Ming Ren opened his eyes to unfamiliar surroundings. He was in a comfortable white bed and sat on it cross-legged with no difficulty. The room had no furniture or windows. What happened? Shouldn’t he wake up in front of the scripture? Why did they move him?
Before he could get up to leave, his body trembled. All the experiences in the scripture merged inside of him as if he lived ten thousand years and still stayed the same young man that sat curiously in the Bright Clan waiting to learn. His mind would collapse if the knowledge merged at once, so the same art that sealed his body in time created layers of sealed experience in his brain, to merge with time.
When Ming Ren thought about reaching for the door, his senses extended past it. He heard and felt everything in a ten-kilometer radius around him!
“Is this… spiritual sense? How is this possible? Only cultivators at the first layer of the Spirit Gate Realm can use their spiritual sense… and with this range…”
Ming Ren didn’t see anyone he knew outside, and everyone looked like servants or guards. It was the resting area for the servants of a clan, but not the Bright Clan.
“…This is the Cloud Clan!” He didn’t recognize anyone or the place itself but some servants mentioned it by name.
“Strange, something bad happened…!” A strange sense of foreboding hit him. He wouldn’t be here if nothing happened at the Bright Clan. His head hurt and chest felt like exploding.
“My soul is stronger… the effect of the scripture? No wonder my spiritual sense awoke. Before going out I better look at my situation.”
Although his good friend Yun Shufen was the prodigy of the Cloud Clan, he had no way of knowing why they kept him there. What if they captured him?
A guest wouldn’t be at the servant’s quarters. Even if only the fourth layer, a cultivator from the Bright Clan should be received as a guest. Dirty surroundings, the outside seemed abandoned, no one came inside to check, and there weren’t any locks. He didn’t look like a prisoner, more as if they tossed him there and forgot about it.
If so, how long has he been there? Wasn’t he supposed to only stay at the scripture for a day? Could it be… it was longer than a day? He was so engrossed in learning he never slept or ate!
“…You fool, you only noticed this now, are you even human…?” Ming Ren wanted to slap himself hard. He closed his eyes and used the [One Breath Luminescence] cultivation law to circulate Qi inside the body, his mouth twisting in disgust.
“…This… This… This is the cultivation law we’ve been practicing…? No wonder the clan has been in decline for so long, it’s as if someone made it worse on purpose.”
The original [One Breath Luminescence] was a heaven-ranked cultivation law from the Upper Realms. It was enough to be top tier in the entire Lower Realms even if compared with first-rank influences. With time and the successive wars, knowledge about the complete law disappeared. They lost the higher forms with the talented clansmen.
The scripture didn’t pass on the complete law, fearing it would only bring further disaster in the hands of average talent. The current Bright Clan’s One Breath Luminescence was only a low-grade earth rank Body Tempering Realm cultivation law.
Ming Ren didn’t carry over the laws and arts from inside the Bright Scripture. Even if he had, most of them required special physiques, elements, rare energies, or bloodlines. He received knowledge and experience.
A thousand lives wouldn’t have been enough to experience it all, and the secret world provided him with such an opportunity. Which senior created it? Which fearful existence could do such a thing?
A pity he lacked information aside from the fact it was a powerful being from the Bright Clan.
Circulating spiritual energy inside his body, the familiar bottleneck in the initial stage of the fourth layer appeared again. The one he couldn’t overcome for many years.
“Hahaha… no wonder I couldn’t break through. This physique of mine is unique!” No one from the Lower Realms could identify this physique as it only appeared once since immemorial times in the Upper Realms. He felt happiness surge after finding the reason the scripture recognized and chose him.
The [Divine Light Dragon Body], a physique that shouldn’t exist in the Upper or Lower Realms, so tyrannical the bright senior used to dominate an entire era.
In a normal situation, he wouldn’t even be able to cultivate to the first layer, becoming a cripple. But the physique didn’t activate until after his first time in the scripture.
Unlike common physiques, the Divine Light Dragon Body was an ephemeral physique. It could disappear for a long time and then reappear as if it was always there. Common physiques activated through special resources and spiritual energy but only two things together activated the Divine Light Dragon Body:
Knowledge and experience!
A common cultivator would long be dead before the physique could activate but Ming Ren had the scripture. The bright senior created a place to nurture his successor and activate his physique early, unlike his own. As Ming Ren’s knowledge and experience in the real world grew, the Divine Light Dragon Body would become more powerful.
Relief spread through his body. Before, he thought he couldn’t find a breakthrough, doomed to disappoint his clan and parents. Now, his reach was endless.
“Mother, Father, I will make you proud!” Ming Ren thought of his parents and decided to find them. Even though he knew the problem now, it still wasn’t something solved in a short time. His physique might be tyrannical, but also troublesome to cultivate. Unlike normal cultivators, he couldn’t sit around absorbing spiritual energy, he needed to experience the world.
As he prepared to leave, an entourage approached outside. Ten bodyguards accompanied a young lady. The two with the highest cultivation were at the peak of the Spirit Sea Realm, and all of them in that realm.
The young lady, however, had cultivation only at the fourth layer of the Body Tempering Realm. She felt unhappy at the state of the place, raised the hand and then came inside alone. She walked in cheerfully despite the lack of cleaning. Her eyes lit up in surprise as Ming Ren sat in the bed, “You… awoke?”
Her eyes widened as if seeing a ghost. Everyone but her big sister had given up on this boy.
Ming Ren stared, “Big Sis Shufen?”
No, wait, that isn’t right. She looked like Yun Shufen but had clearer eyes, was more beautiful, and vibrant. Shufen always had an imposing and dignified behavior, but this young lady seemed more open and joyful. And her cultivation was the same as him, while Shufen surpassed it years ago.
“Eh? Oh, I’m not!” She waved the hands, “I’m Shuqing! We’ve met before, Big Brother.”
Yun Shuqing? Wait, that’s still not right. Shuqing, Shufen’s younger sister, should be six years old right now. This lady looked older than him and Shufen.
Shuqing noticed the confusion in his eyes and hesitated before saying, “Big brother, you have been asleep for a long time.”
Ming Ren’s eyes widened. He thought it was possible he stayed in the secret realm for a few days, but was way off the mark, “How long…?”
“Ten years.”
His head hurt. He stayed there ten years! ‘Damn your curiosity, are you even human?!”
“Hehehehe, I must tell big sister soon!” The young lady smiled beautifully.
“How is Shufen?” Ming Ren didn’t miss them too much. He had seen them “yesterday”.
“Big Sister is great, she’s at the Royal Academy. Father said she reached the peak of the Spirit Sea Realm!” Yun Shuqing pounded her chest proudly.
Peak of the Spirit Sea Realm at 24!
One must know the lifespan of a cultivator at the Spirit Sea Realm was around 150 years. Being a step into the Spirit Gate Realm at twenty-four was nothing short of genius.
Ming Ren smiled from the heart. They were of the same age, his cultivation was still at the fourth layer of the Body Tempering Realm, but he was happy for Shufen.
“But, Big Brother, you still look fourteen years old,” Yun Shuqing thought Ming Ren would be down, and tried to comfort him. She seemed oblivious to the fact his body hadn’t changed in ten years. To all purposes, Ming Ren was still fourteen years old.
“Little lass, aren’t you also in the fourth layer?” He teased.
“Hehehe…” She laughed it off, but Ming Ren saw sadness deep in her eyes. Her sister was the genius of the clan, yet she was stuck in the fourth layer. Even a bright person couldn’t possibly be happy.
“Oh, that’s right, what am I doing here at the Cloud Clan? I was at the Bright Clan before,” he didn’t mention the scripture as it wasn’t general knowledge. Ming Ren saw Yun Shuqing hesitate, pondering for some time before answering.
“Miss Shuqing…?”
She sighed, “The Bright Clan… is gone.”
“Gone?” Ming Ren’s body went numb.
“I don’t know the details, but they were expelled from the Soaring Country,” Yun Shuqing said.
Expelled from the Soaring Country? Not only the Cloud Province but the country?
It was true the Bright Clan declined under the pressure of the other clans, but even if they became a fifth-ranked influence and lost the spirit garden, they would at most move inside the province. To be expelled from the entire country, how was this possible?
“Who did it…?” Ming Ren was no fool. Someone wanted the Bright Clan gone, someone with great power and influence.
“I know they had a conflict with the Silver Clan…”
The Silver Clan, the greediest of the four top-ranked influences of Bluecloud City, and the one that pressured the Bright Clan the most.
The clan alone didn’t have enough power to expel the Bright Clan from the Soaring Country, but it had ties to the Sunflower Pavilion, and the spirit garden was its main target. They tried many schemes to gain control of the garden, always acting within rules so as not to provoke the overlord or even the royal family.
“How did I end up here? What about my mother?” If the clan left, why didn’t they bring him with them? What exactly happened?
Yun Shuqing hesitated before continuing, “The Silver Clan attacked the Bright Clan. Elder sister stopped the fight and protected you, but by the time she got there things had already… She believes your esteemed mother wasn’t there.”
Attacked the Bright Clan? Not only expelled but also attacked?!
A direct attack could only happen with permission from the overlord, and it meant the clan had done something terrible. Deaths would be unavoidable. His mother was the chief alchemist’s disciple, so she should be fine, but if something happened to her…
…He hadn’t even finished the thought when a tyrannical aura unconsciously gushed forth, alarming the Spirit Sea Realm cultivators outside.
Yun Shuqing couldn’t resist and fell to her knees. It was more frightening than the aura of her father.
“How dare you!” The leading bodyguard elder rushed in and was surprised for a moment seeing Ming Ren. He glanced at Yun Shuqing, vanishing and appearing in front of the boy, his palm striking with great might.
Someone frightened the young lady inside their own clan. If the patriarch knew, their heads would be in danger. Not only that, this trash the young mistress picked and protected with great care dared to do such a thing!
“Uncle, no!” Yun Shuqing screamed, but the palm already descended…