Shrouding the Heavens: The Ultimate Daoist Venerable

Chapter 494 Quasi-Emperor
"Abandoning the heavens? What a bold move. I sensed your presence decades ago, and I never imagined that after all these years, you could still stand shoulder to shoulder with me. It seems I won't be lonely on the ultimate ancient path."

"The Son of Light said while healing his own injuries," he said.

Qitian glanced at the Son of Light and said, "Light, you are the only person in this era who can compete with me. Right now, I am at my peak, while you have suffered considerable injuries. If I were to take action directly, I could probably eliminate you, the greatest threat."

"Aren't you afraid I'll kill you and end the battle for enlightenment prematurely?"

The God of Light laughed and said, "I bet you're not that kind of person, Brother Dao."

Emotionally speaking, the Son of Light naturally did not want his only formidable enemy, whom he was not confident of defeating, to be someone who would take advantage of his vulnerability and win unfairly.

Although he appeared to possess a gloomy aura, the Prince of Light only sensed pain and sorrow within him. Therefore, the Prince of Light was willing to believe in him.

Rationally speaking, although those who have attained enlightenment throughout history have varied in personality, they have all basically possessed a magnanimous spirit of "if not me, then who?" They may use tricks and schemes, but they will never refuse a challenge.

It's highly unlikely that someone like Qitian, who harbors an invincible ambition, would do such a thing.

Moreover, in this era where cultivation is difficult, becoming a Great Sage is already a challenging process, making it hard to increase speed and requiring a great deal of time to accumulate experience.

It is very difficult to accumulate enough experience before the end of one's peak lifespan and make the final leap.

Therefore, the external opportunities that led to the ultimate ancient path, as well as the healthy competition between the two of them, were also important conditions for completing the accumulation.

If Qitian wanted to attain enlightenment in this lifetime, he shouldn't have eliminated the Son of Light so early.

Therefore, although the Son of Light was gambling, he was still very confident.

Qi Tian smiled slightly upon hearing this: "I am truly flattered that Fellow Daoist Guangming trusts me so much."

He didn't make a move, but instead concealed himself, secretly protecting the Son of Light. He truly didn't want this opponent to die like this.

Qi Tian was confident that he was no weaker than him and needed him as a rival to help him improve. But that wasn't necessarily the case for others.

Their talents are not that high, so they may use various means to prevent those with higher talents from successfully attaining enlightenment, including but not limited to threatening the family and friends of these potential enlightened individuals to force them to comply.

Therefore, abandoning the heavens was also to prevent others from harming the Son of Light.

Soon, the followers of the Son of Light gathered around, releasing their auras to intimidate the other unscrupulous individuals who were arriving later.

Seeing that the Son of Light was safe, Qitian quietly left.

The God of Light said in the direction he had left, "Thank you for your help, fellow Daoist."

Qitian did not respond and disappeared into the ultimate ancient road.

The followers of the Son of Light couldn't help but ask, "Brother, who are you talking to?"

The Prince of Light said, “When we first came here, I told you that I sensed a formidable enemy who could rival me.” “I just saw him. He was willing to protect me, his greatest threat, which shows he is an upright and honorable man. He has just left, so I thank him.”

With Qi Tian deliberately concealing his aura, even the followers of the Light God could not judge Qi Tian's strength. They regarded him as a normal competitor to enter the ultimate ancient road, and did not expect that he was the peerless genius that the Light God had mentioned several times.

After learning the details, these people couldn't help but exclaim, "He accomplished his task and left without a trace, concealing his identity and fame. What a true hero!"

Soon, the Son of Light fully recovered and stepped into the ultimate ancient path with his followers.

Due to the era, only about seventy cultivators entered the ultimate ancient road trial in this round, which is naturally a very small number.

However, in this era, this number is considered normal.

Of course, the current record for the fewest participants in the Ultimate Ancient Road Trials is from the end of the Mythological Era, which is the era of Yuanshi Tianzun.

The Primordial Celestial Venerable, who had not yet attained enlightenment, stood guard in front of the crystal tablet, blocking most of the trial participants from entering the ultimate ancient road. As a result, despite it being a top-tier world, only thirty-six people successfully entered the ultimate ancient road.

Therefore, although the number of the Light God Child and the Abandoned Heaven is small this time, it is still far from the lowest level in history.

Unlike the previous lives, in this life, because the laws of the Great Dao are not manifest, the speed of cultivation will become very slow once you reach the Great Saint Realm.

Therefore, the cultivation speed of these prodigies was naturally not very fast. Even the Divine Child of Light and the Abandoned Heaven could not achieve rapid breakthroughs.

However, they can steadily improve, while other geniuses will be stuck halfway due to their limited talents and find it difficult to continue to progress.

The principle of maintaining a solid foundation while rapidly improving one's cultivation level is no longer applicable. Their biggest challenge is how to continue progressing based on their own talent in the face of the obscuring Great Dao of Heaven and Earth.

However, in this life, many people are not here to attain enlightenment, but to rely on the various opportunities in the ultimate ancient path to continuously improve themselves, and ultimately become powerful and bring glory to their ancestors.

So even though their progress was slow and they had clearly fallen behind compared to the Son of Light and the Abandoned Heaven, not many people gave up.

Under such circumstances, these prodigies clearly began to stratify. Only those who could barely keep up under the leadership of the Divine Child of Light and the Abandoned Heaven still held onto the hope of exploring the path to enlightenment. Most of them had long since given up on enlightenment and instead pursued becoming quasi-emperors.

After all, if it weren't for Qitian and the Divine Child of Light, they could still deceive themselves by saying that the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth influenced them, preventing them from attaining enlightenment.

But with these two young ancient emperors who could still demonstrate amazing potential in the same environment, this kind of psychological constructiveness or self-deception was no longer effective.

Time flies, and five hundred years have passed in the blink of an eye. The Divine Child of Light and the Abandoned Heaven have been fighting fiercely and have finally reached the peak of the Great Sage through mutual exchange and learning. This has triggered a great calamity, and they have begun to strive for the realm of Quasi-Emperor.

Under the influence of the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, the cultivation speed of these two young ancient emperors could not be accelerated.

However, at this point, only the two of them could continue to progress, with almost no more bottlenecks. Everyone else had gotten stuck at various stages of the Great Saint Realm, not even reaching the peak of the Great Saint Realm, let alone becoming Quasi-Emperors like the two of them.

As for whether they can continue to improve after becoming quasi-emperors, they themselves are not very confident.

(End of this chapter)