test her elixir.
The sect leader looked at her outstretched hand thoughtfully. This was too casual; she just showed it to him as she pleased.
"Don't show these things to others so easily in the future, understand? Spirit pills and spiritual veins cannot be exposed to strangers. If they find your weakness and manipulate you, it won't be a good thing," the sect leader earnestly instructed Nian Wanzhou. "You must remember this."
Nian Wanzhou nodded obediently: "Yes, Sect Master, you can see for yourself!"
Yuheng also came over to take a closer look, and even reached out to poke Nian Wanzhou's little face, scolding the child for being disobedient.
The sect leader was inspecting things on this side, while Yuheng was playing with the children on the other side, which made him so angry that he blew his beard and glared at them.
"Can you be quiet! I'm cultivating!" he shouted impatiently. If he weren't currently focused on examining Nian Wanzhou's elixir, he would have thrown Yuheng out long ago.
All they do is cause trouble!
After a long while, he calmed his mind and slowly approached Nian Wanzhou's spiritual vein.
For some reason, Nian Wanzhou's spiritual energy resisted his approach. It took the sect leader quite a bit of time to finally break through and enter when Nian Wanzhou was completely relaxed.
It seems that the little dragon cub has its own protective mechanism, not allowing anyone to easily investigate it. It has changed from being able to be seen by anyone before to having a defensive awareness now.
Not bad, not bad.
The sect leader nodded in satisfaction and continued trying.
"Looking at your spiritual veins, the spiritual energy is abundant, this golden core..." The sect master was shocked. It really was true!
A flawless golden core was displayed before his eyes. The surprise came so quickly that he was caught off guard. The little dragon cub was truly amazing; in just twenty years, he had reached the Golden Core stage, a dream for so many.
"How was it? Sect Master, was it a Golden Core?" Nian Wanzhou looked eager for praise, which made the Sect Master both amused and exasperated.
"Yes, yes, of course!"
"Wow, it really is a Golden Core!" Nan Yu cheered, wiping the ash from her face. "Wanwan, you're amazing!"
Yuheng stared wide-eyed at the sect leader: "Really... really? Sect leader, isn't that a bit too exaggerated?"
Fourth Elder: "What? Golden Core? She... Little White Dragon is at the Golden Core stage?"
The Fourth Elder and several disciples were also completely dumbfounded, finding this utterly shocking!
"No way!?"
"This is too... too unbelievable!"
"My goodness, my junior sister is only twenty years old!"
Sect Leader: ...He doesn't believe it either, but it's true.
"Is it the Golden Core stage, or just the first level of the Golden Core stage? It's absolutely perfect. Yuheng, how come you weren't like this back then! It must have taken you quite a while to reach the Golden Core stage. You've truly surpassed your teacher!"
"...It's best if you don't bring this up again. My daughter is a once-in-a-millennium white dragon, so naturally...she's better than me!" Yuheng was both very proud and embarrassed by having his past exposed. He was just a child back then, how could he compare to the white dragon!
"Golden Core stage... Wanwan, how are you so amazing! You actually reached the Golden Core stage in one go." Nan Yu patted her head, his face full of pride.
"Is this really alright?" The Fourth Elder felt a growing unease, for the speed at which his cultivation had increased was far too astonishing, causing him some concern. "I've seen people achieve such rapid growth through evil cultivation techniques, and I've also seen people accidentally ingest elixirs that caused their cultivation to skyrocket, only to explode and die..."
"The Blood Lotus Pill can indeed increase cultivation level in a short time, but the medicinal materials are scarce. Only extremely rare spiritual plants can enable such a significant breakthrough at once. She... cannot refine it like this."
The Fourth Elder was genuinely worried about Nian Wanzhou, fearing she had eaten something wrong, as the growth rate was indeed too fast.
Nian Wanzhou hurriedly explained, "Fourth Elder, I haven't been taking any pills or other things indiscriminately. Apart from the Nourishing Pill that I refined myself, I only eat things from the sect."
“I can vouch for that. Wanwan doesn’t eat random things. She only does body training, planting herbs, and refining pills. That’s all. Wanwan and I have been here for so long and have never secretly gone down the mountain. She wouldn’t eat anything wrong.” Nan Yu also vouched for her, saying that they hadn’t gone anywhere in the past twenty years.
He spent all his time cultivating in the sect, except for that one time when he was forced to walk around at night.
“Perhaps, Wanwan was born this way.” Yuheng thought about it carefully. There were only two white dragons, so it wasn’t impossible for her to be such a genius.
Nan Yu continued, "In the secret realm, Wanwan behaved very differently from ordinary spirit beasts. At that time, we both thought it was normal, after all, she is a white dragon. It wasn't until we came to the sect and saw everyone's reactions... that we realized she was extraordinary."
“But I didn’t feel anything unusual, and I considered myself an ordinary disciple, so I never paid attention to my changes.” Nian Wanzhou said with some confusion, revealing her pure white spiritual power once again.
To put it bluntly, she always thought she was very ordinary and normal, and she didn't pay much attention to observing herself.
To be more precise...
"You have actually been suppressing your true nature and avoiding your extraordinary changes, so much so that you could have advanced to the Golden Core stage much earlier, but you have been holding back and unwilling to do so." The sect leader's words were like a wake-up call.
Even he himself only just realized what was going on.
He believes that deep down, Nian Wanzhou is probably afraid of this change in herself; she's afraid of being too abnormal and becoming an outcast...
"You have never faced your own heart."
Nian Wanzhou was stunned for a moment when she heard this. It seemed... no. Ever since she learned that she had been reborn in this world, her seemingly relaxed demeanor seemed to be a fear of dying again.
So she lived a silly but happy life.
Seeing Nian Wanzhou's unusually mature demeanor, the sect leader had some doubts. Considering the various strange phenomena she had exhibited in the past, he suspected that the White Dragon might have known something all along.
"I don't know if you've learned something from the Heavenly Dao that's why you've been suppressing yourself, but no matter what, you have to face your own heart." The sect leader said earnestly, drawing out a portion of her spiritual power and placing it on her brow.
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