Humanity’s Great Sage

Seeing this scene, Lu Ye suddenly understood that this test was divided into two levels. The first one was to check if he had the aptitude for cultivation, and the second was to check his level of talent.

Aptitude and talent were not the same. The former determines whether a person can cultivate or not, while the latter determines how great a person’s future achievements will be. In theory, the better someone’s talent, the further they will walk on the path of cultivation.

Of course, the talent test here was just a general test because of the limited conditions. It was not guaranteed to be completely accurate, but any deviation in the results would not be too great.

Lu Ye wasn’t worried about his aptitude as he had already opened his first aperture and so it was certain that he was able to cultivate.

The same could not be said for his level of talent. He had no idea what his talent was like; he would have to wait for the results of the second test before finding out.

The first person with the aptitude for cultivation had already appeared, adding a bit of vitality to the originally-silent queue. There was suddenly a general feeling of hope again amongst the people in the line.

However, reality was cruel.

In the next test, more than a dozen people were eliminated before finally only one with the qualifications to cultivate appeared.

And with that one positive test result, the tide of hope resurged.

The long queue kept shrinking and, one after another, the freed slaves swayed from hope to disappointment…

Generally speaking, there would always be one person with sufficient aptitude among a dozen or so people. This ratio was in line with what Lu Ye already knew.

He was standing in the second half of the queue, but because of the fast testing speed, he was in front of the table in less than the time it took to burn a stick of incense.

“Have you ever cultivated?” The cultivator behind the table asked the same question to Lu Ye as he had for all the others before him.

“I got the hang of it.” Lu Ye replied honestly.

The cultivation base immediately raised his head, looked Lu Ye up and down, and said with a smile: “Okay, finally there is a cultivator.”

Although seven or eight people passed the qualification test before, those seven or eight were not cultivators. Among the people in the queue here, Lu Ye was the first one who had actually cultivated!

“Come, put your hands on this.” The cultivator pointed to the crystal ball on the table.

Lu Ye wondered, ‘isn’t this thing for testing qualifications? I opened the Source Aperture by myself, what else do I need to test?’

The cultivator understood the doubts in Lu Ye’s heart and explained: “At this test, we do not only check the qualifications, but also the alignment.”

“Alignment?” Lu Ye was even more at a loss. He had never heard of such a thing.

Since Lu Ye had opened his first aperture, the cultivator patiently explained: “Among the five elements of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth, each person’s spiritual power will be biased towards a certain one. This is the called their alignment and each kind of alignment has a different focus.”

“So that’s it!” Lu Ye suddenly realized, and then wondered: “The people before me…”

The cultivator smiled and said, “They haven’t even opened their spiritual apertures so they have no spiritual power. We can’t detect their alignments.”

“So that’s it.” Lu Ye understood, and raised his hands to cover the crystal ball.

“Motivate your spiritual power and inject it into the crystal ball.” The cultivator ordered.

Lu Ye did as he was told while staring at the changes in the crystal ball. He was also curious about what his alignment would be.

The crystal ball lit up first which meant that Lu Ye had the aptitude for cultivation, but for a person like him such a result was meaningless.

The change that appeared immediately after was the results for his alignment.

As Lu Ye watched, an orange flame suddenly appeared in the crystal ball, and it was burning!

This scene made his pupils shrink a little, because the orange flame looked… so familiar.

“Oh?” The cultivator behind the table raised his brows, and said enthusiastically: “Out of the five elements, fire dominates. Um, there are also some gold lines, not bad. Well, let’s stop.”

Lu Ye could understand why fire dominated out of his own five elements. After all, his ability to cultivate was due to the talent tree. It was the talent tree swallowing a group of orange flames that had caused him to suddenly open his Source Aperture.

The leaf bearing the Sharp spirit pattern on the talent tree was also burning.

But he couldn’t understand where the bits of gold element came from. He wondered if it was his original alignment.

“Take this, go to the tent at the back, and find my senior brother San.” The cultivator handed Lu Ye a jade card and Lu Ye thanked him for it. One side of the jade card was engraved with his name and a word underneath that he thought should mean Source Aperture, and the other side was engraved with his alignment.

Leaving the table, Lu Ye walked towards the back.

There was a temporary tent set up not far away. Those who had passed the qualification test before had entered here to have their talents checked.

Standing in front of the tent, Lu Ye first said a little prayer for himself, then opened the curtain and walked in.

The space inside the tent was not small. There was a cultivator with a meticulous expression and a cold face sitting cross-legged on a futon. He had his eyes closed and appeared to be resting. Lu Ye thought that this must be senior brother San.

Not far in front of senior brother San, there was a circular disc made of some kind of wood. The disc was the size of a table and had eight pits along its edge. Some young and bare saplings were growing beside the pits.

Lu Ye went to him, clasped his fists and bowed, “Lu Ye has seen senior brother. This is my jade card, please inspect it.”

Senior brother San opened his eyes, took the jade card, looked at the front and back, and raised his brows: “Source Aperture?” He stretched out his hand and motioned: “Have a seat.”

It seemed that this wood disc was something for testing the level of talent. Lu Ye walked up, sat cross-legged in the center. As he inadvertently glanced at it, he found that the disc was engraved with many complicated lines and patterns.

‘Spirit patterns?’ Lu Ye suddenly became interested and looked carefully, but with his current eyesight, he couldn’t tell what these spirit patterns were for.

The only spirit pattern he knew was Sharp.

The many spirit patterns on the disc were engraved very densely, closely connected to each other, and integrated.

This was not just a spirit pattern, Lu Ye suddenly realized. He remembered something he had heard before.

This was a formation!

Is a formation made of spirit patterns?

“Cough!” Senior brother San interrupted Lu Ye’s thoughts with a light cough, and Lu Ye quickly sat down.

With their eyes facing each other and after a brief silence, senior brother San said: “My Green Jade Gate is located in the Cangluan Mountains in the hinterlands of Bing prefecture. It has over three hundred large and small spirit peaks. In terms of comprehensive strength, it ranks among the top five in Bing prefecture. The sect master and the deputy sect masters are all in the Divine Sea Realm, and under them, there are hundreds of cultivators in the True Lake Realm…”

Lu Ye originally thought that senior brother San was a taciturn person, but at this moment he realized that he was wrong.

Senior brother San kept on incessantly introducing the various aspects of the Green Jade Gate. Although Lu Ye didn’t understand it, it seemed pretty awesome.

And somehow, the rhetoric of this senior brother gave him a strong sense of déjà vu.

As senior brother San kept on rambling on about “This sword ancestor or that dao clan…”, Lu Ye’s dusty memories were refreshed.

The corner of Lu Ye’s mouth twitched slightly, wondering to himself ‘is this the cultivation world’s enrollment procedure?’