Her head spun and she felt as if she wanted to puke. It had been drilled in her that cultivation was the most important thing in the world. Those who cannot cultivate might as well be useless trash.

“Pascal!”

Just as tears were about to burst out, Relic suddenly called for her.

“Uncle…..”

“What’s there to sad about? I’m guessing the poison must have lowered your cultivation, but who cares? You are a genius among geniuses! Not even your father can call himself a genius in front of you! You will be able to get back to where you were in no time!” His words carried a sense of confidence and reassurance.

Her heart slightly calmed, but her face did not let up.

“Uncle….I’m not a genius! I don’t know how I advanced so fast when I was small but when I returned back to the sect my rate of cultivation became a lot slower. At most, I was only moderately faster than those of the same age.”

“Bullshi*t, if you are not a genius then I must a cripple incapable of even cultivating! Pascal, right now you are at the Initial stage of the foundation realm. I can guarantee if you were to cultivate right now, you can reach the second stage of the foundation realm within a couple of days!”

His words of encouragement gave her a sense of security. She knew he was only saying such things to make her feel better, but the odd thing was, it worked.

“En, Thank you Uncle Astor.”

“Good, we should go eat, you must be hungry.”

She nodded as her stomach suddenly growled and her face turned slightly red.

The two treaded down the hill with a small pup in her arms.

“Uncle, I was curious about something.”

“Hm, what is it?”

“When I was back at the sect, I realized that my father never talks about you or even asked about you to me. Why is that?”

“Do you know who your father’s master is?”

She shook her head. “No, he doesn’t talk to me about those things.”

“Well, you see, we were both disciples of a great master back when we were youths. Your father was the second disciple of our master while I was the third. Our master’s first disciple was a person of great strength and unrivaled in the heavens. We both admired him greatly. Eventually, he left us in search of adventure and chose to travel the world.”

Relic gave a look as if he was reminiscing of the past. Though, he was actually utilizing his brain as fast as possible in order to make up the next portion of his story.

“As the second disciple, your father thought he would inherit master’s legacy before following the same path as first brother. Unfortunately for him, I showed much greater talent in training in master’s legacy and so master passed on the legacy to me. After that, we split ways and I believe he has held a grudge for me since then.

However, even though he feels that way, he cannot deny that I’m a genius doctor capable of healing any illness in the world! This is why he left you with me.”

He gave a smile to Pascal.

“Wow, so you are even stronger than father?!” Her tone suddenly turned to one of admiration.

“Well, if we were to have a battle to the death I could not guarantee who would win, but in terms of general strengths, I would say I come out at top!” He then stopped walking and turned to Pascal and said, “Pascal, you are even greater than your father. One day you will have no problems surpassing him at all.”

Her heart felt warm. Although, there were many people in the sect that would praise her for her cultivation feats, it always felt hollow to her. Her father, on the other hand, never truly praised her and only compared her to her sister. The praise she received from Relic was something new to her and made her indescribably happy.

“En.” She nodded shyly

The two continued on their usual path to eat breakfast at their favourite restaurant.

“Paassccaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll!” a loud roar could be heard in front of them. A middle aged lady came running to Pascal with sparkles in her eyes.

“Honey… your skin, your hair, your body! You look at least 25 years younger!”

“Dammit, Dammit, Dammit, why are these ladies so obsessed with beauty?!” Relic was cursing in his heart. He kept under estimating the loud mouths of these women and thought they were going to only give a small greeting.

“Hello, auntie, you are looking very young yourself.” She didn’t seem to mind the statement the middle aged lady made. As she recalled, everyone in this town had a very odd way of speaking and now that she was older, she just accepted it as being such.

“I always knew cultivation could increase your longevity and keep a person young, but to do so to this extent.” She gave a dejected sigh. “You even seem to be a lot more mature now! Hmm, do you think an old lady like me is suited for cultivation as well?” She laughed knowing that her question was to be rejected.

“Of course, cultivation is not reserved for the young, it is for everyone. Anyone who seeks out the truth of the universe is capable of cultivation!”

The old lady suddenly had an excited look on her face. “Then how would someone like me learn?!”

“All you need is diligence and hard work, as well as a basic cultivation manual which can be found anywhere. Actually, I think I carry one with me…..”

She looked at her bare finger which no longer carried a spatial ring.

Seeing this, Relic suddenly panicked.

“Ah, I also have a copy, Miss Hou, please take this!” He quickly took out a Manuel from his spatial ring and gave it to the excited lady.

“We mustn’t keep the kids waiting, until next time.” Relic took Pascal’s hands and then walked fast as they waved good bye to the lady.

“Uncle, what happened to my spatial ring?”

“Your father was worried the people who originally targeted you would be able to find you if you carried a ring of the Thunder storm sect. So we decided that the ring will be left at the sect while you lived as a normal girl here.” Relic was becoming increasing good at coming up with stories on the spot.

“Oh, ok”

Thankfully, she still believed his stories.

At this moment, Relic was feeling rather regretful.

“ah, the legacy left by the heaven sunder sect…..”

There were many different training manuals one could study to begin their journey on the path of cultivation. Obviously, some were better than others, while some were required to be learnt first so that secret techniques could be learned.

The Heaven sunder manual was something Relic had found in the ruins of an ancient sect. Although he could not learn from it, it was essentially a priceless manual that linked one to the ancient sect’s secret arts. Not even top tier sects would necessarily be able to afford it if he sold it!

However, he had just given such a manual to a mortal lady! If the ancestors of the Heaven sunder sect knew about this they would be turning in their graves!

They walked to the restaurant, where all the kids were waiting impatiently to hear Relic’s stories. Pascal saw the many familiar faces and felt warm inside.

However, suddenly a barrage of women came out to speak with Pascal.

“Pascal, how did you become so young?!”

“You look younger than even my mom!”

“If people didn’t know better, they would probably think we were sisters!”

Middle aged women surrounded the two, and bombarded the now younger looking Pascal with constant questions and praise.

“Ah, aunties, this is just the result of my cultivation, as long as one meditates daily you can all achieve the same result.” She gave an awkward smile. In her memories, these ladies were exactly the same as she remembered. For some reason they always praised her for her looks so she naturally attributed it to her cultivation.

Finally there was one question that made all these aunties stay silent.

“Pascal, do you think you would be willing to teach us cultivation?”

“Sure!”

After she agreed, the women all returned to their seats with smiles on their faces while the kids gathered around Relic.

He could only give a sigh at the events that transpired. They were just supposed to go for breakfast, how did it turn into a promise to teach cultivation?

The two exited the restaurant and spent half a day walking through the town and recounting the days past of when she was 5. This was only a couple of days ago for Relic but with his superb acting skills, she did not suspect a thing.

Back on the hill….

“Pascal, why don’t you take a bath first and then we can have dinner.”

Like always, he set the bath and added medicinal ingredients to it.

Seeing him set up the medicinal bath, she suddenly gaped in shock.

“Uncle Astor!”

“Yes, Pascal, what is it?” he asked as he continued to add in ingredients.

“1000 year old blood ginseng…, jade gilded chrysanthemum…, Bone marrow of an arcane divine beast…, SKIN OF THE IMMORTAL GOLD-EYED SERPENT, UNCLE STOOOOOOP!!!”

She rushed forward trying to recover the ingredients that were thrown into the bath.

“Hahaha, what are you doing?” he couldn’t help but chuckle at her frantic actions.

“Uncle, how could you waste such precious ingredients?! The costs of these ingredients are worth more than 500 divine lighting essence stones! That could cover the cost of using a medicinal bath every day for 10 years in our sect!”

“Oh, is that so?” His tone was that of a mischievous child pretending they didn’t know what they just did.

Pascal’s clothes were now soaked and in her arms were a pile of ingredients she fetched from the bath.

“Uncle, I can’t let you waste such precious ingredients on a single bath for me! I...”

Suddenly a thought occurred which made her shiver.

“Uncle, be honest….. Did you use these ingredients when I was 5?”

“No”

A breath of relief seemed to escape her body.

“At that time your body was too weak, so instead I used a 500 year old ginseng and substituted the bone marrow with that of a regular divine beast, as well as only using the skin of an immortal red-eyed serpent.”

As if struck by lightning, she stood in place, dumb struck.

He smiled and said, “Pascal, these things are meaningless to me, mere items. To me, your health is more important to me than these items. Even if they were worth a hundred times more, I would still not hesitate to throw them in if I knew they would help you even a little. ”

Tears welled up in her eyes.

No one had ever treated her this kindly before. Not her friends, not her sister, especially not her father. It was at this moment, she placed Relic above everyone else in her heart.

The items dropped from her hands as she dived towards Relic to give him a hug.

“Thank you.” She said weeping.

His body froze but his heart rate accelerated. A familiar feeling arose in him as when he was hugged by her when she was still in the mind of a 5 year old.

The two stayed silent as they hugged each other, only departing a couple moments later.

Cough

“Anyways, you should not worry about the items used. This uncle is a genius doctor you know, and what’s more, exceedingly wealthy! If I want to eat immortal beast meat then I shall have it! If I want to buy a kingdom, then, who could stop me?” Relic’s sudden bragging immediately lightened the mood and the two began to laugh.

“Alright, I’ll see you at dinner.”

Relic left and Pascal no longer hesitated to enter the bath.

Outside, Relic saw the little mastiff running around, chasing its tail.

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to need you to stay small for a while.” He walked up to Shiro and performed an incantation gesture. Light completely encompassed the dog who was just happily waving his tail.

He then turned to prepare dinner.

After she finished her bath she headed towards the hut. When she saw the meal on the table, she began to reminisce the time she ate dinner with her uncle and the meals they had.

“Uncle Astor, you always make the best food!”

“Mn, eat up, I made lots.”

“En!”

Seeing her heartily eat the food he prepared was always a great scene for him to watch. Suddenly, he remembered there was a question he forgot to ask.

“Pascal, uncle’s memory is bad, could you tell me how old you are now?”

“I’m 15 now.”

“Well, you’ve grown to be a very beautiful lady.”

Her face blushed slightly as she gave a small nod. If anyone else were to see this scene they would see a borderline middle age – granny women blushing to the words of a young and handsome man.

Night came and went the same as it always has been. The only difference was that now she was too embarrassed to have ‘story time’. She also felt a bit nervous sleeping in the same room as Relic. Back in the sect she always slept alone in her room.Though, she was secretly happy to have Relic sleep so close to her.