Chapter 6: The City Lord's Son Strives (5)
Time flowed eastward like water. In the blink of an eye, three years passed.
Su Chen was now twenty-two. Whenever he recalled the scene from the grand martial competition, his head throbbed with pain.
He still had no idea which bastard had spread the rumors, twisting them more and more outrageously.
What began as "he beat Nangong Meng to tears on the arena" had somehow evolved into "he toyed with her heart and then abandoned her."
Countless versions circulated. If he ever found the culprit behind the gossip, he would hang them up and give them a proper whipping.
Plenty of Nangong Meng's admirers had come looking for trouble over the years, but those were minor annoyances. After all, he was still a seed-level talent of Soaring Clouds Martial Academy.
Yet… three years had gone by, and his cultivation remained stuck at the peak of the ninth layer of Spirit Gathering. Even with the azure Spirit Vein Fruit awarded by the palace during the grand competition, he estimated it would take another year or two to step into the Spirit Vein Realm.
Meanwhile, every other top-ten prodigy from that same generation had already broken through to Spirit Vein—except him.
In the end, his talent simply could not compare to theirs. Even Nangong Meng, whom he had once defeated so easily, had reportedly entered the Spirit Vein Realm several months earlier—and with a blue-grade Spirit Vein at that. Blue-grade Spirit Veins were exceedingly rare in the Heavenly Wind Kingdom.