Chapter Forty-Seven: 3D Projection

"Uncle Zhou, could you take a look at what's inside this?" Zhou Tian handed a diamond-shaped jade slip, glowing with a soft, luminous white light, to Uncle Zhou.

This piece had just been left behind by Zixu. The reason Zhou Tian had summoned him was precisely to find out why the people from the Great Luo Academy were seeking him out.

He did, in fact, manage to learn something. The details were all stored within this small jade slip, which contained a recording of everything that had transpired.

Uncle Zhou took the jade slip and infused it with energy. The slip began to glow, runes shimmered across its surface, and a miniature three-dimensional projection emerged before them.

Zhou Tian’s eyes could not hide a look of amazement. All paths, in the end, lead to the same destination; what technology could achieve, so too could cultivation.

Turning his gaze to the projection, he saw four people in the scene: Zixu alone, and three from the Great Luo Academy. Zhou Tian seemed to vaguely recognize the leader—he had seen him at the banquet, though the memory was hazy. A voice emanated from the image.

"You are Zixu, I presume?" the leader from the Great Luo Academy asked, his tone haughty and tinged with disdain.

"I am indeed Zixu. May I ask what business brings you three here?" Zixu responded with neither arrogance nor servility. He showed no anger at the man’s tone, nor did he appear intimidated by the fact that the others hailed from a mighty provincial force. His bearing was composed and refined.

"Zhou Tian’s fiancée, that woman named Tianling—she is your senior, isn't she?"

"Yes, Tianling is indeed my senior. And you are...?"

Zixu’s brows knitted slightly.

"If you encounter her in the Youth Tournament, we want you to seriously injure her for us!"

The man from the Great Luo Academy sneered coldly.

"Absolutely not!" Zixu shot to his feet in fury, violet light flashing in his eyes as if he were about to strike, but after a moment he regained his composure, sat back down, and said coldly, "If you have no other business, then please leave!"

The others from the Great Luo Academy showed no reaction to Zixu’s flare-up. To them, a cultivator of the Tripitaka Realm was hardly a threat—they could put him down with a single hand.

"Won't you reconsider? If you agree to help us, these two sacred weapons will be yours. Furthermore, we can bring you back to the Great Luo Province, where you would be safe from Zhou Tian’s retaliation and provided with an excellent environment for cultivation!"

The man produced two weapons from thin air, radiant with an ethereal glow—a long sword and a suit of armor. Even through the projection, Zhou Tian could sense their extraordinary nature. The man tried to tempt Zixu with these alluring offers.

"Please leave!" Zixu's fists clenched as he suppressed his anger.

"Hmph, I hope you won’t regret this in the future!" Seeing that Zixu refused to yield, the man’s expression darkened. With a cold snort, he turned to leave.

Just as they reached the door, Zixu suddenly spoke.

"Aren’t you afraid of Zhou Tian’s revenge? He is the heir of the Prince of Qin of the Heavenly Qin Dynasty!"

"The heir to the Prince of Qin? Nothing but a useless braggart who talks big and does nothing!"

With these words, the man walked out, and the projection ended.

A chilling crimson light flashed in Uncle Zhou’s eyes, thick with murderous intent. His voice was icy as he said, "Young master, shall I take care of them? With this recording, we are no longer at a disadvantage!"

He had heard that last insult to Zhou Tian loud and clear—this was his bottom line. Calling Zhou Tian a good-for-nothing could be trivialized as youthful banter, or magnified into a grave insult against the entire Heavenly Qin Dynasty.

The incident at the banquet had already been addressed by Zhou Tian, and the dynasty had let the matter rest. But this was different—if they were to be killed outright, there would be much to exploit with such evidence in hand.

In truth, the biggest mistake those students from the Great Luo Academy made wasn't their arrogance or their condescension; it was their mistaken belief that they stood on the same footing as Zhou Tian.

While the Great Luo Academy might be on par with the Heavenly Qin as institutions, this did not mean their students were on par with Zhou Tian himself. They were but one among thousands of students at the academy, while Zhou Tian was a true scion of the Zhou clan, with the clan master as his own uncle. How could their statuses possibly be equal?

"No need," Zhou Tian waved his hand. "Since they’ve gone to such lengths to set up this little drama for me, simply killing them would be letting them off too easily."

These fellows, he mused, could only come up with the same tired insult over and over—calling him a good-for-nothing, without a shred of originality.

Then his expression shifted to one of puzzlement. "Are the people from the Great Luo Academy touched in the head? Not only did they try to get Zixu to go against Tianling, they even fell into such an obvious trap at the end?"

Trying to recruit Zixu against Tianling was at least understandable—they had offered generous terms, and Zixu, being Tianling’s junior, knew her well. If his feelings for her hadn’t been so deep, perhaps he might have agreed.

Zhou Tian suspected that if Zixu had actually returned with them to the Great Luo Province, there was a high chance he’d simply disappear—after all, on their turf, no matter what promises they made, they could dispose of him as they pleased.

But that last question was so clearly a trap laid by Zixu, and yet they walked right into it. Was this really the intelligence of someone from the Great Luo Academy?

"Young master, it’s not that simple. For all their arrogance, their intelligence isn’t that lacking," Uncle Zhou shook his head, holding up the diamond-shaped jade slip. "This projection wasn’t recorded on the spot. Any power of decent size has ways to counteract recording formations, and the Great Luo Academy even more so. They came prepared, each carrying treasures to ward off such surveillance!"

Uncle Zhou reopened the projection, zooming in on one of the academy members, pointing to a blue jade pendant at his waist, glowing softly and radiating runes.

"Then what about this projection...?" Zhou Tian asked, puzzled. "If recording arrays couldn’t work, how did this projection come about?"

"That’s thanks to the divine soul residing within Zixu," Uncle Zhou explained. "I sensed a trace of its unique fluctuation deep within the array of the jade slip."

With a gentle tap, the jade slip dissolved into a complex grand formation, golden light swirling within like a canopy of stars.

He reached out and stirred the formation, sending countless runes flowing into it from his hand. The golden light blazed, and a wisp of gray mist, fine as a hair, was drawn out—he had manifested the fluctuation of the divine soul into tangible form with his great power, just so Zhou Tian could witness it.

"Don’t show me these things, just looking at them gives me a headache..." Zhou Tian said, clutching his head. He couldn’t fathom how people in this world could master such complexities.

Uncle Zhou just shook his head with a smile, closed his hand, and the formation contracted back into the diamond-shaped slip, looking untouched as before.