Chapter 3: Jing Jiao

Jing Guanyu

Suddenly, my soul leaves my soul realm, making my body jolt back into activity. After a few seconds, I open my eyes, shock still lingering in them. After telling me about his race and their strength; Yai Zia had made me sign the contract quickly because apparently my body couldn’t be kept in its semi-active state for much longer without sinking into complete inactivity, or the death of my body to put it bluntly. From what he said, he was informed that the first entry of the cultivator into their soul realm was the equivalent to turning their body into hibernation. Too long in the soul realm, the first time and they won’t wake up even when the soul leaves the soul realm. The so-called spirit contract was simply a soul contract stating that the spirit will teach me to the best of their abilities and that I as the student in the contract, will simply have to help the spirit in the future as long as it isn’t life-threatening or something impossible to do, like have a beginner alchemist refine a thousand heaven-defying pills within a year. That is also on the condition that I am able to reach a high enough realm of cultivation to provide that help, if the cultivator is unable to help, then that condition doesn’t apply.

After making me sign the contract as quickly as possible, Yai Zia immediately sent my soul back to my body. Now his spirit body is residing within my soul, allowing him to speak to me whenever he needs to. Smiling, I send my now slightly stronger spirit sense within myself, sending my spirit sense into my soul. Upon detecting my spirit sense, Yai Zia smiles and waves at me. After a few seconds of looking through my body to see what exactly is wrong with it, I gasp in surprise. There is not a single meridian in my body.“What in the world?! Where are my meridians?! No wonder it is impossible for me to do anything in the path of Energy Cultivation.” I think to myself as I stare in shock at my body’s strange lack of meridians. The strangest part is that my body itself doesn’t even have space where the meridians would be. It looks like my body really was born without them.

“Speaking of body, what is up with my body. Why is it so weak that it compares to those of the Mortal Realm despite the fact that my parents have a bloodline that grants us a stronger body than even the average High Heaven Realm resident. It isn’t strange that my parents don’t even allow me to attempt any of the Essence Cultivation techniques we have here if I have this kind of body. Also, since buying cultivation techniques from a lower Realm is considered shameful to the extreme, there is no way the clan would allow my parents to purchase one from the Mortal Realm even if they could swallow their pride as High Heaven Realm residents.” With a sigh, I put those thoughts to the back of my mind as I get up and start to leisurely get the cramps out of my body with slow stretches. My parents aren’t back yet, though they should be here sometime this week.

As I walk to the training hall, the array for detecting visitors goes off. With a slight frown marring my forehead, I change my route and walk to the entrance of the living complex I live in with my parents. We are quite isolated from the other members of our clan, so very few people come here unless it is important clan matters. The only people that come here that aren’t elders are a group of clansmen my age. Like most people 13 years old, although they are more physically mature than lower Realm mortals their age, they still retain some of their childish personality. They haven’t come by to get their usual satisfaction of acting like they are above me in recent months, so I was kind of expecting them to come by sometime soon. Still frowning, I change my route to walk to the entrance of the complex. With no surprise, I see a group of 5 people around my age. All are considerably handsome and have an arrogant air about them. The airs of a group of genius’ from a powerful clan, which they are.

“Hello, what can I help you with Jing Jiao?” I ask neutrally, having some respect in my voice. Although he is an arrogant prick, the star of our Jing Clan, Jing Jiao certainly deserves respect for his cultivation talent. Making a contract with slightly lower than middle ranked Supreme Dao spirit, it is one of the strongest first spirit contracts a member of our clan has made in a century. He is hailed as the top talent of our Jing Clan in 200 years and even I admit that he truly deserves such a strong spirit as his first one because he has a truly heaven-defying cultivation talent in the paths of Energy and Divine cultivation. Although his body cultivation is only in the Initial Blood Refinement, he is already of the 1st stage of the Houtian realm in both his Energy and Divine cultivation.

“Heh, I just wanted to talk to my dear friend that is crippled from birth and happens to have the worst talent in Divine Cultivation in the history of the clan. Oh, wait it is the worst talent in ANY form of cultivation in the history of the clan. Please pardon me, I forgot that small detail. So, how is like being such a piece of trash Jing Guanyu?” The star of our clan, Jing Jiao asks me arrogantly, laughing at his own insults. Shrugging to myself, I reply neutrally, using calm but fairly vicious words. I really am sick of this guy, although I don’t talk or anything to him, let alone see him more than once or twice a year; he always feels the need to be an absolute dick to me. Of course, I would get pissed off at him.

“It’s great, I mean, I just condensed my first spirit. Turns out that it doesn’t even deem itself on a weak enough level compared to the spirits of the High Heaven Realm to even be compared to them. He also said something about the people in the High Heaven Realm lacking the talent to even be able to make a contract with one of his bastard sons.” I knew that although Yai Zia didn’t say anything like this, I could see from his expression and tone of voice, that he truly disdained the so-called “Heaven-Defying talents” of the High Heaven Realm. Besides, he would probably say the same thing to Jing Jiao if he met him and deemed himself low enough to actually speak to him. While I was thinking about this, Jing Jiao’s face turned nearly purple with rage. With a face twisted in an ugly expression, he yelled at the other 4 following him.

“Cripple this bastard! No, he is already crippled actually, so better yet, grab him and follow me. We will go see the elders and let him show them the so-called “talent” of this crippled bastard.” A frown marring my face, I willingly let Jing Jiao’s friends grabbed me. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to resist, so what’s the point of resisting. Smirking to myself, I remember the parting words of Yai Zia before he sends me back to my soul. “Don’t worry about them killing you due to your talent. I can sense your parents are around half an hour away, even for trash such as you, they cannot kill or cripple you without undergoing a trial. Though when you show me them, be prepared for some trouble. They won’t harm you, but it won’t be nice. Do not fear though, no matter what they do, I will do everything I can to help you. After all, it is not your fault that you got assigned me to be your first contract spirit.” He had said as he waved his hand and sent me back to my body.

It was because of Yai Zia’s words that I even had the confidence to say such words. Otherwise, I usually wouldn’t even speak a single derisive word to Jing Jiao even if I had balls bigger than my head. Despite only meeting Yai Zia once, I could already tell that he was reliable and I could see the care he had for me. He had confirmed it himself, when he was assigned to me, he had started watching me to determine my personality and how best to guide me. From that, it was obvious that he approved of me as a person as well as of my talent, though I don’t think I have any talent. As I am “escorted” to the elders, I am lost in thought “Just why does he think I have talent? I am crippled body wise and have no energy system in my body. The only thing I am remotely talented in is the path of Divine Cultivation. However, I doubt the spirit contracts would be judged purely on Divine Cultivation. Even I know that just focusing on one path of cultivation will eventually cause you to be unable to advance any further.”

*ooof*

My thoughts are interrupted by an insidious elbow to my ribs. I turn to my left, looking darkly at the goon of Jing Jiao that is on my left, he simply smirks and nods towards the front. I look where he is indicating, seeing that we are about to enter the conference hall. Currently, Jing Jiao is talking to the guard at the front, pointing to me and explaining something. The guard looks at me, surprise and derision in his face before he enters the hall. After a minute, the guard opens the door and indicates for our group to walk into the hall. Walking in behind Jing Jiao, I can see that all the elders of our clan are in the hall. They must have been in one of their weekly meetings when Jing Jiao disturbed them. Now, they were all looking slightly irritably at me as I walk in. However, when they notice the fact that I seem to have a Divine Cultivation, their faces twitch in surprise slightly.

Although I may have only the most rudimentary cultivation, my senses were quite good from the many hours of meditation I did every day when trying to begin my path of Divine Cultivation. This allowed me to see these slight twitches of the elders’ faces, which usually would require someone with a cultivation of the peak of the 1st realm in Essence cultivation to notice if they focused all of their attention on the face of one of the elders. It was clear that they weren’t expecting this. Waiting in slight amusement, Yai Zia suddenly sends me a mental message from my soul. “Kid, from here on is where you should tread carefully. If you get killed before showing my existence, then that’s your bad luck. I cannot come out of your soul unless either you want me to or you are unconscious. Try to be as polite as possible please.” Sending a mental nod of affirmation, I wait for Jing Jiao to finish his surprisingly eloquent speech which boils down to, “The previously crippled kid said he had made a spirit contract while being an arrogant prick to my heaven-defying talented self.” It was definitely biased towards giving the elders a negative impression of me, not that he needed to in the first place.

“Hello Elders, I am sorry to disturb you, but I carry some very great news. The previously talentless and still crippled Jing Guanyu has finally made his first spirit contract. This now allows him to embark on the path of Divine Cultivation. Not only this, apparently the spirit he condensed is so powerful, that it even ‘doesn’t even deem itself on a weak enough level compared to the spirits of the High Heaven Realm to even be compared to them.’ In Jing Guanyu’s own words. Truly a great talent, our Jing Guanyu is. Therefore, seeing the extreme arrogance and over-confidence of my fellow clan member, I felt that I had to announce such amazing news to all of my respectable elders. Please forgive my intrusion into your meeting.”

“Oh really. Since you phrased your request so eloquently Jing Jiao, we shall see this “great talent” known as Jing Guanyu for ourselves.” The elders were all smiling in anticipation of the shame I would receive. Ever since I was discovered to be crippled, no one in the clan except my parents even remotely cared about me. Not even my grandfather, one of the 4 grand elders of the clan even spoke to me, let alone was nice to me. Feeling anticipation, I smiled politely as I respectfully bowed and answered the elders. “Very well then great, respectable elders. I shall reveal the spirit that I have made a contract with.” So saying that I allowed Yai Zia to release his spirit body. Spirit bodies, despite having absolutely no power at all, are completely invulnerable. Due to the way they are made, they are completely incorporeal and thus immune to physical damage. Given that is was a death wish to attempt to dissipate the expert's spirit body via a soul attack, these spirit bodies are practically unkillable.

Emerging from my body, Yai Zia is smirking arrogantly as he announces his identity.

“I am a Dao-spawn of the Dao of Chaos. I am sure that your spirits will know of my so-called rank, even if you don’t. Why don’t you come out dear little spirits? I wish for you to announce me yourselves since even explaining my strength will be assisting these old geezers in their comprehension of just how high the heavens are.” After saying that, each elder had from 4 to 9 spirits emerge from their bodies, looking at Yai Zia in shock. The elders, upon seeing the shock on the faces of their spirit contracts, felt that something wasn’t right. Their thoughts were proven as the spirits of everyone in the room, even the ones in the top 100 of the High Heaven Realm Spirit Ranking kowtowed to Yai Zia. One of the elders, in shock, finally regained his voice enough to ask one of the spirits to explain.

“Sp-Spirit, can you please explain what is happening. Why are you all kowtowing to another spirit? You have said that even the number 1 on the ranking wouldn’t received your kowtows!" The spirits, as if realizing that their contracts were looking on in confusion, got up from their kowtow. The most knowledgeable of the spirits, stepped forwards as he explained.

“Although we do not need to kowtow to the number 1 spirit of the High Heaven Realm’s spirit ranking, to someone of the power of senior over there, even kowtowing is only barely enough respect considering that we are in spirit form. He is from the Dao Origin Realm I believe if I can read the fluctuation signature his spirit body is emitting. I also suspect that he is one of the stronger races of that Realm, though I am not certain. Senior, what is your race? We were not paying attention when you announced it. We only came out because we felt the presence of someone from the Dao Origin Realm.” The spirit asked extreme respect bordering on fanaticism colored his voice. Although he didn’t speak in an extremely respectful manner, it was only the middle and lower Realms that truly put emphasis on such things as titles. The higher Realms’ experts only really expected a tone of respect since no one really cared much for respectful and flowery speech.

With an arrogant smirk, Yai Zia answered in a bored tone. “I guess since you were so respectful, I can repeat myself. After all, I have a reputation to upkeep as one of the most respected experts of the Dao Origin Realm. I am a Dao-spawn with the Dao of Chaos as the Dao that spawned me, my name is Yai Zia, though I expect that no one of the High Heaven Realm or their equivalent spirit Realm will even recognize the family name, let alone my identity.” At the announcement of his race, every spirit’s face in the room dropped. When he spoke of his attribute, even more shock went through the hearts of the spirits in the room. There was also confusion in their expressions. They had never heard of a Dao-spawn being of the Dao of Chaos. Dao-spawn that they had heard myths of were usually one of the Elemental Dao, but it was because any higher grade Dao-spawn were myths even in the Realms far above the High Heaven Realm. With the confusion still on his face, the representative spirit turned to the elders and hesitantly started to speak.

“well…. It seems that he is of the Dao Origin Realm. We have heard of the Dao-spawn race; they are probably the strongest race when looking at just their chosen attribute. We have never heard of a Dao-spawn bloodline with the chaos attribute, so he might be fooling us race wise, though the fluctuations he gives off are the ones specific to the Dao Origin Realm spirit body creation technique which means he is definitely of the Realm he claims to be.” The elders all looked on in shock. Suddenly, they all started looking at me with admiration and also greed. The senior-most elder grabbed a communication talisman and lit it up. After sending a message to all the strongest of our clan, he then commands some elders to take me to a room in the main palace and to station two high cultivation guards outside my room for my protection. As this is happening, Yai Zia resubmerges into my soul, smirking as he sends me a mental message. “Well kid, now you are for sure not going to die. Unless they kill you for some reason, then even I can’t help you. Either way, be prepared.” Hearing the message, I get confused at the warning at the end. Replying as best I can because I am still not used to using my soul's voice, I ask Yai Zia what he means. “What do you mean, prepare yourself?” My only reply, however, is silence. Feeling a strange sense of apprehension take over, I start to walk a little tensely.

Noticing my tension, the elder escorting me to my room smiles as he says “Now, Jing Guanyu, there is no need to worry. You will be fine, we are just asking for the grand elders’ and the Clan Patriarch’s opinions on the outstanding matter of your amazing talent in Divine Cultivation. We will notify your parents as to what is happening when they return.” For some reason, this causes me to relax physically, but the agitation in my mind only gets worse. I have a strange premonition that the attention I am getting from the clan; isn’t the kind of attention I want. Arriving at my room, the elder opens the door for me. Walking in, the elder smiles and says “Well, because you have such amazing talent, the elders all fear for your life is taken from the other clans to eliminate a potential threat. Therefore, we insist that you stay in your room until the grand elders and the patriarch have made their decision regarding what we are going to do. I hope you understand this Young Lord Guanyu.”

Hearing his words, the bad premonition is realized. “I am trapped here now!” I think as the elder shuts the door gently. I can hear the elder talking to the guards outside, instructing them to prevent me from exiting the room I am confined in. With a sigh of resignation, I lie down on the bed provided and begin talking to Yai Zia again. “Yai Zia, have you got any advice for me?” “Yes, I do actually. Just stay put. If what I think is going to happen, the best and only situation you can hope for that won’t affect your future cultivation would be imprisonment.” “Huh! What do you mean imprisonment is the ‘best and only situation’ Yai Zia!” “I am not going to tell you why that is only if things go the way I suspect they will. They likely will, so you will soon understand what I mean. When that happens, I will tell you what we are going to do.” “How do you know what is going to happen?” “Simple, I have not only observed you since your birth, I also have been observing your clan. In fact, until you were 5, most of my time was spent observing your clan, only having a tiny piece of my sense attached to you just to see how you were doing.” “Oh. Well, since you have told me to stay put, I guess I better stay here. Do you want me to cultivate?” “No, instead, I want you to meditate.”

“HUH! But I have already made a contract with you! Why would I need to meditate even more? Isn’t it better to strengthen my soul power?!” “Sigh. Not at this point and in this situation. Instead, the best course would be to meditate and attempt to comprehend the Dao. You have an outstanding perception, but the Dao of Chaos is the hardest Dao to comprehend, due to its nature of containing everything. Even the other 6 Primordial Dao are within the Dao of Chaos. I guess that technically the Dao of Chaos is the broadest Dao in existence. Thus, it is required to meditate on it twice as much as if you had one of the other primordial Dao. Besides, the higher comprehension you have of the Dao of Chaos, the easier it will make any other Dao you attempt to comprehend because of the same reason I mentioned just before.” “Oh ok. Any particular way you want me to meditate?” “Actually, yes I do. Try to meditate this way. It will help you focus on the Dao of Chaos more. It will be hard to do but please try.” As Yai Zia said this, I received a mental imprint from him. The imprint opened itself and a profound meditation technique started to brand itself into my memory in a gentle fashion.

As I read it, I was surprised. The technique was so profound that it was nearly incomprehensible. At this moment, Yai Zia sent another mental message, giving me some advice. “This is a meditation technique for more effective comprehension of the Dao of Chaos. Try to remember your current insights into the Dao of Chaos. It will help you understand this profound technique.” Listening to his advice, I attempt to remember my comprehension of the Dao of Chaos. Unknowingly, as the thoughts I had earlier that allowed me to connect to the spirit body of Yai Zia flooded my mind, I meditated the way described in the meditation technique. Soon, unable to sense the passing of time, hours had passed. Yai Zia watching me the whole time, a smile of contentment on his face.