"Whether I have the strength to back up my words is something you're going to learn the hard way."
Deng Zhou shot a glare venomous enough to wither a houseplant at Luo Zhen, then grabbed his brother, Deng Xing, and stormed off to the other side of the room.
Luo Zhen didn't even blink. He just reached into his pocket, pulled out another sunflower seed, and cracked it between his teeth. Snap. Spit. Crunch.
In the world of cultivation, perception is a tricky thing. Unless a practitioner actively flares their aura—deliberately broadcasting the density of their spiritual energy—they look just like anyone else. To the naked eye, a master and a novice are indistinguishable. Consequently, Deng Zhou had absolutely no idea what Luo Zhen's cultivation realm actually was. If he had known, he would have likely swallowed his tongue rather than offering such a brazen provocation.
The room slowly filled as the Deng brothers joined the other nervous initiates. The orientation for the Melody Saber Sect was about to begin. Including Luo Zhen, there were six new disciples in total—a small, elite crop.
Opposing them were the "old guard"—over a dozen senior disciples lounging with the casual arrogance of apex predators. They watched the newcomers with heavy-lidded eyes, whispering and pointing like judges at a dog show evaluating the pedigree of stray mutts.
Once the headcount was confirmed, a representative from the senior disciples detached himself from the group and strode to the center of the hall.
He was young—perhaps twenty-seven at most—with the sharp, polished features of someone who has never known a day of hardship. He scanned the row of fresh faces, his gaze lingering on each one just long enough to make them uncomfortable.
"My name is Ma Jinghuan," he said, his voice smooth and practiced. "On behalf of the sect, I welcome you to the fold."
He began to pace, his hands clasped behind his back. "The Melody Saber Sect has strict standards. To even be considered for the Outer Sect, you must satisfy two non-negotiable conditions. First, you must be under the age of thirty-five. Second, your cultivation must have already reached the Early King Level."
He stopped and smiled, though the expression didn't reach his eyes. "In other words, simply by sitting in this room, you have proven yourselves to be the elite. The geniuses among geniuses."
The newcomers sat up a little straighter. Chests puffed out. Egos inflated.
Then, Ma Jinghuan's expression shattered into a sneer.
"I know what you're thinking!" he barked, the sudden volume making several people jump. "You think you're special. You were the golden children of your hometowns, the prodigies, the ones who reached the Nascent Soul King Level while your peers were still playing in the mud."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, dangerous whisper.
"But here is the reality check: The Melody Saber Sect is one of the Four Great Powers of the Qing Province. Do you know what our most abundant resource is? It isn't spirit stones. It isn't ancient scrolls. It is genius."
He resumed his pacing, his voice rising in a crescendo. "You think you're tough? You think your aptitude is heaven-defying? In this sect, in this very room, you are nothing. There are people here who make your talent look like mediocrity."
As the last word left his lips, Ma Jinghuan's body shuddered.
BOOM.
A terrifying, invisible pressure erupted from his core. It wasn't just wind; it was a psychic weight, a heavy blanket of spiritual density that sucked the air out of the room.
"Late King Level!"
The color drained from the faces of the five newcomers. The Deng brothers looked as though they were about to be sick. Only Luo Zhen, still nursing his handful of seeds, remained impassive.
"That's right," Ma Jinghuan gloated, bathing in their fear. "I am at the Late King Level. I entered this sect at twenty-two as an Early King. By twenty-four, I was a Mid King. Now, at twenty-seven, I stand at the summit of the King's realm."
He swept his arm out, dismissing them. "I know how arrogant you fresh recruits are. But bring that ego to me, and I will crush it. Your talent is dust beneath my boots."
The silence that followed was total. The five newcomers were visibly shaken, their eyes wide with a mixture of awe and terror.
In the cultivation world, the King Level is the great filter. It is where the journey transitions from difficult to harrowing. Every minor breakthrough requires mountains of resources and years of grinding meditation. Worse, it requires surviving the Thunder Tribulations—cosmic lightning strikes designed to obliterate the unworthy. One slip, one moment of weakness during a breakthrough, and you don't just fail; you turn to ash.
For Ma Jinghuan to reach the Late King Level at twenty-seven wasn't just impressive; it was terrifying. It implied a cultivation speed that defied logic.
The psychological warfare was effective. The pride that the Deng brothers and the others had walked in with had evaporated, replaced by a subservient, trembling humility. They had been big fish in small ponds; they had just realized they were now minnows in an ocean full of sharks.
Seeing the fear in their eyes, Ma Jinghuan let out a satisfied, contemptuous laugh. "You think I'm the outlier? You think I'm the only one better than you?"
He snapped his fingers.
As if on cue, the dozen senior disciples behind him stood up. In unison, they flared their auras.
Whoosh.
The room seemed to tilt. Twelve distinct pillars of spiritual pressure crashed down on the newcomers.
"Mid King Level... all of them!" Deng Zhou stammered, his voice trembling.
"They're the same age as us," another recruit whispered, despair creeping into his tone. "But their cultivation... they're all ahead of us."
The morale of the new class was thoroughly broken. If it had just been Ma Jinghuan, they could have rationalized it as facing a freak of nature. But an entire room of superiors? Their worldview collapsed.
Ma Jinghuan basked in the dominance. He opened his mouth to deliver the final verbal coup de grâce when his eyes snagged on something in the corner.
There, sitting slightly apart from the trembling group, was Luo Zhen.
Luo Zhen looked bored. He was leaning back in his chair, eyes half-lidded, rhythmically cracking a sunflower seed, extracting the kernel, and flicking the shell onto a growing pile on the table. He looked less like a cultivator facing a room of tigers and more like a man waiting for a bus.
Ma Jinghuan's smile vanished. The casual disrespect was like a slap in the face.
"Hey!" Ma Jinghuan shouted. "You. What's your name?"
Luo Zhen paused, mid-crack. He spat a shell onto the floor. "You asking me?" He dusted off his hands. "I'm Luo Zhen."
"Luo Zhen?" Ma Jinghuan frowned, searching his memory. "Never heard of you. I assume you're part of this fresh batch?"
Before Luo Zhen could answer, Deng Zhou, sensing an opportunity to curry favor with the powerful senior, jumped up.
"Yes! Yes, Senior Brother Ma!" Deng Zhou pointed an accusatory finger at Luo Zhen. "He is a new disciple, but he didn't pass the trials! He got in through the back door using an Immortal Ascension Token!"
The room went deadly silent. The atmosphere shifted from intimidation to disgust.
"An Immortal Ascension Token?"
Even the stoic senior disciples wrinkled their noses. In a meritocracy built on blood and sweat, the Token was a cheat code. It was a golden ticket that allowed wealthy or connected lesser clans to bypass the rigorous selection process. It was the ultimate symbol of nepotism.
"I didn't think I'd see one of those this year," Ma Jinghuan sneered, shaking his head. "Buying your way into the Melody Saber Sect? That Token costs a fortune. Your family must have deep pockets to buy dignity for such a mediocre talent."
"It's whatever," Luo Zhen shrugged, his tone aggressively neutral. "Just a piece of metal."
"You think this is a joke?" Ma Jinghuan stepped forward, his voice dropping an octave. "You think because you bought your way in, you're safe? Getting in is the easy part, boy. Surviving is the hard part. And I saw that look on your face earlier. Disdain. You think you're better than us?"
Luo Zhen tossed the remaining seeds onto the table. He sighed, a long, weary sound, and stood up.
"It's not really about being better," Luo Zhen said, brushing crumbs off his robe. "I just think you're posturing. It's a bit much."
"Excuse me?" Ma Jinghuan's veins bulged on his forehead.
"You're a show-off," Luo Zhen clarified, looking him in the eye. "Honestly, you pose harder than I do, and that's saying something." He looked around the room. "This orientation is boring. It's just ego-stroking. I'm going to my quarters."
He turned and began to walk away.
"Freeze!" Ma Jinghuan roared. He blurred, moving with supernatural speed to block Luo Zhen's path. "Did I say you could leave?"
Luo Zhen stopped. He looked at the senior disciple blocking his way, his expression one of mild annoyance rather than fear.
But before the tension could snap, Deng Zhou interjected again.
"Senior Brother Ma, please, allow me!" Deng Zhou walked forward, cracking his knuckles, a sycophantic grin plastered on his face. "You shouldn't dirty your hands with trash like this. Let me teach him the rules of the house."
"And me!" Deng Xing, the younger brother, chimed in, rushing to join his sibling.
Ma Jinghuan raised an eyebrow. Usually, new disciples clustered together for protection. Infighting this early was rare. But he enjoyed a good show, and he enjoyed distinct hierarchies even more.
"What's your name?" Ma asked.
"Deng Zhou," he bowed low. "And this is my brother, Deng Xing."
"Fine," Ma Jinghuan scoffed, stepping aside. "He's all yours. Teach him some manners."
"Consider it done, Senior Brother!"
The Deng brothers turned on Luo Zhen. The mask of subservience they wore for Ma vanished, replaced by predatory grins.
"I told you, didn't I?" Deng Zhou hissed. "That Token doesn't make you strong. Welcome to the real world, kid. Today, you learn to fear your betters."
They flared their auras—Early King Level pressure washing over the area. It was impressive to a layman, but compared to the seniors, it was thin.
Luo Zhen looked them up and down. "Fear the strong? Sure. That's a good survival instinct. But looking at you two... I'm not seeing anything scary. You're just... average."
"Average?!" Deng Xing screamed. "I'll cave your skull in!"
The younger brother launched himself forward. He kicked off the ground with enough force to crack the stone, turning into a blurred projectile aimed straight at Luo Zhen's throat.
Deng Zhou hung back, arms crossed, smirking. He expected it to be over in seconds.
And it was. Just not the way he thought.
To the onlookers, Deng Xing was fast. To Luo Zhen, whose perception was tuned to the Late King Level, Deng Xing was moving through molasses. Luo Zhen could see the desperate anger in his eyes, the sloppy footwork, the telegraphing of the punch.
Luo Zhen didn't dodge. He just raised his hand and slapped.
CRACK.
It wasn't the sound of skin on skin; it sounded like a whip breaking the sound barrier.
Deng Xing's forward momentum met the immovable force of Luo Zhen's palm. His head snapped to the side so violently that it seemed disconnected from his neck. His feet left the ground, and he was launched horizontally, spinning like a rag doll.
He skidded across the stone floor for thirty meters, leaving a trail of scuff marks, before coming to a halt against a pillar. He didn't move. He was out cold before he even hit the floor.
"Xing!" Deng Zhou screamed, his confidence evaporating.
The room froze. Ma Jinghuan's eyes narrowed. The senior disciples sat up straight.
Luo Zhen hadn't used a technique. He hadn't flared his aura. He had simply swatted a King Level cultivator like a mosquito.
"This guy..." a senior whispered. "I can't read him. His aura is completely masked."
"It's strange," Ma Jinghuan muttered, his face hardening.
Deng Zhou rushed to his brother, checking for a pulse. Finding one, relief washed over him, followed immediately by a tidal wave of humiliation. Deng Xing's face was swelling rapidly, turning purple and looking akin to a grotesque, over-leavened loaf of bread.
"You bastard!" Deng Zhou roared, turning back to Luo Zhen. "I'm going to kill you!"
WHOOSH.
Flames erupted from Deng Zhou's body. But this wasn't normal fire. It was a sickly, pale yellow, and the heat was intense enough to distort the air in the room.
"Beast Fire!" a senior exclaimed.
"High grade," Ma Jinghuan analyzed, his voice tight. He summoned a small wisp of white flame in his own palm—his White Sun Fire. It flickered nervously in the presence of Deng Zhou's yellow blaze. "That's at least a fifth-tier flame. Maybe sixth. My fire is being suppressed."
"The kid is dead," someone chuckled. "Beast Fire at that level melts steel."
Luo Zhen raised an eyebrow. He did a quick mental scan. Sixth Tier Beast Fire. Impressive for a rookie. It was likely the trump card Deng Zhou had relied on to get this far.
"It's a nice trick," Luo Zhen said softly. "But if that's all you have, you're going to be disappointed."
Luo Zhen raised a single finger.
"Die!!" Deng Zhou screamed. He was a human torch now, a missile of concentrated thermal energy rocketing toward Luo Zhen.
Luo Zhen didn't move his feet. He simply pointed his finger at the oncoming fireball and tapped the air.
ZZAAP!
The air shrieked. A phantom emerged from Luo Zhen's fingertip—a construct of pure, condensed lightning shaped like a flood dragon. It was as thick as a rain barrel, crackling with the blue-white intensity of a storm front.
The Thunder Flood Dragon roared—a sound like tearing metal—and collided with Deng Zhou.
BOOM!
There was no contest. The lightning tore through the pale yellow fire as if it weren't there. Deng Zhou was blasted backward, flying over a hundred meters, smashing through tables and chairs before plowing a furrow into the ground.
When the dust settled, Deng Zhou lay twitching. His clothes were shredded, his Beast Fire extinguished, and smoke rose from his skin. He groaned once, tried to lift his head, and then collapsed into unconsciousness.
"Too weak," Luo Zhen sighed, lowering his hand.
He had barely used ten percent of the Thunder Flood Dragon's power. He had calibrated it to incapacitate, not kill, but even that had nearly been too much. It made sense—Luo Zhen was a Late King Level monster with a mastery of lightning. A rookie with a borrowed flame never stood a chance.
Luo Zhen dusted off his shoulder, then turned his gaze to Ma Jinghuan and the silent wall of senior disciples.
"So," Luo Zhen asked, his voice calm, echoing in the silent hall. "Anyone else want to stop me from going to my room?"
Ma Jinghuan's face was a mask of fury and calculation. He was arrogant, but he wasn't stupid. Luo Zhen had just one-shot two King Level cultivators without breaking a sweat. The casual power of that lightning technique was terrifying. Even Ma wasn't sure he could have swatted Deng Zhou aside with such contemptuous ease.
The hierarchy of the room had shifted. The predator was no longer Ma Jinghuan.
Ma took a deep breath, swallowing his pride. It tasted like ash.
"You can go," Ma Jinghuan grated out. "No one will stop you."
Luo Zhen nodded, bored again. He turned and resumed his walk to the exit.
"Hey, Luo!" Ma Jinghuan shouted at his retreating, needing the last word to salvage some shred of dignity. "Don't think this makes you king of the hill. We acknowledge your strength, but the Outer Sect is a jungle. There are monsters here, older and stronger than me. You watch your back!"
Luo Zhen didn't break stride. He didn't even look back.
"Who watches whose back," Luo Zhen threw over his shoulder, "is something we'll figure out when the time comes."
As the doors swung shut behind him, the only sound in the room was the heavy breathing of the terrified newcomers.
Except for one person. Gu Shi, another senior, stared at the door with sparkling eyes, a look of pure glee on his face. Without a word to Ma, he scrambled to his feet and ran after Luo Zhen, eager to see what other surprises the seed-cracking demon had in store.