Chapter 1452: Verifying the Dao of an Exalted Emperor (IV)

Yuan Shuo appeared in front of Li Hao again, stern and commanding. “What were your marks on the test? Did you get one of the lowest scores again? There’s no dinner for you tonight if you didn’t score well!”

“......” Everyone stared at him. Would this jog Li Hao’s memories?

The child froze with shock, then ventured timidly, “The... test... results... aren’t out... yet...”

“How dare you lie to me?! I already asked your teacher!!”

“I... I won’t do it again...” The child Li Hao was a Sun and Moon cultivator, but he was completely horrified by the questioning and whirled around to run away. Yuan Shuo grabbed him again and smacked his bottom!

“I won’t do it again!” Loud crying filled the world again.

The group continued to stare at Yuan Shuo, dazed. Could it be that simple?

Yuan Shuo once more retreated from the river, meeting everyone’s stares with a placid expression.

You guys don’t know shit, this is little Li Hao’s deepest fear. Tests are terrifying!

Everyone was speechless as they watched Li Hao continue to swim through the river. He grew stronger and set foot into the Fused Dao cultivation level!

First level Fused Dao, second level...

He progressed so swiftly that it could scarcely be believed.

“I’ll give it a try when he’s sixteen,” Lin Hongyu volunteered. She had enough experience now! So this was all there was to taking care of a child. It seemed very simple.

She dove into the river with utter confidence when Li Hao turned sixteen and grabbed the teenager.

“How did you do on your test?” she demanded sternly.

Bam!

The young Li Hao punched with the force of sixth level Fused Dao. The combined might of the corporeal and immaterial dao was not to be underestimated. Lin Hongyu’s face swelled up from the force of the blow!

She gaped at the young man, not understanding the reaction.

A composed Yuan Shuo waded into the river, his eyebrows raised. “Li Hao, have you fallen in love for the first time?” he suddenly asked. “Tell me, who is the girl? Is it a secret crush or something else?”

The young man blinked, staring off into a daze. An awkward expression spread over his face when he thought of something and he whispered, “Don’t tell my mom...”

The group exchanged looks with each other. Lin Hongyu was immensely resigned.

Forget it, I don’t get raising a child!

Yuan Shuo might be a bachelor, but he knows what he’s doing. He’s a professor, alright!

Li Hao’s memories were awakened once more and the light in his eyes grew brighter. His strength improved once more. He continued to grow older, but there was no need for the others to awaken him anymore.

He seemed to understand something after turning sixteen. He was at times saddened, other times furious, and sometimes despairing.

Everyone knew that he’d awoken on his own; his strength continued to rise at a furious clip. It wasn’t long before he set foot into ninth level Fused Dao with a shift of his presence!

The corporeal and immaterial dao were one—Li Hao had reached his previous cultivation peak.

“Whew!” the young man exhaled. He looked around him, seeming to be able to pierce through the river and see those standing around him. “I’m going to verify my dao now!”

He looked at the group with the familiar look in his eyes, but his body was brand new. This cultivation go around had seemed much easier and straightforward, but everyone viewed his announcement solemnly.

How was he going to verify his dao? No one could tell!

Two stars appeared over Li Hao’s head—one white, one black. The group blinked—the star of life and death?

As the two stars came together to lead the other stars, the dao of various other stars appeared in Li Hao’s body. He set foot into the river of time that’d originally belonged to him.

Life and death intersected overhead.

“Life and death were not the difficult parts of what I attempted,” he smiled. “What was hard was ensuring a perfect recovery of my memories. Teacher, you know me well!”

“Why didn’t you call for me in the first place?” Yuan Shuo laughed.

“I thought teacher wouldn’t know either... You’re a bachelor, after all...”

“I’ve done everything possible in my life,” sneered Yuan Shuo. “I was even the headmaster of an orphanage for seven years early on, just so I could excavate more ruins. I know what you’re thinking as soon as you stick out your butt! Eh, put clothes on first! You’re an offense to my eyes!”

Li Hao paused, then laughed. A green robe appeared over his body.

Across the way, Lin Hongyu looked elsewhere.

Everyone was watching you earlier, so it didn’t matter that I was doing the same too.

Li Hao coughed gently and smiled at the sky. “So it’s this simple to become an exalted emperor, huh! But since my dao is that of life and death, I’ll probably meet with a chaos tribulation. It won’t be too strong though. We’re old acquaintances by now, so I’ll hack right through it!”

He rushed out of the world as soon as he finished speaking.

There was indeed a thundercloud that wasn’t too strong forming in the chaos. It was a far cry from what Silver Moon had weathered before. Strictly speaking, it was similar to the one that’d killed Li Hao, Li Daoheng, and the others. That time, three of them had died in the tribulation.

It was formidable enough in its own right, but absolutely nothing in Li Hao’s eyes now.

His longsword materialized and the wheel of life and death spun. Li Hao rushed into the chaos, slashing out with his sword. The dao of life and death manifested, leading 360 dao meridians that were one. The sword cut through the thundercloud with a loud rumble!

The others had followed the young man out and stared, dumbfounded at the sight. Li Hao was so strong!

An even greater surge of power erupted from Li Hao’s body—another stroke in which life and death were one. The thunderclouds seemed to sense the threat and shifted uneasily. They continuously flickered between death qi and vitality.

Life and death intermixed with each other; the thundercloud also seemed to undergo life, old age, sickness, and death. When Li Hao brought his sword down again, the tribulation cloud that could smite Bone Eclipse scattered from the blow!

Jaws dropped in the crowd.

W-what...?

Bam!

The tribulation dispersed!

Li Hao opened his mouth and swallowed the destructive force in the cloud. He landed on top of the giant chaos beast, sitting down cross-legged. The star of life and death hovered over his head; his presence billowed commandingly.

After the star shifted between black and white for a while, an impressive might brewed out of thin air. Panther shook in its control of the chaos beast—it could sense an incomparable threat!

“Life and death are less than time!” Li Hao opened his eyes and shook his head with some regret. They were indeed inferior!

An exalted emperor of life and death might be stronger than regular exalted emperors, but he would not be stronger than an exalted emperor of time! What a pity!

Ringing silence reigned; the group suddenly wanted to beat him up. Celestial Pole kept quiet as well, wondering if his primary body could defeat the young man if it was here...

Probably?

𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Is it so easy to verify the dao of an exalted emperor? How come I didn’t discover it before?

Of course, it was easy for Li Hao to do so because he’d killed countless exalted emperors already. But for the young man to grasp the dao of life and death so easily was still a hard pill to swallow for Celestial Pole.

I never envy anyone, but... I really do kind of envy him this time. Not even the Human King verified his dao so quickly! How long has it been??

Just as Li Hao had said before all of the commotion, it wasn’t too difficult to become an exalted emperor no matter what dao he walked, so long as it wasn’t the dao of time.

Granted, that was limited to him. Regular cultivators couldn’t do what he’d achieved. Another point was that chaos tribulations were commonplace for him. He’d weathered them so many times that chaos tribulations seemed to be born for him.

Yet under regular circumstances, a newly ascended exalted emperor would be hard pressed to defend themselves against such a tribulation. They were... as if tofu under Li Hao’s sword.

Just those two points alone shattered everyone else’s illusions.

An exalted emperor of life and death was not a typical exalted emperor. In fact, any being who could raise the attention of a chaos tribulation was not a simple existence. Therefore, everyone was highly admiring of the young man.

Even if Li Hao himself didn’t wish for it, all of Silver Moon seemed to be celebrating him.

The group clustered together. Veteran powerhouses such as Zhang An who were still unable to cross into the exalted emperor level were very envious. Zhang An lost himself in thought when he looked at Li Hao’s face that still bore traces of baby fat.

Li Hao was almost twenty-two years old. According to what he’d said before, opening the Star Gate meant the dawn of a new calendar. The young man was already twenty-two in the first year of the new age.

Zhang An thought back to when the Human King verified his dao and conquered the world. That august personage hadn’t been that old either when he became an uncommon, premier exalted emperor. He might’ve even been younger than Li Hao.

The Human King had enrolled at Demonic Martial when he was eighteen, then conquered the world three years later. However, his era was different from this era. Li Hao had truly become the Human King of this era!

An exalted emperor of life and death! Li Hao hadn’t started cultivating until he was twenty!

The giant chaos beast continued to drift through the chaos as everyone grappled with their thoughts.

“Li Hao, is the dao of life and death completely different from the dao of yin and yang in your eyes?” Zhang An asked. “Is life and death stronger, or yin and yang?”

The others, including Celestial Pole, were highly curious about the young man’s answer. The Human King counted as an exalted emperor of yin and yang, didn’t he?

These premier existences had plenty of daos to pull from, but there were some premier ones as the basis in the end. The main world of New Martial was called Yin and Yang. It was clear from that which dao that world focused on.

The Human King had completed the reversal of yin and yang when he cut down the Heavenly Emperor and revived the fallen heroes. He’d created the world of Yin and Yang, accomplishing the conversion of energy inside the world.

However, a dao of life and death also sounded very impressive.

“There are a myriad of daos out there.” Li Hao smiled when he saw everyone’s blatant interest. “They’re pretty much all the same. As for who’s stronger, it depends on one’s application and cultivation level.”

This answer was immensely dissatisfying.

“There’s also different levels of the profound mysteries of dao!” Li Hao continued when he saw the look in everyone’s eyes.

As the youngest cultivator present, it was a curious sight for him to be explaining dao to everyone and describing its strengths and weaknesses. But out of them all, he might have the deepest comprehension of death.

“When it comes to life and death or yin and yang...” Li Hao mulled over his answer. “Yin and yang are two sides of the same coin. They are a joint existence of soft and unyielding! New Martial could resurrect everyone through a reversal of yin and yang because that wasn’t a true revival, it was a reversal of extreme yang to extreme yin.

“The Human King then cultivated extreme yang through deploying extreme yin, thus bringing people back to the side of yang!

“Meanwhile, the dao of life and dao does not contain the ability to resurrect others!”

The group blinked. This dao... could not resurrect people?

“The most significant characteristic of life and death lies in the collision between the start and finish...” Li Hao continued.

“Say something we understand!” Celestial Pole couldn’t help himself. “Speak plainly! Explain like we’re five!”