Yin Pengfei opened a portal to the Lower martial realm and stepped through it. He had just woken from a thousand years of self isolated cultivation and wanted to take a stroll through one of the lower realms to refresh himself. He was a playful master and liked to do things that were considered as improper or unorthodox by the other realm lords.
He had been walking along the Kaeje river for many days and his gray robes now looked dirty due to exposure to the elements. His robes along with his black eyes and messy black hair that tracked till his shoulders made him look like a disheveled beggar but Yin did not mind such things and kept moving along the river until he reached the outskirts of the town of Xian in Qing province. It was a forested area where a few second tier sects practiced cultivation arts.
In these realms cultivation was a means of seeking longevity of life and cultivators aimed to become immortals but ascension to godhood was a rare thing and did not happen often. As he walked through the city walls he could see a lot of cultivators in the late stages of Gathering Qi and spread out here and there were cultivators in the Qi Condensation realm.
It was normal for cities with Tier 4 sects to not have someone above the Core formation realm. He moved through the town languidly as his only purpose now was to see this lower realm's workings to engage his curiosity a little.
As he reached the backstreets of the marketplace in Xian, at a distance he saw a poor boy, dressed in rags being bullied by three others who looked to be from wealthy families. The boy was on the ground in a fetal position while the three kids kicked him mercilessly, sneering all the while and shouting insults at him. Yin Pengfei just chose to observe from where he stood, to see what the boy would do.
Luo LianHao lay on the ground, trying to protect his head and stomach while they kicked him. He was coughing blood and spit onto the ground and took in hacking breaths cursing the ones who were doing this to him while also cursing his frail body. Luo had an oversensitive body and even normal impacts jarred him and caused him immense pain. This beating he was taking was like a mountain of pain for him but his eyes still had fire and he did not let himself pass out from the pain.
"I don't like that look you have Luo LianHao. What can you, a nobody who cannot even cultivate do to me huh?! This is what you get for stumbling into me, Xiao Wu from the great Wu family with your dirty rags. Your dirt is now on my impeccable azure blue robes. Who is going to compensate me for this? HUH?! I am asking you, you piece of trash!!" Xiao Wu and his Junior brothers kept kicking Luo LianHao until he could see that Luo was not even letting out grunts of pain and he stopped.
"HAHA, he passed out from my strong kicks. Fucking trash. Let's go brothers, we have to go for daily cultivation practice and it's getting late."
After Xiao left, Luo LianHao spat out blood and saliva that was in his mouth and slowly tried to get up but immense pain racked his body. He slowly managed to push himself against the wall and leaned against it for support and examined his injuries.
"4 broken ribs, dislocated left shoulder, a few internal injuries….fucking assholes, it's worse than last month."
He imitated the breathing techniques of the cultivators as that had always healed them at a fast rate but he could not cultivate Qi and this technique did not help him in any way. He pushed against the wall and slowly started walking but stopped every few steps because of pain.
Yin Pengfei walked up behind Luo and asked him if he needed any help. Luo turned back and looked at the man up and down and nodded.
"Thanks Uncle."
"Call me Uncle Yin."
Yin made Luo sit down and with his divine sense examined all that was wrong now with his body. He counted a lot of ill-healed bone injuries, muscle tears, cracked bones and flesh injuries. He could not sense any Qi from the Luo's Dantian and examined his meridians and saw the root cause. Luo's body was malnourished and there was only turbid Qi flowing through his body and his meridians were all blocked, making him unable to even gather Qi.
"Whoa, that's a pretty broken body. Even your meridians are locked."
"I thought so, and I know a reason as to why that may be. It's probably because my body was malnourished as well, that contributed to this."
'' Ho Ho, so you knew about it even though you're such a young brat who hasn't even begun cultivation. Alright, let uncle Yin get you to your home and I'll give you a nice reward for being a smartass."
Yin took the boy and slung him over his shoulder and carried him to his home following Luo LianHao's directions. Luo's home turned out to be a wooden shack near the outskirts of the town with a big flat rock covered in a sheet for a bed. There were even a few holes in the wooden roof through which the sunrays pierced into the room.
"Nice home kid. Now let's attend to the matter of your bones" Yin laid Luo on the bed and healed his broken bones which were his major injuries by using a healing technique consisting of Yang energy. Luo passed out wracked with the pain from the rapid healing.
Luo wakes up after a few hours only to see Yin meditating on the floor. He was not even breathing through his nose and mouth but Luo could see the Qi radiate out of Yin's body at a colossal state. It was very chaotic but surprisingly it did not even affect the walls in his room. Usually Luo had seen a lot of cultivators break through walls with their Qi when it was condensed.
He turned his attention to his body by moving his limbs and found that his bones were healed. He jumped with joy but the impact of that sudden jump sent shockwaves of pain because of his oversensitive body.
He heard Yin's stomach growl with hunger and Yin opened one of his eyes mischievously " It's been a long time since I had anything.
" Luo immediately went into a corner and brought out the last of his smoked meat and gave it to Yin with thanks, bowing down in respect " Thank you uncle Yin for healing me. Please eat this to sate your hunger "
"Ohh, It's okay Luo. I see that it's the last of your food. Why don't you save some for yourself. I can easily find some food"
"Uncle Yin, while I believe that with your strength you can do so, I still would like to show some gratitude. Please accept this food"
"Ohh well alright. Let's both eat it." They proceeded to both eat the smoked meat while introducing themselves.
" I am called Yin Pengfei"
" My name is Luo LianHao uncle. May I ask you a question?"
" Go ahead brat. Ask away"
" I saw you cultivating your Qi and it seemed very different and very very strong. What is your technique uncle?"
"Hooo, you can't even cultivate and you could tell that my Qi was different. That's not something many people can do brat. How did you know?"
" I observed the quality of your Qi and compared it with the other master's that I have seen from afar while they cultivated."
"Just from that?"
" Yes."
Yin looked around and took in the room once more and found some dirty brushes, used paper with character's being practiced on them and a hand carved zither with gut strings on it. "Where did you get the money to learn words brat? And what's with the zither. Who teaches you that?"
"I am an orphan uncle. No one teaches me. I collected waste paper, books and brushes from the garbage and practiced writing by myself. The zither is mine and I carved it myself. I play it whenever I feel a little lonely."
"You taught yourself to write and read and play the instrument which you carved yourself? I say, with a brain like that why aren't you apprenticing yourself to someone to get some money for yourself? Surely there are people who would take you for an apprentice?"
" I have sought opportunities many times uncle, but I have an oversensitive body which throws me in excruciating pain even for normal impacts like jumping and landing on the ground. With this constitution, even though I process things fast mentally, my body works slowly. I could not get jobs because of such a constitution."
"Ohh. So when those boys were beating you, you were in a hell of a pain huh. Even when I carried you and rapidly healed you, you must have been in pain. Why didn't you tell me, I would have healed you slowly."
" I'm used to it uncle. It's fine. But master you didn't answer my original question"
" Okay fine. I just cultivate a different form of Qi than the people you have seen. It's called Primordial Qi cultivation. While normal cultivation cultivates Qi from natural energies, Primordial Qi is the energy from when there was no matter. It's much more denser and powerful but requires different methods of cultivation than usual. That's enough for you to know. Now are you done with your questions?"
Luo hesitated a little and said "Yes uncle" .
Yin looked at the hesitation in the young boy's face " No , you are not done. Ask what you really wanted to ask. Do it unashamedly and you may just get what you ask for."
Luo looked ashamed and his face was a picture of colliding emotions. But he finally gathered his courage and prostrated himself in front of Yin " Master Uncle, I am now weak and I know how strong you are. I could understand it when you were cultivating and with the speed that you healed me with. I do not wish to be weak. I wish to make this frail body a strong one. I wish never to feel so helpless while others kick me in my chest and look down on me. I wish...Master, I wish to be strong. Please become my master. Please teach me to cultivate"
By the time Luo raised his face, his face was streaming with tears, his black eyes puffed and his cheeks flushed red.
Yin was taken aback at the request. 'I thought he would ask me to heal him and his meridians so that he could cultivate. But this brat, his ambition seems much much higher. For him to wish that I, Yin Pengfei, become his master. The audacity!!. But I like such conscientious brats and I like his ambition.'
"That's quite a tall ask, brat. I can heal your meridians so that you can cultivate but to become your master,.... what's in it for me?" Yin sneered, pleased at himself for making the boy squeam to answer the question. But Luo did not squeam, rather his black eyes shone with a brilliant ambition and his face was the picture of determination.
"Master Yin, if you make me your disciple, you will not regret it. I will become as strong as you and carry out whatever orders you have. Wouldn't it help you to have a skilled disciple to carry out your tasks and orders?"
Yin laughed heartily and loudly at hearing Luo's response "This is why the Lower realms are interesting. I don't know why the others don't see that."
"What's a lower realm?" Luo asked and Yin just shook his head and suddenly put his left hand on Luo's head and the other on his own forehead and closed his eyes.
'Let me get a reading of this brat's fate and his potential. If it indeed is great, maybe in a few millennia he just might live up to his claims. What ….What's this??! He has the fate of a HEAVENLY CONQUEROR!! This brat, he ..he is a candidate for becoming the sovereign of gods. And his potential is great as well, if only his body were not so useless. But there's a way for that. HO HO, it's very risky but that's the only way I see.....hmmm.'