"Help him? Shen Wutian's cultivation level is beyond the reach of your Eye of Insight. How do you plan to help him break through?"
At that moment, Shen Wutian's eerie laughter echoed through the hall.
He then said, "Divine Dao, I've finally encountered someone who cultivates the Divine Dao."
Hearing this, you frowned, thinking to yourself, was the elder assessment just a ruse all along?
Was it because your cultivation of the Divine Dao was seen through by Shen Wutian's puppet, Shen Wuyou, that you were brought here?
Were they using the uniqueness of your Divine Dao cultivation to help Shen Wutian break through?
Your guess was only half right. It was indeed because of the uniqueness of your Divine Dao cultivation that Shen Wuyou chose you.
But you didn't know that originally, you were indeed brought here just for the elder assessment.
However, this assessment was also a way for Shen Wutian to identify anyone cultivating the Divine Dao.
Not just you, but everyone participating in the elder assessment was subjected to this.
If a participant wasn't cultivating the Divine Dao, they would be implanted with a restriction, allowing Shen Wutian to control them when necessary.
But once someone cultivating the Divine Dao was discovered, Shen Wutian's plan would succeed.
The real reason, which Shen Wutian didn't tell you, was that he had obtained an ancient dark art in this ancient land.
His current cultivation strength was all thanks to this dark art.
But even now, he hadn't fully mastered it.
To truly master it, he needed the Nascent Soul of a true Divine Dao cultivator to reforge himself.
So, initially, Shen Wutian didn't know you were cultivating the Divine Dao!
It was only after you entered the side hall that he discovered you were cultivating the Ancient Divine Dao.
At that moment, Shen Wutian was overjoyed.
He had schemed for hundreds of thousands of years and finally found a true Divine Dao cultivator. He was about to achieve his dark art's ultimate form.
This was also why he patiently talked to you for so long; he was simply too excited.
He finally saw the dawn of breaking free from the control of the Immortal Realm's great powers.
While you were lost in thought, you saw Shen Wutian muttering something under his breath.
After he finished, figures started rushing into the side hall one after another.
Time passed bit by bit, and half an hour later, the entire side hall was packed with people, and even outside, it was a sea of people.
For a moment, you couldn't count how many people had arrived, but you estimated there were at least hundreds of thousands.
He intended to use this bit of Divine Dao essence to take a gamble.
...
In the fifty-third year, you slowly woke up.
You didn't know how long you had been unconscious, nor where you were.
But you knew you had escaped from Shen Wutian's grasp.
You had a vague sense when you activated the Death Substitute Doll.
You rubbed your heavy head and began to investigate your surroundings.
You found yourself in a simple wooden hut, indicating that its owner wasn't wealthy.
You thought you might have been saved by a kind-hearted person while you were unconscious.
Before you could think further, a simple and honest young man walked in from outside.
Seeing you awake, he was overjoyed!
After some inquiries, you got a rough understanding of the current situation.
The young man's name was Liang Dahu, a young hunter.
He found you unconscious in the wild and carried you back.
According to Dahu, you had been unconscious for half a year.
During this time, he and his younger sister took turns taking care of you.
Naturally, you were deeply grateful.
You then asked where you were.
Dahu told you this was Qingliang Mountain, under the territory of the Cangyun Sect.
Hearing this, you were puzzled. What was the Cangyun Sect? You had never heard of it before!
Suddenly, a thought struck you, and your eyes lit up!
You thought you might have turned misfortune into fortune and ended up outside the Southern Regions.
The more you thought about it, the more likely it seemed.
After all, Dahu appeared to be an ordinary person, yet he could mention the name of a sect, something impossible in the Southern Regions.
In the Southern Regions, ordinary people who knew about cultivators would be killed by the Immortal Slaves of the Immortal Arrival Sect.