After a day of activities I can't wait to hug my bed again and complain how much I missed its soft and cool embrace. Without knowing it, I fell asleep dreaming of beauties and treasures — you can't blame me, it's my dragon nature, okay.
"Wake up Young Master, it's morning already and the sun is about to rise, wake up Young Master." This is what I heard, which obviously interrupted my sweet dreams. Still mumbling, "Mei, what is it, can you give me more time, the training can wait," obviously still half asleep.
"Young Master, it won't do. Elder Mo Xuan said that for every incense candle you waste — about a minute or so— your punishment will increase, and—"
"Wait, what?" I jerked up from my bed, heart already sinking. "You should have said so on time, Mei. What have I done to deserve this," I said while rushing to the bathroom.
At the foot of Long Suchen Peak, I saw a message left for me: "Zaitian, for being 30 incense candles late, you have to climb the Peak without using the staircase nor a mount. — Elder Mo Xuan." I stared at it, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and the last straw was seeing some clan members pointing at me and laughing. I looked at the Peak I was meant to climb, and swore I could feel the heavens themselves laughing at me too — how was I supposed to climb a peak ten taller than Everest with no help, when being in the Foundation Establishment realm didn't mean I'd earned anything close to it's true powers?
"MEI!!!" I shouted, fury cracking through my voice. "Why didn't you wake me up on time?"
She bowed, a little amusement slipping through despite herself. "Young Master, don't be unreasonable, I tried my best. But Young Master, the longer you take shifting blame, the more your punishment grows."
After what felt like a journey through the desert, I reached the top. What I saw was a flat ground cut clean through as if by a sword, and I could feel something prickly on my skin, as if someone furious wanted to peel it off. I shivered at the thought. At a distance, I saw a simple cottage, plain in design, and to the left, an old man sitting on a rock, a detached, immortal aura flowing off him — calm on the surface, but with the weight of a storm sitting just underneath it. I guessed that this was Elder Mo Xuan, my tutor.
"Young Master Zaitian, you are late," he said, without turning back, still facing east. I said nothing, looking down, guilty, unwilling to make things worse.
"Well, I believe you have no excuse in stock. Since you're late with none — take a horse stance and face the sun," he said, still not looking at me.
I did that immediately, thinking the lesson had begun without punishment — not knowing I'd remain there until the sun reached the middle of the sky. Assuming the sun's temperature matched Earth's, it would have been manageable, but this one burned many times hotter, and the old man had chained me to the ground with heavy stones that only the heavens knew the origin of.
After about two more hours, he began. "You know your bloodline is unique, dormant for a very, very long time — which makes it likely you'll become Son of God of the clan, should you perform well at the Tournament of Strength nine months from now. It's not a matter of choice; it's a necessity, given what you carry. So — what do you know about cultivation?"
"Cultivation? I understand cultivation as the taking in of Qi, which in turn strengthens you," I answered, believing it was the correct answer.
"So that's your answer. That's disappointing — I was expecting more from a child who openly challenged the heavenly Dao," he said, contempt plain in his voice. "Well, I won't blame you, since the realm you're currently in exists only because of the heavenly resources wasted to barely keep you alive while you were in a coma. After two years of proper rest, the clan now believes you're ready to prove yourself — to show that the resources spent keeping you alive, enough to cultivate a mortal from Qi Sensing to Void Refinement, weren't wasted."
I stared at his back, entirely speechless. *Is this what the training is for — to remind me how much of a leech I've been to this clan, or to make me stronger? Which is it?*
*Ignore his chattering, he'll circle back eventually. Normal behavior for bored immortals,* the System said, equally bored.
"Enough of that. Do you want to start fresh from Qi Sensing, or continue from your current realm? The training will be harder if you continue — you might experience realm depreciation," he said, still not facing me.
"Hmm. I'll continue from my current realm — I don't have much time to waste," I said, still locked in the horse stance, which felt like torture more than training.
"If you say so." He didn't move, and yet the chains, the stones, the whole environment simply vanished. What I found myself in next was a lush forest, the surroundings serene — except I couldn't see or sense Elder Mo Xuan anywhere. "Your first task is to fight three demonic beasts of the Peak Qi Sensing realm. Defeat them, and the training begins properly. Fail, and you'd better be ready to quit," he said, his voice not coming from any one point — as if the world itself were speaking to me.
"But where am I?" I asked, still scanning my surroundings for anything suspicious.
"Isn't it obvious? You're in my world."
Before I could question him further, three beasts appeared. The first was like a serpent fused with a centipede. The next looked like an eagle with a spider's body. The last was a panther, but huge — the size of a truck. The aura these creatures gave off was pure slaughter.
I readied myself, running through combat techniques from my previous life, since the original Zaitian had never even seen a demonic beast, let alone trained against or fought one.
The eagle-thing rushed at me first, legs like spears trying to tear me apart.