1962 Strange Reaction On an island in Sky Palace, a middle-aged man in gray clothing watched the gourd vine. “Father, what are you looking at?” A young lady walked up the middle-aged man in gray clothing and looked in the same direction. “Knife Queen’s student is in Sky Palace. He is on the Sky Road now,” the middle-aged man in gray clothing said. The lady lifted her lips and said, “What’s the big deal? Many heirs of Kings come to Sky Palace for practice. Having him here should have no bearing. Besides, he is just her student. It’s not as if he is her son.” The middle-aged man smiled and said, “Knife Queen is the old man’s favorite student. She asked the old man for permission to allow her own student to come here for practice. The old man agreed without a moment of hesitation. If he can cross the Sky Road, the old man is going to give him a placement in the White Jade Building, no matter what.” The lady’s eyes opened wide. “The old man has shown too much favoritism. We are the true students of Sky Palace, and we have to be in the top ten to attain a spot in the White Jade Building. He hasn’t done anything, and yet he earns a spot? That is not fair!” The middle-aged man in gray clothing laughed. “There is no such thing as fair. The old man owns Sky Palace, so he is free to do that which makes him the happiest. Lady Su, keep in mind that everyone shares a different opinion on that which defines fairness. If you do not understand this, things may turn out poorly for you.” The lady nodded. She seemed to understand, but not completely. The lady quickly looked away. She smiled and said, “It does not matter how much the old man likes him; if he cannot cross Sky Road, it is useless to debate. Not everyone can cross the Sky Road, after all. He will soon see how difficult that crossing can be.” The middle-aged man in gray clothing smiled. “Lady Su, you are too naive. If Knife Queen sent him here, he has the confidence to make it through. Now we have to find out if he can trigger the holy presence from the holy gourd.” Lady Su felt glum, and she said, “The gourd rarely releases a holy aura for our proper students. What makes him think he can trigger it?” “Back in the day, Knife Queen triggered the holy gourd’s holy aura. She was an outsider at the time, too. She got a holy gourd knife air; if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have achieved King class at such an early age. And then proceed to become half-deified so soon after. That gourd helped a lot,” the middle-aged man in gray clothing said. “Knife Queen is a real genius. Even the old man has said she may well become a deified being. I don’t know about her student, though. I have heard he is a crystallizer, mind you. Kong Fei gave him a deified feather, and still no one dared to accept him. You can see how talented he is from that,” Lady Su said, with a blinking of her eyes. The middle-aged man in gray clothing shook his head. “They didn’t refuse him because of a lack of talent. They refused him because of the instability of his genes. It is difficult to predict the future of a man like that. Whatever the case, it would be risking a grand investment.” “Let’s see how talented he is, then,” Lady Su said. Han Sen glanced over the giant gourd vine that looked like a dragon. He stepped onto it, to reach the main green vine. But when he stepped onto it, he was shocked. The gourd vine was fine, but the gourds started to shake. Each and every one of them. They were like vibrating dolls as they hung across the vines. It was quite spooky. But aside from shaking, they did nothing else. “No way! It looks very powerful, but that is surely just a bluff. If I fall down now, Yisha will kill me.” Han Sen thought about that, and decided to keep walking. Everywhere he went, the gourds vibrated. If they were not connected to the vine, they would surely have flown away. When Han Sen saw that they were doing nothing but shaking, he relaxed and kept walking across the vine. He thought to himself, “The Sky Road cannot be this simple, surely. There must be some special trick to it. Let’s walk forward and have a looksie.” Han Sen kept walking across the gourd vine, while the people across Sky Palace were in shock. Thousand Feather Crane looked towards Han Sen’s feet and saw the gourds vibrating like mad. His eyes almost popped out of their sockets. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖 He had been in Sky Palace for twenty years, and he had watched many creatures make the trip across the Sky Road. Some had passed over the vine without incident, some had been knocked off by an angered vine, and a select few had received approval by a holy gourd and been given a holy aura. When Thousand Feather Crane crossed the Sky Road, he received a holy aura from a holy gourd. That in itself was a rare thing. But he had never seen something like this transpire before. The gourds all looked scared of Han Sen, and they were shaking as if they wished to escape from him. “What is it with this guy?” Thousand Feather Crane watched Han Sen cross over the holy gourds. Lady Su and the middle-aged man in gray clothing saw this as well. It prompted Lady Su to ask, with much shock, “Father, what are these gourds doing? It doesn’t look as if they’re giving out a holy aura. But I’ve never heard of the gourds reacting like this to the approach of someone.” The middle-aged man in gray clothing looked at the vine and said, “This is strange. The gourds have not approved his talent, but...they are scared of him.” “The gourds are scared of him? That is impossible! He is just a Viscount. The holy gourd is a deified plant. Even if a deified elite was making the crossing, it shouldn’t be scared. He is just a Viscount,” Lady Su said again, dripping with disbelief. This shouldn’t happen, but the gourds do look scared.” The middle-aged man in gray clothing stroked his jaw and looked at Han Sen atop the gourd vine with interest. In Sky Palace, many people were now focusing on Han Sen. Each and every person there had a strange expression. Wherever he went, the gourds would shake with fear in a ten meter radius around him. When Han Sen went by, and they fell out of that radius, the gourds would revert to their still selves again. While Han Sen was walking, nothing else happened aside from the shivering of the gourds. It actually made Han Sen depressed. “D*mn it! Something please happen. I can’t just jump off. If I go back now, Yisha will kill me.” Han Sen’s mind was racing for a solution. But his minutes of furious thinking were futile. Before he knew it, he had walked to the other end of the gourd vine. He reached the stone steps on the main island, and the gourd had yet to have a response.