An old man with a bald head and long white beard and mustache, the classical fu manchu, was sitting cross legged with his eyes closed in a dark stone chamber. There was a sudden thudding sound coming from the stone door and his meditation was disrupted. The man opened his eyes and a hint of irritation crossed his features.

“What is it?”

Outside of the stone chamber a middle aged man wearing an extremely intricate and heavily embroidered robe was bowing to the door. He heard the voice clearly through the stone just like it was directly delivered to his ears. Then he bowed again and spoke apologetically.

“Forgive me, Ancestor. There are rumors of a new Seal Master.”

The old man seemed less annoyed, as that sort of news was on the list of things worthy enough to disturb him for. He shook his body slightly and a layer of dust was shaken off of him. He’d been in closed door training for years without moving a muscle, but it took only a few moments for him to reawaken the great power in his body. He rose to his feet and pushed open the stone door to the chamber. It was locked from the inside to prevent him from being disturbed.

When the old man stepped outside, his brilliantly vibrant purple robe was extremely eye catching. He looked at the bowing man and smiled, “You don’t need to be so formal, Sect Leader. It’s unbecoming of your station.”

The man rose from his bow and then shook his head, “That’s not true. The Violet Light Sect does not forget the great accomplishments of its members. It is only right that I properly respect you, Ancestor.”

He didn’t say any more as it was quite obvious to them both. The title of ‘Ancestor’ in the Violet Light Sect was only given to former Sect Leaders who had already stepped down from the position. The old man waved a hand to him to indicate they should move on to the matter at hand. The Sect Leader nodded, “We received news from Little Mei. There was a minor squabble over some benefits, but then the leader of the offending party transformed into a beast. He also has a companion that turned out to be a Demonic Beast as well. Neither of them are the bloodlines of Shou Imperials, and they were both at Core Formation.”

“There must be more, something like that could be caused by many different things.”

“You’re very astute, Ancestor. Little Mei had turned the offender’s subordinates against him, so the news took some time to reach her. The beast escaped and his companion was killed. The mutinous subordinates were unable to capture their former leader and only after half a year were the events finally brought to our attention when she came to ask for help.”

“Haha, Mei’er sure got confident as soon as she became the Prefect. You spoiled that girl far too much.”

“It was just too hard to be harsh, my daughter was just too cute even when she was causing trouble. At that time, rumors had already spread and we’ve just learned that the offender, who was calling himself Ling Sheng is likely to be a fugitive from the Shihu Kingdom known as Lang Sheng.”

The names were similar, but had different pronunciations and meanings. Of course, that wasn’t the damning evidence. The Sect Leader held out his hand and beside the two of them a huge sand colored mound appeared next to him. It looked like a giant pile of feathers with a cursory glance, but a closer look showed it was a corpse. The Ancestor walked around the mound and carefully examined it.

“A Breach Hawk. An extremely rare beast.”

The Sect Leader walked over and lifted up one of the huge wings and pushed the feathers on the chest aside to show a patch of skin. Then he carefully input a bit of Qi in a very specific manner, and a dim mark appeared on its skin.

“How many have seen this? Can it be contained?”

“Only a few have seen it directly, and the unimportant ones have already been handled. The problem is that this Lang Sheng was a fugitive specifically because he was suspected of being related to Seals. Nobody ever issued a public bounty for him, but a half-dozen groups had initiated a secret search for him.”

“Sounds like a slippery one. Assign the task to Sunset, bring him back before anyone else finds out about this.”

The middle-aged gentleman nodded as the Ancestor took the huge body into his own Storage Ring.

A thousand miles away, a similar situation was happening. A large hall had two rows of chairs facing each other with a single chair at one end to form a ‘U’ shape. The two rows of chairs were filled with cultivators of varying age and appearance, but all of them wore a black robe with a golden sunburst emblem on the chest.

“This is the opportunity the Lai Clan has been waiting for. Multiple great powers were conducting a secret search for one person. Whatever it is that he knows or has must be of extreme value. We can’t let this opportunity slip through our fingers. We’ve been hiding ourselves in Dawn Mountain County and building our strength, but it’s time we flex our muscles.”

On the surface, the Prefect of Dawn Mountain County as well as four of the dozen City Lords in the county were all from the Lai Clan. This was only what they wanted others to think. In fact, every city in the county was in their control. The other eight City Lords in the county were loyal to their clan or secretly controlled by their clan members from behind. The problem was they weren’t quite strong enough to overthrow the Chong Clan, and they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves. It was for this reason they secretly built their power.

The one speaking was the singular man in the central seat, and the people in the two rows of chairs to the sides pondered his words for a moment. Then one of them spoke out, “The Patriarch is right. We’ve been waiting too long. We can stand on even ground with the Chong Clan, so it’s worth exposing ourselves. Such a character definitely has powerful secrets and treasures!”

The Patriarch nodded and looked to the rest of the room. A few others stood up and declared their loyalty to the cause. Some in the room had a worried look in their eyes, but there was suddenly too much fervent support for them to speak out. They didn’t want to be the ones to talk back and suffer the consequences. The Patriarch smiled and stood up, “Summon the Underlords. It’s time for them to show their prowess.”

One of the worried men finally couldn’t control himself. He also rose to his feet, “This is too big of a gamble! What if the rumors are about the wrong person? We’ve been hiding our development for decades, so many in the Clan have made such huge sacrifices. We can’t expose ourselves just for a hunch! We don’t even know what he has, let alone if it’s worth the risk. Please reconsider, Patriarch.”

The Patriarch fixed his piercing gaze upon the slightly chubby man who had just spoken, “Does anyone else agree with Lai Zan?”

One of the other men who was friends with Lai Zan also rose to his feet, “I do.”

After waiting a few more moments for more supporters, the Patriarch spoke again, “Just the two of you? Well, at least you’ll have company.”

Before the two men could understand what he’d said, the Patriarch tapped his foot on the ground and there was a soft rumble from beneath them. Suddenly, the ground below the two others that had stood up, opened wide. It was like a trapdoor opened beneath them, the space under their feet seemed to disappear and both men fell downwards. They reached out and grabbed the edges, but the stone moved on its own and turned liquid like water. Their hands passed helplessly through the liquified stone and they disappeared into the ground. A moment later, the two holes sealed themselves back up.

“As I said before. Summon the Underlords. It’s time we act.”