Silvermoon shook his head and laughed. “It’s not that I’m formidable; it’s that there are only a few people at Mount Innerherat who have trained in the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art]. By process of elimination, I was able to guess that it was you, junior apprentice-brother.”

Ning nodded. The [Eight-Nine Arcane Art] was located in the Three Realms Palace; only personal disciples and those who had received special permission from the Old Patriarch could learn it.

“If you transformed into someone else, I might not have been able to tell that it was you,” Silvermoon said with a laugh. “These ‘seventy-two transformations’ cause a person’s aura to completely change; even the appearance of sin or karmic merit surrounding you changes. This truly is an incredible transformation divine ability.”

Ning nodded. Indeed. For example, when Ning transformed into a rock, he could use the technique to completely retract his three-foot aura of golden karmic light. If he transformed into a viledoer, he could transform to display the bloody light of sin.

“Back in the era of Pangu’s World, there was an ancient Diremonster who relied on these seventy-two transformations to transform into the appearance of a Buddha. He used it to trick people for thousands of years before being discovered,” [1. This is a reference to a story in Journey to the West, where a monster was transformed into the appearance of Buddha in order to trick travelers going on a pilgrimage to visit the real Buddha. He would eventually eat them.] Silvermoon said with a laugh....