Sky Mountains, a place surrounded by a spiritual ambiance.
The Sky Cloud Sect sat amid Sky Mountains, occupying the entire mountain range.
It was in the morning when dynamic sounds of an ongoing martial arts practice broke the silence, where countless fourteen- to fifteen-year-old youths were demonstrating a set of basic fist techniques on the training ground. Moving in uniform, their movements penetrated the air with a great force of wind.
"Huh? Isn't that Senior Brother Li Lingtian?" A young man cried out after he took a glance at the training ground entrance.
"That's right. It's him, the once genius disciple."
"Genius disciple? That's old news. He's a good-for-nothing now, a useless person that can never become a champion."
"Sigh, what a pity. If it wasn't for the hail, he would've become a Warrior."
"Yes, he would enter the outer sect if he became a Warrior."
"He must have done something that warranted indignation from men and the gods. Why else would a hail fall and cripple him!"
A bunch of youths hushed and gasped, mostly gratified at Li Lingtian's misfortune as they saw him walk in from the entrance. Hail descended from heaven at the exact moment this once-genius disciple was going for Warrior state, therefore interrupting his opportunity to build a bridge to the Warrior Soul and halting his footsteps as a Warrior Apprentice forever.
Li Lingtian looked back at the youths on the training ground with a bitter smile on his face. After he had endured it for a month, he was now accustomed to these taunting looks.
He entered the training ground without a pause as he traversed the place towards another direction, leaving behind only a lonely receding silhouette.
Genius disciple?
As Li Lingtian took one step after another, he smiled bitterly to himself, thinking, 'Genius disciple? That's all in the past, now I'm only a piece of trash that can never be a Warrior.'
Indeed, a month ago, he was indeed a genius. He had achieved Tier Ten peak Warrior Apprentice at the tender age of fourteen and was just a step away from advancing to Warrior. So becoming a Warrior was a done deal for him.
However, the rare phenomenon of hail descended upon Sky Cloud Sect during his advancement. The sudden clap of hail in June interrupted his opportunity into Warriorhood, binding him to a Warrior Apprentice's status forever and making him a ridiculed piece of trash.
As the saying went, better a chicken than a fallen phoenix!
The disciples who respected him before used to address him as Senior Brother Li, but they now labeled him as a good-for-nothing after his failure in breaking through to Warrior.
Warrior Soul?
Gifted?
"Yes, I am a good-for-nothing. What right do I have to be called a genius? What hope do I have to become powerful?"
Li Lingtian smiled bitterly as he mumbled to himself. In this world where the laws of the jungle applied, only the strongest could survive and earn the respect of others.
Warrior Soul was an innate attribute that came with every Warrior. By nature, the strength of this Warrior Soul was bounded to an individual's future fate.
With an intact Warrior Soul, there must be a great talent. What was talent? No one could ever put it into words clearly but one thing was for sure, the greater the talent, the faster the cultivation and the higher the achievement.
With greater talent, the multiplying effect was evident in cultivation.
Without talent, results proved counterproductive in cultivation. In other words, it was just spinning one's wheels.
"So I transmigrated between worlds, but why must a genius be turned into a piece of trash? Isn't this playing me a fool?
"Que sera sera, whatever will be will be!"
No one would have thought that a young man's soul from the twenty-first century earth was living inside Li Lingtian.
A month ago, he who lived in the twenty-first century earth's thriving era was only a young man without property, car, or savings. Who knew hail would suddenly strike in the middle of sunny June and stun him out of consciousness?
Once he was conscious, he found that he had transmigrated into a Sky Cloud Sect disciple of the same name. This disciple who shared his name was actually a genius, a Fire-path genius but he was struck by hail and became a good-for-nothing.
More importantly, as one with a Fire-path Warrior Soul, he had a piece of hail that the size of a knuckle residing within his
For the past month, he had grown immune to the taunts from many disciples as he now truly understood the principle of 'the survival of the fittest'. In this world, there was little depth to worldly wisdom; people only used their knuckles to do the talking.
Nevertheless, he had slowly adapted to life here within a month. Apart from the taunts and ridicules, he had gradually stayed out of sight.
In order to suppress the chills in his body, he spent most of his time on cultivation, using the flame from the earth's core to restrain the bitter cold.
Gazing at the fiery red tunnel entrance, Li Lingtian cursed under his breath. This person was a genius before the transmigration, yet his arrival had turned this genius into a good-for-nothing. Their memories may have merged but their souls were not the perfect blend.
When his thoughts jumped to the fact that this flesh was already at the age of fourteen, he realized that there was one more year to go. If one could not become a Warrior by the age of fifteen, they must leave Sky Cloud Sect and resume the identity of an ordinary mortal who would hustle through a meaningless life.
This was because a year later, there was going to be a match between Sky Cloud Sect disciples, where the peripherals would enter the outer sect, the outer sect would enter the inner sect, and inner sect elite disciples would compete.
Unknowingly, Li Lingtian had made it through the training ground and arrived at the Fire Dragon Cave!
Fire Dragon Cave was a ghastly place in the eyes of the peripheral disciples. As the temperature here was soaringly high, regular Fire-path Warrior Soul disciples dared not step foot in here to cultivate. However, cultivating in such a place would be more than doubly effective.
The former Li Lingtian would not have run the risk of cultivating here. Nevertheless, since becoming a useless good-for-nothing, he had ventured to this place daily to cultivate. He depended on the high temperature and flame from earth's core to suppress the cold in his body.
"Shh."
The biting cold in Li Lingtian's body began to surface. With no time to hesitate, he headed straight inside Fire Dragon Cave. The cave entrance was about 200 square-feet wide.
Everything inside was flaming red. Curls of scorching pressure waves ravaged across the cave, so strong that they could knock any regular disciple unconscious.
However, to Li Lingtian, it was a similar experience as entering a hot spring.
Indeed, the chill in his body led him on the brink of breaking down, and his state was gradually worsening as well. He would not have survived for long if it were not for a place like this.
3 yards.
6 yards.
9 yards.
...
It took Li Lingtian five whole minutes to reach a platform within the cave. The surrounding walls looked as though they were melting, and the same could be said for himself.
Taking a seat cross-legged, he began to circulate his former body's Flaming Divine Fist to resist the scorching temperature and suppress chill within him.
"If I didn't end up useless, surely my cultivation would have advanced effortlessly at this rate!"
Li Lingtian heaved a sigh before he went into a state of cultivation. In here, he could safely put his feet up as out of all the peripheral disciples, none of them had the ability to enter this cave.
Alas, it was not meant to be. The moment he began his cultivation, a sinister laugh was heard coming from behind him.
"Hehe, I didn't think you'd be here. Li Lingtian, today's your doomsday!"
Although he was inside the scorching Fire Dragon Cave, the voice sent Li Lingtian chills down his spine. Sensing the death threat by his intuition as a Warrior, he trembled with fear.
"It's you!"
Standing up to take a look behind him, his heart sank.
A Tier Three Warrior!
It was Yang Xiangguang, Sky Cloud Sect's outer sect disciple. Although he was only an outer sect disciple, he was far superior to the peripheral disciples who could only look on at the unattainable skills and treatment of an outer disciple.
This Yang Xiangguang was already a Tier Three Warrior. A Warrior and a Warrior Apprentice could not be compared with one another. Even if Li Lingtian was a genius, it would not put him on the same level as a Warrior.
Yang Xiangguang was a disciple of the Yang family and he was taken under Sky Cloud Sect's wing two years before him. The Yang and Li families had always been rivals. Due to this, Li Lingtian's reputation as a genius had left the Yang family's disciples green with envy.
"That's right, it's me. Today is the day you die. You're just a piece of trash. Even if you die, no one in Sky Cloud Sect would be concerned about you. Besides that, cultivating in Fire Dragon Cave is extremely dangerous, hehe!"
Yang Xiangguang stopped sixteen feet away from Li Lingtian. Smiling sinisterly, Yang Xiangguang gave Li Lingtian a look as though he was a dead man.
"I see you've been waiting for this day for a long time now. Are you afraid? Afraid that one day I'll surpass you? Haha!"
For Yang Xiangguang to arrive at such a time, Li Lingtian who had been through two worlds had it figured out — Yang Xiangguang was planning to end him in Fire Dragon Cave.
As Li Lingtian laughed out loud, his gaze obscurely moved behind Yang Xiangguang. He, a Warrior Apprentice had no chance against a Tier Three Warrior so his only choice was to escape. Yang Xiangguang might be skillful but he would not dare lay a hand on him in Sky Cloud Sect.
Yet to his dismay, his intention to escape was crushed when he detected several omnipotent life forces a short distance behind Yang Xiangguang.
"Don't even dream about escaping. Do you think a useless Warrior Apprentice like you can escape from me?"
Yang Xiangguang let out an evil laugh before he strutted towards Li Lingtian. Circulating his body with True Qi, a layer of indistinct True Qi screened him against the scorching temperature.
He viciously struck a palm at Li Lingtian, pushing the scorching pressure apart with a powerful rigid force. Then in a blink of an eye, he appeared before Li Lingtian.
"Flaming Divine Fist."
Upon witnessing this, Li Lingtian eyes revealed a look of despair but he steeled himself more so to overcome this situation with his resoluteness. Even if he had to die, he was going to drag someone down with him.
Flaming Divine Fist was a force to be reconciled with. It was a powerful martial art amongst various Warrior Souls. Pairing it together with the environment here intensified the drive of Flaming Divine Fist.
"Wham."
At a dull blow, the fist and palm forces collided. At the same time, Li Lingtian grabbed Yang Xiangguang with his unoccupied arm and gripped tightly onto him.
The impactful collision forced Li Lingtian's body to the back of the platform. In a flash, he had retreated to the edge. If he lost his footing, a bottomless abyss of endless flames awaited him.
"Let go!"
It had never crossed Yang Xiangguang's mind that Li Lingtian would take him down with him. At the sight of endless flames, he was filled with fear. If he were to fall in, not even an Immortal would be able to spare him from melting into molten lava.
"Wham wham, wham wham."
He struck Li Lingtian with his fist over and over but he could not loosen Li Lingtian's grip. At this rate, he would certainly be dragged down into the abyss.
Vomiting mouthfuls of blood, Li Lingtian was about to lose his conscious but his eyes still shimmered with menacing determination to be omnipotent; the determination to be at the top of the food chain was even stronger.
"You piece of shit, you can't even handle a good-for-nothing. It's better if you're gone."
At the sound of a faint voice, a gust of wind carried through the scorching heat and swiftly swept past the edge of the platform. The gale was faster than Li Lingtian could imagine.
"Wham!"
Following the noise, a powerful palm force viciously slammed onto Yang Xiangguang's back, which caused both Yang Xiangguang and Li Lingtian to fall into the bottomless flaming abyss.
"Yang Tianfeng!"
"Yang Tianfeng, I will eliminate the Yang family if I ever survive!"
A furious cry came from Yang Xiangguang's mouth while Li Lingtian voiced a firm tone with blood-shot eyes.
Yang Xiangguang might not have had a good look at the person who had ambushed him, but he could still identify the mastermind because the only person who dared to lay a finger on him was Yang Tianfeng.
The two voices echoed down to nothingness before it disappeared in the depths of the bottom flaming abyss...