Starting with a Family System to Become an Immortal Official Chapter 96

Pure chaos and panic spread like wildfire across the examination grounds.

Word of the monstrous creature had traveled faster than anything one could imagine.

Candidates sprinted across the dunes, robes flapping wildly as spiritual energy flared beneath their feet to launch them from one sandy crest to the next. No one bothered with formations to hide tracks or ambushes anymore.

The only thought in every mind was survival!

"I don’t want to die here!"

A young disciple from a minor sect wailed as many tears streamed as he leaped over a ridge.

"This is just an immortal official exam!"

"Why is there something this terrifying!?"

"Where are the proctors?!"

"They’re supposed to protect us! Proctor Song! Proctor Gu! Procter Ye! Anyone!"

A burly Golden Core cultivator shoved past a slower runner like there was a finish line.

"I heard it already slaughtered over a hundred candidates! Ripped them apart like paper! That thing’s power... it’s at least Grandmaster realm—maybe even higher!"

A pale-faced girl nearby hissed.

"Shut your mouth! Don’t spread nonsense like that!"

"But it’s true!"

The burly one shot back as he panted.

"And I heard... some people are saying Proctor Gu Bingyue might have released it on purpose! To weed out the weak or maybe to target certain people!"

The girl grabbed his sleeve hard.

"Say that again and I’ll slap a silencing talisman on you myself! Accusing a proctor like that will get your whole clan investigated!"

They kept running anyway, jumping dune after dune as their fragile hearts hammered.

No rivalries mattered now.

Former enemies ran side by side.

Clans that had been plotting against each other all night now shared terrified glances and pushed each other forward when someone stumbled.

That was when most of them spotted him.

A lone figure walking calmly in the opposite direction.

Straight toward the source of all the screams.

Was it bravery or foolishness?

He wore flowing robes of deep indigo trimmed in silver wave patterns. Long cream-colored hair flowed behind him like a river of moonlight, occasionally brushed back by an elegant hand. His eyes shone brilliant blue, almost glowing with inner spiritual light.

Handsome features and a sharp jaw.

He also had an aura of unshakable confidence.

The candidates slowed for a second out of shock.

A frantic young man lunged forward and grabbed the stranger’s wrist.

"Senior! Are you mad?! Turn around!"

"YEAH! You can’t go that way!"

Daoist Water paused.

He looked down at the trembling hand on his sleeve with mild amusement.

The youth babbled on.

"That creature... it just killed Lady Xu Lingxi! The pride of the Xu Clan! Even her Heaven-Splitting Azure Lotus Slash couldn’t scratch it! You’ll die for nothing!"

Daoist Water tilted his head slightly.

A faint smile curved his lips.

"I am not Xu Lingxi."

A swirling orb of compressed water formed in his palm like a miniature cyclone.

He released it gently.

The blast hit the young candidate like a tidal wave and sent him tumbling backward across the sand like a ragdoll as he coughed and spat grit.

Daoist Water brushed his long cream bangs aside to reveal those shining blue eyes fully.

He was undeniably one of the greatest talents of his generation—chosen first among the Shui Clan during the brutal succession struggles for influence within the Five Elements Kingdom, a powerful coalition of elemental families in the Great World State of the Lower Heaven Realm.

For centuries, the Shui Clan had specialized in the most brutal water-based cultivation.

Their core method was the Profound Abyss Eternal Flow Scripture which allowed practitioners to slowly refine and elevate their water spiritual root through deep layers of comprehension!

It absorbed ambient moisture.

Harmonized with rivers and seas.

Liquidity, pressure and infinite transformation.

Those were its deeper principles!

Many in the Shui clan had pushed their roots from ordinary blue-grade to peak blue and a rare few had even touched the edge of indigo potential.

But Daoist Water... he had always aimed higher.

Killing this beast then refining its core organs as well as violet water root would be the crowning achievement and final push to elevate his own root to true violet splendor!

A blue water root was too mediocre for him.

He grinned as his greedy eyes locked on the distant silhouette of the monster.

"I was born to claim this power."

With a sweep of his sleeve, he drew a shimmering wall of chaotically spinning water spears into existence before him like his own personal army.

There were hundreds of them.

He locked eyes with Hai Tung Wan.

Snap! went his fingers.

The spears launched like thunderbolts.

Their takeoff alone caused explosive shockwaves that could only be called earth-shaking!

It cracked the dune beneath his feet and hurled pillars of sand skyward.

They moved impossibly fast.

Hai Tung Wan simply raised a webbed hand and waved gently.

Every spear dissolved mid-flight, collapsing into harmless raindrops that pattered softly onto the sand.

Daoist Water’s confident expression froze.

『Impossible... I’ve never seen water control at this level. To turn my Profound Abyss Forging Spears into mere rain... this monster must possess an extraordinary water root. I must have it—no matter what!』

To him that display of power wasn’t a warning.

It was a motivation.

His gaze narrowed on the faint blue gem-like core glowing on the creature’s chest.

A smug grin returned.

Hai Tung Wan remained silent.

Daoist Water pointed.

"I know exactly what you are."

He spoke with calm authority.

This is someone whose family had hoarded knowledge of water-based cultivation for millennia.

This is a man whose family had boarded water-related knowledge for millennia!

"This desert is the Thousand Empty Sea Domain which was once a vast spiritual continent in the ancient Shifting Pagoda World, so immense it could drown lesser realms. Master Wen Jiuling, in his leisure, seeded it with countless spirit fish so he and his friends could fish in peace. But one fish... a Devouring Whale... grew greedy. It consumed the entire sea, drinking every drop of spiritual water, every living thing, until it evolved into... you."

He jabbed his finger toward the monster.

"Hai Tung Wan!"

The Shui Clan had long planned hunts for such grand water entities since they hoped to harvest their water spiritual roots for breakthroughs. But they quickly shelved their plans when word spread that Master Wen Jiuling had personally subdued and sealed the beast.

Daoist Water chuckled softly.

"The heavens must have delivered you to me."

He placed a palm out.

"Fate itself wants me to rise."

He clenched his fist as his spiritual energy surged.

But in the fraction of time it took to blink—

Hai Tung Wan stood directly in front of him.

"What—!?"

Claws slashed down.

Daoist Water barely reacted in time and shoved himself backward several meters with a desperate burst of water-propelled movement.

He touched his chest, laughing in disbelief.

"How... how did I survive that speed...?"

Relief flooded him.

Then he looked down.

An hundredfold water seal glowed on his torso.

"What is—?"

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The seal detonated.

Water exploded outward and tore away more than half his chest and abdomen.

Daoist Water collapsed in screams.

"My body—! It hurts—how—how did it—?!"

His screams grew louder and wilder.

Then Hai Tung Wan’s foot came down.

Like a hammer driving a nail, it smashed Daoist Water’s head into the sand.

Any ordinary cultivator would have been pulped.

Somehow, Daoist Water still lived...barely.

He gurgled through ruined flesh.

Hai Tung Wan tilted its head as it sniffed the air.

"There is... powerful water qi here..."

It murmured in a low rasp.

"Not this weakling. I thought I devoured every drop in this realm... yet still I sense it."

Its grin split its grotesque face in two.

"Infinite... endless..."

It dropped to all fours like a sprinter.

Then it launched.

RUUUUUMBLEEE!!

A living missile of water.

It ruthlessly tore through the southeast quadrant and split dunes in half.

The candidates ahead saw death coming.

"Run—run faster!" someone shrieked.

"It’s here—we’re going to die!"

"Form a protective array—now!"

Several clan disciples from a prominent sect joined hands as powerful seals flashed.

A massive spiritual avatar rose.

A towering guardian clad in golden light.

One of them laughed shakily.

"We’re all Golden Core experts! This array can at least hold it long enough for us to—"

The beast ripped through the avatar like wet paper.

Claws snapped and two heads flew.

The shockwave of its passage obliterated the rest.

When Hai Tung Wan skidded to a stop, the sheer pressure wave rolled outward and liquidized roughly two hundred more candidates into pools of blood.

It held two severed heads in its hands.

"Hrmmm."

It looked around with predatory eyes.

"Not here either."

It gnashed razor teeth and growled low.

Then its gaze fell on a battered group... Bi Haitao and the remaining Golden Sun Pavilion disciples, panting and covered in blood from the shockwave.

One disciple whispered.

"Senior Brother Bi... shouldn’t we run?"

"Senior Sister Su Liyue is the strongest. Maybe we should find her..."

Another nodded.

"She might still be alive. We can—"

"Shut up!"

Bi Haitao roared.

"I’ll protect you all! I don’t need Li Qingmu and I sure as hell don’t need that senior sister!"

He gripped his sword tighter and let out a grunt.

"I can do this... I’ll do it myself!"

With a war cry, he leveled his blade at the monster.

"Come then! I’ll be the one to end you!"

Hai Tung Wan laughed darkly.

"A foolish woman said the same thing not long ago and she’s dead. Or... is she?"

Its gaze drifted sideways.

In the shadow of a dune, a badly wounded Lady Xu Lingxi crouched as she clutched her side.

Beside her lay Xiao Bai and Auntie Chuyan.

They were both unconscious.

She groaned softly.

"I... I don’t know how much longer I can hold on..."

"Just have to hide..."

"Hope the proctors finally do something..."

That was a whole bunch of gibberish by Xu Lingxi.

She was too tired to think properly.

She raised trembling fingers to form a hand seal.

"One last high-grade concealment art... staying hidden is my only priority now."

Right before the seal activated, a huge, monstrous eye opened on the back of her hand.

It laughed coldly.

"There’s nowhere to hide."

Xu Lingxi’s blood ran cold.

She knew that eye.

More eyes bloomed across her arms, shoulders and neck like an infection.

Dozens of them, all laughing.

"WAHAHA! Nowhere to hide."

Those words repeated millions of times in her head.

It haunted her soul to pure submission.

She screamed in pure terror.

"AHHHH!!"

A scream that could fuel the nightmares of a child.