Battle Furnace looked at Arthur's forehead in disbelief and said, "Two vessel sigil techniques? Two of them? Just one of them is already so difficult for me? I've tried to learn it many times, but always failed and had to start over again."
Arthur replied to both of them, "You just have to be dedicated and do nothing for a decade. So in two decades, you can learn two of them."
No one believed a word of what he said. This was because if it were so easy to learn the sigil techniques, there wouldn't be only five people who have managed to do so among the 31 golden core cultivators.
There used to be just four who had cultivated a vessel sigil technique. His success made him the fifth. But where he is different from the other four is that he managed to learn two vessel sigil techniques, not just one.
To top things off, he also had a perfect core and could reach the tenth transformation of the golden core. Not only will he be stronger than his peers because of his perfect core, but he clearly has more potential.
When Blood Spider thought of this, he rolled his eyes at Arthur and said, "Only someone like you can say that it is easy to learn a vessel sigil technique. You're abnormal. You're a freak."
Battle Furnace nodded in agreement and said, "That has to be true. I can dedicate ten years to cultivating a vessel sigil technique. No, I can even dedicate a hundred years to cultivating it. But a small mistake can ruin all of my hard work and make me start again. It is too difficult. Only a freak like you can trivialize it."
The other golden core cultivators were not so familiar with him, so they were more restrained with their emotions and how they spoke to him. But all of them had the same thought that he was a freak.
One of the older golden core elders even came up to him and said, "I have always wondered how a new golden core cultivator could defeat an old golden core cultivator like Green Viper. Initially, I leaned towards the advantage of lightning over poison. But now I can see that your terrifying comprehension talent had something to do with it."
This golden core cultivator is one of the four that had successfully learned a vessel sigil technique. He is one of the two whom Arthur wasn't familiar with.
His name is Daoist Raging Thunder. The vessel sigil technique that he managed to learn is the Lightning Vessel Sigil technique.
As someone who managed to learn it, he knows the full extent of its difficulty and remembers the effort he had to put in to learn it. So he can tell better than those who haven't succeeded in learning a vessel sigil technique how impressive Arthur's achievement is.
Technically, Arthur is his competitor for the third slot for those who would make the attempt to become patriarchs. Void Claw and Pink Ivy have taken the first two points.
So Arthur's success means a loss of a great opportunity for him. But that didn't stop him from marveling at Arthur's impressive performance.
Raging Thunder sighed and said, "I always thought that I would lose out on the opportunity to become a patriarch because of my advanced age. I thought I would die before it got to my turn to become a patriarch. But I would lose because of your impressive comprehension talent."
One of the other golden core elders laughed and said, "I'm sorry you had to find out this way. But I already knew that you guys stood no chance when I found out that just after receiving the gift of inheritance after his first council hall meeting, he attempted to liberate his soul and advance to the fifth mortal coil."
"When I heard that, I knew that none of you stood any chance. In fact, with his talent, I'm sure that the patriarchs will do anything to help him advance instead of waiting for one of them to die. If he reaches the peak of the fourth mortal, I'm sure that he will become the fourth patriarch of the sect."
Not everyone had heard about his near-death experience caused by sudden enlightenment and the pursuit of a higher truth. So they were shocked by what they just heard.
In the past, they would have scoffed at the idea of the Blood Skull sect having four patriarchs at the same time. After all, the Blood Skull is supposed to have reached its limit in the number of nascent soul cultivators that it could support.
Even the talented Void Claw and Pink Ivy didn't get to become the fourth patriarchs and had to wait around like everyone else for a patriarch to die and for a slot to open up for them.
But after hearing about Arthur's attempt to use the natural method to advance to the fifth mortal coil so early in the fourth mortal coil, the idea that the Blood Skull sect could have four patriarchs didn't seem so silly anymore. In fact, that idea felt more and more reasonable the more they thought about it.
Raging Thunder sighed again and said, "It doesn't matter to me anyway. I will surely die before any opportunity reaches me."
He is old, so he has had the time to get used to the idea of not being able to advance to the fifth mortal coil. But the fourth golden core cultivator who had managed to learn a vessel sigil technique was young and still had hopes to advance to the fifth mortal coil.
This young golden core cultivator said hopefully, "Does that mean that Arthur won't have to compete with me for the third spot since he doesn't have to wait in line?"
Raging Thunder dashed his hopes by saying, "What third slot? He will surely take the first spot and won't have to wait like us if he reaches the peak of the fourth mortal coil. So what you will be competing for is the fourth slot."