Her words provided yet another piece of corroborating evidence.
Liu Erlong's chest heaved violently; she felt as if she were about to suffocate.
She wanted to refute it but found her mind completely blank.
The vivid examples cited by those girls made her defense—'sacrificing cultivation for research'—seem like a pale, feeble joke.
The faint glimmer of brilliance Bibi Dong had just mustered completely faded.
Leaning against the cold throne, she felt for the first time that the power and authority she took such pride in were so utterly fragile in the face of absolute, ruthless logic.
This man didn't even need to employ his unfathomable, god-like power.
With just a few questions, he made the beliefs she had held for decades begin to rot and crumble from their very Foundation.
Li Yifei gave them no chance to catch their breath.
His mind worked like the most precise instrument, meticulously dismantling everything step by step along a predetermined path.
[Li Yifei: And what about his other theories?]
[Li Yifei: Where did the data supporting those theories come from?]
[Li Yifei: How much of it was obtained through his own personal experimentation?]
Three consecutive questions, like three icy blades, advanced layer by layer, cutting through the flesh beneath the 'Grandmaster's' halo and striking directly at the core skeleton.
Obtained through his own experimentation?
This question plunged both Bibi Dong and Liu Erlong into an even deeper silence.
Yu Xiaogang possessed only two spirit rings.
His Spirit was Luo Sanpao.
What kind of experiments could he conduct?
What did he have to conduct experiments with?
Even hunting a century-old Spirit Beast might require assistance from others.
Testing the absorption limit of a millennium spirit ring? He couldn't even absorb one himself.
Verifying the effects of different Spirit combinations? He couldn't even find a decent teammate.
Once this thought surfaced, it grew like wild grass, impossible to suppress.
They had never pondered this question deeply before.
Or perhaps, they had subconsciously avoided it.
They preferred to believe that he had comprehended all this through extraordinary intellect and deduction alone.
But now, Li Yifei laid this bloody reality bare before them.
[Li Yifei: Did he cite the sources when using other people's research data?]
[Li Yifei: Or did he simply take ready-made conclusions from ancient texts, slap his own name on them, and pass them off as his own theories?]
Boom!
These words exploded in the minds of Bibi Dong and Liu Erlong like a thunderclap from the Nine Heavens.
Plagiarism?
Copying?
They had never imagined these two filthy words could be associated with the man they revered as a deity.
[Is Jade Not Jade: No! Impossible! Xiao Gang isn't that kind of person!]
Liu Erlong's consciousness emitted a sharp, frantic roar, filled with the pain of a nerve being struck.
[Bibi Dong: Li Yifei! This is slander!]
Bibi Dong's consciousness also suddenly turned sharp, an oppressive aura befitting the Pope uncontrollably spreading through the Chat Group.
However, this blustering, hollow pressure had no effect on Li Yifei.
[Li Yifei: Oh? Is that so?]
His calm retort sounded as if he were watching two children throwing a tantrum.
[Li Yifei: Then why don't you tell me, where did those theories of his actually come from?]
Once again, a single sentence choked off all their anger and rebuttals in their throats.
They couldn't say.
Because they truly didn't know.
Within the Spirit Hall, Bibi Dong's breathing became unbearably heavy.
She found herself trapped in a terrifying logical paradox.
She couldn't prove that Yu Xiaogang's theories were the result of his own research.
Yet her emotions wouldn't allow her to accept the accusation of 'copying' that Li Yifei had raised.
This cognitive dissonance caused her unprecedented agony.
Li Yifei seemed to see through their predicament, but he showed no sympathy, continuing his 'enlightenment' instead.
[Li Yifei: Let's take his most famous theory on spirit ring absorption limits, for example.]
[Li Yifei: The first spirit ring cannot exceed 423 years, the second cannot exceed 764 years... These numbers precise to the single digit sound very impressive, right?]
[Li Yifei: Behind this, one would need an unimaginably vast sample of data as support.]
[Li Yifei: It couldn't possibly be something he just casually made up while meditating at home, could it?]
His words, with the precision of a master butcher dissecting an ox, clearly deconstructed the theory revered by countless people.
Within the Chat Group, the girls subconsciously held their breath.
Although they didn't understand terms like 'data sample,' they could grasp that reaching such precise conclusions must be incredibly, incredibly difficult.
[Worlds Number One Princess: Wow... accurate to the single digit, that sounds amazing. But... how would he know if a spirit ring is exactly 422 years or 423 years old? By looking at it?]
Ning Rongrong once again showcased her specialty: 'innocent questions, lethal blows.'
This question stunned everyone.
Indeed.
The age of a spirit ring is inherently a vague concept.
Spirit Masters can only roughly estimate its age range by the color of the spirit ring.
Yellow signifies a century, purple a millennium, black ten thousand years.
Who can distinguish the difference between a five-hundred-year spirit ring and a six-hundred-year one?
And who can definitively state that the limit for a spirit ring is 423 years, not 424?
What would happen with one extra year? Instant death by explosion?
This is simply impossible to verify!
[Little Fox Demon: That seems... right. When we hunt Spirit Beasts, our teachers can only estimate the approximate age. I've never heard of anyone being able to pinpoint it to the exact year.]
Hu Liena said thoughtfully.
[A Little Wild Goose: My grandfather says a Spirit Beast's age is related to its size, spirit power intensity, and living environment. There's no fixed standard. That Yu Xiaogang's theory sounds like... a fortune teller's mantra.]
Dugu Yan's analogy was crude but exceptionally fitting.
The girls' discussion was like small hammers, continuously striking the already fragile nerves of Bibi Dong and Liu Erlong.
Li Yifei's consciousness sounded again, carrying the tone of an indisputable verdict.
[Li Yifei: So, the question arises.]
[Li Yifei: Where exactly did the data for this part of the theory come from?]
[Li Yifei: How many data verifications did he, Yu Xiaogang, a 29th-rank Great Spirit Master, personally conduct?]
[Li Yifei: Did he find a hundred Spirit Masters to absorb 423-year spirit rings, and another hundred to absorb 424-year ones, then compare the success and mortality rates?]