For a moment, everyone in the hall was stunned silent.

A beat later, Xue Liping suddenly let out a howl and came back to his senses. He rushed forward to support the ice sculpture, his voice filled with utter horror: "Feng'er, what's happened to you?!"

"This... this..." Hong Qingyuan opened his mouth, yet could not manage a single complete sentence. From the display of might Xue Jianming had just put on, he could tell that even if the man's strength was not as seasoned and steady as his own, he was by no means weak among consummate Golden Core cultivators. And yet a powerhouse of that caliber had been dealt with by Bing Wushuang as easily as one might brush off a speck of dust, without so much as a flicker of the eyes. Was this creature even human?!

It made no sense. When all was said and done, Bing Wushuang was still only a consummate Golden Core cultivator. How could there be such an enormous gap between two people of the same rank?

It took a long while before the thin layer of ice on Xue Jianming's body finally cracked apart. His face was ashen, his whole frame bent over in utter wretchedness, and he gasped for breath in great gulps before forcing out, broken and halting: "The... strongest... Golden Core... stage..."

At these words, an uproar swept the hall. Everyone, Hong Qingyuan included, now looked upon Bing Wushuang with ever greater awe. Could it truly be that this was the legendary foremost expert of the Golden Core stage?

It was not impossible. Though neither Bing Wushuang nor Xue Jianming had breathed a single word about the Spirit Consciousness Herb, with their strength they would surely have handled the Primordial Trial with ease, and finding the legendary herb was by no means out of the question. And the overwhelming power Bing Wushuang had just displayed seemed explicable only by the title of the strongest Golden Core cultivator.

Faced with the instinctive awe in everyone's eyes, Bing Wushuang paid it no mind at all. He curled his lip faintly and said, "Whoever told you I was the strongest Golden Core cultivator?"

"Are you not?" Xue Jianming had barely gotten his breath back, and at these words he froze. He had simply assumed that since the man had left seclusion, he must have used that half-stalk of Spirit Consciousness Herb, and having used it, he would naturally be the strongest Golden Core cultivator. What was wrong with that reasoning?

Bing Wushuang smiled—a rare thing—though it was a cold, mocking smile. "Why don't you feel it again, properly this time?"

"Feel what?" Before Xue Jianming could react, Bing Wushuang raised his hand slightly and released the Ruthless Ice Force once more. In an instant, a thin layer of freezing ice encased him anew.

But having learned his lesson from the last time, Xue Jianming reacted remarkably fast this time. At the first instant, he spared no cost to summon the strongest possible protective true qi. It was still inevitably a rather sorry sight, but at least he was not reduced to a human ice sculpture without the slightest power of resistance. After all, he was, at the very least, a consummate Golden Core expert; anything less would have been far too humiliating.

"Nothing more than..." Xue Jianming tried to force out a taunt with feigned composure, but before he could finish, his whole body jerked, his knees gave way, and he dropped to the ground on the spot.

Every jaw in the hall hit the floor. Everyone stared at everyone else, unable to fathom what in the world this creature was playing at, kneeling in public like that.

Of course Xue Jianming had not knelt of his own will. His expression was now a mask of utter ferocity and anguish, for what trapped him was no longer merely the thin layer of ice on his surface—the insides of both his legs had been frozen solid. He had no choice but to kneel!

And that was not even the most shocking part. What truly filled him with despair was that, in that instant, what he had sensed from the Ruthless Ice Force was not the might of a Golden Core expert at all, but clearly something a tier higher—an existence that utterly transcended the Golden Core stage. An old monster of the Nascent Soul stage!

"A Nascent Soul old monster? How can you possibly be a Nascent Soul old monster?!" Xue Jianming was on the verge of going mad. The first time, he had not registered it because the man had not been in earnest; now Bing Wushuang had struck for real. His legs, frozen as they were, were as good as ruined. If he still failed to understand after that, he would have to be impossibly slow-witted.

"What? A Nascent Soul old monster?" Everyone in the hall, Hong Qingyuan included, was struck with collective shock, staring at Bing Wushuang in disbelief. The range of the Ruthless Ice Force had just now been kept extremely small, so although they had stood close by, they had felt none of its power, and had simply assumed it was the strongest Golden Core stage. Who would have thought it was a Nascent Soul old monster!

But how could that be?

The birth of any Nascent Soul expert was a grand affair that would shake the very structure of the entire Primordial Minor Jianghu. And looking across the whole of that world, consummate Golden Core experts, though hardly so common that they could be found on every street corner, were not few in number overall. Practically any sect or clan of decent standing could boast a few, or even a dozen or more. A place like the Xuejian Sect was on the sparse side; as for the four great top-tier sects and clans, one hand would not suffice to count them.

No fewer than three digits' worth of consummate Golden Core experts, every one of them scheming day and night to break through to Nascent Soul—and how many succeeded in the end?

The reality was that in the past twenty years, the number of newly advanced Nascent Soul experts across the whole of the Primordial Minor Jianghu was zero. Not a single one!

Condensing a Nascent Soul—it sounded like a mere four words, but the difficulty involved was beyond the imagination of ordinary people. The Nascent Soul Condensing Pill, which could only be stumbled upon and never sought, was enough on its own to make everyone shrink back in despair. And even if one were lucky enough to obtain it, the breakthrough process would take at least several years. How could anyone be so quick about it?

Half a month ago he was still a consummate Golden Core cultivator, and now, the moment he emerged, he had become a Nascent Soul old monster outright. What kind of fairy tale was this?!

Yet then again, had it been anyone else, they would never have believed it no matter what. But where Bing Wushuang was concerned, Hong Qingyuan and the others truly could not be sure.

There was no other reason: it was not only Bing Wushuang, but also Xue Jianming and even Leng Leng—the affairs of these few people were simply beyond their comprehension.

In barely more than a year of training in the secular world, Leng Leng had shot straight up from the early Foundation Establishment stage to consummate Foundation Establishment. That was unprecedented in the entire history of the Primordial Minor Jianghu. Still, compared with the other two, this was at least tolerable; someone had been supplying her with pills, and she was gifted besides—that much could just barely be explained.

But Bing Wushuang had shot straight up from the early Golden Core stage all the way to consummate Golden Core. How was that to be explained? After all, the Golden Core stage and the Foundation Establishment stage were two entirely different concepts. Even if popping pills could possibly accomplish it, where would so many Golden Core pills come from? The whole of the Primordial Minor Jianghu did not have that many, surely?