Chapter 1

"Sis! The sect is recruiting new disciples today, are you going to watch?"

Just as Mingmei was thinking about what to do next, there were no footsteps, only a familiar scent of sweet cooking smoke wafted into her nose. Immediately afterward, a girl about her age pounced on her from behind.

"Xiao Jiu."

Mingmei looked at the girl in front of her with double buns, bright ribbons tied on her hair that shimmered with a flowing red light in the sun. Her gaze then went down, meeting the girl's face, which resembled her own by seventy percent, and her voice unconsciously softened.

Even if the Mei Jiu in front of her was just an NPC created in the game, it was enough to comfort her heart, which had been missing Mei Jiu for a long time.

Heaven favored her, but also placed more restrictions on her, preventing her from leaving that world.

"You went to the Spirit Food Hall again?"

Looking at the sesame seed on her lips, Mingmei remembered the scent she had just smelled and guessed what Mei Jiu had been up to.

Unlike other sects, Jingyun Mountain didn't advocate abstaining from grains. After all, with her father, a master of eating his way to enlightenment, half a step away from becoming a god, who would dare say that eating was a waste of time?

The Spirit Food Hall was simply the cafeteria, where the disciples of Jingyun Mountain ate.

"Didn't Father say that people from other sects would be coming today? I just wanted to see if they would prepare more delicious food~"

"So, while Father and the others went to see the head disciple, you were sneaking food and got crumbs all over your mouth?" Mingmei reached out to wipe the corners of NPC Mei Jiu's mouth.

"Sister is the best~ Will you keep it a secret for me? I'll take you to eat with me next time~"

Mei Jiu's smile had a pair of adorable dimples, making her look like a warm little sun, attracting everyone's attention.

After being closed off for so long, Jingyun Mountain was about to become lively again starting today.

Mingmei looked at Mei Jiu's happy appearance and remembered Mei Jiu's fate: Phoenix.

Mei Jiu was born with natural immortal bones and was favored by the heavens.

Some said that her birth meant that every breath she took in this world was cultivation. Even if she neglected cultivation, as long as she lived long enough, she could ascend to immortality.

In addition, when they were born as twins, there were auspicious signs from the heavens. Even though her father had made preparations in advance, he couldn't hide the heaven's announcement of its love.

Where there is a phoenix, there is naturally a dragon.

Since Mei Jiu's birth, the number of geniuses born in this world had been far greater than before.

In the past, a genius would appear every few centuries, but since Mei Jiu's birth, countless geniuses had emerged among those born after her or those who started cultivating after her, as if they were free for all.

And now, taking advantage of Jingyun Mountain's recruitment of disciples, the five righteous sects had brought over the little geniuses who were about the same age as Mei Jiu.

It was as if they were saying: if you want to find a partner, you have to start young.

After all, there was competition even among geniuses. If you could be recognized by the Phoenix Maiden, whose destiny was to become a god, wouldn't you be the genius among geniuses?

Wouldn't the probability of ascending to godhood be higher then?

Anyway, Mingmei had forgotten how many people had come that day, but she remembered that she hadn't heard anything about Xiao Jiu taking a fancy to any young man when she left with her parents.

"Sister, I've noticed that you've been spacing out a lot today~ Is it because it's too boring on this mountain?" Mei Jiu keenly sensed that the person in front of her was not in a good mood today.

"No, it's just that I think the sect will be very noisy in the future, and I don't like noise." Mingmei shook her head, feeling a little blocked in her heart.

For some reason, she felt that her personality, which she had managed to cultivate to be a little more lively, seemed to have become a bit more dull again.

She felt a little world-weary, which didn't seem like a good sign.

…

"Where's my brother?"

Lu Xiaoyao stood at the top of the Heart-Questioning Stairway, looking at the people around her, who were almost half as many as at the foot of the mountain, and her heart instantly panicked.

Zhen Po was not far from her, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

The illusion just now was too terrifying.

Zhen Po seemed to have returned to that night, his and his brother's birthday. After his father received a message on his optical brain, he left home without stopping for a moment. Later that night, his mother and sister took him and his brother to the starship leaving the planet. That night was filled with people, sobs, and the sound of explosions in space after the starship took off.

Those memories that he thought he had forgotten flooded back into his mind once again.

"Zhen Po, did you see my brother?" Lu Xiaoyao went up to him and asked in a low voice. However, what she thought was a low voice was no different than speaking loudly to the keen-eared cultivators.

A Jingyun Mountain disciple, dressed in snow-white brocade with silver thread embroidery, looked at Lu Xiaoyao and said, "Those who are not present at this time have failed the Heart-Questioning Trial and will naturally go down the mountain."

"Ah? Can I go down the mountain to see?"

"Going down the mountain now means giving up your qualification for entry. Do you want to go down the mountain?" Seeing the other person look at her with a hint of surprise, Lu Xiaoyao suddenly became a little unsure.

Her task at this time was to enter the immortal cultivation sect.

"Then… will the people who go down the mountain be safe?" Lu Xiaoyao's question was not answered by the other person, but she received a very disgusted look.

It was as if the other person was asking, "What do you think we are?"

Lu Xiaoyao was too embarrassed to ask anything else.

But after thinking about it, she still asked, "Where will they go when they go down the mountain?"

"They can go wherever they want. Could it be that we still have to worry about a group of outsiders who haven't entered the sect?"

"Oh…"

Lu Xiaoyao suddenly felt that these cultivators were really indifferent.

But when she turned her head and looked at the others, they seemed to feel nothing about it. Instead, everyone was immersed in the joy of passing the test.

"Then what do we do next?"

Lu Xiaoyao didn't want to ask these cold cultivators anymore, so she asked Zhen Po. Zhen Po had already chatted with other NPCs and knew a lot, so he replied, "Next is to test your spiritual root talent, right? Then, based on your own situation, you'll be assigned to different places, right?"

"Oh~ I see."

The process was much simpler than she thought.

But on second thought, that's right. After going through this Heart-Questioning Stairway, which was comparable to a "political review," what else was there to worry about?

The only thing to worry about was probably her own aptitude.

When Lu Xiaoyao received the assessment of her spiritual root talent and was given a mid-to-low grade assessment, Lu Xiaoyao was not happy.

"No, no way? Dual spiritual roots are considered mid-to-low grade?" Along the way, Lu Xiaoyao had already suspected that the information in her identity profile, which said that she was a well-known genius in her family, was false.

However, the old man holding Hu Xu's assessment didn't seem surprised by Lu Xiaoyao's question, so he said, "If this were a hundred years ago, your aptitude could barely be considered mid-grade, but now…"

He didn't say it too clearly, but the old man's shaking head proved that she was not good enough.