The day after the homecoming banquet, I awoke underneath QingQing to the sound of repeated tapping at my chamber's door. Trapped under the blankets, and smothered in the comfortable warmth of my woman, I closed my eyes and pretended I didn't hear a thing.
Moments later, a big foot kicked my door opened and my father stepped in.
"Rise and shine, boy! We have work to do, work that you planned. Let's get to it." My father's voice boomed.
I groaned as I snuggled closer to Situ Qing, tightening my embrace. "Alright, give me a moment,"
I then sighed and reluctantly spoke as I slid out from beneath the covers and of the bed, "Get out. Five minutes is all I need."
Back on my feet, I dressed and meditated for a moment to get my energies moving like a serene stream.
"When will you be back?" QingQing asked me from the bed.
"Hopefully tonight. Merging the temples shouldn't take long. The formation construction is really the time-consuming part. You should go visit the Situ Clan, Grandma Xiong has been looking to spend some time with you."
"I need to cultivate." She replied quickly.
"You can cultivate there. The palace will be empty while we're gone." I walked over to her and kissed her cheek.
She moved quickly and hand cupped the back of my neck, pulling me into a proper kiss.
"Be careful," she spoke once we parted.
"Worried about me? I'll be fine as long as I don't have to worry about you."
She smirked. "I get it. Stop trying so hard. I'll go to the Situ Clan. Pick me up on your way home."
"I promise. I love you, QingQing!" I sang.
"I love you too. Hurry up and go before your father knocks you over the head."
Sometime later, my affectionate and warm demeanor was frozen solid as Fei Rong, my father, mother, and myself landed on the beach that once belonged to the Great Sea Empire. It was referred to as the border to nothingness. Everything south of this point was water without end. Beneath, an abyss that hid the most harrowing existences of the Chaos Serpent Planet.
"We should do this fast." My mother announced.
My father and Fei Rong vanished. Blurs appeared here and there but I was still too weak to properly track their movements. In a few hours, the grand formation left by the Lunar Demon King was constructed to completion.
"Son." my father called out, naturally for the items that brought us to this distant shore.
Two small temples appeared in front of me before I made a pushing motion that caused them to float through the air, landing in the epicenter of the grand formation. There, two small circles were drawn as placement markers.
Once in the markers, they shimmered and Fei Rong, my father, and mother formed a complicated hand seal causing the temples to disassemble.
"Now!" Fei Rong shouted.
The trio moved in tandem. The great formation activated and the sky churned. Their hands were blurs as they worked together to control the formation and merge the two temples.
Kaccha!
Lightning struck the temples.
"Impossible." my mother grimaced.
"Mina! Focus!" my father shouted, pushing them to stay the course.
The sky soon darkened and the sea became excited then enraged. Mighty waves formed, the wind howled, and thunder boomed with anger directed at our beach. The sky then lit up with many colors and my eyes narrowed. I had felt the energy radiating from those sky colors before.
I then looked at the merging temples and gasped to myself.
"Lightning Tribulation! Together they're a Cosmic Grade Artifact!" I shouted.
"At least a One Tribulation Cosmic Grade artifact!" Fei Rong corrected me.
"By the colors in the sky, we have at least three more to go!" my father added.
"Four Tribulation Cosmic Grade. That's...That's…"
"A Middle Cosmic Grade Artifact." My mother finished my acknowledgment.
Cosmic Grade Artifacts were different from the other grades. The only way to achieve such a Cosmic grade creation is baptism through tribulation lightning for a total of twelve lightning bolts. Divided into fours, there are Low, Middle, and High levels of a Cosmic Grade Artifact. If the artifact manages to survive the twelve bolts of lightning, it would become supreme.
What struck awe into all of us was that only Low Cosmic Grade Artifacts had ever been revealed throughout history. And even those could be counted on two hands.
"Get ready!" my father shouted.
The sky seemed to open up, revealing a heavenly lightning pool.
Boom!
The second arc lashed out and hit the temple, threatening to shatter the artifact before its completion.
My father sneered. "Hold steady!" he roared.
As the third arc came, my father launched eight array flags of the highest quality I had ever lain eyes on into the air, creating a Lightning Snatching Gourd Formation. It was a wonderful work of art and hardly ever pulled off.
"This damn thing better be worth it!" He growled before his qi erupted and his blood essence burned to add more power to maintain the Lightning Snatching Gourd formation just as the third arch hit the formation.
Fei Rong and my mother shared a nod and copied my father, each of them tapping into their entire potential to manage the two formations.
My father held still with a smoldering expression. Like a glutton, the Lightning Snatch Gourd Formation did as it was created to --Swallow and transform Lightning Tribulation into a docile liquid to nourish cultivation and support lightning cultivators.
The fourth arc came and the sky closed as the trio twisted the Lightning Snatching Gourd formation. An ethereal gourd appeared in the sky before it tipped and poured highly electrified liquid onto the merging temples.
Fei Rong and my mother completed the next 250 hand seals as the temple drank the lightning liquid, using it as a catalyst to stimulate speedy assimilation of the grand Lunar Temple.
Bang!
A pulse of energy blew outward from the completely merged temple knocking everyone present back a few meters, while my mother had to catch me from being sent into the ocean.
The trio laughed at my dismay. Fei Rong then picked up the temple and marveled at the ancient work of art.
"To think this thing has been sitting in this…" She stopped.
My father and mother looked inland with frowns.
"Nascent Soul cultivators?"
"True Martial Warriors! We have to go. Split up! Mina, get our son home!" My father shouted causing the group to disperse like a puff of smoke.
It was my first time seeing my parents in such a state, panicked. Well, my second time. The first was the day of my birth. This only meant that the people attracted to the birth of the completed Cosmic Grade Temple could threaten my parents.
While my parents are all-powerful in the Mortal Realm of Cultivation, with Nascent Soul experts being the Peak of the Mortal Realm, people in the Earth Realm could match them and even kill them. The Earth Realm is broken into six sub realms. Each Subrealm has ten stages.
True Martial Warrior is the first sub realm of the Earth Realm, followed by True Martial General, True Martial Lord, True Martial Duke, True Martial Emperor, and finally, Extreme Martial Being. In the Earth Realm, Dao is everything. In order to break through the Earth Realm, a Dao must be established. Not an Intent or Concept at Perfect Attainment, but a complete Dao. With a complete Dao, only then can one achieve True Martial State.
With such danger encroaching, my mother did the unbelievable and pulled me with her into the vast abyssal waters of the sea. She dragged me deep into the darkness. Even with my cultivation, the pressure was crushing and the chill pierced the marrow.
As we descended, I could hear the strain of my bones screeching and my muscles compressing. Then we stopped suddenly, floating in darkness.
'Orym...' my mother's voice entered my mind. 'Endure. Even with your father and Fei Rong, we won't be able to face the number of True Martial Warriors on the beach.'
'True Martial Warrior?' I asked, confused. At that time, my father kept everything above Mortal Realm out of reach.
My mother took the time to explain the wonders of the Earth Realm of Cultivation and at that moment she revealed that she was merely at the second Stage of True Martial Warrior while Fei Rong was at half-step True Martial Warrior and my father was at the First stage.
'But Fei Rong has already achieved a Dao.'
My mother chuckled. 'How many people do you think to step into the True Martial Warrior state in this barren land? Zero. And How many people can enter and exit the cultivation world freely without attracting attention? Even when we fled here, we were forced to take the backchannel of a transmission array to avoid detection.'
My mother could feel my sadness. I then felt her hand press against the top of my head as she said, 'Don't worry, your aunt, father, and I have enough youth to wait a thousand years and more. You and Nimue, are the only thing that matter to us. Parents have to support their children until they can support themselves. If your grandfather understood this, his Dao of Heart wouldn't have shattered and the clan would still exist.'
'Just rely on us for a little longer and put your heart at ease.' My mother added as her arms wrapped around me and an intense warmth shrouded my body.
Days passed before we emerged from the sea. Thanks to mother, we evaded detection. But I could see on her face that she was worried about my father and Fei Rong. Shooting from the sea, my mother held me by the collar and flew us back to the Capital.
A week soon passed and my father returned. Soon a month went by before Fei Rong returned beaten and battered with only her broken spear keeping her upright.
Clank!
Fei Rong tossed a heavy, tightly packed pouch on the ground. Opening the pouch, My eyes widened at the amount of Interspatial rings. My mother shouted happily as he flew past me and hugged Fei Rong.
"That's my fucking Spear Goddess." She then reduced to tears in an instant.
Sobbing, my mother chided Fei Rong, scared that she wouldn't see her again and excited that she returned in one piece.
"We need to relocate. I found a place." Fei Rong finally spoke.
"If we leave, that will bring more attention." I replied, "We use the Lunar Temple as planned, then we vanish. As we train, the world will become peaceful. This event will be forgotten before we know it.
The day of Fei Rong's return was the start of the peace years and the genesis of a new hegemony.