Chapter 177
And so, one after another, guests of no ordinary sort filed into the banquet hall.
Since two Nascent Soul grandmasters were seated in the courtyard, even the Core Formation elders following behind them seemed somewhat restrained.
Baek Cheong stared blankly before her gaze finally stopped on one of the groups.
Because a familiar face had appeared among the guests.
'Oh, over there...'
The maid standing behind her read her gaze and whispered in her ear.
"They’re from the Hosan Seo Clan."
As soon as Baek Cheong heard that, she tilted her head.
The Hosan Seo Clan was a family in the southern continent known for its unstoppable momentum.
Their power was beyond question, but they were not on friendly terms with the Yeonha Baek Clan.
Normally, there would have been no reason for them to attend the Baek Clan’s banquet.
'They never even showed up at our clan’s events.'
Even sending people from the Hosan Seo Clan was surprising enough.
But the first person to step inside was clearly one of the Core Formation elders.
And behind him trailed a young lady, followed by maids, in a demure manner.
'She came too?'
Recognizing Seo Joo-ah’s face, Baek Cheong’s eyes widened.
She was a peer she had matched skills with at the spell contest of Biun Sect’s Spring Exchange Meeting.
She was the proud young lady who kept challenging others, calling herself "this young lady."
'What on earth is going on?'
Come to think of it, the Hosan Seo Clan may have accepted the Baek Clan’s banquet because of Seo Joo-ah.
They seemed to have used the tie forged at Biun Sect as an excuse to make a rare visit.
She looked Seo Joo-ah over with mild dissatisfaction.
But as she studied her quietly, her eyes gradually narrowed.
'Had she gotten that big?'
Seo Joo-ah had changed a great deal in the time they hadn't seen each other.
She had grown at least a handspan taller, and the childish air had faded, leaving behind a fairly mature bearing.
What stood out most of all was her embarrassingly developed figure.
It was an enormous figure that even the robe’s hem couldn’t hide.
'No, we’re only one year apart.'
Baek Cheong stared blankly, her gaze fixed without her realizing it.
Even when they had faced off at the spell contest, there had still been a youthful freshness befitting someone their age.
Yet in just one or two years, she had ripened beyond recognition.
Comparing herself to her, Baek Cheong felt a slight sting in her chest.
'I’m kind of jealous.'
Perhaps because she had stared too openly.
Her father, seated beside her, noticed her gaze and casually spoke up.
"Cheong-ah."
"Yes, Father."
"I heard you became acquainted with the Hosan Seo Clan’s young lady at Biun Sect."
Baek Mu-jin pointed toward Seo Joo-ah with a pleased look.
"Since she’s come all this way, go and at least greet her."
For a moment, Baek Cheong failed to manage her expression and froze.
They weren’t close enough to call it friendship, and she didn’t particularly want to go over and make small talk.
She would have been far more comfortable just sitting quietly in her seat.
'No, can’t I just not go?'
But she couldn’t say it out loud.
There were too many eyes on her, and stubbornly resisting wouldn’t do her any good.
She rose from her seat, forcing down her displeasure.
'Sigh. I’ll just show my face for a moment and come back.'
Suppressing a sigh inside, she walked toward where Seo Joo-ah was seated.
As she approached, a Core Formation elder was beside Seo Joo-ah.
Thinking it proper to greet the senior first, Baek Cheong respectfully cupped her hands toward the elder.
"I, Baek Cheong of the Yeonha Baek Clan, pay my respects to Elder Noh of the Hosan Seo Clan."
The elder quietly looked down at the approaching Baek Cheong.
Soon, an interested light appeared in his wrinkled face.
"So you’re Baek Cheong."
The elder slowly looked Baek Cheong over from head to toe and let out a chuckle.
"They say you reached Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment in just four years while in Oh Yeong-geun’s body. Without innate talent, that would be impossible."
Baek Cheong blinked awkwardly at the sincere praise.
As befitted an elder of a prestigious family who had seen countless younger prodigies, his admiration held no false notes.
'Maybe they’re not such a bad clan after all...'
The elder gave Baek Cheong one more pleased look, then quietly turned away.
"With an old man in the way, you youngsters can’t even talk properly. Take your time and chat."
Once the elder withdrew elsewhere, Baek Cheong was left standing face-to-face with Seo Joo-ah alone.
Seeing her up close, the changes were even clearer.
It wasn’t just her build that had matured; her presence was no longer the same either.
The faint aura flowing from her now proved that she was already a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
'She made it to Foundation Establishment too.'
At the spell contest, Seo Joo-ah had still been stuck at the 8th layer of Qi Refinement.
She had apparently leapt over an entire major realm in the meantime.
Given her spirit-root aptitude, the Sejin Pill she had obtained, and the fact that she had even learned her clan’s secret art, it was only natural.
'And she even has more spiritual roots than I do...'
Meanwhile, Seo Joo-ah was also carefully studying Baek Cheong.
At the aura of Daoist Baek Cheong before her, she unconsciously swallowed hard.
She seemed to have reached Foundation Establishment not long ago, yet the aura she gave off was no ordinary thing.
It was so deep and weighty that it was hard to believe they were at the same Foundation Establishment stage.
Just how on earth had she trained?
Seo Joo-ah, unable to hide her surprise, carefully opened her mouth.
"I-I heard that Daoist Baek Cheong achieved Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment and went through heavenly tribulations..."
Baek Cheong hesitated for a moment.
Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment itself had been written on the invitation and made public, so there was no reason to hide it.
But heavenly tribulations were a different story.
Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment naturally came with heavenly tribulations, so a lie could be hidden within the truth.
'I have to be careful about the Three Thousand Tribulations.'
Since her uncle had warned her in advance, she had no choice but to be careful with her words.
Recalling the warning she had heard beforehand, she nodded without hesitation.
"Yes, I got lucky."
Even as she acted humble, she secretly puffed out her little chest with pride.
Then she came face-to-face with a towering Mt. Tai right before her.
The little chest she had proudly puffed out suddenly looked utterly pathetic.
'...Let’s rein it in.'
Baek Cheong carefully hunched her shoulders.
Perhaps that made her seem modest.
"As expected of the Daoist acknowledged by this young lady."
Driven by her towering pride, Seo Joo-ah instinctively straightened her back.
Her already huge chest stood out even more.
'She’s doing this on purpose, isn’t she?'
Baek Cheong’s lips twitched faintly at the outrageous sight before her.
For some reason, it felt like a provocation aimed at her, and something flared up inside her.
But with superhuman restraint, she forced the anger back down.
"But Daoist Baek Cheong..."
Seo Joo-ah gave Baek Cheong an innocent once-over from head to toe.
Then, suddenly tilting her head, she innocently blurted out one thing.
"You look just as you did before. Haven’t you grown at all?"
Baek Cheong’s expression vanished instantly.
It sounded as though something in the corner of her heart had snapped.
Just as the fury she had barely suppressed was about to surge all the way to her head...
'Is this for real...?'
A sudden murmur broke out on one side of the banquet hall.
All eyes in the hall were turning toward one spot at once.
Thanks to the commotion, she barely managed to hold onto her sanity.
'Hold it in. I have to hold it in.'
Suppressing the anger boiling up inside her, Baek Cheong turned her gaze toward the source of the noise.
Someone was entering the banquet hall.
He was unfamiliar, yet somehow oddly familiar.
Just as she frowned and tried to dredge up the memory...
"Brother!"
Just then, her third brother, who was nearby, brightened and ran over to him.
Only then did she finally recognize the man’s identity.
It was her second older brother, Baek Sang, who had gone off to Hyeonjin Sect to learn formations and hardly ever showed his face anymore.
'It’s my second brother.'
They had only seen each other briefly when she was very young.
For that reason, she hadn’t recognized him at first glance either.
"Looks like we're not late after all."
As attention naturally gathered, Baek Sang cupped his hands and offered his respects.
His calm voice spread softly through the banquet hall.
Then he gently turned toward the person accompanying him.
"Sorry for the late introduction. This is my master."
As he said that, he naturally pointed to the grandmaster who had accompanied him.
He was an elderly grandmaster wrapped in a faint yet unfathomable aura.
"He is Hyeonheo Zhenren (玄虛眞人), the sect master of Hyeonjin Sect and a famed quasi-5th-rank formation master."
The moment he finished speaking, the atmosphere in the hall stirred again.
Hyeonjin Sect was a sect that rarely showed itself to the outside world.
Its mysteries were so deep that even its inner workings were scarcely known.
So the fact that the sect master himself had personally come was enough to astonish everyone.
'A quasi-5th-rank formation master...'
A grandmaster who had one foot on the peak of formations.
On top of being a Nascent Soul grandmaster, he also carried the status of a formation master.
He even outranked the peak lord of Biun Sect’s Jinmun Peak.
'So that’s why?'
But Baek Cheong couldn’t take her eyes off Hyeonheo Zhenren for a different reason.
Countless glyphs were densely inscribed across the fluttering hem of his robe.
From collar to sleeves and every inch of it, his robe was covered in intricate glyphs.
'Those are all glyphs.'
She swallowed dryly without realizing it.
Most of the formation masters she had met up until now didn’t even know glyphs existed.
Yet Hyeonheo Zhenren had draped them across his robe from head to toe.
It was a sight worthy of being called a walking formation.
'Could he really be using glyphs?'
Baek Cheong, as if bewitched, couldn’t tear her eyes away from Hyeonheo Zhenren’s robe.
Each glyph seemed to contain some principle, and they kept catching her eye.
Even knowing it was rude to stare, she simply couldn’t look away.
She was blankly studying the glyphs when...
'Hm...?'
Suddenly, Hyeonheo Zhenren turned his gaze toward Baek Cheong, who had been staring fixedly at him.
Oddly enough, his gaze seemed to travel over the robe rather than her face.
Though she thought it impossible, a small curiosity welled up.