Upon arriving at the entrance, both men were walking leisurely as if they owned the place.
This got them both looks of disdain and concern from the disciples and daoist childs. Alas, they seemed to give not any attention to all of this.
As they continued towards a gran tower in the distance at the peak of a seemingly endless mountain, some disciples began to talk at their backs.
"Look, the Devious Pervert caught an innocent man this time around".
"Heh! I wonder if he changed his taste after so many poor, mortal girls!" Another one laughed at the tought.
A female disciple watching by the side felt a chill running down her spine and commented with fear in her innocent eyes. "I-I wonder what he'll do to this poor man though?!"
One of the male disciples responded immediately: "Of course, to "eat him"! What else could he do if not that to this grown up mortal?"
He ended up chuckling at the thought, seemingly finding this very amusing by the second.
As they kept on walking, both the old man and the middle-aged man ignored all this and engaged on their own little conversation.
"So, what do you think about your fellow disciples?" Asked the old man with a slight smirk on his ugly face.
The middle-aged man simply chuckled and did not answer. "Fine, fine. As lacking as they might look, they are still top-notch outside you know?!"
The old beggar continued for a long time before stopping his boasting after getting to the entrance of the grand tower.
He stepped ahead and knocked loudly on the magestic front doors.
"Hey, old geezers! Come meet your First Disciple right now!" He shouted on top of his lungs.
The silence could not be any louder already. It was not until a few seconds had passed that the majestic and ancient front doors shot open in a instant, provoking a shockwave that was enough to shatter a mortal's body.
A shout came from inside at the same time, as if hundreds of bombs were exploding. "Fuck off, bastard! Was it not enough to have lost against Wukong already, yet you are here after all these years?!"
Anyone could feel the intense rage and resentment in the ancient voice, as well a pressure akin to a heavenly mountain pressing against them.
Everyone in a radius of hundreds of miles got on their knees, some even having some slight injuries.
Alas, the old beggar and the middle-aged man were unperturbed by all of this.
"Haiyah, don't be like that old geezer! Else you might die from a heart attack considering your age!" The old beggar continued to tease time and time again.
He then started walking inside the majestic tower along with the middle-aged man behind him, not caring about the shouts that kept coming.
"Don't listen to him, age got the best of him already, no longer able to keep his cool anymore", said the old beggar with an even bigger smirk.
"You need not keep on guiding me. Give the seal and I'll deal with this mess", the middle-aged man said with his own smile against the beggar's.
The latter simply nodded without a care and extended his decrepit hand inside his old robe and then grabbed a seal with the form of a triangle. Three characters were engraved in it, although all of this seemed like mere writings that a kid would make.
He tossed it to the middle-aged man and turned around to get out of the grand tower. With his hands on the back of his neck, the whistling sound he made was akin to a bug ringing besides the ear.
If scammers were present, even them would feel embarassed seeing the actions of the old beggar.
Continuing his walk, the middle-aged man slowly started to look around, his indifferent eyes seemigly capable of seeing through everything.
After quite some time, he passed a grand entrance inside the tower and what appeared in his sight were five old men sitting on cushions and bearing imposing auras.
Especially the old man at the end of the left, his eyes seemed to be capable of spit fire at any moment now.
The old man in the center of them all opened his mouth to speak first. "I see you have the Serpent's Tail Seal", he asked but his words were more like stating a fact.
"Yes, I do."
"And you are aware that we are forced to comply to any wish within reason that you may have?" He said, this time his voice completely cold.
His aura seemed to be slipping out of his control, pressuring the middle-aged man.
"Yes, I do" He answered flatly.
Silence was made, the increasing pressure nowhere to be found now.
A sigh from the old man in the center could be heard in the grand hall.
"I won't go against the ancestral teachings, but I do want to prove your talents first. If that's okay for you." It was not a question but rather an order.
The middle-aged man simply waved his hand and did not care about it. He knew all too well that he had no voice in the matter with beings of this caliber.
Any of the old men in front of him could eradicate him with just a glance, literally. They were that powerful.
With a wave of his hand, the old man summoned an ancient looking mirror, which made the eyes of the other four widen a little before returning back to normal.
"This is a treasure made by our frst Dao Lord, the Progenitor himself, Heaven Opening Dao Lord. As you wouldn't know, I'll tell you now about what it can do".
"This artifact just needs a drop of your blood and it'll show up your information, specifically your talents", he said truthfully.
The middle-aged man nodded without words and extended his hand. With a single thought from the old man before him, a wound was made out of nowhere in his hand and a single drop of blood started floating.
His wound simultaneously healed in the same instant that the blood floated away of his hand.
Once the drop of blood touched the crystal of the mirror, a show of caleidoscopic colors appeared on its surface before disappearing and showing letters.
Once they've completely formed and structured themselves in order to be readable, the five old men were completely shocked, as if they have been struck by a heavenly tribulation.
The mirror showed: "Spirit Roots - First Grade. Comprehension - Extreme. Soul - Top Grade."
The results were something not even the wisest of the five old men could ever fathom to happen.
To have First Grade Spirit Roots was enough to make every behemoth fight vigorously for them, even some of them to the extent of giving up a lot of benefits just to get a talent of this magnitude.
In the Five Continents of the Dao Beginning World, there were less than a hundred living beings with this kind of talent.
To make this even more simple, in the less populated Continent of the five were at least a few hundreds of quintillions of living beings, although more than 60% of that number were all mortal life.
To have less than fifty living beings in this World with that kind of talent, it was clear that whenever one appeared, a bloody battle may occur to acquire them.
Yet they were lucky enough to have one of these supreme genius right before them.
However, this wasn't the most absurd thing, it was the Comprehension that left them even more puzzled and shocked.
Of the twenty or so beings that had First Grade Spirit Roots in the current Era, not even one of them has Extreme-tier Comprehension. The comprehension could be understood as the most important thing in the Seven Nights Cultivation System.
In the long river of time, there were a lot of geniuses with that kind of spirit roots, and some even had better. Yet at the end, they couldn't reach higher stages of cultivation due to a lack of comprehension.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that not even a single individual with such a monstruous comprehension had been born in the last Era. And it was already more than a hundred billion years since the last Era too.
Although the soul of this mortal before them wasn't on the same level of even his Spirit Roots, it was still even better than the majority of their Inner Disciples' soul purity!
All in all, their previous thoughts of letting this mortal choose any technique that seemed impressive but was trash were nowhere to be seen.
With such a bright gem, even though he had lost his golden age to start cultivating, with their foundation and resources, it was not difficult to raise his cultivation.
However...
"I see that I am pretty talented by the looks of it", the middle-aged man commented slowly.
His remark made the elders look at him with side eyes. However, before any of them could say anything, the middle-aged man spoke up again.
"Seeing that I will be of value to your sect, let me first introduce myself, although I know that you all have already seen everything about me", he chuckled at the end.
His eyes were like crescent moons when he said that, but they suddenly lit up, emitting a mysterious purple-gold light that seemed unreal.
If not because of their cultivation level, the five old men would doubt they've seen it correctly. 'It's an ilusion', thought one of them.
The five old men then felt cold engulfing their bodies suddenly as the middle-aged man continued.
"My name is Li Shenxian. The greatest to have ever been born in past, present, and future times. For I am the Lord!" He said, his posing majestic and supreme.
One word of his and they all would have to kneel, for He is the Lord! If He so willed it, they must get to the side, else face eternal damnation!