Chapter 4033: I Am Your Ancestor!

High Elder Shatter Peak’s eyes narrowed.

Being called Junior didn’t bother him. He had already assumed the stranger was some ancient reclusive elder from the Main Hall, and the Sect had no shortage of cultivators whose ages were impossible to guess from appearance.

What bothered him was everything said before that as very few people should have been able to recognize what he was doing. He had developed the method after being imprisoned here, turning the Law Division’s suppression against itself.

The Curse Arrays weakened his vitality and increased the difficulty of circulating his Immortal Essence, so Shatter Peak had decided to treat the entire prison as a specialized training chamber.

Every movement became harder and every circulation demanded greater control. Even using a single strand of Immortal Essence meant having to withstand more pressure. As long as he didn’t injure himself, his cultivation would gradually benefit from it.

Yet this unknown elder had understood everything with a single glance.

High Elder Shatter Peak finally lowered his legs. His body rotated effortlessly and his feet touched the ground.

THUD

He stood to his full height and looked directly at Zhenyu. "Who are you?"

Zhenyu stroked his chin. "Hmm."

He seemed genuinely thoughtful. "Let’s see."

Daoist Bone Ruler suddenly had a bad feeling.

Zhenyu pointed toward Shatter Peak. "I’ll be your Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great..." He paused.

His brows furrowed as though he were actually trying to calculate the generations while High Elder Shatter Peak and Daoist Bone Ruler stared. Zhenyu continued silently counting for several seconds before finally waving his hand dismissively.

"Forget that. This is going to take too long."

High Elder Shatter Peak’s expression became strange.

Zhenyu placed his hands behind his back and gave the imprisoned High Elder a perfectly calm smile.

"I’m your Ancestor." He uttered.

Silence filled the corridor as High Elder Shatter Peak stared through the barrier at Zhenyu. Then he slowly turned his head toward Daoist Bone Ruler. The question in his eyes was painfully obvious.

Daoist Bone Ruler closed his eyes for a moment as he already knew exactly what was coming.

High Elder Shatter Peak pointed at Zhenyu. "You lost to this man, didn’t you?"

Daoist Bone Ruler’s eyes snapped open. "How did you possibly get that from what he just said?"

High Elder Shatter Peak grinned. "Because you’re standing there quietly while someone I’ve never met walks into your prison and declares himself my ancestor. Either you’ve completely lost your mind since imprisoning me, or you tried stopping him and failed."

Daoist Bone Ruler’s face darkened while Zhenyu burst out laughing.

"Hahaha! Excellent!"

High Elder Shatter Peak looked back at him.

Zhenyu’s laughter slowly subsided, though the smile remained on his face. "Good. At least my juniors haven’t become too stupid while I was gone."

High Elder Shatter Peak’s grin faded slightly, as there was something about those words that stood out. The way Zhenyu said them carried none of the teasing arrogance he had expected. He sounded strangely sincere.

And now, High Elder Shatter Peak began wondering whether the absurd claim might actually have some truth behind it. High Elder Shatter Peak stared at the massive white-haired man for several moments before his gaze shifted toward Daoist Bone Ruler.

There was suspicion in his eyes, though much of the hostility from earlier had faded.

He knew Daoist Bone Ruler well enough to understand that the man might be infuriatingly rigid, excessively fond of rules, and entirely too willing to beat people with that cursed ruler of his, but he would never fabricate something this serious.

"Who exactly is he?" High Elder Shatter Peak finally asked.

Daoist Bone Ruler felt that the question had finally given him a chance to properly introduce the old man beside him. After everything that had happened near the Mad Demon Depths, he felt that the proper amount of respect was warranted.

He coughed lightly and straightened his robes before gesturing toward Zhenyu.

"This is Senior Mengli Zhenyu, a Junior Elder of the Wild Peak from over a hundred thousand years ago," Daoist Bone Ruler stated.

But even after saying it, something about the introduction felt wrong.

Calling someone Senior and Junior Elder in the same sentence sounded absurd, especially when the supposed Junior Elder had nearly crushed him beneath a mountain and a tsunami a short while ago.

Daoist Bone Ruler quickly added, "Considering his seniority and lineage, he can be regarded as an ancestor of your Wild Peak."

High Elder Shatter Peak’s eyes narrowed and he looked at Zhenyu from head to toe before turning back toward Daoist Bone Ruler.

"You sure you aren’t trying to trick me by saying someone from my peak has come?" High Elder Shatter Peak questioned. "If you’re going to make something up, at least make the story believable. How can someone be a Junior Elder and also an ancestor? And you’re saying he’s been around for over a hundred thousand years? The only person in the sect that old is the Sect Ancestor, the Heavenly Stream Immortal."

Daoist Bone Ruler’s eyebrows rose slightly as that was a considerably more sensible response than he had expected.

Lin Mu was similarly pleased. ’He might be hot-headed, but he’s certainly not dumb.’

It was something people often forgot about body cultivators. There was a widespread assumption that anyone who cultivated their body preferred solving every problem with their fists.

It was true that body cultivators tended to be more direct, and many developed personalities that reflected the brutal nature of their cultivation. Yet the image of them as mindless brutes had always been exaggerated.

Body cultivation itself demanded considerable judgment.

A cultivator needed to know how much punishment their body could endure, how far they could push their limits, which injuries could be recovered from, and which ones would permanently damage their foundation.

They had to understand medicines, tempering methods, their own physiology, and the difference between productive suffering, and pointless self-destruction.

A foolish body cultivator usually died early. The ones who survived thousands of years were generally people who understood risks extremely well. Their recklessness often came from confidence rather than ignorance.

They knew exactly how much they could endure and were willing to step into situations that would terrify others because they had already calculated the consequences. And High Elder Shatter Peak fit that description perfectly.

His reputation was filled with destroyed buildings, broken formations, fights with other elders, disciplinary punishments, and an almost impressive number of incidents involving people being punched through walls.

Yet he had survived long enough to become a High Elder. He had accumulated tremendous merit for the sect and had fought enemies far more dangerous than most disciples would ever encounter. Behind all that aggression was a man capable of thinking.