It was a good day with clear skies, and the bright, golden light of the sun radiated faint amounts of heat. Ye Tian sunbathed on a giant rock in his underwear with bandages all over his body. Perhaps it was due to a stronger constitution from cultivation, but the breezy, cold air, that was occasionally blown onto Ye Tian’s face, didn’t cause Ye Tian to shiver. It was an odd feeling where Ye Tian could physically feel the cold but couldn’t psychologically feel the cold.

Ye Tian let out a satisfying deep breath from the comfort provided by the duality of both the breeze and sunlight.

To his side, Nan Feng, similarly in his underwear, studied the inheritance map trying to make sense of where to go next and where the group was.

The clothes of the two had been filled with blood from both their injuries and the enemies’ injuries. As a result, the two had washed up their robes and cloaks which were hung nearby to dry. While there were also tears in the clothes from sword slashes, the defensive properties of the clothes were only slightly dampened. It would take spirit stones to resew the clothes.

Ye Tian sighed from the pain of having to later spend spirit stones. The cloak was a resource provided for talented individuals with earth spiritual roots and above. With slightly more inscriptions than the robes, these cloaks also took more spirit stones to repair.

In front of the rock that Ye Tian was on, there was a small stream of water where Yu Ling sat with her dainty feet kicking back and forth creating splashes. Occasionally, fish would swim by and brush against Yu Ling in wonder at this unknown invader. Yu Ling’s clothes were already clean and dry from earlier the day when she chased the two away.

The silence, pervasive throughout the forest, had created a sense of peace that was only further supplemented by the ambient sounds of birds chirping and frogs croaking.

It had been a few days since the long fights at the bandit camp. During this time, the trio had followed the map and found a small stream of water where they could rest and finally clean their clothes.

While on the road, Ye Tian took the time to practice the Qi Burning Movement Technique. The technique only had one stage which highlighted the simplicity of the ability. Once Ye Tian mastered the technique, he could feel the blood rushing through his body which caused the world to slightly slow down in Ye Tian’s eyes while his speed increased by around two-fold.

Ye Tian couldn’t feel qi yet, but he could sense that something was draining within his body whenever he used the movement ability. There was a limit of around a minute before the qi is fully drained which causes incomparable, psychological exhaustion.

“We just need to travel past a river after this stream and we should be there,” Nan Feng confidently declared.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s go,” Ye Tian hopped off the rock to pick up the now dry clothes.

***

The trio made their way through the raging, small river and a lush forest of orange and green leaves.

Eventually, the forest came to an end where tall, steep mountains lay. The trio began to scale one of the mountains to a small ledge amongst many others of varying sizes. Nan Feng looked at the wall of the mountain, which had some vegetation growing on the sides, before looking around.

“This wall with thicker than normal vegetation should be it. There should be an extremely steep mountain there and a mountain range with slightly blunt tips there,” Nan Feng looked to the surroundings and pointed

Ye Tian walked up and felt the wall while trying to look to see if there’s anything abnormal. Yu Ling and Nan Feng did the same thing when they saw Ye Tian.

After being unable to feel a button for some hidden mechanism, Ye Tian tried knocking to see if the inside was hollow but was unable to get any results.

For a few hours, the trio scrutinized the wall for anything out of the norm.

“Are you sure?” Ye Tian asked.

“There can’t be any other mountain. I mean look around you. Only this mountain fits the one that is on the map,” Nan Feng responded.

Ye Tian took a look and pondered for a moment before taking out his sword.

This damnable expert better have something good.

“I don’t believe I can’t find anything if I start carving this wall,” Ye Tian snorted in annoyance.

Yu Ling and Nan Feng looked at each other in the eyes as if Ye Tian was out of his mind before Nan Feng commented, “Well, I guess that’s better than nothing.”

The trio then got to work at carving out chunks and chunks of the wall.

***

Ye Tian’s sword stabbed into the wall but felt little resistance after a certain point.

“I got something! It’s hollow on the other side!” Ye Tian shook off the dust on him and shouted in excitement.

Nan Feng and Yu Ling looked over in relief and exhaustion since the dark, suffocating tunnel was not exactly the most comfortable place to be.

The trio had been working away at the wall since yesterday and all night due to Ye Tian’s persistence. It was already noon and the trio had excavated a tunnel into the mountain thanks to the sharp swords.

Once the wall was fully carved out for a person to fit through, the trio entered the inheritance room with their torches that they had made a while ago. As the flame lit up the room, the group inspected their environment.

The room was small with a skeleton on a prayer mat. A spirit of a robed man proceeded to float out of the corpse.

Ghost!

The group tensed up.

“Do not be afraid. This is merely a remnant of my soul. You may call me Starseeker. You guys are likely here for my inheritance. I would just like you guys to promise me that you will take revenge for me. It’s okay if you don’t promise me, but you will not be getting the full inheritance.”

The trio looked at each other in the eyes until Ye Tian spoke up, “Life is unpredictable.” Ye Tian paused before continuing, “Power is the only absolute security. We are willing to receive senior’s full inheritance and exact senior’s revenge for senior’s power.”

The three all knew what it feels like to be stripped naked amidst the raging currents of life.

They’ve all been there.

“Good, I am Starseeker, the rogue cultivator amongst the seven divines. Judging by your expressions, you guys don’t know what the divines are. I suppose the old are gone. What’s the current situation in the world?” asked Starseeker.

“Senior, we don’t know what the divines are, but the world is ruled by the empire.” Ye Tian answered.

“The world? What happened to the demon race? The elven race? Impossible...” Starseeker’s face grew more dumbfounded at seeing the trio shake their heads.

“According to legend, the first emperor declared war on the other races and the races were finally purged from the world by the third emperor. There are only humans now.” Nan Feng explained.

“Every race is gone? There is one continent, one archipelago, and 6 smaller subcontinents. The empire rules all over those?” Starseeker questioned in disbelief.

“Yes, we’re currently into the reign of the 10th emperor,” Nan Feng answered.

“I see… I see… humanity has finally grown up,” Starseeker smiled. When seeing the confused faces of the trio, Starseeker explained in his good mood, “Before this empire thing formed, humanity was just one of the many races that fought for their survival in this world. There were no differences between fellow men. Everyone was united against the other races.”

Starseeker sunk into reminiscence with pain and anger on his face, “The struggles between the races caused many of our kind’s deaths. I still remember the wars and hatred like yesterday. The other races looked down upon us. They constantly infringed upon our lands and massacred us because we were the race with the weakest physique, but we had our greatest gift, spiritual roots. We swore to never let the other races go even in death.”

“The seven divines were titles passed down to the greatest humans from generation to generation. The titles carried great prestige and honor. Each divine was a powerhouse that supported the existence of humans and struck fear into the other races. I don’t know why you guys don’t know about us and our sacrifices,” spoke Starseeker with pride, but his expression twisted as he seemed to remember something unpleasant.

“The divines were the hopes of humanity, yet I was betrayed… Long Tian… that bastard fatally wounded me and left me running for my life before succumbing to my wounds here,” Starseeker turned to the trio with a face full of fury. “Knowing him, he definitely got rid of my descendants. I want this blood feud across generations to be paid back at the full price. I want Long Tian to suffer even in death. My vengeance is death for Long Tian’s descendants.”

Starseeker then continued with a wistful expression, “I suspect that the empire may have been founded by the next generation. They were supposed to be the shining generation. The rise of humanity. There were many young and bright talents. Unfortunately, I was unable to help mentor them and watch them rise.”

The trio let Starseeker sink into his memories, “Well, enough of my rambling, I will pass on my inheritance towards you guys. The first gift is cultivation.”

After Starseeker spoke, three orbs of light came from his body and into the trio’s bodies. Starseeker’s soul body grew extremely dim, “Directly granting cultivation is harmful and may even cause you guys to explode on the spot. With my orbs, I improved your spiritual roots to heavenly inferior.”

“You can do that???” Ye Tian asked in shock but also joy for future possibilities.

Starseeker shook his head upon seeing Ye Tian’s expression, “I’m one of the divines. Of course, I can do that but any more chances to improve the spiritual roots will be a difficult and rare opportunity. Unfortunately, I’ve been here for too long and I can only raise it to heaven inferior instead of godly tier.”

“Godly tier?” Ye Tian asked.

“The godly tier for spiritual roots is gone? How is that possible… Oh well, I’m running out of time. My next and last gift is an unranked cultivation technique named Starseeking Scripture that I made.”

At seeing the trio’s faces, Starseeker snorted, “All of the divines in my time and before had cultivated personal, unranked techniques.”

“Don’t look down on this scripture. I made it to study and use the energies of the stars to cultivate. The more knowledge one has of the stars then the more powerful the scripture grows. I would love to teach astromancy, but I just don’t have enough left in me. Unfortunately, my spatial ring was destroyed along with my lifetime’s knowledge during the battle. Perhaps you may still be able to find remnants that I left behind, but you guys will have to feel out the rest of the road yourselves.”

With that being said, orbs once again floated out of Starseeker’s body and into the trio’s bodies. All three of them could feel knowledge of a cultivation scripture being inserted into their heads. Starseeker’s body then grew even dimmer with the center being almost completely transparent, and only faint light came from the outline of his body.

“Senior, do we get combat abilities?” asked Ye Tian.

“This road is unique for each person. I had two disciples. One of them became stuck in the rebirth realm while the other became a legendary warrior. Both of them could not use my abilities and had to create their own. You guys will have to, unfortunately, figure out the circumstances of each person before creating a suitable ability.”

“Before I go, let me pass down my most important lesson in life.”

“Do not think for even a moment that you guys are special just because you got my inheritance. Back in my time, I was only the third strongest divine.”

“Cultivation is endless through innovation and many paths exist.”

“The ones that rise to the top are neither the strongest stage cultivators nor the ones that cultivate godly superior techniques but rather the ones who were ahead of their time.”

“All 7 divines and the past divines cultivated unranked techniques that they made themselves.”

“Divines were divines because we advanced the limits of cultivation and civilization.”

“Tell me, of the other three divines, fatty Xuan’s inscriptions, old man Duan’s regalia, and wiseman Luo’s beastmaster tactics. Which path has outlived the other?”

“Senior, we only know of inscriptions,” replied Nan Feng.

“Fatty Xuan’s inscriptions? He was the weakest out of all the 7 divines.”

“Indeed, the future is unknown. The strong may die and weak may live. You all must survive life’s adversities and rise to forge your own path.”

“You must remember! We humans only have our brilliant minds! When humans were cold we created fire, when humans were hungry we created weapons, and when humans were massacred we created cultivation! Innovation is key! Never forget that!”

“We will never forget your lesson Senior!” Nan Feng respectfully shouted.

“Good! Now go out there and achieve the greatest of things.”

The trio saluted Starseeker for his valuable inheritance and insights before leaving the room.

As Starseeker watched the trio exit the room. His body slowly began to fade out of existence and something suddenly hit him.

“It can’t be... right…?” he murmured before he faded away.