Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Through his heart’s eye, Li Guanqi watched the events unfold with cold satisfaction. The elder’s punishment of Zhao Yuanlin seemed pointless to him, yet he made no move to intervene. As long as Zhao Yuanlin got beaten up, he was satisfied.

The Thunder Whip tore into Zhao Yuanlin’s flesh, splitting his skin and scorching it black with rising smoke.

“Ah! Stop it! No... why?! What right do you have to hit me?! Ah!! Help! Don’t... don’t hit me.”

His cries echoed across the space as Xu Zhengjie whipped him seven times.

“Zhao Yuanlin! A Heavenly Spirit Root means nothing when paired with such a vile character. The Daxia Sword Sect will never accept someone like you!”

Zhao Yuanlin lay on the ground, his breathing shallow. His gaze remained fixed on Li Guanqi.

Li Guanqi had an idea and said, “In that case, dear Elders, why don’t you let me test my spirit root?”

He stepped in front of the Spirit Root Testing Crystal. He turned to look at Zhao Yuanlin, who lay on the ground like a dying dog. “You want to see whether a beggar like me has a spirit root, don’t you? Well then, keep your eyes open... Don’t you dare blink!”

He was doing this to completely shatter Zhao Yuanlin’s pitiful ego.

As for calling himself a beggar... Li Guanqi did not even care about revealing this so-called “weakness.” If he showed a weakness on his own, it was no longer considered a weakness. In the world of cultivation, capability was number one.Meng Linhai fell silent too. Heavenly Metal Peak had just lost a disciple with a Heavenly Spirit Root. However, his expression also darkened as he recalled the sect rules. Someone with such a rotten character has no place among us.

Xu Zhengjie looked directly at Li Guanqi, his voice low but firm. “Alright! Test him! Even if you have a Triple Mixed Spirit Root, the Heavenly Lightning Peak will take you in!”

Li Guanqi smiled and walked up to the crystal ball under the watchful gazes of the crowd. He took a deep breath. Even Li Guanqi did not know what his spirit root was.

He held the crystal ball in his palm, and the whole plaza fell silent.

Throughout the years, he’d always sensed that his grandfather, Su Xuan, was incredibly powerful. Su Xuan’s effort in gathering herbs for him suggested his spirit root must be decent, if nothing else. Also, based on the way those herbs glowed, he knew they must have been valuable.

Zhao Yuanlin pursed his lips and stared at the transparent crystal ball.

Eight-colored lights danced and flowed within the ball as it tested his spirit root. The final color and brightness would determine his spirit root and potential.

In a few breaths’ time, the lights danced faster.

There was a sudden cracking sound, and the crystal ball shattered.

Everyone in the plaza exchanged glances.

Zhao Yuanlin pointed at Li Guanqi and laughed like a madman. “Hahaha! Trash! You’re trash! Even the Spirit Root Test Crystal broke! You’re not even fit to have a Triple Mixed Spirit Root! You’re nothing but ill-fated scum! Scum!”

His insults sparked outrage in the crowd—many among them possessed Triple Mixed Spirit Roots themselves, and a lot of them would still earn recruitment into the sect based on the crystal ball’s readings.

Meng Linhai furrowed his brow. His impression of Zhao Yuanlin had reached rock bottom. He raised his hand and shot a golden light, sealing Zhao Yuanlin’s mouth. “Enough of this nonsense!”

Li Guanqi was also stunned by the incident. He scratched his head awkwardly. “Uh... I don’t know why this thing exploded on its own. I don’t need to pay for it, do I?”

The elders seemed to recall something, exchanging meaningful glances. Each saw the same disbelief mirrored in the others’ eyes.

Meng Linhai froze when he saw their expressions. His Adam’s apple trembled. “Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?!”

Lan He, the female elder of Heavenly Water Peak, soared into the sky and commanded, “Quickly! Bring the Spirit Root Testing Stele!”

The group of elders erupted into chaos. Everyone else was confused.

Eldest Senior Brother Zhou Zhi from the outer sect muttered to himself, “Could he have a King Spirit Root, which is better than the Heavenly Spirit Root?”

“Could it be true?” Jiang Su whispered in astonishment. “The last time the King Spirit Root appeared was twelve years ago.”

Zhou Zhi nodded slightly and replied, “That’s right. That was Wu Bing—now the Eldest Senior Brother and the sect master’s direct disciple. I heard he is currently in a closed-door cultivation retreat, attempting a breakthrough to reach the Golden Core Realm. If he succeeds within three years, he’ll achieve Golden Core cultivation at merely thirty years of age!”

The elders looked at Li Guanqi differently now. Even the second elder of Heavenly Lightning Peak, Xu Zhengjie, had greed in his eyes.

Shortly after, four inner sect disciples of the Foundation Building Realm arrived. They carried a black stone stele about one zhang long and ascended the dais.

The black stele weighed thousands of jins and had many names carved on it. A closer look revealed that each name had King Spirit Root inscribed next to it—save for one.

At the very top of the list stood a solitary name marked by an inscription so ancient that it had not appeared in ten thousand years.

Li Guanqi approached the stele nonchalantly, pressing his palms against two carved handprints in the stone.

A humming sound filled the air, the stone stele trembled, and eight-colored lights lit up everything within a radius of hundreds of zhang.

Then, the lights disappeared and left behind a white light.

The elders frowned when they saw the white light. “Does he have no spirit root? Why did the Spirit Root Testing Crystal explode, then?”

But the light intensified until it bathed the entire Daxia Sword Sect. The light even extended a thousand zhang into the sky.

The powerful white light turned even the pitch-black stele completely white.

A strange voice appeared in Li Guanqi’s mind.

“State the candidate’s name.”

“Li Guanqi.”

An invisible ripple surged outward, spanning a hundred li in all directions.

Then, the winds howled, and the clouds whirled as countless colorful lights orbited around the sect. They swam like colorful ribbons in the air, bringing with them a mysterious aura.

The strange phenomenon shocked everyone. Then, one by one, the disciples erected protective arrays in the air to prevent outsiders from peeking in.

Li Guanqi’s name materialized at the bottom of the stele. It quickly climbed up the stele until it reached the first person’s name.

The elders watched in shock as Li Guanqi’s name soared past the name that had not moved for ten thousand years, settling at the very top.

A row of gleaming golden characters materialized as the stele spirit’s voice resonated through the space.

“Li Guanqi, Saint Spirit Root. Empty Spirit Root.”

No one knew what to do, and many were confused.

“What did it say? Empty Spirit Root? Doesn’t that mean he has no spirit root at all? How could that qualify as a Saint Spirit Root?”

Amid the crowd’s noisy discussion, Zhao Yuanlin fixed his gaze on Li Guanqi, who stood calmly on the dais.

Ignoring everyone’s confusion, the eight elders shamelessly surrounded Li Guanqi and quickly promoted their lineages..

“Choose fire! Choose fire! It’s very destructive, and I can teach you how to forge weapons! Or refine pills!”

Meng Linhai panicked and knocked the elder with bushy eyebrows away. “Move! Our Metal Lineage has the most destructive power! Swordsmen are especially suited to the Metal Lineage—it’ll be like adding wings to a tiger![1].”

“Choose Water! The Heavenly Water Peak is an all-female peak! It’ll be easy for you to find a cultivation partner!”

“Choose Earth! We... Earth... Sigh, I’ll take you in as my closed-door disciple! I’ll give you my monthly allowance!”

“Come to the Heavenly Wood Peak! I’ll get the peak master to take you in as his closed-door disciple!”

A gentle cough interrupted the clamor. It was Qin Xian, the sect’s disciplinarian. He said solemnly, “I wouldn’t be opposed to taking a disciple myself.”

In their frenzy, the eight elders disregarded his position as the disciplinarian. One of them cried out, “You haven’t taken a disciple in five hundred years! What could you possibly teach? Ah... no offense intended. Please don’t hold this against me later.”

“Peak Master! Hurry up and come here! Enough with the closed-door cultivation! There’s a disciple with a Saint Spirit Root here! If you’re late, you won’t get him!”

“Big Brother! Get out of your retreat! Come here and fight for your disciple!”

In an instant, countless streaks of light—each one a person—shot forth from behind the mountain.

Li Guanqi felt himself pulled in every direction by countless hands. Even his robes began to tear.

Then came a stern cry.

The group stiffened and stood quietly.

A man in blue robes arrived with a streak of light beneath his feet. He had an immortal quality with sharp brows and a determined expression.

This was Lu Kangnian, the sect master of the Daxia Sword Sect and a Perfect Nascent Soul Realm cultivator!

1. Idiom. It means to improve something that is already good