“Tell me about her,” said the Eternal Emperor as he entered the room. This avatar had just finished his inspection of Zhao Gang and, to no one’s surprise, had found him innocent. The fact that the Immortal had arisen without ever once violating heaven’s edicts was… impressive. Even more impressive was that Zhao Gang wasn’t just very observant of the edicts of the Eternal Throne, he was a genuinely good person.

It was hard to find a cultivator who hadn’t caused a bloodbath or two, especially when you start looking among truly powerful experts. The truth was that experts often used venting their rage as a way to exorcise internal demons, though the process rarely worked as well as they hoped. Still, many attempted it, especially when they were at the start of the path. The results were often gruesome. Yet those cultivators could still be declared innocent in the eyes of the Eternal Emperor. No, other things were punished by the Eternal Throne.

Forbidden techniques, for example, weren’t forbidden because they were harmful to the user. They were forbidden because the Eternal Throne had specifically outlawed them as a perversion of nature. These techniques deliberately caused disharmony within a cultivator’s body and then attempted to harness the energy such disharmony created. In the end, however, such techniques caused all sorts of problems, especially when their users died before the technique wore off. Evil spirits were a common result, as were strange poisons emitting from the corpse and poisoning the land. Almost all of these issues were hard to resolve by experts of the level that caused them, meaning higher-level experts had to be diverted from other tasks simply to clean up some foolish junior’s mess.

When low-level cultivators used them it wasn’t such a large issue but when truly powerful experts employed such techniques the threat was on a completely different scale. Cleaning up after them once they died was… difficult. Entire worlds had been depopulated by their foolish actions in the past. Thus they were banned, despite still being commonly used in secret. Still, such an infraction would have cost Immortal Zhao Gang greatly.

Likewise, certain cultivation techniques were absolutely forbidden - the so-called ‘devil’ cultivation methods. They didn’t generate true devils but what they did create was almost as bad - cultivators with an unquenchable appetite for the flesh and blood of their own kind. The problem wasn’t so much using others for cultivation, even at the cost of the other’s life - it wasn’t uncommon for an attractive female to be used as a cultivation cauldron - but rather the taking in of someone else’s life force. The process was possible, easy even, save that it almost invariably drove the person to madness as their soul was twisted by the foreign life force. Again, low-level cultivators weren’t the problem, but rather the fact that devil cultivators bred like rabbits and gained power entirely too fast. Once, when they were allowed to get out of hand, several planes had been under their direct dominion. The amount of death and destruction that resulted as they attempted to constantly expand their reach led to the mobilization of several high-level members of the Eternal Court itself to wipe them out. Nobody was pleased.

Yet it was hard to find a cultivator that hadn’t at least skirted the edge of such restrictions. The most common, and most useful, bending of this particular edict was the act of refining a revered senior’s dying life force. When an esteemed ancestor was preparing to pass on, rather than linger uselessly as their cultivation bled away, they would often refine their remaining life force into a treasure, a so-called ‘Soul Pearl’. Of course, it had nothing of the soul in it, but it did contain whatever remaining life force the cultivator had when they created it, along with a very large percentage of their cultivation base. Since it had been forged into a physical object, such treasures were truly precious. Their most common, and stupidest, use, was to allow a senior to pass on a portion of their cultivation base and life energy to a junior. Despite being mostly benign, as long as the practice wasn’t indulged too often, it still technically violated the edict and would have been punished.

But that wasn’t all. There were hundreds of tiny little tricks that cultivators used that technically violated one of the edicts. Most of them were harmless, relatively at least, unless they occurred in specific circumstances. All of them would have been punished. Zhao Gang had performed precisely none of them, a truly rare occurrence. He had survived, and grown, through nothing more than hard work and some exceptionally good fortune.

“The girl is as unique as she is impossible,” said the Great Ancestor. “You will have to tell me how he did it.”

“Unfortunately,” said the Eternal Emperor, “I can’t. I don’t intend to make an issue out of it since it doesn’t result in any permanent damage. If I started restricting techniques because they made people too powerful I would quickly be viewed as a tyrant. Therefore my only option is to allow the boy to keep his secrets and hope that he keeps them well.”

“You mean to tell me that the boy is truly innocent?” asked the Denglong. “How is that possible when the proof of his crime lays in front of me?”

“The boy is not only completely innocent, but he and his sect are poised to change a great many things in the future. The process that he used to create the girl isn’t even his greatest secret. Add them all up and while I can’t guarantee his sect will be pumping out immortals if it succeeds, I can guarantee that many tier two and above sects are going to be quite displeased with them. I’ll give the boy this, he doesn’t lack for ambition.” The words shocked the Denglong Ancestor. From the perspective of the Highest Heavens, the minimum requirement for a tier two sect was the ability to claim dominion over at least two planes of existence, making them a ‘plane-spanning sect’. There were more than a few in existence, but they all had one thing in common - every single tier two and above sect had members who were part of the Eternal Court. It was one of the few ways that true outsiders could become part of the Eternal Court and lay claim on a title of Heavenly Nobility.

For the boy’s secrets to garner the attention of such powerful sects would almost certainly mean his destruction. That was unless he had enough power to keep them from pressuring him. Of course, if he could produce other disciples like the girl and then have enough time to raise them, such disciples could potentially form the core of a very powerful sect indeed. Of course, that was all speculation. The girl hadn’t even truly stepped on the path yet. It would be millennia before she was more than a mote of dust to the highest tier sects. But when she was…

The silence dragged on for several moments as the Denglong Ancestor followed his thoughts down the proverbial rabbit hole. Finally, the Eternal Emperor broke in by speaking. “So, you’ve told me she’s impossible and unique, but you haven’t told me how. Should I examine her myself or are you going to tell me?”

“Feel free to examine her,” said the Denglong with a snort. “You’ll find nothing truly extraordinary. This has to do with the secrets of my race, secrets that I have kept for a thousand iterations of the Eternal Cycle. I was greatly hoping that you would give me an excuse to kill her.”

“You still could,” said the Eternal Emperor blandly. “No one would blame you.”

“No,” said the Denglong, “If the boy is innocent then the girl cannot be otherwise. I will say this though, her aspect, her very spirit, has taken on the characteristics of a Denglong, including some facets that I would have sworn were utterly impossible to duplicate. Whatever method he used, it is a frightening one. He hasn’t just forged a ‘pseudo’ innate constitution for the girl. There is a reason there has never been a human with a Denglong’s innate constitution. The planes themselves cannot recreate certain parts of our vital essence, nor parts of our aspect. Before this, I would have sworn the only way to gain them would have been to steal our bloodline heritage and decipher it from that.”

“I can guarantee that no theft occurred. She possesses no part of your ancestral memories, nor any part of your actual bloodline. The only part of her that is Denglong is her spirit.” Despite his efforts otherwise, the Eternal Emperor’s words were no comfort.

“That is already too much,” said the Denglong.

“Then tell me, old friend, if you cannot destroy her and cannot punish him, but can allow neither to go free, what is it you plan to do exactly?” Unfortunately, the Eternal Emperor’s words had no easy answer.

They sat and pondered for a long time, both of them staring down at the girl before the Denglong answered. “That they will be banned from repeating this process with another Denglong, there is no question. As for the girl, someday she will have abilities that no other could train her in. Without the ancestral memories carried in my bloodline, she would likely cause great harm. As long as she is trained by one of mine, however, I see no harm in allowing her to live. She cannot pass this aberration on to her children since it is not in her blood, so she will ultimately be unique. As long as she can be brought to understand both the privilege and the responsibility that she has inherited, I believe it need go no farther. However, she will need a watcher, one of my kin.”

“That will be difficult,” said the Eternal Emperor. “The boy is correct about a few things, the primary of which is that the location of his sect will have to remain secret if they are to succeed in anything but the remarkably short term. Whoever you send will need to be someone willing to swear to keep the sect’s secrets. They would be, for all intents and purposes, a member of the sect, and not in just name. Chances are they would be there a very long time. The boy has no intention of allowing this particular batch of disciples to simply wander off on their own.”

“Well, I would send my idiot son,” said the Denglong, “But I could not sentence his wife to such a thing and she would not be without him. There should be many years yet before there is a need to do aught about this. How about… yes, I have an idea. Their child shall be the one to mentor the girl. There should be plenty of time for the child to grow before it is necessary.”

The Eternal Emperor remained silent for a long time, considering this solution, before speaking. “I dislike placing this burden on a child who is innocent.”

“So what, I should simply choose one of my kin who is completely uninvolved to take on this task? I will not do it and they would likely fight me on it even if I did. No, the child can do it. It won’t happen for a while yet and it won’t take more than a couple of hundred years to discharge the duty once it becomes necessary.” The Ancestor Denglong’s words were filled with conviction and the Emperor knew that, short of an order, he had no way of changing this decision.

“Very well. I’ll go wake the boy and summon him back to the grand hall to announce my decision. I imagine the court will enjoy this juicy bit of gossip for quite a while.” The Emperor turned and disappeared without waiting for the Ancestor Denglong to acknowledge his words.

The Denglong sat for a long time in stillness, just looking down at the girl. “I should kill you,” he said finally, “But while you are not one of my blood, I still feel you as kin. Maybe I have grown soft, but I can’t bear to do it when you have done nothing to earn my wrath. Since you carry my gifts you will carry the curse of my expectations as well. Do not disappoint me, little one, or I will end you.”

The words seemed to soothe something for the Ancestor Denglong and he picked the girl up before he too turned and disappeared.