Chapter 11 – The Nine-colored Halo (2)
“Oh, you might be right. Now it changes to yellow.” The discussion went on. While Qingyu was engrossed with the halo, as two lines of warm tears streamed down her face. She was so thrilled to see the changes that were going on in the halo of her brother’s altar. Now, she was in a world of her own, disregarding the negative predictions of the others.
“My brother has finally made it!” Qingyu couldn’t conceal her happiness.
The four elders in the front row seemed rather calm, as they were chatting absent-mindedly, while sometimes they would take a sip of their tea. They were experienced elders, who controlled their expectations wisely.
“Oh? The color keeps changing. Now, it’s green. Who is in the middle altar? Hmmm, he must have some potential...”
As the halo changed its color from yellow to green, the spectators were once again reignited. Some of them started to inquire about the name of the descendant in the altar. After all, the green color represented a fourth-grade battle beast, which was already above average.
“What?! It’s still changing? Now it’s cyan! How is this possible?”
The middle altar grabbed most of the attention from the spectators, as some slight cyan beams were now shining within the halo. This time, the elders also widened their eyes, as they momentarily stopped sipping their tea.
“Let me check who is in the middle altar. He seems rather promising. Er… His name is Ye Qinghan. He is already fifteen years old! For this age, it’s really rare to have a cyan halo to appear. It seems he is probably a late bloomer.” Elder Tianqing thumbed through the manual and smiled in a delighted manner.
The moment when Elder Tianqing was about to pick up his cup of tea, the whole crowd suddenly bursted into a loud clamor.
“Ah, look, it’s still changing…”
“Oh, my God! Blue! Oh, no… Now it’s purple! It’s the same color young lord Qingfeng had.”
“Congratulations! Tonight we should hold a banquet to celebrate…”
Elder Tianqing could no longer stand quietly; he put aside his cup of tea and stood up. The other elders quickly followed suit. They all attentively stared at the middle altar, so as not to miss a single of the ongoing changes.
The green color gradually faded away, before a purple color took over. Looking from afar, the altar was like a purple egg that stood vertically in the middle of the hall.
“Gosh! It doesn’t stop…”
The spectators were on the verge of madness. They exclaimed and cheered.
“Be quiet, all of you! Otherwise, you’ll be punished by the family rules!”
A terrifying voice suddenly pierced through the air. The crowd abruptly shut their mouth out of fear.
The voice was Elder Tianqing’s, as he conveyed his voice with his mouth closed. Obviously, he had used an extraordinary technique.
Realizing that the middle altar might break the record of this ceremony, the four elders went closer to the “egg” and stood around it.
Now, the purple color disappeared bit by bit, as a black color emerged. At last, the halo turned out to be utterly black, as if there was black water floating around the surface of the altar.
The black halo! It was highly likely that the candidate in this altar would summon an eighth-grade battle beast, which would fall in the same ranking as that of the leader of the Ye Family!
Nevertheless!
To everyone’s astonishment, the halo kept on changing color after turning black!
Instantly, the black halo turned into a golden halo. Strangely, the golden halo only existed for a second, before it was joined by the other eight colors – red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple, black and gold. The nine colors mingled with each other, emitting colorful gleams throughout the hall.
“A nine-colored halo!”
“This is insane! What has happened?”
Everyone exchanged inquisitive looks with each other, but they failed to find a proper explanation.
The four elders were also bewildered by the nine-colored halo. Never in their entire life, or even in the history of the Ye Family, had such an abnormal phenomenon been seen.
Suddenly, Elder Tianqing’s eyes lit up, as if he was enlightened by something. He turned to one of the other elders and instructed, “Second brother, you’d better invite all the members of the Elder Clan to come here. As far as I know, something big is about to happen…”
Several minutes later, the Battle Beast Hall was crowded with the leading members of the Ye Family, except for Ye Tianlong, as well as the two oldest elders, who said they would only come out of reclusion if it was a matter of life and death for the Ye Family.
The middle altar was surrounded by layers of people, craning their head over the shoulders of those in front of them to get a better view of the halo.
“Everyone, listen to me. First, I apologize for taking the liberty to invite all of you to come here. Second, let me explain why this event is so important. Look, the halo here has nine colors, has anyone here seen this kind of halo before? I think the answer is definitely no. As we all know, the most impressive golden halo was made by our ancestor, Ye Ruoshui, who had summoned a ninth-grade white tiger. Now, we have this halo, which encompasses all nine colors. It should be of a higher grade than the ninth-grade! That’s why…” Elder Tianqing was off the reel. Obviously, he was overexcited.
“Could this be…”
“Errr.. Really?”
“Is that rumor real?”
All the elders were agitated, quite the opposite to their normal straight face. They all remembered the words of Ye Ruoshui, who had summoned the holy-grade white tiger. It was said that Ruoshui had actually entered the peak level of the Realm of the Saint, which meant, he was only one step away from becoming an immortal. Not only did this ancestor excel at cultivation, he also boasted a deep knowledge of battle beasts.
“If there appeared a nine-colored halo in the Awakening Ceremony, then the likelihood of summoning a divine-grade beast is high. Sadly, I won’t have the opportunity to witness it…” Ruoshui had said this during his last year in this world.
A divine-grade beast!
What actually was a divine-grade beast? The divine-grade was equivalent to immortals! If… If there emerged a descendant who could summon a divine-grade beast, it would be a guarantee for the Ye Family to outmatch the other four prominent families; it would even be possible for the Ye Family to challenge the authority of Immortal City.
“Is that Ye Qinghan, who is in this altar? Hmm... Good, very good. His father was a genius, no wonder he has this kind of potential.”
“Absolutely. I predicted that Qinghan would become a remarkable kid. Oh, I once even recommended him to be listed as one of the key descendants of our family.”
“Hum, this kid is pitiful, his parents both met with an early demise. The family should pay special attention to this kid and give him more care. After the ceremony, we should compensate him with more love and concern.”
“Yeah, not long ago, when his mother passed away, he requested to move her body to the ancestral tomb. Now, I think it would be absolutely acceptable to do so…”
The elders were immersed in their jubilant atmosphere, expecting that Qinghan would summon a divine-grade beast, which would make a great contribution to the Ye Family.
The only one who wore a gloomy face was Ye Jian, who had long been hostile with Ye Dao’s family. He was almost pissed off by the other elders’ compliments for Qinghan. He couldn’t stand it anymore, so he impolitely cut in, “Calm down, everybody. It’s still too early to jump to any conclusions. The halo itself just serves as a clue for us to predict. Whether he can summon a high-ranked battle beast or not remains the question.”
“Er!”
The hot discussion cooled down a little bit because of Ye Jian’s reasonable analysis. It was true, that sometimes, the candidate only summoned a low-ranked battle beast despite the halo showing a high-ranked color. Plus, the nine-colored halo was only a prediction of Ruoshui, who had never seen it himself. Now, it seemed that the halo only told half of the story; they still needed to wait for Qinghan to come out to confirm the final result. However, despite all their doubts, the expectations in their eyes were self-evident.
The nine-colored halo was still lingering around the middle altar, dazzling the eyes, as well as the minds of the crowd.