"insults?" Anna raised an eyebrow and plopped down on her chair lazily then rested one leg on top of the other and gave a smile which wasn't a smile then said : "you mistake me councilor, that was an accusation." Then she leaned forward slightly in her seat and crossed her fingers on her desk, and threatened with a tune befitting a member of the nine councilors, "may I remind you, that as the head manager of the councile of defense, your duty mainly consists of shielding our nation and it's citizens from harm. Which is, from within or without. How do you answer to this evidence, all I see is one sovereign working on saving this girl from the seamless sword sect right under our nose, not only is that sect one of our enemies since our ark set sail in this foreign universe countless years ago after Lin the Worthy sacrificed his pure soul, but also one of the major contributors of forming the imprisonment formation upon our land. Need I to remind you brother of how much suffering our fellow humans are put through everywhere but inside our domain? How many got enslaved, tortured, or killed in the games of entertainment these sick minded cultivators had them go through?, We only managed to maintain the last vestige of our civilization and dignity when we unleashed the disintegration shockwaves as an act of defiance, had it been not for that, and the fact that disintegration shockwaves proved lethal on cultivators of the highest order, then you and I wouldn't be here now debating whether or not there's a neglect of responsibilities on your part. You and I both know very well that this situation can't be allowed to happen again. There's but two things acting as a barrier between our fellow human civilization and the owners of this spirit world, one is our curtain of disintegration shockwaves veiling this once parren land, the second is our skin suits which helped in keeping us safe within the borders of this land. Once outside, our protective suits at best gives us protection against a peak spirit king, even inside our land all we can do is struggle against a spirit sovereign while donning our latest version of suits." Anna gave a charming sigh then shook her head slightly and looked at the hologram monitor and continued : "had it been we could do our genesis operations still, then the threat we're currently facing would've lessened at least by half, alas, the elements of this foreign world are proving to be much more difficult than our predecessors anticipated. Thousands of years and hundreds of the brightest generations faced the dilemma of the infusion of spirit energy, yet failed to give a clear conclusion of the cause and effect of the intruding elemental energy during the trials of any genesis operations." Gesturing with her right hand openly for the head manager of the protection council, Anna said : "councilor Halas, currently what is the statistics of our fellow brothers and sisters saved from the clutches of the dwellers of this world?"

Ralph and the rest of the seven councilors gave councilor Halas their attention at the sudden question from Anna, while the curly haired blain faced man prepared to give his answer, Ralph was not giving his full attention to his fellow councilors and analyzed the six years worth of footage.

"One trillion four hundred billion seven hundred and forty two milions, plus a few hundred thousands. Even right now my teams are doing their best to lead those who managed to survive into our shores." Halas said that through gritted teeth with suppressed anger flooding his brown pupil, if it wasn't for his skin being a shade darker than yellow sand, then the flush of his anger would've been visible on his cheeks. "These numbers are just numbers, most of them arrive as a broken husk, a shell of flesh without drive. These despicable cultivators and evil people broke the will of survival within them, less than 8% could resume the remainder of their lives as a proper human beings. The majority got devoured by their darker side, they had tendencies to commit evil acts. We had to confine them and let them spend the rest of their short lives in the most calming environmets we can offer."

Silence ruled out after Halas finished his report, none of the other councilors spoke.

As if in their silence, was a prayer for these unfortunate souls who got contaminated by the wickedness of this unmerciful world.

"Councilor Halas touched our deepest wound, but that's the truth of things. There's no denying it, no matter how much we try. Can any of my fellow councilors give an estimation, how many more of our scattered humanity still there, suffering under the merciless cruel hand of unreasonable cultivators!" Anna broke the silence with her question and looked at each and every face then didn't wait for an answer, "More than twenty trillion," folding her delicate fingers into a fist, Anna's eyes threatened to burst in tears, "years proved that our kind can't cultivate like these monsters, maybe it is our genetics, maybe we are cursed as they call us," standing from her seat, Anna pointed at her brain with a forefinger and continued : "This here, refuses to believe. Once, Great Lin tirelessly worked day and night, and at the cost of sacrificing his life, the greatest sacrifice as we all agree. Here we stand, because of what he did, we need to push ourselves harder, otherwise, I myself, can't find it within me to face his greatness in the afterlife. What if great Lin asked me?, What did you do to save these tormented souls?, The notion of this thought deprives me of my sleep. It really does." Anna's voice at the end was quivering and her shoulders trembled as she looked at her feet.

Tears trickling on her cheeks fell to the floor followed by other tears, and the councilors uneasily shifted in their seats at the sight of their ever so charming sister crying honest tears, their shame was no less than hers, yet they all stand accused all the same.

Their responsibility as councilors and the highest order of command, makes them responsible for the well being of the descendants of all those who boarded Lin's Ark, those unfortunate exiles who crossed countless light years in the emptiness of space, only to dock in this realm while at their wits end.

Their ancestors suffered the fiercest resistance, the most venomous retaliation, and sacrificed years and years, generation after generation they perfected their plans in the dark, to give these fortunate to live under their safety net, a good fulfilling live.

Yet, the same couldn't be said about the unfortunate, the majority fell under this category, and the losses of humanity and it's wounds kept accumulating after decades and centuries and millennials, cultivators found a way to integrate these (lowly invaders) or (evil race), as they like to call the pitiful humanity scattered in their territory.

Despite their scorn for this evil race, cultivators couldn't deny the obvious superiority when it comes to intellect in comparison to the different original races of the spirit world, enslavement broke a minority, and that minority live as lowly as dogs, or worse.

These miserable lot are being used by all kinds of cultivators for their own ambitions, if it hadn't been for the awareness of the ministry of knowledge beforehand, and taking the precautions against providing the necessary information for these corrupt humans.

Then the knowledge transmitted to the majority would've found it's way to wrong minds, it was a troublesome process, for sure, but safe and steady.

The chosen few recievers of the knowledge imprinting, acted as leaders for other humans and attempted to help them reach the safe locations, from these locations it was the responsibility of councilor Halas and his team to transfer them within the safety of the land of forgetfulness.

But, such attempts came far and between many years, with little numbers of survivors sane enough to withstand the horrors they went through, during the intervals many more were forcefully bred and held as captives to prevent the ministry from playing the same hand again for the second time, which is creating another forbidden area full of chaotic energy like they did in the land of forgetfulness.

The facts proved it once, the ministry of knowledge is capable of creating a domain hazardous to any cultivator, and they can drive the cultivators to extinction if their resolve was firm enough, at the land of forgetfulness they claimed their territory and took an entire continent.

Once belonging to the Cultivation Alliance, the fifth continent fell in the hands of the weakest power, and the newest force to appear in the spirit world.

Humanity rose as chaotic energy spread further, and every cultivator who lived in that era to tell the tale was shaken to the root, it forced enemies to throw away their grudges and unite, for the first time the Church of Light and Devil Cultivators worked together and collected as many as they could of these weak mortals, enormous scale hunting was committed in the spirit world.

Whether or not are you innocent of being an outsider, any mortal who lived at that time was grabbed, bagged, shipped and forced to live under surveillance.

Want to get out and regain your freedom?, Easy, just prove it that you can cultivate!, Do that and you're free to go.

We only have beef with these invaders.

That was how cultivators reached an agreement with the ministry of knowledge, the ministry is to stop any further spread of chaotic energy anywhere outside the land of forgetfulness, while the cultivators stay their hands.

But, there was years and years spent with the ministry cut off from the continents, they couldn't escape the notice of the cultivators guarding the borders of the great space formation, according to the agreement the ministry can't send any "guests" without notifying the five great sects, any "uninvited guests" had no other choice but to retreat back to the land of forgetfulness.

While the cultivators kept trying to play their own games and sent some to try and investigate this enemy, who later proved to be more than a cloud of chaotic energy, humanity showed it's teeth to the cultivators later on, weaponry of many types and force, easily used by mortals?, Greed for these machines forced the first breakdown of the unity amongst this group of cultivators.

Only two forces were known of having the power to extract information, devil cultivators had their Soul Scouring techniques, Light cultivators had another, tricky, yes, but sure way to accomplish a similar result, you just had to be faithful enough.

Faith and Light, that was the two faces of the Teachings of the Church of Light, Devouted and Pure, Clean and Righteous, Dutiful and Steady.

Of course that was absolutely Foolish, the higher-ups were controlling their underlings like puppets under the pretense of belief of some Light God, the things the people from the Church of Light did, were nothing less than the devil cultivators did.

Only the ministry of knowledge came to know that after generations of imprisonment inside this land, they were lucky for once.

The number of successful attempts, be that from the church or the devil cultivators were extremely few, humans had weak souls, any technique used against them consumed their Soul Energy like a dry twig dapped in fuel, the information they collected were bits and pieces taken from these victims.

And not everyone was the same expert, the variety of knowledge each human hostage gave away before his/her death, gave the greedy cultivators their worst headache, and disappointment ever.

While the ministry of knowledge was left on the dark under the pretense of the vain agreement, behind the curtains were the tortures, questioning, and mostly threats, in order to extract information on this novel weaponry of the weak mortals.

The envoys from the ministry were made sure to be kept away from the locations were such atrocities are being committed against their fellow humans, it was only later after the years nullified the wariness of their enemies, and the failure of the scheme played by these despicable originals of the spirit world, these so-called cultivators stopped their killing, then smiled from ear to ear with a wide grin when the cat was out of the bag.

As if saying : "What!" Completely innocently while blood still dripping from their fingers, they made sure their hostages maintain a healthy number of offspring in their cells though, that's why despite the fury of the ministry after raising fingers at these butchers, they only shrugged and squinted dangerously while kindly reminding the envoys of the "Agreement" and their Fellow "Guests" currently held beyond doors, otherwise, something "Uneventful" could happen if a "Hasty" action was made, then with a lamenting tune they'll mention the current number of the guests in the various continents, then it will be followed by a "Smirk" and full praise of the excellent "Fertility" humanity has.

The sacrifice, was never an option to the ministry, that's why their solemn oath and glorious mission remained to free those scattered parts, to lift their suffering, and pay any price to accomplish it, for their torment is born from the peace that lives in the land of forgetfulness, even the name of this home was reversed, Land of Remembrance was there in every corner, above each garden, noted each year on the first day, taught to kids until they grow old enough to understand their responsibility, pushed forward to try and carry on repaying the price of their peace by rescuing their kin from their torment.

Still, humanity really could pop babies, and no matter what they do, they couldn't ship them in without risking being caught by cultivators in return, it was a very risky exchange.

The first few generations of the human captives had the highest percentage of holders of sensitive knowledge, and most of them died before any cultivator could get anything useful, still, they gave them a glimpse of this new world made out from numbers and cause and effect!, Now that's too bad, we used them all too soon, as it seems, Anna liked to think of these abominable cultivators scratching their butts and watching all the bodies of the dead saints, sages, and the unfortunate great sage who got captured when the cultivators mounted a sneak attack and sacrificed one of their famous spirit sovereign in the attempt, as if in that image she conjured, she will find some solace, 'at least we're still safe and their scheme only gave us an early warning' while ruminating that thought, Anna Shuddered, she remembered when she first got to know how close the ministry was of being decieved by the cultivators for the second time afterwards, after knowing about the knowledge imprinting function, and under the pretense of there being too many humans burdening them to take care of, cultivators tried to negotiate the ministry to teach the new generations outside the land of forgetfulness to take care of themselves, only to end up giving the sly cultivators fresh meat to sink their greedy teeth in.

That was why the ministry became very discreet in their knowledge transmission to any individual outside the remembrance land, it was merciful to keep the majority of their brothers and sisters in the dark instead of tormenting them with false hope on top of their current suffering.

A few broke and spilled out their deepest secrets, some even showed brilliance in mathematics, engineering, physics, etc, but nothing came out from those whome truly held core knowledge, still, what these cultivators glimpsed once, made their greed show and they failed in drawing the turtle out of it's shell in the second, their last course of action was to open the gates and feign a lack of interest of these cowardice mortals, while hoping to catch a stray mice which may turn out to be a sudden jackpot. By that they mean to make humans try to save their prisoned trillions, to catch them and extract information from them, whether the ministry will rage and make another land of forgetfulness wasn't questioned. If the ministry of knowledge dared to do that, the cultivation world as one will exterminate all the hostages and attack the ministry with all they got. Even the ministry knew that their weaponry wouldn't stand this force, yet.

'Could that intruder be another hidden weapon the seamless sword sect had been forced to deploy?, If so, then we need intel, and a way to counter him should we need to face him for the second time.' Anna gripped tightly on the edge of her desk when that scary thought, deep down she was thankful for the assassins from the guild, if they drove Mia west instead of north, then that winged boy would've been a dagger in the shadow held by a ghost.

Imagining that dagger aimed at a person like the minister out of nowhere made Anna's skin prickly with goosebumps, turning to Ralph who kept his silence, Anna noticed at once the deep frown on his ever-so-frozen face, the slight gape of his thick lips, the red auburn hair, wide squarish jaw, pale-blue hard eyes, straight edgy nose, and bloody thick almost brown eyebrows, weren't helping in hiding the deep shock he's currently struggling to maintain.

Other councilors turned their attention to Ralph and in turn they got befuddled, what caused Serious Ralph to be so shaken?, They all met spirit sovereigns before, some like Halas, almost died twice before under the hands of these super charged batteries, Olivia, the head manager of the Humanitarian council, and Anna's best friend amongest the Councilors, once called the peak tier cultivators that after getting drunk with Anna.

That drove a laugh from the intel queen, she rewarded her bestie with another fine glass filled to the brim from her best wine, after a few years, Anna couldn't fight the smile creeping on her lips when she remembered that one.

"Ralph, how far did you go with your investigation?, Want me to send you some assistance?, My people are left on stand by, just ask if you do." Anna was jolted out of her thoughts by the soothing sound of Olivia, asking Ralph the question, which the other councilors including her were about to shoot.

"The investigation is over, that person... Never entered the great space formation, only exited when our latest energy sensors picked up his signature, I think if we hadn't installed them.... I fear... The previous generation of sensors might've never picked him up in the first place. The boy is just a boy, six years and a few dozen days old, born and raised in the outermost border belt of our land to the south, only.... The circumstances of his family saw more than I can understand. It is like he's one of us yet isn't in the same time." Ralph muttered with an absent-minded gaze as if he's trying to put the pieces together.

"Ralph, are you throwing riddles in our face to wringle yourself from your neglect?" One tall, Lean, long faced, with a slight hunchback man spoke after giving his friend a side glance full of annoyance, he wanted to help his friend in his current tight spot, but, whatever he's saying right now just wasn't making sense.

"Manager Ma, Don't be harsh on brother Ralph now, he's giving us a good juicy dilemma. As a councilor of Justice you'll have all the time in the world to spank your buddy if he's found to be guilty, now that's all in the future, don't you know what happens to those who hurry the future to happen?, Bad things my friend, some say Karma follows you everywhere." With a panicking face and waving arms exaggeratedly defending for a few more seconds to find a solution to Ralph's riddle, the tanned fatty with comly face looked like someone suffering from constipation, he was squeezing alright, only his brain though.

"Raj, enough!, Play guess later, this is a sensitive matter, as the Ethics councilor you need to be sensitive to serious matters and act accordingly." The frowning faces which were about to snap at the fat butterfly from the ethics division, sweetened and buttered between the cheeks, morals and gatherings, the council of fun time and oiled whips of principles. They all stopped at the reproach coming from the perfectly clothed and behaved person of the nine stars of the ministry.

Councilor Demha, wearing the most fitting suit with not a cring on it's fibers, straight spined in his seat, beard trimmed evenly at medium length with a pointy edge at the chin, hair groomed to the back at shoulder length, wheat colored skin with defined cheekbones and a prominent nose, wide forehead and angular eyes of green, shifting ever so slightly with the light falling upon them between grass green and murky deep green.

Despite saying his reproach to the ethics fellow in a low voice, Raj didn't even try to argue with Hawk eyes Demha From the management council, if his underlings were called control freaks, then hawk eyes Demha was the god of puppeteers in remembrance land.

"Now, now, don't you get in the way of Ralph's explanation with your useless chattering, go on young man, my duty is still the same, record and make sure the newest minister and future historians get a word of what happened." The oldest member amongst the nine councilors spoke up at last when he found Ralph delving deeper in his thoughts, hair frosting in white, face a geographical cluster of countless wrinkles, thin sticks for arms and legs, a toothpick for a neck, and a slim cane in his right arm which he kept butting it's end against the floor with a tap-tap soft noise.

"Sigh, grandpa Jou has it the easiest amongst you, poor, hardworking brothers and sisters. Sniff, it breaks my heart to be off service, if it is bridges and cities you require of my humble council, by all means, just ask. How about a group hug?, It works wonder everytime I'm faced with a problem, see!, That's the slogan we adopted, "One hug solves it all," we depated between "Hug, Give one, feel it burn, and fuel the Passion, I myself almo-"

"Zipp-it, golden mushroom. I don't give two cornflakes about your powdered, sweaty, male on male activities. You're not needed here, Barbie, so beat it." Anna gave the blonde middle-aged muscular man a scorn-full glare filled with venomous loads of contempt, and felt her stomach roil at his exaggerated reaction to her words, how he covered his mouth with a hand and another touched his chest in fake disbelief, his was bigger than hers, and his feminine reactions made Anna fight hard to prevent herself from storming her way towards the development councile to give him two tight slaps on his handsome face.

"Anna!, Look how frightened poor James is, you almost gave him a heart attack. It wasn't his fault for finding himself unable to be of assistance, Development has nothing to do with anything other than planning, James, you wouldn't blame sweet Anna on saying something foolish?, Are you?" Olivia spoke while giving Anna a knowing look, "hold your horses, girl." it meant, then she gave James another kick in the nuts by implying that he's particularly useless, "he's mine," her gentle smile, honeyed voice covering scorn all over for the macho blondie, 'I pray he finds his spine today, may I get some anger on your face before I die, god, the notion of me seeing him as possible husband once makes me want to kill my past self with a blunt knife.", Olivia thought as she asked her last question, she waited fruitlessly for an answer from James in a defiant gesture.

But he merely gave Olivia a repulsive court nod and pouted his lips like a blushing maid, much to her disgust, that drew a giggle from Raj and Anna.

"Back to topic, Shall we?. Ralph, mind you, either send us the data, or explain yourself. All I could figure is that the intruder is, a boy less than seven. Should I send a team to retrieve them?, Or not." Halas ignored the squabbles, and did his job. He was the only councilor with jurisdiction outside remembrance land, rescue missions and reconnaissance, and sometimes in between he gets handed gathering missions of certain materials whenever the other departments require them for research purposes.

"Don't rush into conclusions just yet comrades, minister Lei, both chairman Zakaria and vice-chairman Dalia are seconds away from arriving at my office. This situation is handled by the higher-ups directly, everyone is to be prepared to receive orders once minister Lei is here." Ralph notified his colleagues then got up and walked out of his office and stood at the platform ahead of his assistants like a stone, his face hard unlike his underlings with worry written all over their faces.

Lights lit up on the platform in a circle, starting from blue then gradually it's color degraded into green turning into yellow then orange, finally red and warning sound to prevent any person on the floating enormity of a building from walking inside the glowing circle.

Light appeared on the horizon then in a split second the red circle of light turned into blue again, a sound announcing the arrival of three people in the platform rang faintly : "Welcome minister Lei, chairman Zakaria, vice-chairman Dalia." And Ralph walked towards the trio and shook their hands starting from the elder and ending with the only female, "Seniors, I hope the data sent was sufficient, we all await your orders." Then stood to the side and gestured invitingly with his hand at his office.

"En, shocking as it was, this matter may need a delicate approach, I'm still processing the available audio that we have and it really seems to be complicatedly vexing to connect the dots of how these twins turned out to be vastly different than their father, mother, and siblings." The chairman was the one to speak first as he walked next to his wife and Ralph behind minister Lei, wearing light blue robe with extremely short hair full of grey-black hair, scratching his chin he continued : "The heat signals of their earlier days picked up the activities inside their cave, both parents were the same primitive example of barbarian descendants driven into our territory for whatever reasons, orphans after their elders met their end deeper north in the first belt of the feral monsters territory, they had no way of communication, only basic instinct ruled their nature. But, once their firstborn babies arrived, their life experienced the strangest fast forward evolution I've ever seen, their life in a few years passed the stone age, iron age, all the way until the era of technology!, That technology belongs to our ancestors in the previous universe, even our knowledge feed doesn't transmit it anymore." Nodding firmly to himself, Zakaria seemed to have found the only way to explain this puzzling situation after saying that much, looking ahead he said to his only superior : "Minister Lei, the way I see it, we have no other way but to pay a visit to the female twin. The key is in the hands of these two, since sending a team to intercept the boy may alarm the seamless sword sect."

"Eh!, Wouldn't it be better if we held them both to contain the situation?, The girl was here for two years without her sect having any clue of her whereabouts, keeping her can prove worthy if Halas's team was captured. Exchanging the saintess for many of our captive brothers can be done too, hubby, doing that will prevent these accursed cultivators from finding out a way to use their spirit energy in our territory. What if the secret of the boy being able to use spirit energy is found out by them?, What if they could find a way to do the same?, We'll be back to square one again." Dalia gawked at her husband's opinion and clung into his hand pleadingly, but he only patted her hand assuringly and waited for the minister to speak.

"The boy outside isn't that far way just yet, we can retrieve him if we want, plus we know his destination, councilors, this matter is raised to the highest order of secrecy. From now one until we change that, no need to remind you or your staff of the meaning of top secret, I believe you do just fine. Stand by on all fronts except for your department Halas, the boy is to be monitored by your people, and I mean everywhere. I don't care if he went to a forbidden area, monitor him you shall, report daily to chairman Zakaria. This meeting is dismissed, Zakaria, Dalia, you two with me." Minister Lei sat on his seat for a minute then got up and patted Ralph's shoulder once, his hand assuring and his eyes encouraging, then he and his married couple flew south.

Silence reigned on the nine councilors, one hologram apparel after another went out, only Ralph stood silently on the platform watching the human civilization far down, living in their floating homes or in their skyscrapers.

Riding their advanced transportation to their work, chatting about their matters ignorantly, 'What can happen if they knew that this peace, just had the first shadow cast over it?.' Ralph thought this awful scenario and saw panick, fear, and unrest spread on every face of his humanity.

"Don't jinx it, bloody oaf." Clinching his fists, Ralph thumped his chest hard, as if by doing that, the scenario he just thought will never happen.

............

It was another peaceful summer day, Lily spending her day in the Tiger Hall with Moon crouching at her side watching her cubs going through the trials with their chosen companions.

Her father somewhere in the village supervising the work on the second stage of developing the village, her mother enjoying the company of the ladies as they watched the manufacturing machines, clothes, carpets, decorations, and daily life necessities were being made.

"Hrmmm...."

Lily sat up from her reclining sofa and a slight sound escaped her nasal, before her soul sense could warn her of the arrival of the three people, they landed gracefully twenty meters ahead of her.

"Roar...."

Moon's snowy fur stood at end at the sudden arrivals, her instincts screamed danger, and her fear for her cubs made her stand between the trio and Lily, while another three of her cubs behind these uninvited newcomers.

Conflicted between saving which, should she protect Lily and her daughter, or should she go for saving the three males currently with Boss, Yan and Shou.

"Code red, intruders in Tiger Hall...."

The alarm rang through the speakers to notify the whole village, just three seconds after the three appeared.

Lily's eyes dilated slightly once she saw the three arrival's skin suits turn from flight mode to skin mode once they touched down, sucking a breath she snapped her fingers and Moon looked back at her worriedly.

"Sit, you three continue your training, Yue, bring our guests some refreshments. Chen, go notify the village chief that we have visitors." Lily stood up and threw commands left and right, then she sent orders for the alarm to be turned off through her soul link and the village to continue their work.

She didn't want the villagers to panick like a pack of monkeys, that wasn't good for Lily's image, first impressions are important, as for the identity of these old people?, Lily had guessed their identity once she saw the skin suits, what comes next is to confirm it, and hear their reasons for the sudden visit.

But even that was guessed by Lily, them coming straight for her and not her father means they're here for her specifically or Lin sent them.

"My name is Lily Tai, daughter of the village chief. To whome do we owe the pleasure of meeting you elders?," Lily sat down again, but this once it was on her double phoenix throne martial-spirit and left the table underneath the shade of the peach tree for the guests, "please take a seat."

"Sorry for the sudden intrusion." Minister Lei took his seat at the invitation from Lily and wasn't surprised at all when her golden phoenix spirit throne appeared underneath her butt, Zakaria and Dalia sat to his left and watched Lily as if she's some kind of impossibility personified, the three of them kept their silence and Lily took it as a gesture of them not wanting to speak just yet.

'Have it your way then, now or later, you will speak eventually, now I know that you know about my spirit throne.' Lily thought and turned her eyes towards the three tiger companions, they were still anxious and curious and not taking their training seriously, once Lily met their eyes with her grin, they turned their full attention to passing today's trials diligently before Lily started showing a scary different side to her.

Sounds of hurried footsteps were heard from the Tiger Hall main entrance behind the column terrace, then Tai followed by two assistants and Chen panting at their tail.

Respectfully once the father appeared minister Lei, Zakaria, Dalia stood up and watched Tai hurry to stand next to Lily and scan her with her eyes, his sigh once Tai confirmed that no harm befell Lily drew a smile from Lei.

"Cheif Tai, well met, my name is Lei these are Zakaria and his wife Dalia. Please excuse our sudden arrival, we bear you no malice." Once Tai looked at his guests after confirming the safety of his daughter, he heard the oldest of the group introduce himself with a smile.

"Sit, talk." Tai watched Yue place the food and drinks then sat, his words firm and strong.

"Your son just left five hours ago." Minister Lei said and watched Tai glare at him, but Lily was the one to stare at him frostily, her black pupils endless whirpools leading to the deepest abyss.

"Who are you?," Tai did his best to maintain his calm and asked this Lei fellow, "why do you spy on my son?." He asked then looked at his eldest available daughter, then fear festered in his chest for no reason when he saw the look on her eyes.

"Cheif Tai is mistaken, six hours ago we didn't know you exist, the reason of this visit is to meet your daughter. As for who we are, I can't divulge that information-"

'So you're here to test the waters huh, all the more reason to speak' Lily thought once minister Lei started to speak.

"Knowledge Ministry," Lily interrupted, "ministry of knowledge, call it what you want." Then she faintly smiled at the expressions of shock on Dalia's face, only to frostily look at Lei and continue saying : "Can we cut to the chase now?, You're here to piece out the puzzle, that much we can agree on, at least."

Tai was used to being a front since Lin and Lily were born, following their lead when matters are outside his comprehension, keeping his silence despite being ignorant of whatever this ministry was, he waited for the leader of the guests to answer.

"True, well... I can't grasp yours and your twin's miraculous existence. Your birth and circumstances defy common sense, how did you two know our common tongue?, Our knowledge and ways of life!. If it please you, can you satisfy this curiosity of mine?" Minister Lei wasn't expecting Lily to be that hard to deal with, finally he had no choice but to reveal his intentions.

"Not yours, it is his, your life, your past present and future. Lin my twin brother and Lin is a very prominent name in your history, I presume, your position will need replacement if you can't understand that much." Lily calmly said while running her fingers at Moon's fur, ignoring the shivering hands of minister Lei and the gaping mouths of his companions.

"Young lady, you can't tarnish the reputation of Lin the Worthy, we're a peaceful civilization and hard to anger. But, there's some redlines that shouldn't be crossed and certain ancestors to be left to rest in peace." Zakaria said through clinched teeth as he squeezed his wife's hand to stop her from lashing out at this arrogant brat.

"Heh, what you just said could drive a blush to his cheeks I give you that. He died for his people and his people still remember, at least you turned out just the way he hoped. A fair share of the truth was laid out for you, I don't need to prove you nothing, nor do I have. My patience is limited old man, you won't receive another warning from me." Lily sniggered and said with a bemused tune, then she gave Zakaria a side glance and his wife Dalia who almost said something she will come to regret.

"Lin, we had someone with a similar name once, now that you mentioned it, it really seems like an eternity ago." Sighing, minister Lei looked straight at Lily's eyes : "Your brother being the same person like the one who gave our humanity hope once, I can swallow that notion despite how far fetched it is. His brilliance can be counted as an evidence, still, you yourself are the wrench in this confusingly strange situation. From the data I gathered of your short lived live together, everything your elder twin knew, wasn't something you didn't."

Zakaria and Dalia were suddenly at attention, their eyes studying Lily's face for any signs of uncomfort, hoping to read her lies if she tried.

Blank, Lily's face was impossibly composed and tranquil, her eyes gave nothing at all to the chairman and vice-chairman. In return they were the ones feeling out of sorts when they gazed at Lily's abyss of eyes!.

"Once we were one and the same, Soul is such a mysterious thing, don't you agree minister Lei?" Lily gave them the hint and took a slice of peeled fruit and chopped it in half with her pearly teeth, much to her enjoyment Lily saw minister Lei tap a finger on the back of the other hand contemplatively.

"Fair enough, senior Lin has to return and be notified of our existence. My position should be his, only our saviour has the right to occupy the seat-"

'Oh no you don't, not again,' Lily thought as she heard minister Lei accept the truth of Lin's reincarnation, 'This ministry is so easy to manipulate, almost to the degree of calling them cute, but Ill gladly gobble you up and lick my fingers afterwards. Hehe, when Lin returns and finds me in the position which he dreamed long and hard for, why do you sacrifice your life when you can just reach for it. That's why I called you idiot over and over, kyah, the envious expression he'll make will be such a precious thing to get a feel of.'

"Hold your horses grandpa," Lily cut the fantasies of minister Lei rudely with an open palm, "Lin isn't going to return." After a second Lily continued : "only if you're going to drag him back yourself." Then again after a short pause Lily kept saying : "Do that and he will end up leaving after tidying whatever mess you have on your hands, as if giving up his life once wasn't enough. Shameless is what I call it, old man."

Tai, was listening and his heart kept beating faster and faster, his son was once alive, then he was born again from his wife!, That kind of explained why he and Lily are different than his younger children, that gave rest to Tai's mind.

'they're still mine, eldest firstborn twins of Tai the Mighty' clinching his callused fingers Tai removed all doubts from rising inside him as if his fist was strangling them one by one.

"Y...you!" Dalia raised a finger to point at Lily but words seemed to betray her, her tongue heavy with countless knots, no matter how much she tried, vice-chairman Dalia couldn't refute this cute girl's scalding words, her face felt a sting and reddened in shame as if Lily's words slapped her face.

"Thanks for your honesty, that was unbearably selfish of us, we can't overburden his pure soul with our hardships. You kindly removed our doubts and scattered our confusions, this visit satisfied our curiosities more than enough." Minister Lei got up and gave Lily a ninty degrees bow, chairman Zakaria and vice-chairman Dalia followed to do the same, only Dalia seemed to grumble something incoherently.

'Good boy, now it's time to leash you,' Lily thought when she saw that minister Lei stopped being "selfish" she sniggered inside, 'Same as always, uptight, oversensitive, and bound to emotions. Better be under my control than that crappy great sage, yup, it's their honor to be my minions in this lifetime.' Lily thought and gave another cackle inside.

"You got what you wanted, leave one of your communicators behind then go, do whatever you want next but make sure to stay invisible near my people. Next visit keep low key and keep your lackeys, I rarely forgive those who point their fingers at my face." Lily stood up on her throne after the last warning, each feet standing on one of the phoenix's talons, raising two open palms at shoulder height left and right with each palm facing the sky.

With her levitating throne and her hair cascading on her small back like a waterfall swaying with the wind, Lily's pose was similar to a devoted worshipper in his prayers.

Her action caught the eyes of her father, Chen and Yue, Boss, Yan and Shue, Moon whimpered and crouched down with her tail tucked between her legs and shivered visibly with her daughter snuggling to her side trembling all the same.

Lei, Zakaria and Dalia were shocked to find the warning of a threat comparable to spirit emperor with Lily as the source, maximum defensive measures activated on their suits, with priority on evacuating the area at once.

Safest place nearby is 10km away!.

As he looked at this little girl's eyes, minister Lei was shocked to find his world had turned entirely dark, looking left and right up and down his eyes saw nothing but black so deep that his companions vanished from next to him, Only the figure of Lily draped in her white dress ahead of him could be seen.

Then on top of her open palms, two swirling flames of black, such flames so dark to make the previous darkness look like daylight during noon of a summer day, the flames grew larger to the size of basketball and swirled slowly.

Out of breath, sweating buckets, and shivering as if death was staring him in the eyes.

Then Lei saw the world resume it's original look and revert back into it's colorfulness, left and right Zakaria and Dalia were on their knees with their heads looking up at Lily, fear, dread, wariness, cautious and plead written all over their faces.

Their vital signals and brain activity were all over the place, and Lily still stood there with the obsidian flames on top of her hands, but her smile, that was a smile unsuitable for a child of her age.

"Now that you get the message, beat it. You've disturbed my fun long enough, Ill expect a solo visit the next time I see you, and it better be for a good reason. Like the extinction of humanity, or something fun that you came to find, etc. Oh, I need access to your database, after Lin died I didn't get to know what happened, that was lame enough. Heh." Lily spoke and the flames sank deep into her palms to disappear, sitting with one leg on top of the other she commanded with an unquestionable tune.

"This one obeys," after the flames disappeared minister Lei and his two underlings seemed to regain their bearing, he gave another bow then placed a small cube on the table made of foreign metal, "Just allow this one, one last question." Then he continued once Lily gave a slight nod of approval : "Do you have the accumulated knowledge of Senior Lin?"

"Yes, whatever he knew on his previous life I inherited in this one, he knows, now you know too." Lily doesn't seem to be uncomfortable with divulging Lin's secrets at all, she winked at her father cutely and looked to be amused by his expression of shock.

"We've overstayed our visit, have a good day." Lei held his companions by the shoulder and flew up without causing any disturbance or sound, once they raised a few meters from the ground their figures started to disappear until they vanished from sight.

'Nice gadget, let's see how far they advanced their technology since Lin died,' Lily smiled and took the metal cube and pressed her thumbnail on it's surface gently to activate it.

Tai looked at his daughter once, then gathered everyone who heard the conversation and promised them sweet hell if a single word managed to reach anyone in the village, then he sent word in the village that Lily discovered other people but they live in a dangerous place north, maybe if they did their jobs right they'll get the chance to visit it someday.

That gave the people of the village a boost of morale, in fact some of them were starting to get bored of their lives in the village with it's very comfortable life. Let's not forget that these guys has the blood of barbarians, hot, competitive, action loving race. Their thoughts were 'Are these people strong?', then they'll go check their daily duty while thinking 'We need to work harder, otherwise these people could force our children to live like we did before Lin's family found us.' even if they were bored, they would choose comfort for their family's younger generation everytime it was in exchange for their boredom.

The older generations saw their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, grandpa's and all kinds of their family members die before they joined the village, now that they were taught how to speak and communicate they grieved their lost ones again, and didn't want their offspring to suffer the same. They needed to be strong and protects them until they grew strong enough to protect their offspring in turn, until then they need to be the shield.

Lily wasn't perturbed by this at all, if she wanted no one to hear her secrets then communicating through her soul link would've sufficed.

"Sweet innocent Lin, the look on your face when you find the garbage of your doom still haunting your steps in the second life, en, precious indeed. Too bad I won't be there to witness it. Whatever, later my siblings will get together and have a laugh about it." Lily muttered faintly while licking her lips, as if seeing Lin pushed out of his usual calm persona is her source of amusement.

.......

Meanwhile, Lin watched Sun hesitate whether or not to accept the fruit from Mia, despite Lin's encouragement to take it if he wanted!.

Finally the Tiger choose to refuse, he looked at Mia then snorted and turned around to leave, much to the disappointment of the saintess, and Lin's surprise!.

Watching Sun descend the rocky cliff and head for the lower surface of the island, Lin awkwardly gave Mia a look and found her squinting her eyes, 'She's enjoying this' Lin thought, then he swallowed the comforting words he planned to spout.

"Rest for a while, Ill arrange the spirit gathering formation while you do, it's about time I become a tyrant, two years of accumulation, refinement, purification and compression. How far will it take me in the tyrant realm?, I wonder." Mia patted Lin's hand then got up, while using her finger on the rocky ground she kept talking to herself.

But Lin watched what she was doing while resting, her finger was coated with invisible membrane of energy, exactly the same like the energy walls protecting her space ring. Since he left the great space formation, Lin had this upgrade to his senses, especially towards energy. His wings, Mia's invisible energy, Sun's body, especially his head where the core is.

"Watch carefully now, this is how you make the basic spirit gathering formation, first you draw the lines using your spirit energy, then create five spirit nodes then place your source of spirit energy in each node. The formation will accumulate spirit energy from the surrounding area, but the process is slow and the lines needs to be drawn whenever their traces start to fade. Only the poor depend on the automatic features of the formation." Mia smiled at Lin, then started teaching him his first lesson on spirit formations.

Actually Mia herself wasn't an expert or anything, what she knew about spirit formations couldn't even be called a drop in the wide ocean, same goes for alchemy.

"Hmph, she's mocking the penny-less, her formation is full of defects, croaked, unstable. And it is only a basic formation, snort, at her age I was able to draw advanced spirit gathering formations with forty percent chance of success." Jin Bao's voice cut in rudely after Mia spoke, 'though I was broke as hell, an apprentice who found some talent after his talent in spirit energy was agreed upon, "trash" was the word I heard often, my cultivation stayed at the peak stage nine spirit apprentice, perfection of the spirit apprentice seemed like an impossible dream, if it wasn't for my Soul advancement out of working as an assistant to master Han the formation grandmaster, then I might've spent the rest of my lifetime as a stage nine spirit apprentice.' he sent away his message and kept his thoughts while looking around at the soul trapping formation which held him captive and kept him alive all the same, ever since Lin tried to use Mia's space ring, Jin Bao felt something different with this strange ring.

"Good day to you too senior Jin." Smiling, Lin didn't choose a side on this matter.

"Oh!, Lin I almost forgot. since you're about to start assimilating your spirit, you'll need a compatible spirit cultivation manual, obviously your spirit is of the light element. That being said, beside the church of light you wouldn't find any place with a vaster library be that light element cultivation manuals or spirit techniques, outside the church you'll only find low grade manuals and even these are rarely found. all I have on me is an incomplete manual that I happened to find two years ago in the trials of the drowned realm, the only available information about that cultivation manual is it's name, if I remember correctly it is called Prime Light. I found the spirit jade in a cave, some senior cultivator passed away in a silent retreat with that broken spirit jade and a bottle placed in front of his body, unfortunately the botttle was empty but I'm sure it had some healing pills at least level 7 or higher, I'm not sure. Anyway, here, wait until your spirit assimilation is successful first before you try to access it." Mia gave the five pointed star inside the circle a final look before making a few runes around the nudes, then she brought out a white jade from her ring and started telling Lin the history of this jade, obviously the milky white piece of jade seemed to miss the top part. "If you follow me to the sect I can give you a complete manual, they're not comparable to the church's inventory but my seamless sword sect isn't lacking mid-level cultivations, I'm sure we have at least one of these. Cultivating an incomplete manual may delay your cultivation if you're in the stage of transition from one cultivation manual to another. for example, if you reached the peak potential of this prime light technique then you'll be in a crossroad, one option is to relinquish this prime light technique for another in order to allow yourself to reach higher realms, the other option is to find the other part of the prime light technique and complete the cultivation manual." Mia blushed slightly then continued in a fainter sound : "This technique is.... If my guess is right, this incomplete prime light cultivation manual is only ranked as a level three spirit technique, at best it is only level...four." she wasn't happy, Mia wished for Lin to start with a cultivation manual of the forbidden level just like she did, him starting with a lower grade cultivation manual seemed completely improper to his hidden potential.

'Such a talent without the right backing and correct grooming feels pitifully unfair, no I need to support my Lin with all my power, someday he'll stand tall and proud with me next to him. How great would that be?, Lin trampling the world and suppressing the mightiest foes when I frown at them, tyranically beating the pope of the church of light for what Katherine did and making that hateful bitch kneel and kowtow to me while being naked. Tehehe that sounds like a fun sight.' Mia snickered when she had these thoughts, but she had to try again and convince Lin of joining her to the sect.

At least she had to try that much, there she can give him better cultivation manuals, environment and resources, even if he completed the prime light cultivation manual her guess was that it will be ranked as a level seven spirit technique. Back in the sect she can give him the same or better if she paid the price, the seamless sword sect can send for information and ask for high level light element cultivation manuals or forbidden ones. Many will happily point the owners and the owners themselves will ask for a reasonable price, obtaining the favor of one of the five great sects could chase away enemies and if used correctly can help weaker sects and loose cultivators reach higher points of their journey of cultivation.

"Lin won't you consider, starting with such a risky manual isn't worthy of delaying your journey of cultivation, you already got delayed enough when your spirit awakened and your cultivation didn't start right afterwards. Coming with me will give a smoother sail to your cultivation with better chances of faster, safer, steadier advancements, with a complete manual it wouldn't be troublesome when you exchange cultivation manuals, at least you'll choose compatible manuals, that way the transition period will only require the shortest amount of consolidation of your foundation. I promise not to try and hold you back from leaving whenever you want, let Sun meet Xiaoxi I bet it will be fun to watch him growl at little dumdum." Mia looked at Lin's focused look of contemplation and tried to convince him with her words, Lin held the broken white jade in his palm and looked at it, silently he listened but he gave nothing away, be that facial expressions or body movement.

'he's too calm, this hateful calmness of Lin is sweetly irritating as always, the only look he gave me when I tried to throw the joke about Sun and Xiaoxi in the end, he knows I want to keep him in the sect as long as I can. Tsk, sometimes he's so sharp you can't hide anything from his eyes, other times he's blind as a bat. Forget it, Ill let him decide and respect his decision, Ill wait these five bloody years if I have to, but I won't keep nagging anymore than what I already did. En, mom once said to be mature and give my hubby space to miss me, that way when he come it will be my move,' Mia thought then remembered her mother's teaching when she was five years old : "be elegant and soft with a touch of pride then coy and shy with tinge of sorrow, unreasonable and willful with a breeze of cold then weak and warm with a lifetime worth of longing." Her mother had patted her hair and hugged her weakly then continued : "when you grow up and find yourself struggling to keep things working between you and your love, remember these words of mine. My Mia is smart, I'm sure if you remembered them you'll know what to do then. Do you promise not to forget?" Kissing Mia's forehead her mother had given her the warmest smile, after years, Mia couldn't forget the deep sadness in her mother's eyes.

"En, I promise." Little Mia nodded her head and snuggled deeper into her mother's embrace.

"This will do for now, I'm never a fan of running before I learn to walk, this manual will be just fine. I'm still young, after I reach the point of having to switch manuals Ill see the best available option and continue from there, nobody can say for sure that I'm going to reach that point for sure. Maybe my birth within the land of forgetfulness caused a mutation in my body and my spirit isn't all that great as you may think it is, I guess we should look under our feet before looking that high up as you do." Lin's words caused Mia to get shaken awake from her memories, "Just don't raise your hopes up, better to expect the worst when dealing with the unknown than to face the needless disappointment that you could've avoided by expecting nothing at all, just like how the sweetness of victory can't surpass the sorrow of defeat. Building smoke castles on wind will never make it true, it has to take effect first for me to raise my hopes, let's have that talk when I assimilate my spirit, who knows?, Maybe Ill have some trouble in that too." Mia watched Lin carelessly shrug and her face paled when she heard his terribly cruel words, but Lin was actually enjoying the warm touch of the broken jade in his hand and squeezed it gently with his fingers to feel more of it's warmth.

"Don't say that!, You are scaring me, of course you'll do just fine. Hmph, you jinx. Rest up, Ill be using the formation for a little bit, don't worry, I shouldn't take long ascending to the tyrant realm. I've felt it deep down ever since we left the boundaries of the great space formation, my foundations has consolidated more than enough. Right now I'm a spirit grandmaster of the peak perfection, my spirit energy condensed into syrupy dense liquid and started to show signs of crystalization. My soul energy almost doubled when my sword intent materialized, my senses never been better." Mia rubbed Lin's hair then gave him a tight hug and got up to walk towards the formation, she brought out five spirit cryastals similar to the ones in his ring only of different colors and placed them on each node of the formation and went to sit in the middle of the five pointed star, crossing her legs she relaxed her shoulders and placed her hands on her knees facing the sky.

"Humph, her extravagance is expected from these show off pansies of the higher class cultivators, her shitty formation wastes almost eighty percent of these crystals. Snort.... And others had to break their back working for the lowest grade spirit cryastals, this is infuriating." While Lin was watching the area fifty meters around Mia, he heard old Jin Bao grumbling under his teeth.

The air in the fifty meters radius around Mia resembled a funnel, swirling and condensing towards Mia's body with her at the center sucking all that compressed air.

Of course she wasn't sucking that air, Mia's breathing was very faint, slow and every thirty seconds her chest will inflate just slightly then retract, if anyone saw her now they'll think she was dead.

Spreading his soul sense out to cover 3km, Lin tried to get a feel of this spirit energy, soul power makes this step easier (that's how the soul strengthening technique mentioned once) with Lin being in the soul eye realm of soul cultivation, he should be able to feel this spirit energy easier than his peers.

But he was disappointed to find nothing except the currents of wind sweeping the air, and the effect of Mia nearby him with what her formation did to the passing air.

"You're doing the right thing, sensing spirit energy is the basic of the basics. Calm yourself and look deeper, try to find the harmony with the surrounding nature, make peace with the world and let it guide you to it's laws. Surrender your spirit and offer it to the dao, the dao will wash it from the impurities of the mundane...." Jin Bao's words didn't make sense to Lin at the beginning, but, Lin was compelled by each word to close his eyes.

His eyelids felt heavy and once his eyes were closed, Lin saw the world around him for the first time with his soul eye, first thing he noticed was the colorful strands mixed in the air, red, green, yellow, orange, brown, cyan, purple, black, white. And many more, the five spirit cryastals in the formation nodes and their energy seeping into the formation, Mia gathering that energy into her navel area and changing that energy into the same invisible energy she used to protect her spirit ring. Then that energy was sucked into her body from there.

Like an endless cycle, the only notable thing was how Mia would suck the invisible energy from amongst the colorful strands in the air first before converting the colorful energy she amassed in front of her navel into invisible energy, the process of accumulation was taking longer when Mia absorbed from the surrounding fifty meters, and the strands were a mixture of colors.

From what he saw, Mia preferred the invisible strands and gave them the priority over any other color, she would absorb them first whenever they gathered only then would she convert the other strands into invisible strands, but they always lost their majority in the conversion process.

'Let's help her a little,' Lin thought and tried to pull the invisible strands from the three kilometers of his soul sense, 'hrmm, they're not affected!.' Lin was met with a failure, but the stirring of the golden, yellow and white strands in his range of soul sense didn't escape his notice.

'what if I changed my approach, the technique of soul gaze sacrifices the omnidirectional option in exchange of longer range in a specific direction, what if we sacrifice the range in exchange of a more microscopic deeper look?,' Lin focused his soul force, and his soul sense was shortened to two and half kilometers, colors of each strand and the feel of each energy changed to Lin's soul vision.

Red gave a scalding feeling, blue gave a cool calming touch, brown gave a heavy weight, green gave a reinvigorating force, yellow gave a sharp cutting buzz, cyan swift and free, white gave a chilly aura, each color had it's difference, he even felt different things from the same color in more than example.

White strands were hot and red strands of energy were cold and chilly in these cases.

Trying again to send these invisible strands towards Mia, Lin was met with the same failure but this time the invisible energy shuddered in resistance once before succeeding to resist Lin's attempt to move them, and some gold, yellow and white strands moved closer to Lin willingly.

Two kilometers of soul sense, Lin shrunk his range again and this time his sense of spirit energy intensified once again, and the gold, white and yellow strands in the range were fidgety for some reason, the majority of them at least.

Failure was met again on the third attempt, and the strands raced towards Lin once he tried to pull the invisible strands who stubbornly refused to submit to Lin's Will, now Lin was surrounded by ninety percent of the gold, white and yellow strands from two kilometers radius.

All these strands stopped one hundred meters from Lin and circled him, but the invisible strands isn't going to continue resisting for long.

One and half kilometers Lin succeeded, after intensifying his soul energy in half it's maximum range Lin felt his senses at least two times stronger, he felt his soul energy congeal and congest into thick force almost reaching tangible force, when he tried to move a pebble next to his feet with soul energy it shook slightly!.

The encircling strands of yellow and white didn't waste time once Lin extended his half-range, double-powered soul sense, they stuck themselves to Lin's body but seemed to be unable to enter his flesh like the energy entered Mia's body, some wall was blocking these strands and all they could do was encircle Lin's body.

'They're slow but Mia would welcome the addition, I guess,' Lin thought as he watched his body glow with the white and yellow strands through his soul view, 'These guys are making me look like a Christmas tree.' smiling faintly he watched how he looked and waited for Mia to finish her breakthrough to the next realm.

"Your affinity towards light element is good, but you still need to be diligent in your cultivation. If you slack you'll only wake up when your ass gets handed to you by some silk pants brat from fome some fancy mountain or city, the taste of reality when it gets slammed in your face, then the mud of defeat shoved into your teeth gives you the bitter taste of regret, an-"

"And there's no medicine for regret, I know, don't worry about my dedication old Jin. But why is it tiring to move these strands?, It really is exhausting. Even though I've only been helping Mia draw the strands for a minute I am already tired!, It really is taking it's toll on my mind." Lin didn't enjoy nagging from old men pointlessly, he cut Jin Bao off and asked his questions instead while wiping his sweaty forehead in his sleeve.

"That's a superior element, don't go comparing lower grade elements to higher grade, the difference in grade between spirit elements means more than just a step higher. She is talented in the time element, while you're a light affinity of the high grade. Even if you're a genius who awakened his spirit faster, she still has better affinity with higher grade." Jin Bao answered Lin with a tune full of schadenfreude.

"I see," Lin nodded then looked towards Mia and continued : "She said she wouldn't take long, I hope it is true, I can't hold on for much longer." Then he watched the invisible strands disappear inside Mia's body one by one and focused on another to pull towards Mia as the seconds trickled by.

Five minutes later, the headache descended and started to split his head in pain but Lin clinched his teeth and presisted, he felt that Mia was about to finish and didn't want to fail her.

After all Lin didn't know what kind of consequences will follow if Mia was severed from his help prior to achieving her breakthrough.

"Still, why is the golden strands still hesitating?, Unlike the white and yellow strands who clung to my skin. They're orbiting my body ten meters away!," Lin tried to distract himself by asking Jin Bao.

"Colors of each strand of spirit energy will confuse any cultivator, don't look, feel. If your senses are strong enough you'll see the difference between each strand." Jin Bao didn't give a clear answer, but his hint was more than enough for Lin to get his answer.

"They're heavier, each of these golden strands is comparable to hundred or more of these white and yellow strands glued to my body, why?," Lin was forced to shrink his soul sense to one kilometer inorder to feel the difference, his grip on the invisible strands were getting slippery as well anyway, he had to strengthen his soul sense by further shortening the range of his soul sense to keep helping Mia. "Whenever I limit my soul sense to tighter zones, it becomes easier to manipulate these strands of spirit energy. They feel vastly different as well, this spirit energy isn't simple at all for sure."

"Purity, environment, who knows, keep your eyes opened and your mind clear. You'll be fine as long as you don't shut any doors before you even learn, learn from the world and better yourself." Jin Bao glossed over the questions of Lin, but the great sage had a feeling that Jin Bao knew the answers but wanted Lin to find his own answers.

"Even better that way, the elements around Mia is stirring, is she done?." Lin nodded and discovered the restlessness of the surrounding elements.

"Almost, tyrant realm is a watershed, you can fly or communicate with every kind of element. Now she can learn any of the basic five elements or any element with the same grade, high grade elements will be harder and superior grade elements in turn the hardest, as for peak grade elements that's an impossible dream. She already has attainment and natural affinity for a superior grade element, supporting it with lower grade elements will suffice." Jin Bao clarified the ongoings of Mia's breakthrough, while Lin watched Mia experience a strange phenomenon, her body was encased with invisible energy that kept getting stronger and stronger.

Suddenly, Mia opened her eyes and a typhoon of wind pushed cruelly everywhere around her, one of her eyes was completely violet the other entirely invisible in the pupil.

Lin was already exhausted mentally beyond his breaking point, the simple gaze from Mia was like getting trapped in a timeless cage, not only was he detached from the world, but also met with a foreboding feeling of an incoming crisis.

"Ughh-"

"This bitch!, Who would direct his combined spirit and sword intent at a junior after getting helped-" Lin uttered a grunt before falling unconscious and tumbling to his side like a sack of potatoes, last thing he heard was Jin Bao cursing at Mia before darkness overtook his senses.

......

"Kid!"

Lin was back at the world of light, the same world he found underneath the vast ocean of disintegration shockwaves, looking up towards the source of sound Lin saw nothing in this blinding light.

He knew for sure that was old Jin Bao just now calling for him.

Here was the very beginning, first time he met Lily, first time he awakened his spirit wings, he was here prior it happened.

"How did I get here?, Mia!, Did she finish her breakthrough?, What was that dangerous feeling when Mia opened her eyes?, Why did I feel like a puppet with it's strings cut when I looked at her eyes?." Lin was lying at his back on the surface of some golden waters, drifting uncontrollably with the currents.

"Kid!, Don't you die, you promised to help me." Again Jin Bao's voice rang in the world.

"Die?, This is much more serious than I thought." Lin tried to get up, but moving his pinky was harder than his moving mountains.

'It's alright.'

The same voice which spoke to him before his spirit awakened, directly sounded in Lin's mind and Lin felt a gentle palm press at his right chest.

"My wings!, They're here with me this time. I never got the chance to thank you for helping me awakening them the last time, they've been a great help by the way." Lin with his usual politeness gave his gratitude in the modest way possible.

"Kiiid!, Fuck, bitch, I swear Ill never reconcile with your sect to the end of my time if something happened to him. Now I have to sacrifice whatever primordial soul force I have managed to recover since he gave me the soul soothing stones, hateful bitch if it was in my prime days I would've crushed her to smithereens because of what you did then fed it to the dogs. Ill be damned if I live and let you die kid, this life of mine was full of ups and downs, I've made enemies and friends, visited three of the five continents of this world. I've but one regret in this life, trusting the wrong friend with my back, I hope fate brings him in your path and the ongoings of Karma collects my dept through your hands. Yi Shirong, you lucky bastard how I wish to tear your heart and eat it raw, torment your soul and burn it with soul fire for all eternity." Jin Bao seemed to be at the end of his ropes, with desperation leaking from each word.

"Old Jin!," Lin was touched by what he heard and his throat was heavy with a bitter taste of helplessness, he was touched by what he heard. "Will he be alright?." Lin asked this foreign entity of this light world out of worry for Jin Bao.

'Time to go.'

Lin got removed from this world of light when he heard the calming sound, his eyes opened and he saw Sun's worried, panicky eyes looking down at him from above.

"You're alright!, We were so worried for yo-"

"Growl...."

Mia from the side said when she saw Lin open his eyes and tried to come closer, only to get cut off by Sun who warned her not to come closer to his best friend.

"I told you a thousand times it was an accident, my sword intent fused with my spirit energy and hit Lin when I broke through. Before I knew it Lin was unconscious, I never meant to harm him." Mia glared at Sun and told him what happened to justify herself, but Sun didn't move from her path and blocked Lin who just woke up groggily, he placed Lin underneath his belly and crouched down ready to bounce at Mia if she took a step closer.

"Old Jin, old Jin answer me." Lin ignored Mia and Sun once he opened his eyes, sitting up he called for Jin Bao repeatedly only to hear the answer of stale silence mutely in return.

Tears fell from his eyes and Lin sniffled in silence while biting his lower lips, Mia and Sun were panicking when they saw Lin in that state.

"Please senior Jin, answer me please. We agreed to gather things to help you recover, there's so much things you haven't told me about yourself, and much more you haven't taught me. Old Jin...." Lin sat up, hugged his knees with his arms and buried his face down while calling Jin Bao with his soul link.

All the way until dark, Lin sat there with Sun nudging him, licking his face, and Mia calling him to answer her to no avail on both ends, he didn't answer or respond to any attempts.

Finally he got up and looked at the starry night, wiped out his tears and patted Sun's head once to calm him.

"Lin I....never meant to hurt you, you have to believe me, Ill never do that, never ever." Mia said but her words were met with the sad expression all over Lin's face.

"En, I know. Will you be going home now that you achieved your breakthrough?, Your father must be worried sick by your disappearance." Lin looked away and said absentmindedly, he was grieving the poor person who just vanished worriedly after pouring out his deepest regrets.

"This.... Yes I have to return." Feeling the apparent coldness in Lin's words, Mia shifted in her stance uneasily and squeezed her clothes restlessly.

"I see, have a safe trip then. I'm a bit tired so Ill stay with Sun here for a few days to recover before I continue south, you already gave me an advanced space talisman when I assimilate my spirit Ill use it. Come Sun you'll be my bed just like good old days." Lin gave Mia his back while speaking then leaned against Sun's pillar-like-leg and rested his head on his thick warm fur, he didn't want to aggregate his bad mood by looking at Mia's face.

Hurt by his cold treatment, and her ignorance of what she forced Jin Bao to sacrifice, Mia's temper flared and she found herself experiencing a mixture of feelings, most of these were negative, blinding, and they escalated at insane rate. Before Mia noticed the change she's experiencing internally, Lin's penis was severed from his body by her martial-spirit (temporal sword), which she couldn't remember when it got activated and used to cut the small penis held in her hand!, Lin and Sun were looking at her with disbelief filling their eyes, and her mouth kept opening and closing as she tried to explain the madness that just happened, but all kinds of words betrayed her.

"Plop...." Mia's fingers opened listlessly and Lin's penis dropped to the ground, the faint sound was loud in this silent situation.

"Roar...." Sun's voice was filled with rage, he bit Lin's clothes and gently but hurriedly placed him to the floor and bounced at Mia with savagery filling his eyes, tearing her to shreds was his intention.

"Uh!, I.... This was never my intentio-" Mia floated up to escape Sun's lunge and tried to say something, but the look on Lin's face made her halt.

"Leave Mia, say no more just go." Raising his head up Lin said coldly then continued : "Sun, enough." He beckoned to Sun to return to his side with his hand and looked up at Mia who stood on air as if it was hard concrete.

Mia couldn't hold back her tears any longer and brought out the advanced space formation, unfurled the leather scroll and activated it with her spirit energy while chaotic confusion stormed her brain, 'just why did it come to this?, How could I do that to Lin?,' as if trying to escape this harsh reality more than anything in the world, Mia basked in the space energy coming from the talisman kept looking down at Lin through tearful eyes. 'Lin, it was never my intention to hurt you in the first time, and the second time.... I don't know what kind of evil took over my body,' as her body started to fade away from Lin and Sun's eyes, Mia made another oath to herself, 'Someday, certainly Ill make it up to you. This was never me, I love you.'

"Snort...." Sun licked Lin with his barbed tongue and Lin held his severed penis in his palm contemplatingly, not a drop of blood was there in his groin or the severed organ!, Only his trousers missing a piece and his penis detached from his body remained as evidence of what happened.

Lin didn't feel any pain, his only reliance once encountering one of these strange occasions was Jin Bao or Mia for some explanation, only, now he just has Sun left.

"At least I have you buddy, she's gone now and we won't be seeing her for years to come." Lin kept his severed organ in his spirit ring and rested his head back on Sun's paw, closing his eyes he muttered sadly while stifling his sprouting negative emotions towards Mia.

Who could've anticipated that would happen, one moment Mia was fawning over him and in the next shit suddenly hit the fan and all madness broke loose!.

Feeling tired both mentally and physically Lin was soon in deep sleep cradled in Sun's warm embrace, safe in the hold of a beast after mankind's sick wicked nature failed to do the same in his hour of feebleness.