Within the scene.
No one had expected that this seemingly unkempt, slovenly old Daoist had actually saved Qiao'er's life.
Such a favor was truly something to be envied.
One must know that Qiao'er was a disciple of the Eternal Life Pavilion.
Moreover, she was so dearly cherished by Old Lady Jin Hua and Senior Li Xin.
To gain such a significant favor from the Eternal Life Pavilion was far better than any miraculous immortal pill or elixir.
In the future, if this old Daoist ever encountered difficulties and sought help from the Eternal Life Pavilion, the pavilion would absolutely not refuse.
How could this not make others envious?
Not to mention the mortal immortals present, even Upper Immortals like Mo Baiyu, Yun Zhou, Yuanwu, and Fuying, who bore the mandates of the Immortal Dao, were filled with envy and jealousy.
They were all admirers of Supreme Immortal Qingqing; otherwise, they wouldn't have chased her all the way here from distant heavenly domains.
They also knew that Qiao'er was not only dearly cherished by Old Lady Jin Hua and Senior Li Xin, but was also a junior sister whom Supreme Immortal Qingqing was quite fond of.
If they could win Qiao'er's favor, it would give them more hope and leverage in pursuing Supreme Immortal Qingqing in the future.
And that was just winning her favor. If one had a life-saving grace towards Qiao'er, Supreme Immortal Qingqing would surely be immensely grateful. With such a significant favor, would they still fear failing to win her heart?
It wasn't that Mo Baiyu and the others hadn't considered approaching through Qiao'er. Unfortunately, they had never had the opportunity. Not to mention saving Qiao'er, they couldn't even find a way to win her favor.
Yet such a wonderful thing had fallen upon the head of this unkempt old Daoist.
It truly made them envious beyond words.
Apart from envy, Mo Baiyu and the others only felt regret—regret that they hadn't gone to the Yanwu Secret Realm back then, regret that the one who saved Qiao'er wasn't themselves.
"Brother Baiyu, that old Daoist...
He seems to be someone from your ship, right?"
Yun Zhou frowned, staring at the old Daoist as if deeply puzzled.
Mo Baiyu nodded in response. "That's correct."
"Who is he?"
Mo Baiyu shook his head. He didn't know who this old Daoist was either.
"This old Daoist appears profoundly mysterious. The spiritual aura around him is incredibly chaotic, containing both human breath and immortal breath. He seems like an immortal, yet also like a human..." As was widely known.
Once mortals from the secular world ascended to become immortals, their physical bodies underwent a transformative sublimation. After this sublimation, the body was no longer flesh and blood but became a body of immortal law.
However.
Because the soul remained a human soul, even after ascending to immortality, a trace of human breath would more or less linger, though it was minuscule.
In contrast, this old Daoist still possessed a very dense human breath. Strangely, not only was the human breath dense, but the immortal breath was also dense. Even more bizarrely, the human breath and immortal breath on the old Daoist seemed to have fused together. The human breath contained immortal breath, and the immortal breath contained human breath. The human breath wasn't purely human, nor was the immortal breath purely immortal. The two were indistinguishable, mixed together, making it truly unfathomable.
Their inability to comprehend it didn't mean others couldn't.
At the very least, Old Lady Jin Hua and Senior Li Xin knew what kind of existence Huode was.
After all, they were disciples of the Eternal Life Pavilion, one of the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands. The things they had been exposed to, understood, and knew were simply incomparable to the likes of Mo Baiyu.
Both Old Lady Jin Hua and Senior Li Xin knew that since ancient times, throughout the Myriad Heavens and Worlds, there had always been a special kind of existence.
This existence was the Daoist cultivator who pursued the Great Dao.
Speaking of the term 'Daoist,' one had to trace back to before the Primordial Era. At that time, the Dao was still purely the Dao, without distinctions between immortal, demon, Buddha, human, monster, ghost, or fiend. Practitioners cultivated the Dao and walked the Dao, hence they were called Daoists.
It was only later, with the birth of the Three Thousand Great Daos, that immortals cultivated the Immortal Dao, demons cultivated the Monster Dao, ghosts cultivated the Ghost Dao, while the Daoists who pursued the Great Dao gradually declined, and many great Dao divine abilities were lost.
However, Old Lady Jin Hua and Senior Li Xin would not look down upon Daoists because of this. Not only would they not look down upon them, but in their hearts, they had always held great respect for Daoists.
Others might not know.
As disciples of the Eternal Life Pavilion, they were well aware that many of the famous divine abilities of the Immortal Dao were created by those Daoists from before the Primordial Era. Those so-called immortal arts were also derived from ancient Daoist techniques.
Was that all?
No.
Because without exception, the founding ancestors of the Thirty-Six Cave Heavens and Seventy-Two Blessed Lands were all Daoist cultivators back in the day, including the Eternal Life Pavilion's own Eternal Life Patriarch, who was also a Daoist cultivator.
It was just that, having been passed down to this day, both the Thirty-Six Cave Heavens and the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands had been inherited from the Primordial Era, the Ancient Era, and the Archaic Era. The end of each era was a cataclysm for the heavens, earth, and the Great Dao. Therefore, for the Thirty-Six Cave Heavens and Seventy-Two Blessed Lands to have been passed down was no easy feat. They had weathered storms, endured the passage of years, faced life and death, and undergone cycles of reincarnation.
With the changes of the eras, the transformations of the Great Dao, and the situation of heaven and earth, the Thirty-Six Cave Heavens and Seventy-Two Blessed Lands, in order to survive and continue their legacies, had no choice but to go with the flow.
Of course.
Within the Myriad Heavens and Worlds, there were still Daoist cultivators who had inherited their legacies.
However, most of these so-called Daoist cultivators were not very orthodox; some were even charlatans and swindlers.
Truly orthodox Daoists who had been passed down since ancient times might exist, but they were absolutely few and far between, as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.
When they saw Huode, apart from being grateful for his past rescue of Qiao'er, Old Lady Jin Hua and Li Xin were also deeply shocked that his identity was that of a Daoist. Moreover, they could tell that Huode was not the kind of charlatan Daoist; he was likely a very orthodox Daoist.
Especially the spiritual aura around Huode, which seemed both immortal and not, human and not, resembling the fusion of yin and yang, like the Primordial Chaos of the Supreme Ultimate, matched exactly the descriptions recorded in ancient texts.
Therefore.
When they saw Huode, Old Lady Jin Hua and Li Xin found it somewhat hard to believe.
In the air, the crowd was abuzz with discussion.
Some were envious, some jealous, and others curious, wondering what kind of existence this Daoist Huode was.
As they discussed, many people kept glancing at the white-clothed man sitting opposite Huode.
Earlier, when Old Lady Jin Hua and Li Xin followed Qiao'er onto this Xuantian Great Vessel, everyone on the deck, without exception, had stood up. Some, fearing they might be in the way, had even left the deck entirely, standing in the air.
After all, Old Lady Jin Hua and Li Xin were seniors of the Eternal Life Pavilion. Their noble status, in the eyes of these mortal immortals, was like that of gods.
Knowing their own humble status, they didn't even have the courage to greet Old Lady Jin Hua and the other. They could only stand up or leave the deck to show their respect for the Eternal Life Pavilion.
Looking across the entire Xuantian Great Vessel, only one person remained seated in a chair.
That was a young man dressed in white. His long hair was casually draped. His appearance couldn't be called handsome; in fact, it had nothing to do with handsomeness. He was the kind of ordinary person you'd lose in a crowd, and so ordinary he couldn't be more ordinary.
His appearance was like that, and so was he as a person.
He had no bearing, no imposing presence, no cultivation, and no destiny.
One could say he had nothing of note.
Yet it was precisely this secular mortal who had nothing of note. When Old Lady Jin Hua and Li Xin arrived on the deck, not only did he not stand up and leave like the others, he remained seated in his chair.
To be precise, he wasn't even sitting in the chair, but reclining in it, even crossing his legs on the table, leisurely drinking his wine while watching Senior Li Xin and Old Lady Jin Hua as if observing a spectacle.