"Father,! It's me!!" Wei Ren shrieked.
"My son can't cultivate and I can't even judge your cultivation base. Not many people can fool me about their cultivation." Emperor Yan said in a cold voice. He was ready to take serious actions.
Wei Ren was speechless. He looked at his mother. She also had a similar cold face.
"Mother please tell him it's me!"He said.
"Where is my son? What did you do to him?" Feng Yu yelled.
"Oh! Something is wrong with my body. They can sense the change in me. That is why they are so skeptical right now." Wei Ren realized what the problem was.
"When I was five, father, you used to bring blue flowers from grandfather's grave. You once used the blue colour of the roses to dye my hair blue. Mother got very angry." Wei Ren said with a smile.
Both Emperor Yan and Feng Yu were surprised. This was something nobody else knew about. Emperor Yan slowly lowered his sword. Feng Yu also put away her black whip into her void ring. They were now convinced that he was their son.
"I don't know what happened but I can use elemental qi. My control is very poor but I can store small amounts of it in my body." Wei Ren only told half the truth.
"WHAT?...But how? Ren'er you don't even have a dantian. And no meridians. Controlling qi should be impossible for you." Emperor Yan doubted Wei Ren's words.
"Here. Take a look at this." Wei Ren extended his hand. A white ring was on his middle finger. He waved his hand and a small dagger suddenly appeared out of thin air.
"YOU CAN USE A VOID RING???!!!" Emperor Yan and Feng Yu screamed at the same time.
"Yes." Wei Ren said with a cheesy smile.
Both husband and wife stood there with dumbfounded looks.
"But his aura is completely different. Something feels strange when I look at him." Feng Yu looked at her husband and said with a doubtful voice..
"Something strange?"Wei Ren pondered.
"Me too." Emperor Yan confirmed Feng Yu
"Ren'er, give me your hand." Emperor Yan suddenly demanded.
Wei Ren extended his arm without any complaint. Emperor Yan placed his palm on Wei Ren's and closed his eyes.
Wei Ren knew what Emperor Yan was trying to do. Several of the healers that had come to examine him, did this, when he was young. They used their own Qi to probe inside Wei Ren's body.
When Emperor Yan placed his hand on his. A cool sensation entered his body. He could feel it. An elemental qi that didn't belong to him was roaming around his body. This feeling was very uncomfortable but he remained silent. Any resistance on his end would make Emperor Yan suspicious. It's possible he might get killed by his own father.
Emperor Yan's elemental qi came nearer and nearer to his navel qi meridian. Wei Ren wondered if something strange would happen.
Emperor Yan's qi passed over his qi meridians. It looked like Emperor Yan couldn't sense them.
The only thing Emperor Yan found was a dense white cloud suspended in Wei Ren's body.
"Is he alright?" Feng Yu asked Emperor Yan.
"His body is still the same. He has no meridians or a dantian but there is dense white qi in his body." Emperor Yan answered while examining Wei Ren.
"Does that mean he can cultivate?"
He removed his hand and looked at Wei Ren. The cold expression on his face changed into a weird smile. Soon he burst into laughter. He grabbed Wei Ren by the neck and started dancing.
"MY SON CAN CULTIVATE." He yelled and started laughing loudly.
Wei Ren didn't protest and let his father do whatever he wanted.
Feng Yu looked at her husband who was jumping around with his son's neck in his armpit.
When he calmed down he asked Wei Ren," Ren'er, how and when did this happen?"
Wei Ren looked at his parents' eyes full of enquiry. He couldn't tell the truth because of Emperor Starmist's memory seal and he felt bad when he lied to them. So he decided to go with his previous plan. Tell only half the truth with some lies mixed in to make it appear authentic.
"I don't know. Last night I felt this strange feeling. I thought I was sick. Suddenly I felt this cold sensation in my body. This qi was slowly building up into a qi cloud. So I decided to see if I could control it. I don't know any cultivation fighting skills so I decided to buy a void ring and some qi replenishing pills. Turns out, I can control elemental qi. Albeit very poorly." Wei Ren explained.
Both Feng Yu and emperor Yan didn't know what to say. Such a development was very strange. Just a few days ago their son was basically a cripple and today they can sense danger from him.
"But what happened to his aura? It feels so menacing."Feng Yu asked with a worried expression on her face.
Just because he could control elemental qi for now didn't mean he could do it forever. Plus they don't know what caused this sudden change.
Emperor Yan entered into a deep train of thought. This was truly an important question. Because of his cultivation, the level of danger he felt was very subtle. The guards outside almost collapsed from his presence. But it didn't overwhelm his parents.
"I have an idea! Ren'er can you extract qi from your surroundings or can you only control the qi inside you?" Emperor Yan asked Wei Ren.
"I can extract it but it seems very impure." Wei Ren answered truthfully. There was no need to lie about this.
"Good. Try to absorb this…" emperor Yan said and pointed a finger towards him. Soon, silk like threads started coming out of the tip of his finger.
These were strands of qi. The qi inside Wei Ren is just gas but Emperor Yan's qi was so dense.
Wei Ren initiated the Earth law. His navel qi meridian and the minor chest meridian started to shine inside his body. He closely observed what was happening. First the meridians were only pulling grey coloured qi from the surroundings but suddenly the rate at which they extracted qi became violent. All of the qi threads in Emperor Yan's finger tip were pulled into his navel.
Both Emperor Yan and Feng Yu were surprised. The amount of danger they felt from Wei Ren increased several times.
The qi threads were broken into smaller pieces which immediately turned into gas. The size of the qi cloud almost doubled. Emperor Yan's qi was so dense and pure that Wei Ren felt the same bloated feeling he gets from consuming white grass pills.
"Cough... cough." Wei Ren coughed up blood.
Emperor Yan and Feng Yu were also shocked. Wei Ren immediately stopped extracting qiand fell on his knees.
"It is too dangerous. Extracting qi from the outside is too dangerous. Is this a side effect of Starmist Law?" He thought.
"Ren'er are you alright?" Feng Yu immediately picked Wei Ren up from the ground.
"The extraction suddenly sped up and I lost control. Nothing else. It was my fault. I am not used to this." Wei Ren explained as he wiped blood from his lips.
"You should avoid extracting qi from the outside for too long. You don't have much experience yet. I think you have a strange ability, Ren'er. You can cultivate! This is a strange development. Let's keep this between ourselves." Emperor Yan said with a serious look.
Now Wei Ren's life might be even in more danger. If that same person, who ordered the ambush, finds out that Wei Ren can cultivate, he would definitely try to eliminate him.
"I understand." Wei Ren agreed.
"But we still need to keep your aura in check. People with low cultivation bases will get terrorized by you." Emperor Yan smiled and said.
"How? I can't even feel anything strange with my body." Wei Ren asked.
"When you extract qi from the world, your body turns into something like a black hole. That is why you got injured and we started to sense danger. Your body is absorbing qi even right now. Although the amount you absorb is less, I can still feel some changes in the atmosphere with my spirit sense. Other cultivators can feel this. This the qi inside their bodies feels threatened by your presence."
Focus on your qi cloud and see if you can stop it from absorbing qi." Emperor Yan suggested.
This was the true difference between a beginner and an expert. Emperor Yan was able to think of a solution to such a strange thing. This shows the gap in their experience.
"Just having all those cultivation manuals in my mind is useless without the actual experience." He thought to himself.
He did just as Emperor Yan had suggested. He sat down cross legged. The two meridians in his body started to shine. Earth law helped him control these. But when he looked closer. The meridians were absorbing qi from the outside on their own. This was why he was excluding such an aura. Any other being would feel danger of getting sucked dry from these meridians. He tried to stop the meridians from absorbing but they stubbornly continued.
There was no such text in the Starmist Law that explained why this was happening.
"Maybe it's because I don't have a dantian. The qi cloud is not perfect and my meridians keep absorbing qi on their own to make it perfect. A dantian is much better than a non uniform qi cloud." He analyzed.
After some thought he tried to move his qi cloud. The qi that was randomly floating around was pulled into the main cloud. Doing this was very taxing on his brain. Control over qi is not his expertise. Soon the qi cloud turned into a sphere with an uneven surface.
Emperor Yan and Feng Yu were observing closely. The danger they felt from Wei Ren suddenly vanished.
Wei Ren opened his eyes. And looked at them. "Is the strange aura gone?"
"Yes. It worked." They confirmed him.
Compressing the qi cloud helped because now the qi meridians had no other place to bring the qi to. The meridians absorbed the qi from the surroundings and dropped it inside his qi cloud. Now that it was tightly compressed. The rate at which the meridians absorbed qi dropped very low. He was basically fooling the meridians into thinking that his body is saturated with qi.
"Let's eat now." Wei Ren smiled at his parents.
"Uh…sure. I made roasted meat and chicken soup for you." Feng Yu smiled and said.
They all sat down at the table. Emperor Yan picked another cup of wine and looked at his son devouring food like a maniac.
"How can you even control your qi? Even moving a strand of qi requires a cultivation method. You don't have any training. How do you do it?" Emperor Yan asked.
"I...uh...don't know." Wei Ren worked his brain very fast to come up with an answer. He couldn't tell his father about the Starmist Law.
"I just will it with my mind and the qi moves. Albeit very poorly." Wei Ren explained.
"I will find you a good cultivation technique. This is a blessing. My son can cultivate. Hehehe." Emperor Yan laughed like a small boy.
Feng Yu was also looking at Wei Ren with a sparkle in her eyes.
"We also need to get him a good weapon and Ren'er also needs to test his best attribute and his dao affinity. Also lets get him a better void ring. A few safety talismans and jade slips for his cultivation." Feng Yu listed numerous things.Wei Ren didn't even understand some of the words.
"Test my best attribute and dao affinity? What are these things?" Wei Ren asked. Even though he had numerous cultivation techniques that were given by Emperor Starmist. He had read only a few. His knowledge about the cultivation world was still very shallow.
"It's a simple test that all cultivators take when they start their cultivation." Feng Yu explained.
Seeing that Wei Ren was not satisfied with the explanation, Emperor Yan decided to elaborate.
"In the ancient times when cultivation was still new, people used to fight with just their qi. You are new to this but elemental qi is a wondrous thing. It is very gentle inside your body. But if you use some hand signs to cast a spell, it can become explosive. You can turn your qi into solid weapons like needles, swords and hammers. Some cultivators can even turn their qi poison to inflict serious damage. You can do these things if you have the attribute required to do this." Emperor Yan explained with a smile. He felt a strange happiness when he was teaching Wei Ren about cultivation. This was his dream ever since the day Wei Ren was born.
"So how does my attribute affect my cultivation?" Wei Ren asked.
"You can even say that your cultivation entirely depends upon your attribute. Yu'er why don't you show him…" Emperor Yan winked at her.
Feng Yu didn't say anything and just gently waved her hand in the air.
Wei Ren looked puzzled. He waited for something to happen.
Whoosh!
Suddenly a cloud appeared in their dining hall. The ceiling was completely hidden under this grey cloud. When Wei Ren looked closer he saw small streaks of lightning dancing in the cloud.
"Wow!" He looked with amazement at his mother.
"How do you do this?" He asked her.
"This is my attribute. I can control the climate. My qi has a strong affinity towards clouds and climate. I can even make it rain but we would get wet." She explained with a smile. Showing off her abilities to her son felt great.
"Take a look at this." Emperor Yan said before Wei Ren could ask his mother any other questions.
Emperor Yan gently tapped the table with his finger. The place he touched started turning white. Frost started to cover the table and beautiful pale blue roses made of ice started blooming on the stable. They were so lifelike that Wei Ren couldn't even find a single clue that would suggest that this rose is man-made.
"This is my attribute. I have a strong affinity towards ice roses. I can turn a large piece of land into a world made of these ice roses." Emperor Yan said with pride. But unlike his wife, his face was completely covered with a look of show-off.
"Your attribute is a little... feminine." Wei Ren spoke wryly. He liked his mother's attribute more.
"WHAT?" Emperor Yan was dumbfounded. This was the first time someone had made fun of his attribute. Most of the people are scared of him. Because his attribute, albeit a little feminine is very dangerous. He can kill enemies like chickens by trapping them in a world of roses.
Feng Yu tried her best to control her laughter but couldn't hold it back.
Wei Ren looked at his father with a weird smile. He saw Emperor Yan's sullen face and knew that he was very close to getting beaten up.
"What was grandfather's attribute?" He asked to lighten the mood.
"Oh. He was just like me, but he used to make Bluefire stone roses."
"Bluefire stone?"
"Yes. It is a very rare attribute. You see, people who share the same bloodline tend to get similar attributes. The giant rose that is placed at the front of Grand Royal Palace was made by your grandfather. Bluefire stone is a very hard material. It can be used as the core metal to make very strong weapons. The blue flying sword that I use is entirely made of Bluefire stone. Your grandfather used this monstrously strong attribute to make vines of roses that could cover the entire kingdom. He used them to protect the kingdom from any harm.
"Entire kingdom!!!" Wei Ren said with his jaw open. The size of their kingdom was fairly large. One person casting such a powerful spell is a godlike feat. The awe he felt for his grandfather made his head spin.
"In simple terms, an attribute guides us in choosing our fighting techniques. Like your mother can control the climate. So she can drop bolts of lightning on someone or bring up a storm and even cause tsunamis. I can create a world of ice which gives me an advantage when I fight my enemies. So if you have an affinity towards something, you should choose your fighting tactics accordingly. To maximize the result."
"But if I choose a fighting technique that is different from my attribute. What will happen?" Wei Ren asked.
"I knew you would ask this. I can try to use my qi to make a dragon of fire. But the chances of success will be negligible. Because my qi is more suited to ice techniques. I can make sharp blades of ice, but I can't control fire." Emperor Yan emptied his cup of wine and spoke.
"So you can control ice as well as roses?"
"Yes. That is why the test we took told us about our best attribute. It doesn't mean you can't use any other attribute. I can control ice and even water. Your mother is a lucky one. She can control lightning, thunder, rain, water, and even air. But she has the most affinity towards clouds. By mixing all these she can use a wide spectrum of techniques"
"When can I take the test?" Wei Ren was eager to find his own attribute.
"Finish your food and I will take you to take the test." Emperor Yan chuckled.
"What about the other thing? Dao affinity?" He suddenly remembered that his mother had spoken about one more thing.
"You don't need to worry about that right now. Too much knowledge can have adverse effects." Emperor Yan shook his head and refused to explain anything.
Wei Ren wolfed down the rest of the meat and soup. After wiping the bowls clean he looked at his father.
"Yu'er, what do you think his attribute is? I bet he has something similar to me." Emperor Yan said with confidence.
"Hmph. It would be better if he has as many attributes as me." She also didn't back down.
"Let's all go together. When he takes the test everything will be clear." She said with a strange smile.
It looked like she was secretly hoping that Wei Ren would have attributes similar to her.