Chapter 874: All Kinds of Secrets (1/2)

They encountered a few groups of evil spirits and ghouls along the way.

Every time they ran into evil spirits, Nie Tian would wait for the right time to take out the Spirit Pearl, so that it would swallow the evil spirits.

Whenever they encountered ghouls, Huang Jinnan would launch overwhelming attacks to split them into pieces, causing them to suffer violent deaths.

When they had time to spare, Nie Tian would ask Huang Jinnan about the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace.

From him, Nie Tian gained a brand new understanding of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace.

As one of the four great human powers, the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace had more subordinate forces and affiliated domains than they could count.

Every few years, they would take in disciples and teach them secret magics and profound incantations.

First, they would select youngsters with extraordinary talent who met their criteria from their subordinate forces.

Every time they took in disciples, a grand gathering would be held. Tens of thousands of youngsters would participate. However, less than one percent of them would actually pass their tests and be taken in as their disciples.

Even though the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace would take in numerous disciples with every admission gathering, very few of them would eventually rise above the others and become Sons of the Stars.

Sometimes, dozens of admission gatherings would pass without even one youngster winning the acknowledgment of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace’s parliament of elders.

This was only one of the methods through which the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace took in disciples.

The other method was to pick Sons of the Stars directly.

Over hundreds of thousands of years, the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace had attacked and seized many domains. For some reason, they had left some of them unattended, but some of those domains were still rather important to them, and they had other plans for them.

They knew that some special domains had the potential to produce figures with unlimited cultivation talent.

Therefore, they would leave Heaven Gates in those domains.

These Heaven Gates would open every few decades, or even centuries.

The participants of the Heaven Gate trials who could make it to the grand palace, collect all three fragmentary star marks, and merge the fragmentary star marks with themselves, would become a Son of the Stars directly, skipping the process of becoming regular disciples of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace.

Right now, the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace had a total of seven Sons of the Stars.

Five of them had risen to their current position through the first method. They were the ones that had emerged after numerous rounds of selection.

Nie Tian and another had become Sons of the Stars after passing the Heaven Gate trial and merging all three fragmentary star marks.

No matter through which method they had become Sons of the Stars, their future paths would be full of dangers and difficulties. As for the first kind of Sons of the Stars, who had won the favor of the parliament of elders to become Sons of the Stars, they would have to fight outsiders and temper themselves through battles at early ages.

Battles between humans and outsiders had never stopped. Sons of the Stars would usually be sent to major battlefields in different domains to fight outsiders on the front lines.

Therefore, many of them would die at the outsiders’ hands.

The second kind of Sons of the Stars, who had passed the Heaven Gate trials to become Sons of the Stars, would also face an extended and dangerous test, which was to finish the ‘path of stars’.

The Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace would leave behind all kinds of arrangements that could be used to help them return to the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace’s headquarters. However, they wouldn’t provide them with any guidance or assistance. Instead, they would have to fend for themselves. Besides that, they would have to build themselves up while seeking their way back to the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace’s headquarters. Only after their cultivation bases, temperament, and learning ability had achieved certain levels would they eventually be granted entrance.

But after their return, the Sons of the Stars would have access to a copious amount of cultivation resources.

Meanwhile, competition also existed between them, as only one of them would eventually become the Lord of the Stars.

When one of them passed countless tests and eventually became the new Lord of the Stars, all of the other Sons of the Stars in his or her generation would have to join the parliament of elders to assist the new Lord of the Stars.

Even the current Lord of the Stars had risen to power following these steps. According to Huang Jinnan, the current Lord of the Stars of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace was now at the peak of the God domain.

And he had already been in this renowned position for fifty thousand years.

However, as powerful as he was, his lifespan wasn’t unlimited.

Rumor had it he was going to reach the end of his life soon.

After he passed away, the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace would have to select a new Lord of the Stars from the seven current Sons of the Stars.

Nie Tian was taken aback. “Even God domain experts have to face lifespan problems?”

Huang Jinnan sighed. “No one is truly immortal. It’s true of both humans and outsiders. Admittedly, outsiders and Ancientspirits can live much longer than humans. Some of them can even live up to a million years. However, as powerful as they are, they’ll eventually run out of their flesh aura, wither away, and die.

“The same goes for us.

“Before reaching the Worldly realm, human cultivators can’t form their true souls, and therefore won’t gain any extra years. Two hundred years will be the limit of their lifespan.

“After entering the Worldly realm, their lifespan will extend to five hundred years.