"...in front of you all, I'm feeling like a kid. It will take me forever to reach your current age." Li Ming finished her sentence and watched as the worry and sadness evaporated from his beautiful eyes.

The man shook his head slightly as he bent down towards the girl, shocking her.

Li Ming was completely taken aback by the sudden closeness of the Immortal. Her eyes took in as his face slowly inched closer to her own.

In the next blink, she felt something warm touching her skin just right at the corner of her lips, making her gasp.

Her eyes immediately closed and her hands gripped his shoulders as she tried to control the trembles that were shaking her body.

Her breathing had already quickened as she savored that great feeling of getting kissed by her mate.

The Immortal watched the expressions of the girl and he wanted to capture it forever. How much he wanted to stay in that exact moment with his mate, but unfortunately he had a mission to complete.

"You are right. We all will need to wait for a long time for you to grow up. I heard that you don't consider fifteen as a marriageable age. Now we have to wait until you reach the marriageable age. By the way, you never told us what is the right age for marriage according to you."

Li Ming's eyes flew open as the words of the man entered her ears.

"Why you need to know that?" Li Ming asked him.

The man swiped some loose strands behind her ear as he replied, "Because, in that way, we will know exactly how long will it take before we can finally bind you to us legally."

Li Ming felt her cheeks turning bright pink as she tried to cover them with her hands.

The man observed how slowly her milky white skin turned into a shade of bright red.

"By the way, you haven't introduced yourself yet. So, who are you?" Li Ming asked as she looked at the man with curious eyes.

Little did she knew that her curiosity about the identity of her mate would lead to the worst days of her new life.

-----

Eight Months Later...

"You need to focus! FOCUS!"

Li Ming wanted to cover her ears as the loud booming voice nearly broke her eardrums.

"I'm trying!" She shouted back but immediately regretted as a huge wave of current hit her feet, sending tremors all over her body and she almost lost her balance.

Currently, she was standing only on her left leg above a high iron pole.

She had lost the track of time by now. No idea for how long she had been standing there like a dancing statue.

It had been months since she first started the physical training with the Supreme Immortal as her Coach.

Never even in her dreams had she thought that the Supreme Immortal could be one of her mates.

The warm-hearted, soft, and sweet Supreme Immortal whom she met in the Demon Realm eight months ago had completely disappeared.

She remembered how he said that he won't be able to make her smile anytime soon after that day and now she finally knew what he meant by that.

After they both left the Demon Realm that day, the warm and sweet Supreme Immortal changed into his rough, cold and indifferent self.

He was there to lead her through her training and Li Ming silently allowed him because she knew in that way she would learn so many new things quickly and efficiently.

But just as students loved to hate their teachers even though the teachers were only helping and preparing them for a better future, similarly Li Ming hated her training sessions with the Supreme Immortal.

These training sessions were pure tortures for her. She always came out of the training ground with her body aching badly and covered in sweat and dirt.

But in these past eight months, Wen Guiying, the Supreme Immortal never gave up on her even though sometimes she burst out in anger, and similarly, Li Ming also never backed down no matter how hard the task was.

It was like Wen Guiying loved to test her breaking points and also challenging her and at the same time, Li Ming loved to prove him wrong whenever he thought that she won't be able to perform a certain training or task.

While these two were busy in their own world of challenges, the other four Immortals, Zhang Yong, Ruoshan, Hei Long, and Lord Yueliang were left to silently observe the chaos.

"The six hours are over. You can leave now."

The moment these words, spoken by none other than Wen Guiying, entered into her ears, Li Ming finally let out a deep sigh as she let her body relax.

But unfortunately, she lost her balance and with a loud shriek, she prepared herself to land on the snow-covered ground.

The idea of using her powers to save herself from falling on the ground didn't even cross her mind.

She felt her body being surrounded by something soft and fluffy. She slowly opened her eyes to see snow white tails of Mallow carrying her.

The little fluff ball had grown into a twelve inches tall fox. Her golden eyes were still as sparkly as they were for the first time when Li Ming met the furball.

"Thank you, Mallow."

Li Ming said as she safely landed on the snow-covered ground.

They were currently at the highest peak of Thundering Mountain Ranges. It was the middle of May and the summer was about to reach its peak very soon.

With a flick of Wen Guiying's fingers, the snowfields disappeared and the area returned to its original form.

Without any other word, the Supreme Immortal disappeared from there, leaving Li Ming there with her two fluffy balls and Zhang Yong.

Li Ming was about to say something to her two little companions when she was suddenly pulled into the warm embrace of Zhang Yong.

The Shadow Lord kissed her temple sweetly as he whispered in her ears, "You are doing great, Ming'er. You were absolutely amazing today and you rocked today's training session."

Li Ming felt her mind and body relaxing at his words as she let her spiritual energy come out to the surface to play with Zhang Yong's spiritual qi.

She still remembered the day around five months ago during the Winters when Zhang Yong finally revealed the connection that he somehow managed to form with her.

She visited the Moon Manor that day for the first-ever meal with her mates. It was during the dinner when she let out a small wave of her spiritual qi to roam through the Moon Manor when she suddenly felt it being dragged towards a certain presence of qi.

At the end of her search, she came across none other than the Fourth Prince but it looked like he had pulled on their bond on purpose.

"I don't want to keep this a secret anymore, Ming'er. I hope you will welcome me with an open heart." He had said that day as they both stood on one of the highest towers of the Moon manor.

"Sure. You have always been a best friend and a powerful support of mine. You never judged me, nor did you ever interfere in any of my decisions. I admire and respect this friendship of ours and let me tell you, I don't care if you guys have any kind of past. Because I won't judge to according to your past, rather I'll learn about you through your behavior and the present Zhang Yong whom I know and consider a member of my family is too dear to me to lose."

This was Li Ming's reply which almost made the Dragon Shifter break down into tears of happiness and pride.

That was how she came to learn that whatever spiritual pull she was feeling towards Zhang Yong was due to their spiritual bond.

The very first time when she met with Zhang Yong in the Black Inn, their energies somehow ended up connecting with each other.

And on the other day when the two of them cultivated spiritual energy together, the connection between their energies finally merged together to form a spiritual bond between the two of them.

They were not exactly soulmates but the bond between the two of them was as special and pure as the soulbond that she shared with her mates.

Li Ming was actually happy after finding out that Zhang Yong would also be a confirmed member of her happy family.

She had found everyone, just one member was missing.

No one was telling her the identity of her fifth and the final mate and she didn't try to bother them too much about it.

"Little One, if you want we can make Wen Guiying stop his training sessions immediately. If you don't want to continue this, we can understand. No one is going to force you to do something that you don't want to do."

Li Ming was surprised but also pleased when Lord Yueliang confronted all of them about the training sessions that she was taking with the Supreme Immortal for the previous three months.