Zao Ning wakes up to his body aching and a uncomfortable feeling covering his body.

What… What happened? Zao Ning thinks to himself while trying to move his body. The eyes of the young looking boy flutter open and his blue irises finally show themselves.

Looking around, Zao sees that he is in his room, but the room is a mess and the walls are covered in burn marks. A throbbing headache erupts from within Zao’s head as he slowly starts to regain his memories.

With his mouth being extremely dry, Zao manages to make his way to a faucet and turns the handle. The Water Ki in the air is directed into the faucet and water slowly pours out of it.

Cuping his hand, Zao manages to capture some water and begins to drink it ravenously.

Finally quenching his thirst, the dragon manages to walk himself over to the walls with burns marks and he rubs his hand over them.

Hmmm… There is still remnants of Lightning Ki. By observing the Ki, I can tell it is mine… What did I do?

The last thing Zao Ning remembers he was trying to punch someone in The Crystal Palace. The boy sits down and goes into a meditative position, trying to clear his mind and search his memories.

*Around 12 hours ago*

"Drunken dragon fist of ultimate destruction that causes death to all!" Zao Ning shouts as he sends his fist flying towards the 7th Mortal Realm security guard.

The guard simply snorts at Zao Ning and easily avoids the inebriated dragon’s fist. Being beside Zao Ning now, the security guard sends down a chop of his hand which is full of killing intent and 7th Mortal Realm Ki.

Even with his dulled senses, Zao is able to sense the danger behind to hand chop of the man and is able to use his Darkness Ki to become an actual shadow.

Becoming ethereal, the chop goes straight through Zao Ning’s body, but since there was so much power behind the chop, it managed to still hurt Zao Ning a little. This is due to the fact that even though Zao Ning seems unkillable, if someone with extreme power greater than Zao Ning’s were to attack him, that person’s Ki could harm or even disperse Zao Ning’s Darkness Ki. This then directly hurts Zao Ning himself.

The face of the security guard changes as his hand pass through Zao’s shadow body and then cuts the ground Zao is floating above in half. Zao’s shadow retreats when feeling pain and wraps itself around Wei Ning.

Reforming his actual body, Zao reappears and picks up his mother. With a pale face and a trickle of blood coming from his mouth, the arrogance that Zao once shown is now gone. All that remains is a face full of solemness mixed in with blood red checks.

Though Zao is drunk, he still has the instincts to protect his mother. The security guard can tell what Zao is planning and wishes to arrest the two rather than to let them leave.

“Nope, you aren’t going anywhere!” the man yells while rushing towards where Zao Ning and his mother is. Of course he was only 5 feet away to begin with so it doesn’t even take the security guard a second to reach the two.

Zao, with the solemn look on his face and a blurry gaze, activates his bloodline to protect himself.

“Goodnight!”

The security guard yells as he sends his fist towards Zao Ning with the intention of knocking the boy out. Zao’s expression doesn’t change and he only reacts by putting his hand up to meet the fist of the security guard.

“Fuck off.”

A thin layer of silver scales covers Zao’s skin and a thick aura radiates from them that causes a cold shiver to go down the security guard’s back.

*DOOOONNNGGGG*

The sound of an unstoppable force hitting an immovable object echoes throughout The Crystal Palace. The shock wave resulting from the punch sends tables, chairs, people, and food everywhere.

The only people that wasn’t affected were Wei Ning, the security guard, and Zao Ning.

‘A bloodline? And a strong one at that. This bloodline could be even be from a high level Cloud Realm. He will become legendary when he grows up, I need to do something with him now before he tries for revenge in the future.’

Add another to the list that wishes for Zao Ning to be dead. Not like he cares much though.

Not wasting a second, drunk Zao Ning manages to secure Wei Ning and then starts his retreat, quickly dashing towards the door of the Crystal Palace.

The 7th Realm guard laughs in his head at first but is soon amazed by the speed of the boy. Zao Ning directs all of his bloodline to his legs, causing his speed to increase several times and a large gap between him and the guard forms quickly.

With them only being in the Mortal Realm, speed means everything due to fact of everyone not having strong senses in the daos and not having strong ranged abilities for the most part. As long as you’re faster than your opponent, you can escape any fight for the most part.

As Zao makes it out of The Crystal Palace, he looks right to left, thinking about a way to escape the sight of the guard quickly.

What Zao Ning forgets is that he has his bloodline out and this causes an unwanted aura of pure strength to emit from him at all times.

Deciding that going back to Heaven's Pavilion would be the best option, Zao Ning sprints towards the unsafe safety of his home.

He considers it unsafe since there is people trying to kill him there too.

As Zao Ning sprints through the crowds with grace considering he is still drunk, a revelation manages to come into his mind.

Maybe people are trying to kill me because I am too loud and boastful?

...

...

Hmmm… No. It is probably because of jealousy. They are all jealous of me is what it is!

And there it goes, fluttering away in the wind as drunk Zao thinks all of his problems are from jealousy. Who cares though? It makes for a fun time.

The high speed pursuit between Zao and the guard continues throughout the whole town of Xi’an and it is catching the attention of several large powers. It is not everyday that a 7th Mortal Realm is openly fighting in the town of Xi’an as 7th Mortal Realms are rare to begin with.

Soon, Zao passes his father’s castle and remembers that the low life has still yet to apologize to his mother.

Making a mental note to go remind the old man, Zao continues sprinting towards Heaven’s Pavilion with the guard still hot on his tail.

The guard is becoming very frustrated as he should be able to catch Zao Ning easily since he is drunk and not in the same realm as the guard, but Zao’s bloodline is just too strong.

The bloodline won’t last forever though and is actually starting to lose power after 15 minutes of high intensity running.

Noticing the guard come closer by the second, Zao starts to panic slightly. He is close to Heaven’s Pavilion, but the guard is even closer to Zao Ning.

Deciding to go all out, a sword appears in Zao Ning’s hand and he stops dead in his tracks.

The shadow worms within his veins begin to wriggle around excitedly and Darkness Ki is sucked into Zao Ning.

Zao Ning condenses the Darkness Ki and forms it into a ball, sending the ball into his sword.

This will buy me some time.

The ball of Darkness Ki bounces around in the blade of the sword until it reaches speeds nearly too fast for Zao Ning to control it. At this point, the guard is within 10 meters of Zao Ning and is readying an attack of his own.

Knowing that this will be there last clash and could mean life or death for him and his mother, Zao Ning’s eyes become sharp. The fogginess in his brain from the alcohol clears and all Zao Ning can feel is tranquility…

And excitement.

A wicked smile forms across Zao Ning’s face as he is put into another life or death situation and his adrenaline is pumping, something that barely happened when he was on the top of the food chain all the time.

Stabbing his longsword forwards, the guard is surprised by Zao Ning attacking so early as he is only 5 meters away and there is no way he is too dumb to run into Zao Ning’s blade.

Zao Ning isn’t doing what the guard expects though, and when he fully extends his sword and arms a ball of darkness forms around the two.

Not one of the two can see anything but Zao was able to calculate the trajectory of the guard’s attack and manages to barely dodge it after sending out the blinding attack.

“Wha-What is this?” the guard says horrified. He has never seen an attack like this in all of his life and even a small thought has formed in the back of his head that he was actually killed by Zao’s attack, which would explain the pure darkness.

Zao smiles as he knows the direction towards the Heaven’s Pavilion and manages to use the guard’s confusion to his advantage. He also deactivated his bloodline which completely hides Zao’s once obnoxious bloodline.

Running silently, Zao makes it out of the huge ball of Darkness Ki and is soon at the gate to the Heaven’s Pavilion.

The guards of the gate saw Zao being chased but were too scared to help him since they are 4th Mortal Realms and the pursuer was the 7th Mortal Realm, but after seeing Zao’s attack, they are more scared of Zao Ning now.

Before entering the gate, Zao has a question for the guards and stops to ask.

“Is my master, Grand Elder Chi, here?”

“Y-Yes young master Zao Ning. He should be at his estate.”

“Good.”

After getting the information out of the guards, Zao now ignores their existences as he calmly walks into the sect.

Being in his sect, Zao Ning lets out a breath and his adrenaline calms down. The feeling of being drunks returns to Zao Ning as his body continues to absorb the alcohol and a dumb grin spreads across his face again.

Wobbly making his way through the sect while his mother is draped over his shoulder, still asleep and giggles from time to time, Zao manages to find his way home.

Coming to the gate to Grand Elder Chi’s estate, Zao is met with a disappointed look spread across his master’s face.

Zao is confused about what his master is mad about and carefully treads forward.

“Zao Ning!”

The yell of Grand Elder Chi reverberates through Zao’s chest and causes the dragon’s ear to ring afterwards.

“What is it master?” Zao Ning says while using his free hand to mess with his ear to try to get rid of the ringing.

“You are supposed to be training for the tournament or looking for revenge on whoever blew up your house, not out getting drunk and picking fights with the strongest power in the town of Xi’an!” Grand Elder Chi says through his teeth as his patience has worn thin with Zao Ning.

The reasons Grand Elder Chi is so mad is one, Zao Ning never sought revenge on who Grand Elder Chi told him blew up the house.

Two, Zao Ning beat up another Elder and made half of the Heaven’s Pavilion mad at him and Grand Elder Chi.

Finally, Zao Ning went and started a fight against The Crystal Palace, which is owned by the King of Xi’an, and when the King finds out about Zao Ning’s drunken adventure, he will seek out Grand Elder Chi and possibly start a fight with him.

Grand Elder Chi rubs the bridge of his nose as he can feel a headache forming, and then begins to rethink about taking in such a problem child of a prodigy in as a disciple.

“Don’t worry about it master, all those weaklings had it coming. Now if you will excuse me, I’m gonna go put mom away and go find some more wine.” Zao Ning says as the drunk version of him smiles when thinking about more wine.

“No you will not! You will stay in your room and train until the tournament begins!” Grand Elder Chi says with authority. Zao Ning’s eyebrows furrow and he looks at Grand Elder Chi threateningly.

“And who is gonna make me do that?”

Grand Elder Chi laughs and smiles at Zao Ning as he finally gets to let some stress out.

Grand Elder Chi then proceeds to beat Zao Ning in a fist fight in a matter of seconds, and puts the weak and drunken dragon in his room and locks the door.

Zao Ning goes on a small rampage in his room, trying to break out of it, but to no avail.

Zao Ning tires himself out to the point where he falls asleep.

And here we are now, Zao Ning rubs his head as he is happy he is not drunk anymore and vows to stay away from alcohol until he is able to have a house of his own again.

Well, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, so might as well keep cultivating until the tournament.