Chapter 0004: Jealousy

The hall was dead silent.
As Huang Long stepped toward the magic circle, every step he took made the breaths of those in the hall grow heavier. Tension, unease, excitement, and jealousy filled the entire hall.
Zhao Rong clutched her husband’s hand tightly; beneath her delicate nose, one could hear the faint sound of air flowing in and out. She had never imagined that her son, who had always been quiet since childhood, would have an element affinity that was superior in all elements. In fact, she hadn’t even dared to hope for such a thing. After all, throughout the entire Hengyuan Continent, few magical geniuses in history had achieved such superior element affinity across all elements. So, before Huang Long placed his hands on the crystal sphere, she kept thinking, “Superior, superior, superior.”
Even if her second son’s element affinity was only of superior rank, she would have been overjoyed.
Yet the joy came too quickly and intensely. When the crystal sphere emitted a light as dazzling as the sun, illuminating the entire hall, she was stunned and dumbfounded.
Thus, under the gazes of everyone present, Huang Long stood at the center of the magic circle. As Rufat activated the magic circle, a blinding light burst forth and enveloped Huang Long within it. An invisible mental pressure seeped into his mind.
Mental power, in simple terms, was the power of the soul, related to the primordial spirit.
Although Huang Long’s physical body had been damaged during his journey through dimensions, and his primordial spirit had been severely hurt by the innate dark wind in the black hole, his mental power was still beyond what Rufat, a ninth-level magician, could suppress.
Standing there, he allowed Rufat to exert mental pressure on him through the magic circle without his expression changing at all.
At first, Rufat was cautious, fearing that too much mental pressure might harm Huang Long. But seeing Huang Long’s expression, he became both surprised and delighted, so he continued to intensify the mental pressure.
After a while, the light from the magic circle grew even stronger.
At that moment, the Chaos Bell, which had remained silent in Huang Long’s mind, suddenly emitted bursts of dazzling golden light before slowly beginning to spin.
Huang Long was taken aback. It had been six years since he arrived on the Hengyuan Continent. During those six years, he had constantly tried to communicate with the Chaos Bell in his mind, but it had never responded. He never expected it to react now under such circumstances. This filled him with joy. As he was still immersed in the surprise of the Chaos Bell’s reaction, he heard the screams of the people in the hall. He quickly regained his senses and saw their astonished expressions. Moved by this, he pretended to be unable to bear the mental pressure from Rufat any longer, his face contorted as he tried to kneel.
Seeing this, Rufat hurriedly stopped.

The glow of the magic circle faded, revealing the small figure of the Yellow Dragon. Amidst the tense atmosphere, Rufat raised his voice and declared, “His mental power is of top class—twentieth times that of peers his age.” As he read out the results of the Yellow Dragon’s mental power test, Rufat felt a mix of joy and disappointment, letting out a quiet sigh of relief. Top-class mental power was already a rare talent among magicians. However, Rufat had initially hoped the Yellow Dragon would once again astonish him with something even more extraordinary, but now that his mental power was only rated as top class, he felt much more at ease. After all, with his elemental affinity already at the highest level across all elements, coupled with top-class mental power, he would have been considered a super-genius among geniuses. Still, gasps of surprise filled the hall. With elemental affinity at the highest level across all elements and mental power at top class, despite the Yellow Dragon’s thousand-year lineage, no one before had ever produced such a super-genius descendant. Zhao Rong and Huang Xiong, who had been worried, finally relaxed, filled with excitement—especially Zhao Rong, who, unable to control herself in front of everyone, hugged her husband and burst into tears. It was tears of extreme joy! Who in the world wouldn’t want their children to bring honor to them? Twelve years ago, when their eldest son Huang Wei was found to have top-class warrior talent, she hadn’t stopped smiling for three whole days, even laughing while eating. Her eldest son had always been her pride, and now her second son’s magical talent was far surpassing even his elder brother’s warrior talent—filling her with happiness and excitement. As Zhao Rong wept in joy, Rufat’s expression grew complex as he studied closely this six-year-old super-genius before him. As a ninth-level magician, he understood better than anyone else in the hall the significance of the talents displayed by this young child. Elemental affinity at the highest level meant that the Yellow Dragon could refine magic in one hour what others would take ten hours or more to achieve. Combined with his top-class mental power, a seventh-level spell cast by him would be as powerful as an eighth-level spell cast by an ordinary magician. Moreover, he believed that within fifty or sixty years, this super-genius would surely become a powerhouse in the Holy Realm, and perhaps even break through to the Divine Realm. The Divine Realm—every peerless warrior from that realm would be etched into the history of the Eternal Element Continent. To think that such a powerful individual had undergone his evaluation at just six years old filled him with excitement.

“I wonder how His Holiness the Pope will react upon hearing this news?” Lufat thought to himself. Perhaps he would even be highly favored by the Pope and promoted to archbishop. Lufat was filled with hope.

Watching the expressions of those around him, especially the erratic behavior of his parents, Huang Long felt ashamed. If they knew he had deliberately pretended to be unable to withstand the mental pressure exerted on him by Lufat through the magic array, when in reality his mental strength was hundreds or even thousands of times that of his peers—his talent being extremely extraordinary—they wouldn’t know what to think.

Yet, Huang Long was also somewhat relieved that he hadn’t shown too much astonishment; otherwise, he would face great trouble in the future.

Standing among the crowd in the hall, Huang Cheng, unlike Zhao Rong and Huang Xiong who were crying with joy, stared at Huang Long with a cold gaze, filled with envy deep in his heart.

Twenty years ago, he had thought he would surely inherit the position of head of the Huang family, only to find it went to Huang Xiong, someone he had always dismissed as unremarkable. He still remembered being struck like by lightning when he learned the result back then, unable to react for a long time. All these years, he had lived in darkness, enduring the scorn of his own kin.

“A super genius? Hmph, even if one is a super genius, if they can’t grow, they’re just a freak genius.” Huang Cheng thought viciously, his eyes flashing with cold intensity.

Huang Long, the second young master of the Huang family, had super-grade affinity for all elements and upper-grade mental strength. The results of his talent test spread instantly throughout the entire Huang family. Moreover, from the Huang family outwards, the news spread throughout the Kingdom of Lutong. In less than half a day, even Oriel in the Lutong palace learned of it.

When Oriel heard the news, he was flirting with the queen in the back garden. “What! Super-grade affinity for all elements, upper-grade mental strength!” Initially annoyed by the interruption, he was stunned upon hearing this, then overjoyed. He immediately left the back garden, ignoring the seductive queen, and set off for the Huang family’s residence.