Chapter 11: [Azure Emperor] (Please add to favorites! Please keep reading!)

However, that phenomenon was too peculiar, and the imperial family ordered the populace not to discuss it to avoid public panic and the destabilization of the nation’s fortune.

Shaoheng closed her eyes, carefully recalling what that servant woman had said while chatting with other newly arrived maids in the manor.

"Oh my, let me tell you, that day, the sky just suddenly went dark! You looked up and saw nothing but stars, yet you could still see the sun and the moon at the same time—it was terrifying!"

"And the ground, all those flowers, grasses, and trees, they grew like they’d gone mad, like they’d become spirits, and then suddenly they withered all on their own. But when the sky returned to normal, guess what happened? Heh! Those flowers and grasses actually sprouted all over again!"

"I shouldn't be saying this, so don't you go telling anyone else, but our Madam was giving birth that very day. I reckon she must have been scared half to death, and that’s why… hahaha."

……

The young Shaoheng at the time hadn't taken the phenomenon to heart; what she cared about was that her mother was being gossiped about by servants.

Furious, she had run off on her short legs to complain to her father, leading to those maids being sold off.

But thinking back on it now, the sun and moon shining together, the brilliant starry night—this was clearly the scene Shaoheng had seen when her consciousness drifted away during her aptitude test!

As for the plants the servant spoke of, Shaoheng looked inward at the blue-gold rune near her Yellow Sprout in her dantian and muttered to herself, "The withering and flourishing of vegetation?"

The color blue belongs to the element of wood. She had previously tried to manifest a drop of greenish liquid with her mana, and it had indeed been filled with the fresh scent of plants.

"Was that phenomenon meant for me?"

With almost no self-doubt, Shaoheng accepted this notion.

Furthermore, she accepted it quite well, her thoughts quickly shifting to: "If this phenomenon wasn't for me, then who else could it be for?"

She grew confident!

With this thought in mind, Shaoheng immediately began searching the book list for titles related to the Great Thousand Divine Ability Ranking.

She rose impatiently, trying her best not to make too much noise while walking so as not to disturb other disciples reading nearby, yet she still moved with great speed between the bookshelves.

Half a quarter of an hour later, she finally found what she was looking for.

Shaoheng took down a sizable sheepskin scroll. Not wanting to wait until she returned to her desk, she simply sat cross-legged right there and spread the scroll out.

In the dozen or so eons of recorded history, there have been no fewer than a million divine abilities, each with different effects and all sorts of varieties. Thus, the Great Thousand Divine Ability Ranking came into being, with only the ten thousand strongest abilities earning a place on the list.

Countless cultivators, upon ascending to the Fourth Realm and receiving a divine ability from the Great Dao, pray that their ability will be ranked.

Shaoheng looked from top to bottom. She had expected to read for a long time, but in reality, she didn't.

At the very first glance, her gaze was firmly locked onto the content at the top of the scroll.

"Rank 6: [Green Emperor], bestowing grace upon the four directions, frost covering the world."

Next to this line of text was an illustration. Although drawn in black ink, it depicted a tree, and with just a few strokes, it possessed an aura of a towering giant that seemed ready to burst through the paper and strike at her.

If this wasn't the blue-gold rune in her dantian, then what was it?

Shaoheng heard her heart pounding violently.

But she felt it was fine; this was only right!

If she weren't currently in the Miaofa Pavilion, Shaoheng would have wanted to stand up right then and there, shout aloud, and thank the Heavens.

She also possessed an innate divine ability!

And it was the [Green Emperor], ranked sixth on the Great Thousand Divine Ability Ranking!

Shaoheng swallowed her excitement, struggling to remain calm and dispel the agitation filling her mind.

At the same time, she quickly made a connection: "Then, is that little gray cocoon also a divine ability?"

The gray cocoon had previously fought with the [Green Emperor] rune inside her body, and given that Shaoheng sensed extremely similar fluctuations of energy between the two, she was more than eighty percent certain that the cocoon was also the manifestation of a divine ability.

As her previous guesses were continuously verified, Shaoheng suddenly hit upon the crux of the matter.

"Even if one is born with an innate divine ability, a cultivator can possess at most two. In all of history, no cultivator has ever possessed three! If the cocoon really is a divine ability, once this news is exposed, I will immediately become a target for everyone!"

Where did the voice of the gods come from?

What divine ability is the gray cocoon the manifestation of?

Moreover, this gray cocoon appeared in her body suddenly; it was an acquired object, far less inseparable from Shaoheng than the [Green Emperor]. Although she could feel the connection deepening and knew she would eventually gain complete control over it, before that happened... was there a possibility it could be forcibly snatched away by other cultivators?

Question after question arose in her heart. The wild joy and excitement in Shaoheng's eyes had vanished completely. Her face tightened, and her breathing grew heavier.

The alarm bells in her mind rang incessantly, and all her doubts finally converged into one thought.

"I must never let anyone know of the gray cocoon's existence!"

Shaoheng knew she was currently in the Zhenyi Yuan Sect, one of the premier immortal sects, but so what?

The secret of being able to possess an extra divine ability was enough to drive the vast majority of cultivators to madness; even high-level cultivators could not be exempt from such greed!

If exposed, not to mention the wicked and vicious, would even the kind-faced elders and seniors within the sect truly be without a shred of covetousness?

Judging others by herself, Shaoheng felt she couldn't do it, so how could she imagine others would?

Wealth moves the heart; profit is a blade hanging over one's head!

"Assuming I tell the sect that I possess an innate divine ability, the existence of the cocoon would likely be exposed as well when the sect conducts their verification. At that point, the sect might view me as a genius and bring me into the inner sect, leading to infinite glory, but it is also possible that..."

Whether character determines fate is something no one can say for sure.

But it certainly influences the direction of every choice in life.

Shaoheng could not entrust her safety entirely to a sect she had only joined two days ago.

She could not bear the thought that the gray cocoon, which already bore her mark, could be forcibly taken by someone else!

"The divine ability cannot be exposed, and my aptitude is not yet clear, so I can only stay in the outer sect for now. But in one year, there will be the outer sect disciple competition, and I can rely on that to be promoted to an inner sect disciple. Even if the gap in cultivation resources between the inner and outer sects is vast, according to the statistics of the Zhenyi Yuan Sect, those with superior aptitude generally take three years to reach the late stage of a realm."

"Judging by my previous cultivation speed, it certainly won't be inferior aptitude. After all, I've only been cultivating for a few days, and I've already gathered three furnaces of mana in my Yellow Sprout, whereas when the spirit boat arrived at the Zhenyi Yuan Sect, that Jiang Yunjian with superior aptitude hadn't even drawn qi into her body yet."

Shaoheng felt that she was at least of superior aptitude. As for why the Origin Mirror hadn't detected it, she decided to pin that blame on the gray cocoon for now.

After a simple calculation, it was only a year; she was confident that her cultivation would not be much worse than Jiang Yunjian, who had entered the inner sect at the same time.

With a decision made, her panic gradually faded.

Shaoheng then carefully observed her surroundings. There were fewer disciples in the Miaofa Pavilion at night than during the day, and there happened to be no one else on this bookshelf, so no one had seen her lose her composure just now.

"Truly a stroke of great luck."

She gave a small chuckle, then continued to flip through the scroll in her hand, reading line by line.

Ten thousand divine abilities—it wasn't too many, but it wasn't few either. It took her nearly half an hour, and when she reached the end, Shaoheng was stunned.

"Could this be Jiang Yunjian's innate divine ability?!"

"So... this is the effect?"

(End of chapter)