"So who decided this ranking anyway?" asked Wang Wei. This kind of thing is not something just anyone could do, let alone let other people accept the result.
"It is the Heaven Mystery Pavilion. For many years, they have created many lists like the most powerful Saint, the best chamber of commerce, and the strongest Heaven Chosen of a generation. Due to the fact that they have mostly been correct for countless generations, people not only accept their lists, but use them to acquire information about the world." replied Wang Ju.
"Strongest Heaven Chosen? Is the list already available for this generation?"
"Yes, you are ranked number 1 on it, while Di Tian from the Di Family is second. However…"
"However, what? You can say it. By now you should me well enough that I do not have such a massive ego that I would let a list made by strangers dictate my mood or actions."
Wang Ju nodded before continuing:
"According to the list, the only reason that Di Tian is ranked second is because there is not enough information about him compared to you. They theorized that if you and him were to fight, Di Tian would have a 60% chance of winning, while you only have 40%."
Wang Wei nodded after hearing this before asking her to hand him the official list to read.
"#1. Wang Wei: Sacred Son of the Dao Opening Sect. Cultivate the Origin Path Scripture, Overlord Fist, and the Ancient Desolate Body Refining Scripture. His fleshly body, origin essence have reached the peak and beyond of any cultivators. And his soul is currently behind comprehension. His will and Dao Heart are also beyond measure as it is known that he is a Young Emperor.
"Personality and trait: Very intelligent and manipulative. Does not always use his strength to achieve his goal as he can create elaborate plans and schemes that take hundreds of years.
Feat: Defeating Crown Prince Ji Song and Han Lin who had the strength of the Peak of the Primordial Spirit Realm."
As a matter of fact, the list about him was a lot longer, especially under frat as it also noted certain things he did in the Spirit Road Trial and the fact that he evoked Divine Punishment Thunder.
After reading about him, Wang Wei continued:
"#2. Di Tian: Young Master of the Di Clan, cultivates his own created cultivation techniques known as the [Nine Samsara Fist]. However, as of currently, no individual has survived more than his second samsara fist.
"Personality and Trait: Also very intelligent and cunning. His schemes and plots are not under Sacred Son Wang Wei. However, unlike the latter, Di Tian is more brutal, cold hearted and ruthless. So far, he displayed no moral bottom line as he can do anything to achieve his goals. Many people could even argue that he is a Devil Cultivator.
"Feat: Under his command, the Di family has completely annihilated countless Devil sects or cultivators in the Western Continent. For his Qi Luck Trial, instead of setting a fortune dynasty, he single handedly brought the world close to destruction before saving it. We have theorized that he did such a thing in order to absorb the souls of the fallen, however no proof of this has been found."
Wang Wei frowned after reading this as he could tell this person was not a simple role. Then, he continued to read.
The list placed both Ji Song and Jian Wushuang of the Sword Casting Villa at number 3.
Wang Wei remembered seeing Jian Wushuang after the Spirit Road Trial. He was almost killed by a Devil cultivator of the Heart Beating Cult due to his low background, but he was saved and accepted as a disciple of the Sword Casting Villa due to his Innate Sword Bone.
According to feat, he defeated the third Heavenly Physique, Su Ya, during their Qi Luck Trial. That made her position right after him.
What surprised Wang Wei the most was the fact that the Absolute Chaos Physique, Lin Fan, was ranked fifth. He sighed as this list perfectly displayed the fact that having a higher ranked physique does not equate to strength; in the end, it's all about the owner and how the physique is used or trained.
After that, Wang Wei read the entire list with great detail. This was the perfect way for him to gain information about his future competitors. Of course, he did not take the list as hundred percent accurate. He knew that some people like him and Di Tian have hidden a lot of their strength and cards.
Not to mention that this list was created five years ago. In that short period of time, many Heaven Chosens in the list have rapidly grown in strength, experience and wisdom. So, this list can only be used as reference.
After reviewing the list, Wang Wei suddenly began to ponder how the Heaven Mystery Pavilion acquired all of this information—especially about him. Some of them can be attributed to his battle with Ji Song as the whole world witnessed it.
The other information should be gathered due to his battle with Han Li, however only members of the sects were present at that time. So, this shows that the Heaven Mystery Pavilion has many spies inside the Dao Opening Sect. Wang Wei is not surprised about this as the sect also has many hidden spies in all the powerful Emperor Lineage all over the world.
With the system of Shadow spread throughout the world, each factions has gone through extreme lengths to spy on each other. However, this was not what bothered Wang Wei. What bothered him was the fact that some of the information revealed in this list should only be accessible to the most trusted people of his clique.
So, how did the Heaven Mystery Pavilion acquire such information? Wang Wei believes in his judgement and does not believe that someone close to him betrayed him, so they must have acquired this information another way.
According to the information he knew about the Heaven Mystery Pavilion, they are an Immortal Lineage that is very good at divination, so this explained how they acquired that information.
However, Wang Wei soon shook his head. This possibility is very unlikely. The Pavilion's most powerful tool of divination—the [8 Trigram Turtle Shell] is still in his hand. Furthermore, it has been proven that Wang Wei's Transcendent Dao Foundation nullified most divination against him, not to mention his Heavenly Physique, the Fate Puppeteer Body also involves the power of fate. So, if someone tried to divine something about him, not only would it be blocked, he would also be aware of it.
'Wait,' suddenly thought Wang Wei. 'The people of the Heaven Mystery Pavilion do not need to divine about me in order to acquire the information they need. They just need to do it to the people closest to me. That way, they can bypass my anti-divination ability and get the information from the people I share these knowledge or secrets with.'
Li Jun, Yan Liling, and Wang Ju were surprised by the intense and scrutinizing look that Wang Wei gave them. For a brief moment, they thought that they might have done something wrong and upset him.
But then they were briefly relieved after Wang Wei explained his conjecture. Then the faces of these people became ugly once they realized that they might have unknowingly released secret information to their enemy. The worst of them was actually Wang Ju as this was essentially a dereliction of duty in her parts: as a Shadow, she should have anticipated such a thing.
This time however, Wang Wei did not console her.
"What are you going to do now?" he asked her calmly.
After taking a deep breath to calm herself down, she replied, "I will contact the sect and ask about techniques or methods of anti-divination as soon as possible."
"That's good," replied Wang Wei calmly. Then, the group started to discuss what to expect from tomorrow's meeting before they all disbanded and returned to their own residence.
While Wang Wei went to rest himself after a long journey, Wang Ju had a serious look on her face after returning to her residence. Then, she took out a talisman to contact someone.
"What is it?" asked a weird voice. The reason that the voice was weird was because it was impossible to tell whether it was a woman or man.
"Shadow Teacher, I need your guidance," replied Wang Ju with a serious look on her face.
Yes, the person that Wang Ju contacted is the current Shadow that serves Sect Master Wang Tian. As her predecessor, she can ask him for guidance when she needs to.
Knowing that her teacher was a person of few words, Wang Jun went straight to the topic:
"Teacher, I need to know whether the sect has a method of anti-divination?"
"So, you finally have reached this stage."
"Teacher, you already knew?"
"Yes. Part of the training of the Shadow is to learn through mistakes, so the problem of divination was never mentioned. It also served as a test."
"Teacher, then how did I do?"
"What do you think?"
Wang Ju then lowered her head. However, the Shadow did not continue mentioning the test and proceeded to teach her about the method of Anti-Divination.
The next day, Wang Wei woke up fully refreshed as he prepared for the day's meeting with all the other Heaven Chosens.
