Krrssh!

The second pearl had finally lit up! Sparks of lightning could be seen dancing around the black cauldron, making it the second of Long Di’s nine to host a Star Core.

****

Long Di’s eyes opened to reveal arcs of lightning dancing around them. Looking closely, one could see an ancient rune of lightning within, creating a world of lightning in the confines of his eyes.

Soon the rune disappeared, and the lightning disappeared shortly after.

“Haaah.”

Long Di exhaled a breath of turbid air and began to inspect the changes in his body.

“Oh yeah, I need to check that.”

Long Di compelled his consciousness to descend into the depths of his body to see if the expected change took place.

Shining brightly was his second crystal dantian. It was filled with lightning qi and pulsated as it sent and received spiritual qi in symbiosis with his primary dantian and his first crystal dantian.

In addition, because the amount of spiritual qi his dantian could contain had increased to fit his Two-Star Core realm, the pseudo-crystallised nature of his cores allowed them to expand and increase their max capacity as well.

This meant that Long Di had three times the amount of spiritual energy as a normal Two-Star Core Martial Master!

“Nice.” Long Di’s consciousness exited the space of his dantian.

When he opened his eyes again, he finally took in the scene of the large-scale destruction his breakthrough caused.

“Whoops.”

“You really are a freak of nature, aren’t you?”

Long Di looked behind him to see the second elder coldly staring at him.

“You don’t like me very much, do you, senior apprentice-brother Tan Shui?” asked Long Di.

“One,” Tan Shui put up a finger. “Never call me that again. Two,” a second finger went up. “Never call me that again. As for your question, no, I don’t.”

“Penny for your thoughts?”

“What’s a penny?” Tan Shui raised a brow in confusion.

“Right, cultivation world, ancient China, no such thing as a penny yet… or ever,” mumbled Long Di to himself.

“Nothing you just whispered to yourself makes sense, either. No wonder Master detests speaking with you.”

“Why do you hate me?” Long Di forwent any idioms and just asked the straight question, which surprisingly caught the second elder off guard.

“So you’re capable of asking questions that make sense?”

“I tend to think of it as asking questions meant for the masses. In any case, what’s up with the hate?”

“Don’t think I can’t tell when you’re insulting us,” Tan Shui’s eyes narrowed when he heard Long Di’s offhand comment. “Regarding my dislike for you, it’s simple. Your rampant slaughter of the disciples in that Relic will draw more attention to this place eventually. Some may even come for revenge. Your tongue holds more power than you do when it should be the other way around, and most worrisome is that the brat Zhen Paohui hasn’t shown up here since you arrived.”

“Zhen Paohui? Zhen Paohui, where did I hear that name befo…? Oh yeah. The arrogant young master.” Long Di didn’t have much of an impression of the annoying gnat; tropes that were disliked on such a scale rarely ever did.

“Well… yes, that’s a very apt description of him. It fits him to a T, now that I think about it. However, his absence these few weeks has been worrying.” Tan Shui advised.

“You’ll have to forgive me if I have a hard time believing you.”

“You…!”

Long DI’s deadpan expression and lacklustre response angered the second elder, but through no small amount of self-control, he quickly reined in his anger before explaining.

“Barring the third elder, we don’t miss him, much less worry about him. However, his overall absence is an oddity we have never dealt with. The power that supports him is not one we can brush off, and if they express unneeded interest and bring someone of worth here, then there will be trouble.”

“I apologise if I made your lives harder by any means, but you need to stop being cowards.”

“Excuse me?” Tan Shui’s anger was ignited. “Do you know the power of our legacy and the number of people that would kill to get their hands on it!?”

“I’ve had a taste of your legacy, so I know how incredible it is. I can also tell that Uncle Tian Lu is down there forging away because he plans to do something big soon, which means he isn’t going to be keeping himself hidden any longer. However, how can he feel at ease when you and the other elders are acting like turtles with your heads in your shells?”

“What do you know!? We’re waiting for the right moment!” shouted the second elder.

“The right moment for a coward will never come, trust me on this, I should know. You can blame your waiting on Uncle Tian Lu’s weapon to be completed. But when it’s finished, you’ll blame it on there not being enough weapons for everyone, and if we addressed that somehow, the blame will fall on you all not having good enough techniques or your cultivation not being high enough. You’ll find reasons on top of reasons to stay inside your shells because it is what cowards do. The right moment for a coward doesn’t exist, so don’t try to blame it on me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to start training so that I never have to blame anyone.”

Long Di tidied up his robe and started to head in the direction opposite Tan Shui.

When he was a few feet away, he stopped and turned back to the silent second elder while cupping his fist. “Thank you for watching over me while I attempted my breakthrough.”

After giving his thanks, Long Di left, leaving the second elder alone with his thoughts.

This was not something that Long Di remembered from some arbitrary cultivation novel, this was how he truly felt about the state of things here.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this village or clan or whatever it was were the remains of a great power that probably dominated a generation, and that the elders and Uncle Tian Lu wanted to bring it back out into the world.

However, he knew that if they continued to act with the mindset that they currently had, then this undertaking of theirs would never be successful.

Long Di didn’t go too far. He was going to initiate some training and the last thing he wanted to do was to enter a part of the forest that was still a forest and then make it… not a forest.

When he got far enough away, he took out a bronze sabre, the one that belonged to the bronze seat.

Long Di had two weapons in mind that he wanted to use, one being swords and the other being sabres.

There was a clear line of difference between the two in this world. Sword cultivators were known as the cultivators with the highest attack power, as they could use the sword in their hand to cut through anything.

Sabre users, on the other hand, were existences with the highest destructive power. They could annihilate anything that stood in their way.

Long Di wanted to master both of these weapons, and whilst he received rudimentary training in both from his father, he wanted to embark on the path he would need to reach the peak of the dao with both.

Long Di held the sabre with both hands. It was still heavy, but at the very least it was bearable.

“Thank goodness for the Marrow Chapter. It really does make a difference.” Long Di remembered how when the first time he tried to use it, the weight alone caused it to fall to the ground with a crash.

Yet now, he could swing it without too much of a problem.

Shu! Shu! Shu!

Boom!

Long Di made a few test swings with the sabre, and even struck a large boulder not too far away from him, easily destroying it.

“H-Help me… please.”

Long Di heard a weak cry coming from the line of destruction he caused.

“That sounds like responsibility… welp, time to hit the ol dusty trail.” Long Di rested the sabre on his shoulder and started to leave.

“Please… help.”

Hearing the plea for help only caused Long Di to walk faster in the opposite direction.

“Thinking about it, I am only eleven years old. Technically, I should be getting an adult to come to take care of whatever the hell that is.”

…

In the area just inside the scope of destruction caused by Long Di’s breakthrough, was a peculiar life-form with very weak vital force.

Lying on the ground, wounded and battered, was the petite figure of a little girl. Her hair was green, with some parts made up of vines instead of actual hair. Her anxious eyes were emerald, and her skin was a porcelain white.

She wore a dress that appeared to be made of leaves, branches, and vines that hugged her figure perfectly.

Emerald blood also flowed from her abdomen where a wound could be seen, so she was not human. She was on her back at the moment, staring up at the sky and unable to move, courtesy of her injury.

She used the last remaining dregs of her strength to call out for help from whoever may hear it.

She was well aware of what she was and that most people who saw her would do anything to capture her instead of helping. However, she had no choice at the moment and left it up to fate on who would find her.

“Help…” strength left her body with each cry she made, and she could see spots of darkness darkening her vision as time went by.

“He—”

Before she could let out another cry, a face appeared in her field of vision that was void of emotion in its entirety. The expressionless eyes induced despair in her and she resigned herself to death until she heard the figure’s request.

“Hello my name is Long Di and I don’t mean to be a bother since you’re obviously busy dying and all, but could you die a bit more quietly? I’m trying to train, and your death cries are a tad distracting.”