Currently, the red sky of Red Gaia was littered with dark clouds, a crazed storm raging. As the sky was shedding tears, a dark spaceship slowly descends on the wet platform.
A young man with long black hair and abyss-like eyes exits the spaceship. He was wearing a robe as black as night. With a layer of Qi covering his body, the rain around him kept shifting its direction towards his surroundings.
This was Acheron, about to pay a visit to his family.
'It will take a long time for me to come back here after this.' he thought.
Unlike the last time when he had to board a spaceship from the main spaceport of Red Gaia, he landed in one that was much closer to his city.
Acheron calmly takes flight and rushes towards the apartment his family lived in. With his speed, he managed to reach it in less than half an hour.
Opening the door he was greeted by familiar surroundings. As it was currently almost nighttime, he noticed his mother, Kayle, preparing dinner in the kitchen.
What shocked him was that she was visibly pregnant. Feeling a pang of excitement, Acheron moves towards her with a heavier step, announcing his arrival. Over the year he spent on Minocus, he's already gotten into the habit of lowering the weight of his steps using Qi, in order to sneak up on magical beasts easier.
Kayle was obviously startled. As she turned to look in his direction, her eyes became a bit red after realizing it was her son. Without saying a word, she quickly went to embrace him.
"Mom, you shouldn't get so agitated, it would be bad for the baby. Are they a boy or a girl?" asked Acheron curiously.
There were few things that could move him as much as his family. Despite deciding to keep his distance so he wouldn't bring them into any danger, he still ended up coming here for a visit.
After she calmed down, Kayle stepped back and took a good look at her son. Since she last saw him, his appearance has changed a lot, becoming more handsome. Acheron even had longer hair now. He gave off a scholarly air, with a confident demeanour. She felt proud just looking at him.
"She is a girl. We've decided to name her Annie. Make sure to come visit again when you have the time. You would be a lovely elder brother." said Kayle.
"I will. When she is old enough, I'll take her out to see the universe. Also, let me go get father."
"He is currently meditating in our room."
Days continued to pass by, and soon, a month passed. During this time, Acheron has been spending quality time with his family. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be here for the birth of his younger sister.
During this time, he also sold a few of the Heavenly Ascension beast corpses he's managed to hunt, as much as he could store in his ring, amassing quite a sum. He directly sent all of the money to his family.
This time, it was legitimate money that wouldn't cause trouble. He still had a lot of illegal money in crypto, though it was hardly of any use.
After saying his goodbyes, Acheron boards his spaceship and leaves for Marhem planet, ready to spend the next few months consolidating his knowledge while waiting for the Arantara Alliance envoy.
He would've rather trained his combat techniques. Unfortunately, there weren't any good techniques for the Nascent Soul realm in the academy. He figured they were only present in the military.
Currently he was one of the weakest Nascent Soul cultivators. As he advanced to the Heavenly Ascension stage, the power of his physical body stopped giving him that great of an edge. He realized he would have to break the second genetic lock before he could gain a useful amount of physical strength.
Thankfully, the coalition couldn't deny his travel to the Arantara Alliance. If they did that, it would arouse their ire, causing endless trouble for the Human Coalition.
After returning to the Crimson Dragon Academy, he found out he was no longer first on the Student Ranking. His competitor reached the peak of Revolving Core stage, surprisingly. He was probably motivated by him to work harder.
Announcing his Nascent Soul cultivation, he again took the top spot on the leaderboard.
It wasn't that impossible for others to match him. After all, without taking into account his transcendent genes, he's only been cultivating for four years. Others on the other hand, probably started as early as ten years old.
This time, there wasn't any dissatisfaction, his Nascent Soul cultivation bringing shock and amazement to the faces of the students. Clearly, he was worthy of the standing at the top.
Months later, Acheron successfuly consolidated his cultivation at the intermediate stage of Nascent Soul. Tomorrow was the day the envoy arrives.
He didn't know whether he could take his spaceship with him or not. After all, it didn't fit into his storage ring. Hopefully the envoy could do something about that.