It must be said, Xu Ling's past was a mysterious one.
Even before waking up as Cheng Hao, when he had first appeared as the blue-eyed youth he had also awoken in the body of a child. At the time, the memory-less him had then been taken care of by the Four Divine Kings, who had seemingly randomly taken him in and chosen to treat him as their own. Just like that, he had lived in their floating island in the skies without a care in the world for a few years.
At the moment that everything turned over on its head and chaos erupted, he had yet to turn ten.
According to a prophecy of a human soothsayer, the Heavenly Lord Tian would fall at the hands of one "Not of the countless Earths, nor of the Heavens, but birthed of Reality, the fabric of both Time and Space itself". Of course, Xu Ling, who had appeared out of nowhere, had greatly aroused Tian's suspicions.
Tian was no fool. Although he had might above anyone else, power he had stolen from the previous Heavenly Lord, Hundedth Xu, he was still extremely cautious in the way he handled matters with the Primordial Beasts. After all, he himself was no Primordial Beast. Tian was only a Heavenly Beast and had only gotten so far and successfully stolen Hundredth Xu's cultivation base through countless schemes and plots. Prior to that, he hadn't been anything special when compared to those monsters who had lived for countless years.
After being crowned as Lord of the Heavens however, he proudly displayed his newly acquired power: he used only eight fingers to separate the True Heavens of Hundredth Xu into nine, making them into the Nine Heavens of Tian! The power he showed on that day made many bow down in fear and acknowledge him as an existence that shouldn't be offended! In the years to come, he would spend no small effort in taking care of any Primordial Beasts and Heavenly Beasts that could pose a threat to him. Even the Four Primordial Emperors had been banished and bound to contracts. Their descendants too, the Four Divine Kings, had also all eventually been forced to pledge allegiance to the Nine Heavens!
As soon as the news of a young human boy 'appearing from the void under mysterious circumstances' had reached the Tyrant's ears, Tian had immediately flown to Worldlord Island, where the four Kings and Xu Ling resided. He arrived there with the intention to kill the - at the time - not yet ten year old child, intent which only grew stronger after hearing his name: of the previous Heavenly Lord, the only thing known had been a title - the 'Hundredth' -, and a name... Xu!
Finding out that the boy that had appeared at Worldslords Flying Island was also surnamed Xu, Tian was overcome with panic and fury and immediately struck a fatal blow…
Due to some unknown events however, Xu Ling survived the encounter and managed to flee, ultimately going into hiding amongst the humans. There, he lived his life as a mortal... until he met Blindlight. At the time, the blue-eyed youth had been but a mortal, yet Blindlight decided to help him out in achieving the first step as a cultivator; becoming an Inferior Stage cultivator.
To do that, he would have had to sense a Qi and absorb it into his body, whereupon he'd begin gathering Spiritual Energy; that was to build a foundation to form the Qi River in the future. However... all would depend on which Qi he would manage to sense! At that time, Xu Ling was parentless, penniless, and had neither a scripture like many sects would, nor - to his knowledge - a special bloodline like some clans did, that would help him get a high-quality Sensed Qi.
Fortunately, Blindlight had come to the rescue, using a special method to forcefully aid him in sensing his own Qi, known with the name Golden Gates of Old. As for its quality... it ranked amongst the top few hundred or so known Qi's. It was not bad at all, considering Xu Ling's situation at the time.
There was one shortcoming however.
Blindlight's Sensed Qi was simply too ancient and mysterious and did not match the requirements of most modern techniques, making Xu Ling able to learn a very pitiful number of cultivation magics. This had caused the young Xu Ling countless headaches, as he would be forced to study magics and change them around to suit him first before being able to use them.
Fortunately however, he was lucky enough for his bloodline - which had seemed worthless up to that point - somehow managed to earn him a ticket into the Tower of Babel; a mythical building of unknown origins! Within it, he was allowed to browse through countless books, containing many records of locations, treasures, and, most importantly, countless techniques, both ancient and modern! He eventually found a few of which he would be able to use without too much of an itch... as well as the knowledge that all those who had the purest bloodline of Xu would never experience the decay of the flesh, nor the death of the physical body: it was there that Xu Ling would come to find out of his quasi-immortality.
In his later years, Xu Ling razed many Clans and Sects, while others he took under his wing. He acquired countless magics which, coupled with those from the Tower of Babel, would have been enough to shake the world! Due to the requirements of Qi however, he had never had the chance to utilize some precious and unparalleled scriptures of various Sects and Clans despite them being right under his nose!
This time around however, reborn as Cheng Hao with the ever-changing Sovereign Sensed Qi, things were different! As far as he was concerned, even those techniques the likes of the Ascending Black Dragon's Four Deifications were all at his complete disposal! For now however, he would be aiming for the second technique in his and Xiao Lan's arsenal: 'I See A Purple Moonlit World'!
The only problem was that unless he had a Xiao Clan's Purple Moon Martial Way, the technique couldn't be practiced no matter how much he tried! After all, Xiao Lan had always relied on his Martial Ways, the techniques he developed obviously were built taking them into account! Fortunately, unlike Cheng Hao, Xiao Wu did not lack one and he would be able to secretly utilize it together with her, as long as he kept it hidden from her.
"Time to experience the Purple Moonlit World myself!" Cheng Hao chuckled expectantly, his eyes beaming with excitement, all the while looking back at Xiao Wu apologetically.
I'll have to secretly hijack your Purple Moon Martial Way for this! Sorry about that.
As for why he couldn't just be upfront… he hadn't asked her directly because he knew just how severe of a punishment would be for somebody to be freely distributing a Clan's secret Scripture to strangers, let alone helping others in their cultivation of them! He didn't want to make things difficult for her by making an unnecessary request, which she couldn't agree to despite wanting to... when he could just do it in secret anyway and save up time!
"It's not like I'll steal the technique itself... I may be shameless, but I have a conscience too!"
"For now, I just want to experience a legendary technique once. As for the future... Ahem!"
"Well... we'll see."
...
As he sped across the Vacant Sect, Cheng Hao waved his left hand, turning the golden pin in his hair into an array of flying knives. He pointed forward and the weapons arranged into dozens of golden steps in front of him! He leapt off the ground and onto the makeshift staircase - which moved up together with him - jumping from knife to knife and eventually reaching the top of the gargantuan walls! With another wave of Cheng Hao's hand, the dazzling lotus hairpin appeared above his palm again. He helped himself to it and then deeply inhaled and exhaled in satisfaction, taking in the vastness of the world below him. He really missed being able to fly freely across the earth and sky. Even with a Pseudo-Advanced Stage cultivation base, there were limits regarding to height. This high up, only a Fifth ('Sung') Stage cultivator would be able to fly without the help of magical items. He silently rotated his cultivation base and then sat cross-legged atop the walls, waiting for dawn to break.
Finally, the first rays appeared from beyond the horizon. Xiao Wu summoned out her Purple Moon among the two(three) Martial Ways in her arsenal and allowed the virgin rays of sunlight coming in her direction to be pulled into the Martial Way before they could escape!
With that, Xiao Wu sent a command to the Purple Moon; it let out a bright, luminous flash.
In that moment, Xiao Wu and Cheng Hao chanted at the same time: ""In a moonless night, a veil of blackness will descend and cover the lands. However, no matter how dark it may seem to be, I know I won't fret. I will wipe away my tears, breathe in and out again, and look up, because even in those moonless nights, my Purple Moon will still remain in the sky, and allow me to see the lands; a world clad in purple moonlight!""
Whoosh! A purple vortex appeared in Cheng Hao's golden eyes. Within his field of vision he could now clearly see two worlds overlapping: one was the one he would see normally, the other was a world covered in the purple glow of the Purple Moon! Currents of purple were present in every corner of his vision where the purple glow shone, overlapping with the reality he was used to. Without allowing himself to be frozen by shock, he forced himself to look down at his own body. There, below his skin, within his meridians and veins, a stream of purple was circling nonstop through and all around his body. Whenever Cheng Hao would rotate his cultivation base, the stream would begin to circle faster and faster...
I see... the purple indicates Spiritual Energy!
Cheng Hao smiled: so this is how Little Lan had been seeing the world... A world of Spiritual Energy!
Cheng Hao sat up, patted off some dust off his clothes, and began pondering: for I See A Purple Moonlit World to be of any use to him, he would need to have a Purple Moon at his side any time he wished to use the technique. However, he did not have such commodity, and he couldn't just keep siphoning away from Xiao Wu's Martial Way, or even worse, take it for himself. As for how to walk around that...
"I have two options. One is to wait for me to reach the Ageless Realm and activate the Golden Gates of Old, within which are held Xiao Lan's tens of thousands of Martial Ways! I should be able to find a Purple Moon or two in there…"
"The other way is more of a guess on my part… but it might just work!" Cheng Hao had long since thought of a way to accomplish the impossible; that was, if his Sovereign Qi could change to imitate other types of Qi, then since his own Martial Way was also a construct made of the same Sovereign Qi… then, couldn't it be that the Immortal Ascension Tower would possibly have the ability to mutate too?
If so however, the process probably would have to be researched before he could possibly apply it! It could never be as easy as to just summon it out and wave his hand... He would have to look into the matter thoroughly!
A few moments later…
Still atop the tall garrison, Cheng Hao had long since summoned the Immortal Ascension Tower out from his Pseudo Core, and an exquisite fifteen-floors-tall pagoda was currently hovering in front of him.
However, Cheng Hao's face was sporting a frown. He massaged his glabella with a strange expression and he slowly repeated the Purple Moon's Scripture in his mind: "In a moonless night, a veil of blackness will descend and cover the lands. However, no matter how dark it may seem to be, I know I won't fret. I will wipe away my tears, breathe in and out again, and look up, because even in those moonless nights, my Purple Moon will still remain in the sky, and allow me to see the lands; a world clad in purple moonlight!"
As soon as he had finished the chanting, the Immortal Ascension Tower rippled slightly. Following this, a purple-colored glow, exactly the same as the one emitted by the Purple Moon, was emitted! Cheng Hao stared blankly at the world of a purple in front of his eyes, which he had had the chance of seeing for the fifth time now. After dispelling and casting the technique again a few more times, he was finally thoroughly convinced by the tenth try.
Well… damn.
Cheng Hao shook his head and felt his figurative headache growing worse, "It really IS as easy as waving my hand!"