The golden scroll reappeared, filling the testing area with its divine light. The Violet Abyss Golden Ranking scroll quivered.

Long Chen could sense a strange fluctuation lock onto him as it vibrated. The names on top of it began to twist.

“Long Chen’s climbing the ranking!”

Buzz.

Just then, the ☷ essence rune behind Long Chen quivered, and the chains binding it suddenly vanished.

The Violet Abyss Golden Ranking seemed to lose its target. The names twisted a few times and then settled in the same positions as before.

The golden scroll then slowly closed and vanished before everyone.

“...What?”

Now everyone was truly stunned. Long Chen had actually failed to get a ranking?

His display had completely toppled their understanding. That ☷ essence rune and the three thousand chains in particular were things that they had never seen or heard of before. How could someone with such inconceivable abilities fail to gain the recognition of the Violet Abyss Golden Ranking?

Or was it that despite being powerful, Long Chen didn’t meet some kind of standards for the Violet Abyss Golden Ranking?

Meanwhile, Long Chen came to understand that the three thousand six hundred steps of the Violet Abyss’s divine staircase had extraordinary meaning. Every step he climbed was a test of laws, and the result of that test was summarized in the Path Guidance Tablet.

The divine tablet created a manifestation for him that transformed into three thousand divine runes that formed three thousand chains. But those three thousand chains were shattered by the ☷ essence rune.

That was not caused by Long Chen. It was an automatic development that Long Chen had not interfered with.

If he were to extrapolate based on Xie Wanyi’s explanation, then these three thousand chains would raise his control over his violet blood to an unimaginable level. Basically, if he were to go strictly by the numbers, his control would be a thousand times greater than Xie Wanyi’s. However, if that really was the case, then it meant that his difficulty advancing would also be a thousand times greater than it was for her.

There was a good side, and a bad side. The ☷ essence rune shattered the three thousand chains for its own reasons as well. It would not benefit from them, but it would not be dragged down by them either.

“The Dao of the Earth is thick enough to contain all things. All of those things can be used by me, but they do not belong to me. But why would I cling to ownership?”

Long Chen smiled. The ☷ essence rune had absorbed those three thousand runes, and Long Chen had just gained a new understanding of it. Since he controlled the essence rune, why should he limit himself with a main path and secondary ones? Why choose? He would take them all!

Long Chen awoke from his comprehension and sighed deeply, but it was a satisfied sigh. Indeed, he had truly reaped a great harvest.

Shen Mengxue immediately went up and consoled him, startling him. “Big brother Long Chen, don’t feel bad.”

“Eh? Should I feel bad?”

Shen Mengxue was clearly rather innocent; she didn’t even think about it before saying, “Do you not feel bad about failing to get onto the Violet Abyss Golden Ranking?”

Long Chen laughed. “A name is just a name. It is not the truth.”

Shen Mengxue frowned in confusion. “I know that saying. It is about how the Dao is too vast to describe with words. But what does that have to do with the Violet Abyss Golden Ranking?”

“What I mean is that the rankings are just a title, nothing more. For example, you could come up with a dozen names for a tree, but the tree is still the tree that it is. It will not suddenly bear fruit because you call it a name with a flower in it. A bad person will not become good because of a title, and a good person will not become bad because of one either. If the Violet Abyss Golden Ranking could bear the names of everyone in the Violet Abyss, does that mean that everyone will become a peerless heavenly genius?”

Long Chen rubbed her head and continued, “Becoming conflicted over a name, over a title, or over a ranking is simply foolish. Sometimes a person will be called trash when they’re mediocre, but then called a genius once they rise. What you call them changes all the time. In that case, does it matter whether you get on the ranking or not? Just because you get on the ranking doesn’t mean that you might not fall from it one day. In the same vein, just because you fail to get on the ranking doesn’t mean that you won’t ascend to the ranking one day.”

Long Chen’s speech roused the hearts of the surrounding disciples. It gave them hope, and ignited a desire that had been extinguished for a long time—a desire to reach the peak.

Shen Mengxue said, “Big brother Long Chen, I feel like if I had met you earlier, maybe my earlier years wouldn’t have been so painful. Maybe everyone wouldn’t have been so worried about me.”

With just a few words, Long Chen had undone the old knot in her heart. She couldn’t help sighing. So she herself had been bound by names and titles and ranks...

However, Long Chen didn’t care about such things. A good reputation or an infamous one meant nothing to him. He was who he was, and that would not change.

“Big brother, what did you gain from this?” asked Xie Wanyi.

The three thousand chains had left her befuddled. They had shattered and merged into Long Chen’s rune, leaving her very curious.

“I gained a great deal. When I have time, I’ll give you some guidance!” said Long Chen, delighting Xie Wanyi. It seemed she was also going to experience the methods of the number one figure of the nine heavens.

After all, Long Chen was the one who had created and built up the number one legion of the nine heavens and ten lands. She firmly believed that his guidance could make her instantly advance to new heights.

Even her master, Mountain Lord Qingyu, had sighed countless times over the fact that Long Chen had only stayed in Sovereign Mountain for a very brief period. If he had stayed longer, the power of Sovereign Mountain’s disciples would have definitely been elevated to an unprecedented level.

Now that her chance had come, she was incredibly excited. Shen Mengxue was also filled with anticipation. Having such a warm big brother teaching her was definitely a good thing.

Well, perhaps once they actually experienced Long Chen’s training methods, they would end up regretting it. But by that point, it would be too late for them.

Shen Qingxue stood to the side. The result of Long Chen’s test deeply shook her. And besides the actual test, there was one more problem: How was it that even after so much time had passed, none of the higher-ups showed up? It was simply not possible that they’d missed the commotion. Something didn’t add up. She quickly came to the conclusion that while the disciples knew nothing, the higher-ups had actually been expecting all of this.

Then, she remembered that their discussion had not ended.

“Long Chen, now that you’ve failed to get on the ranking, do you still wish to carry out our challenge?” asked Shen Qingxue coldly.

“Of course we must continue. You have yet to call me big brother!” Long Chen turned to her and grinned.

“Do you want to do it now, or another day?”

“Now is better. I’ll feel better once you call me big brother!” said Long Chen.

“Fine. Then let us go to the martial stage!”

Shen Qingxue flicked a finger, sending a rune over to Long Chen. Long Chen caught it and crushed it in his hand. Space quivered, and the two of them vanished.

“The Sovereign Divine Martial Stage is open!”

An ancient voice echoed throughout the entire Violet Abyss.

“Heavens, it’s the strongest martial stage of the Violet Abyss! Quick, we have to get a seat!” exclaimed Shen Mengxue.

She took out her status plate and was about to leave when Xie Wanyi put a hand on her shoulder. She awkwardly asked, “Big sister, I only recently came here, and I don’t have any many points. Can you...”

“No problem! Let’s go.” Shen Mengxue laughed and directly paid two people’s worth of points. She and Xie Wanyi also vanished.