“You have awakened the Honeybee martial spirit! Dismissed!” It was as if my dreams up to this point in my life were spat on, crushed, and erased hearing those words.

I took a deep breath. Slowly bringing air into my lungs and out through my nose. It was simply impossible for me to ignore the taunting remarks and laughter aimed at me from my closest kin. My clan mocked me for awakening one of the worst martial spirits in the land.

“Bwahahaha! What a great disgrace Ru Xin!” My rival, Ru Shi mocked.

He gained the Silly White Tigress as his martial spirit. It was far superior to the Human ranked spirit I awoken. The Silly White Tigress was a Mystic spirit, 2 levels above my Human spirit and only 1 level below the highest ranking, Legend. I was greatly jealous of my cousin, as we’ve been rivals since birth. But I didn’t plan to just give up and watch him leave me behind.

“Ghahahaha! All that pride and arrogance from earlier is gone now, isn’t it!? Now you’ve shamed the entire clan with your shitty martial spirit!” My auntie shouted.

She held a great hatred towards me because of my late mother’s rivalry with her. It was unfair for her to take her anger out on me because of my mom, but there wasn’t anything I could do. Her position in the clan was high and close to the Clan Head. If I tried going against her, my life would be even worse than it's going to be after today.

“Yeah! Stupid! Idiot Xin! Just go off yourself so that we don’t have to carry the shame of having a main family child awaken a Human spirit!” That was her daughter, Ru Ai.

Because of her mother, she also hated him. She wasn’t too smart but like Shi, she also had great talent. Ai awakened the Furious Blades of Flurry as her martial spirit, another Mystic ranked spirit. If all went well, those two would surely become future pillars for the clan. For me, well, I couldn’t see myself becoming anything more than just a lowly elder with no real authority and that’s being optimistic.

I left the Clan Hall in silence. Soaking in all the horrible remarks and taunting from my closest kin. Tears fell down my cheeks without my control. I couldn’t help the disappointment I felt deep in my heart. I always believed that, like Shi, I was destined to become an important figure in the clan. Both of us were born on the same day, both of us being born in the main family instead of the branch family, and both of always being equals in our youth. I wiped my tears away.

“Just because I obtained a trash martial spirit doesn’t mean I'm fated to be trash. Who says that you cannot reach the peak with a human-ranked martial spirit? I’ll work harder than anyone else. I’ll train harder than anyone else. And I'll never give up along my path to reaching the top.” I told myself.

With the squeaking of my door suddenly opening, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Behind me was my father staring at me with a great big smile.

“I knew my son wouldn’t give up so easily. I’m here to support you every step of the way!” More tears threatened to spill from my eyes.

“Thank you, Father... But I don’t know how I’ll be able to catch up to the others with my martial spirit. It’s not a martial spirit meant for fighting. I got a supportive martial spirit.” I wiped my face clean.

“Hmph. Don’t worry, son. I have the perfect training plan for you. And about your martial spirit, don’t worry about that either. Tomorrow, when you head to the Clan Library and choose your battle techniques, I’ll tell you everything you need to know when you return.” It felt as if a great weight was lifted from my heart hearing those words from my father.

“Yes!” I nodded my head with a great smile on my face.

I didn’t have the faintest idea of what my dad was planning to teach me tomorrow. My father was known as the weakest elder in the family. I’ve never seen him fight once, but everyone always says that he is weak. How did they know if my dad was weak or not? Maybe he just didn’t like showing off his strength in pointless fights.

That night, I hardly got any sleep. There were too many things running around in my head. I only got at least 2 or 3 hours of sleep. My excitement for what my father was going to teach me today, along with me bringing out my martial spirit to talk with, took all of my time. Everyone else might look down on my martial spirit, but that didn’t mean that I would do so as well.

“Hello. I am Ru Xin.” I had greeted.

She looked at me and turned her head sideways.

“Would you like to be my partner?” I asked.

She suddenly flew at me and grabbed me with all 6 of her legs. I couldn’t move an inch in her grip. Her big black hairy eyes stared at me while fear slowly crawled up my soul. She was very big for a honeybee. All martial spirits were like that in a way sometimes. Bigger than they would appear naturally in nature. My honeybee was larger than me, a 14-year-old boy. With her acting like this, it made me think, would my own martial spirit dislike me too? Has there ever been a situation where a martial spirit has killed a Spiritualist that made them?

What happened next made me feel very confused. I could feel my battle energy reaching out to her and connecting with her. It was all out of my control, and felt as if my body was doing it all on its own. When my battle energy linked with the Honey Bee, I felt a lot of emotions pounding on my heart at once.

Confusion, curiosity, intrigue, excitement, and pride. I could identify exactly what my martial spirit was feeling and could communicate with her! She must have not understood me earlier. Maybe her grabbing me was her trying to link us together and find out more about me!

“Can you understand me now? I’m Ru Xin, and I want us to be friends.” She still held me in her grip, but I didn’t feel afraid anymore.

She shook her barbed stinger from left to right while inwardly I could feel her accepting me as her Spiritualist. I couldn’t help but let out a deep relieved breath. A smile soon followed after and I spent most of the night just talking with her. By the time we stopped, the sun was on the brink of rising from the horizon. I found out that the elder actually made a mistake in diagnosing my martial spirit. She was actually a Queen Honeybee, a mutant variant of the common honeybee martial spirit. Not that it would have made much of a difference. I still would’ve been made fun of.

When I woke up, tired as all hell, I made my way to the Clan Library to pick out battle techniques to learn as a Spiritualist. Jia, my martial spirit, was clung on my back as I was walking. She was a bit heavy, but I didn’t mind. It could help me build some strength.

I was one of the last to arrive due to my slow speed. Seeing me tiredly shamble my way inside with my human-ranked martial spirit on my back did nothing for my reputation. Everyone laughed at the sight of me and immediately mocked me. I silently took it all without responding back. They’ll see soon enough. Actions speak louder than words, so no matter what I say it wouldn’t matter until I have the strength to back it up.

“Alright, listen up, brats! It doesn’t matter what kind of martial spirit you awakened, it’s all pointless if you, the Spiritualist can’t fight. Only explore the first floor of the Library. If I see any of you trying to sneak upstairs, 100 lashes no matter who you are!” Elder Kang informed.

“Yes, Elder Kang!” We all responded.

Getting on the bad side of Elder Kang was the worst outcome for anyone. He was one of the strongest Spiritualist in the clan and cared little for face or standings. He was even brave enough to question and argue with the Clan Head! His contributions to the clan were too numerous to count, so most elders just stayed out of his way when he was angry. My father was somehow friends with Elder Kang. I admired Elder Kang because of his character. If he was willing to be friends with my father who is known as one of the weakest elders then he had to be a respectable person.

As I was looking through the library, I realized that there were very few spirit arts that I could train with. The ranking of your martial spirit also determines how much battle energy you’ll have. Since I awakened the worst type, my battle energy would be far less than any other ranking. Which meant I had to limit the number of spirit arts I could take. I would have to avoid the ones that would drain me dry just trying to perform them. I could still increase how much battle energy I had in the future with rare resources and certain spirit arts but I would have to be very lucky to find things like that.

This also meant that I was stuck looking at only Human ranked spirit arts until I found a way to increase the amount of battle energy I had. It pained me to see Shi and Ai looking at Beast and Mystic ranked spirit arts, but I didn’t let it get to me too much. A single 4th circle Human ranked Spirit Art had the potential to deal with a 2nd circle Mystic ranked Spirit Art. There's a saying that says there are no useless spirit arts, only ignorant Spiritualists.

I had no choice but to believe in that saying, or what would be the point of even learning these manuals? Jia was excitedly looking around the library. Earlier, when everyone was laughing and mocking me, she also got angry on my behalf. Her wings started flapping, creating a buzzing sound as she was about to take flight. Of course, I stopped her before she could do any harm. Now wasn’t the time. We had a lot of training to do before we could disregard the clan rules at our whim.

“I would like to check these manuals out.” I placed down 5 books.

A healthy balance of all 5 types of spirit arts: Offensive, Defensive, Movement, Cultivation, and Supportive. Since I had yet to choose a weapon, I decided to choose an offensive spirit art that would work with any weapon. It was called Retard’s Unstoppable Assault! With this type of skill, it didn’t matter what weapon I chose. As the Spiritualist became more proficient in it, the number of strikes and the power behind them increased greatly! At the 1st circle mastery, it has 3 strikes at double your strength. At 2nd circle mastery, it has 9 strikes at quadruple one’s power. And at 3rd circle mastery, it goes from 9 strikes to 27 strikes at octuple one’s might! This is where everyone gives up in hopes of mastering this spirit art as the jump is far too great. As far as I know, no one has managed to reach the third circle in our clan ever. I plan to be the first to completely master it to the 4th and last circle.

For my defensive spirit art, I chose Idiotic Stone Body. The only reason I chose this one was because the other defensive spirit arts were more draining on my battle energy. It didn’t require much in terms of battle energy but was still useful. If trained to the peak, one could walk around with a stone-like body.

My movement spirit art was named Little Elephant’s Charge. Just like my defensive technique, it wasn’t anything special either. The most important spirit art I needed to decide on was my cultivation one. This would be the only spirit art that allowed me to rise in my cultivation. It was hard to decide which cultivation method to pick, but ultimately, I decided on Lunatic’s Heart Seed. No elder would ever recommend this spirit art due to the difficulty of properly training it.

I believed that since I was already going down a path of impossibility, why not increase the stakes? Taking it easy wouldn’t help me in achieving my goal of making it to the peak. I knew that whatever dad had planned for me when I returned was anything but easy. It just couldn’t be.

“You’re insane, aren’t you, brat?” Elder Wei said after looking at Lunatic’s Heart Seed.

I refused to comment.

“You’re actually crazy! Not only are you trying to practice Lunatic’s Heart Seed, but you’re also taking Dirty Heart?! Do you want to kill yourself before you even start on your path!?” He yelled, bringing everyone’s attention to him once again.

“Can I take them or not?” I asked.

He didn’t like the fact that I still wanted to take them.

“Your funeral, kid. What do I care if some cocky brat wants to commit suicide? Not gonna be my problem...” He mumbled.

And I was quickly on my way. Not letting anyone else find out about my choices or have the chance to make fun of me. My father said he would be waiting in our family’s yard. So, that’s where I went.

Upon my arrival, I found my father standing next to a pile of weapons with several strange items behind him. He had a smile on his face when he saw me carrying my spirit arts, and I smiled back. My dad had the type of aura around him that just made you want to smile when he did. When he’s in a good mood, you’ll be in one too. At least to me, it was like that.

“Some pretty interesting spirit arts you got there Xin.” He pointed out.

“Yeah...” Was he going to think I'm crazy for picking them too?

“It looks like you’re not joking around. Are you completely sure you want to become one of the best Spiritualists, son?”

I took a deep breath before replying, “Yes! There’s nothing else I want more than to prove to everyone that I don’t need a high-ranked martial spirit or great talent to reach the top!”

My father clapped his hand loudly, “Just what I wanted to hear! From this day forth, I will give everything I have to help you fulfill your dream!”

“Thank you, father!” I bowed as more tears leaked from my eyes. It was really annoying how easily I cried...

“First things first! Have you chosen what weapon you want to master yet?”

“No. I don’t have any talent with the sword. I was thinking about going bare fist but...” My eyes spotted a particular iron weapon in that pile of sharp weapons.

My father grinned once he saw what I was looking at. He strained to pick it up with both of his hands but lifted it eventually.

“Now, this is a scary thing of beauty, isn’t it?”