Chapter One

In the main temple of the Five Dragon Sect, one of the five most prominent sects in the universe, a man is stretched out into a cross-shape on top of the altar, his hands and feet are bound by a wrought metal chain, which seems to warp even space around themselves. The temple is half full of men and women, all wearing clothes embroidered with gold. All of them seem nearly like angles. But if you look closer at the faces, there is a glint in their eyes which makes them seem arrogant.

The man on the altar was the complete opposite of the other people. It seemed like he did take a bath in sludge or even worse. His unkempt hairs and beard were sticky and long, he looked malnourished and didn't seem to have any muscles at all. His only clothing was a pitiful loincloth, and even that looked like it was too small. In other words, he could win a competition for the poorest of beggars in the whole universe.

But if you looked him into his eyes, all of it seemed to be a lie. Those weren't the eyes of a beggar. The white of the eyeballs wasn't just white, it was the purest of white and seemed like it was shining.

But that isn't the end of the strangeness, not by a long shot. There were no iris in the eyes, no in the middle of the eye was a black hole. Yes it really wasn't just the pupil it was the deepest black you can imagine, and if you looked into it, it seemed to pull you in.

Around the black hole were four colored dots equidistant from each other, they moved clockwise in the left eye and counterclockwise in the right. They seemed like planets orbiting around a black sun. One was dark green like the forest in summer. The second was red and seemed to burn with an inner fire, the next one was of a dark blue like the deepest of oceans. The last one was yellow and a lite golden glow to it. And yet he gave off an aura of kindness and warmth.

Those eyes spoke of an age older than mountains and wisdom few could ever gain in their entire lifetime.

A man stepped towards the altar, he was dressed even gaudier than all the others. On his chest was a golden amulet with an exquisite depiction of a dragon head and on his hand a golden ring. The ring resembled a dragon biting its own tail. The eyes of both carvings were set with gemstones. He sneered at the beggar-like man.

"Hello sect head, well not really any longer right?" Every person in the temple just laughed or snickered. "First you leave the Center for your stupid experiment and come back all exhausted and then you just 'leave' again without telling anyone where you would go. To tell the truth, we never thought you would give us such a chance. After you 'left' a millennia ago, I as your right-hand man had to take over. And look around, I did a fantastic job only the worthy are left in the sect all others 'died' or had an 'accident' while cultivating. We always thought you weren't the right fit. I was right from the beginning. We don't need any common-born pigs. Our five families are enough to guide the sect towards a better future without being muddled by your kind.

Your most significant failure was to trust me, did you really think I would let someone like you tell me what to do and how to live it was bad enough that I had to learn from you.

Haha, and you even let me prepare your secret room for your breakthrough and didn't check the formations. A pity for you that the formation for gathering celestial energy looks nearly the same as the one for banishing it. And the one for keeping everyone out has only one rune that is different from keeping whoever is in the formation in.

After you were imprisoned for about a hundred years, I started to personally take care of those four puppets, you installed to guide the sect. I told one every 100 years that you wanted to see them and brought them near your cell. And each and every one of them when they saw the state you were in, let down their guard, it was so easy to kill them nearly as if their soul already left their body. Trusting idiots just like you. Laughable excuses of dragons I'd say; old and decrypt. Not a single real leader among them. Their cores make beautiful jewelry wouldn't you say?"

His gaze swept towards his ring on his left hand while gently stroking his amulet, both adorned by two dazzling dragon cores which sparkle brightly in the well-lit room.

At those words, the altar-bound man looks sadly at the cores, he seems to have given up on his life long ago.

"At long last, it is your time to be made into a core oh and don't even think that you will be able to regain a body in a few thousand years, haha" everyone laughs abhorrently. "Oh no no no, we will send you into THE RIFT.

Oh well, finally a reaction. Yes, that rift in the center of the universe, the rift nobody could ever get out of, and nobody ever could even use any sensors to get a glimpse of the other side. We are all sure it rips everything apart that comes near it so it will be your absolute END."

"Let's begin." All of the people released their auras if a mortal was anywhere within miles of the temple, he would have died instantly.

The feet of the man on the altar started to dissolve into a dark green mist. Slowly the process crept up the man's legs. When it reached his torso, it slowly ground to a halt. You could almost feel the cold sweat running down their backs, trying to continue on.

"It doesn't work," someone in the crowd yelled, "even after being cut off from any energy for a thousand years he is still too strong."

"NOOOO, we can't wait any longer we need to refine him or will never get complete control over all protected areas of the sect." The leader screamed.

"Let's try to go with his arm, the more we vaporize of his body, the lighter the resistance will become."

Slowly the finger transformed to mist, again it worked until both of his arms were gone.

Finally, the torso vaporized cell by cell, after three days only the head was left. The people kneeled in a circle around the altar, they used so much energy they couldn't stand anymore.

"Hahaha, finally the first part is done," the leader breathed.

"Any last words, dirt-blood?"

....

....

The head opens its mouth: "Just get on with it!!!"

....

....

There is absolute silence for three breaths of time.

"Who do you think you are." "You are done for and still look down on us." "I hope the rift takes a billion years to slowly grind you to dust!"

"QUIET!!! He is just trying to destroy our concentration so we can't finish the refining process!" Slowly everyone calmed down.

"Now, as we discussed a third of us will stop helping and meditate for three days to regain their strength. We do it like this until everyone is fully rested. And then we will end this."

Nine days later, all of the people are standing around the altar again. Slowly the mist like substance formed a sphere around the head. It rotated faster and faster, and ever so gradually shrank. After twelve hours the diameter is the same as the wingspan of a mortal bald eagle. The further it compresses, the slower the progress gets.

Two and a half hours after that, the mist slowly shrinks down to the approximate area of the still seemingly alive head. Gradually it gets smaller and smaller a half-day later is about nine-tenths as big as the head, but the head seemed to have shrunk under the pressure of the shrinking gas cloud. The fifth day as it reached half the size of the head, a sound like an explosion sounded, and the gas was transformed into a liquid. After the liquid was formed, the progress became even slower. It took four more days to get the sphere to the size of a coconut which resulted in an even louder sound, the shockwave of it was so strong it blew a few of the elderly of their feed. A core was formed, it looked like it was made out of some type of crystal.

Two weeks after they began, it seemed like no-one had any energy left to give, but the result was that the man was refined into a fist-sized core.

When the Leaders and elders looked at this core, they were astounded not only was the core one of the biggest they had ever seen, no even the coloring was completely different. Usually, they were brightly colored. But this one was polished like a cut diamond and clear like the freshes spring. Inside there was the same formation that was the eyes of the beggar. A black sun with four planets rotating spherical around it.

A glyph suddenly appears in front of the leader, and soon after it turns into smoke. He looks around, and after taking in everyone's exhausted state, he stands up straightening out his clothing. Taking a sip out of a golden embroidered wineskin, he pulls the core through the air to his hand with a just flick of his hand.

Then he says in a domineering voice: "Everyone, it seems all that work really wasn't for nothing, the dirt-bloods restriction really weakened. It seems that if we had just killed him and not transform his body and qi into a core, the formations would have blown up half the sect. The bastard made it so that if he were killed by someone other than a sect member, then everything would have been given to that person as the new sect head. Cunning bastard seems like he wasn't as stupid as I hoped. The problem is we still don't have full control even with him refined and his dragons transformed into these controlling artifacts.

There can't be any hint of his energy left in our universe. It really is a shame if I could use his core to cultivate I would be even faster to ascend." There was a lot of cursing about the previous sect master and his cunning ways.

"Ok, let's end this." The family-heads of the other four families came forward and together they formed a five-pointed star formation. In the middle of the star, a portal opened, through it, there was a white line in space visible. "It should be near enough." One of the family-heads said. After all of them nodded the new sect head took the core out and threw it through the portal. On the other side, it accelerated until just vanished in the rift.