History's Strongest Senior Brother

Although they were brothers, the age gap between Gao Xuebo and Long Xueji was quite huge.

Gao Xuebo could be classified as the oldest Exalt Martial Saint within the Roving Jade Heavens.

In terms of seniority, even if he was younger compared to Earth Exalt of the World beyond Worlds, Wang Zhengcheng, he was a very old senior compared to others.

Wang Zhengcheng had remained in the mortal realm because he had some old injuries on his body.

If he were to attempt to push open the Immortal Door in order to pass the Immortal Mortal Tribulation, it would only result in his death.

If it wasn’t for the various amounts of divine pills and medicines to prolong his life, he might have already perished.

As for Gao Xuebo, he had already been a Human Exalt for a very long time and had remained stagnant in that realm for many years as well.

Long Xueji who was much younger than him had already successfully pushed open the Immortal Door and had surpassed him.

Even the young juniors like He Mian and Yu Ye were standing at the pinnacle of a mortal alongside each other on the same level.

The last time Yan Zhaoge saw Gao Xuebo, he had already vaguely guessed that he was nurturing his sword, just like the Cloud Conquest Emperor.

The one under the same situation was the Dragon Spring Emperor, Long Xingquan.

However, a guess was still a guess. It might not be accurate. It might be possible that the potential of those three had already been depleted, and had no changes in their current cultivation realm solely because they were already at their own pinnacle.

However, after personally coming in contact with the Cloud Conquest Emperor and Gao Xuebo, Yan Zhaoge felt that that wasn’t the case.

“Senior apprentice-uncle Long and junior apprentice-brother Gao are cultivating the ancient art of the Prime Clear lineage, Sheathe Edge and Nurture Sword.” Sword Sovereign – Yue Zhenbei answered Yan Zhaoge’s question.

Yan Zhaoge nodded, “As expected.”

Even with the same martial art, the same environment, and under the same condition, different people would have different accomplishments.

In the cultivation of supreme art, the cultivating environment, availability of cultivation guidance, and availability of resources had to be accounted for. Even so, the individual difference in accomplishments would be very vast.

This was the exact reason that being alive for a long time didn’t signify them being strong.

It was because after many people had reached a certain height in their cultivation path, they might be unable to break through their bottleneck.

In the following years of their life, if there weren’t any huge changes, they would be fated to come to a halt at their current cultivation realm until their life force reached its end.

No matter if it was the prosperous era of martial arts before the Great Calamity, or the rebirth era after the Great Calamity, it was the same for everyone.

Of course, if one lived for a long time, they might have more hopes to acquire some chances or opportunities which they had never imagined of before, and ultimately allow them to break through their bottleneck miraculously.

However, that was a very rare encounter.

The problem most people face was that even if it was an Immortal Realm expert, they had different longevity.

The sooner they ascend to a higher realm, the more time they would have to continuously fight for the chance to breakthrough.

Because of that, people like Yan Zhaoge, Yan Di, Nie Jingshen, Chen Qianhua, Long Xueji, Yu Ye, He Mian, and the others were deemed as a heaven’s favored child. They were destined to be legends.

On one hand, it was because they were able to ascend to a high cultivation realm despite being so young. It meant that their talents were extraordinary, and they would not easily come to a halt in their path of cultivation.

On the other hand, they also had more time to work harder.

However, whatever happens in the future is unpredictable. It was normal for one to have drastic improvements at first, and get stuck in a certain realm for thousands of years, or even longer than that.

Because of that, no one dared to be careless in the path of martial arts. Everyone would give their all to venture the path of cultivation.

The Prime Clear lineage’s ancient art – the Sheathe Edge and Nurture Sword was created solely because of this reason.

Sword cultivators focus on training the art of killing. They were bad in taking care of their wellbeing. Even if they had a professional method of caring for their wellbeing, they were still disadvantageous in terms of longevity.

When fighting against someone, while they had strong combat powers and were very precise in killing, it also harbored negative effects, namely being harder to break through their cultivation realm.

Among the Three Clear Lineages, the Prime Clear Lineage was the hardest lineage to break through their realm of cultivation.

It was more optimistic for those that had yet to push open the Immortal Door. However, after becoming an Immortal, especially if they were a True Immortal or a Profound Immortal, it would be extremely difficult to breakthrough.

The reason was that the first Immortal Qi that the True Immortal Emperor sword cultivators refine would be either the Evil Qi or the Righteous Qi.

If other conditions were the same, the martial practitioners that cultivated one of these two Immortal Qis had the strongest combat power.

However, these two kinds of Immortal qi were the hardest to fuse with other Immortal qis to form the Immortal Aura.

The most classic example of a sword cultivator’s difficulties in improving their cultivation would be Yan Zhaoge’s grandfather, Exalted Gold Luminary – Yan Xintang.

Yan Xintang had the reputation of being a Sword God. In the past, his strength was very outstanding when he was among the New Nine Luminaries of Kunlun. However, he was the last to pass the True Profound Tribulation and achieve the Profound Immortal Realm among the nine of them.

The Prime Clear lineage’s secret art, the art of Nurturing Sword might cause a martial art practitioner to remain stagnant within their current realm of cultivation, and even remain longer than their own peers. However, their cultivation after they successfully breakthrough would save a lot more time, and they would have higher hopes to break through a higher realm.

The help the secret art provided differs from each person and had its own limits as well.

However, improving their own cultivation was very hard. When one reaches a very high realm of cultivation, even a minor help of increasing their cultivation would be very precious.

However, this Sheathe Edge and Nurture Sword art had a very huge risk. In the past, there were many Prime Clear experts that were crippled after they failed to nurture their swords.

It was up to the martial art practitioners to decide whether they were up to it or not.

If they decided to not nurture their sword, and breakthrough a level in a normal way, even a thousand years might not allow them to breakthrough.

Nurturing their swords meant to temporarily restraint their cultivation, and halt at their current realm for a thousand years. After that, they would breakthrough, and be closer to breaking through again. However, they would have to handle a certain risk.

Of course, those that had the capability to walk this path would not necessarily walk down this path. It all depended on their will and environmental condition.

Remaining in the current realm for a long time would cause the martial art practitioner’s strength to remain on the same level as well. If the environment was dangerous for them, it would definitely be hard for them to do so.

If there wasn’t the Profound Sovereign and the Vine Sovereign taking care of the Roving Jade Heavens, the Dragon Spring Emperor and the Cloud Conquest Emperor would not peacefully nurture their sword for a thousand years.

After the Great Calamity, because of how aggressive and unyielding the Prime Clear Lineage was, they had lost many experts when fighting against the Immortal Court heretics.

After that, they had also experienced an event like the division of the World beyond Worlds.

Luckily, compared to the event that happened in the World beyond Worlds, the top-notch experts that left the Roving Jade Heavens were comparatively little. That was why the Roving Jade Heavens would have the current situation they were in now.

Otherwise, if they hurt their foundations, things would be very difficult for them.

“Did Chen Qianhua acquire the Heaven Opening Scripture and push open the Immortal Door?” the Sword Sovereign – Yue Zhenbei suddenly remembered something. He glimpsed through everyone and finally lay his gaze upon Long Xueji.

When Long Xueji was fighting against Chen Qianhua in the Pill Hall earlier, the Lofty Sovereign – Zhang Buxu appeared. Yue Zhenbei arrived slightly later than him.

Although his mind was focused on fighting against Zhang Buxu, Yue Zhenbei could tell Chen Qianhua’s difference when he saw Long Xueji and Chen Qianhua fighting.

“Indeed, it’s the Heaven Opening Scripture.” Long Xueji nodded, “In fact, he might have passed the Immortal Mortal Tribulation after learning the Heaven Opening Scripture.”

Yue Zhenbei’s expression became serious. After contemplating for a while, he turned around to look at Yan Zhaoge and the others and said, “Just like what all of you had said, the things that happened in the World beyond Worlds were caused by Elder Yang of the Restful Immortal Valley. Chen Qianhua obtaining the Heaven Opening Scripture was also because of him.”