"Oh, it vanished? " Murmured a middle-aged man sitting by a dumpling stand while observing the fireworks in the sky caused by two combatants engaging in mortal combat with each other.
Perplexed by what he had sensed for a few seconds, he observed longer just to make sure, as Cultivators of his rank very rarely sense things wrongly.
Waiting for a few exchanges between the fighters, it happened again.
His Divine Sense observed the Path of Jade Mantra user in closer detail, when it once again vanished from his perception, right after the Jade Sword had finished its meeting with the spear.
" Hmm, now that is weird. " The middle-aged man said for nobody to hear or reply to.
When it happened again.
The Domain came and vanished again in the seconds after the weapons met on the field of battle.
Like that it continued for quite a few more times.
On
Off
On
Off
Unnerved by its behavior, the middle-aged man slapped the table in front of him. " Stop behaving like a maiden in heat, hiding her smile behind her fan, just to appear more mysterious, and just manifest already you… impossible thing. "
" And why would it be an impossible thing? " Flinching at the impossible voice that should not be there, the middle-aged man stood still for a second, for his mind to articulate that somebody had snuck up to him when it should be impossible.
Seconds after his mind recovered to its proper function, his eyes gazed upon the origin of the voice and noticed a young girl staring at him.
Her Jade green eyes were staring directly at him.
Blinking at her for a moment, he refocused all his attention on three things.
The First was on the little girl before him. To examine how she had snuck up to him.
The second was on the young girl up there in the sky. To see what she was up to, yet what his Divine Sense told him was conflicting in a sense.
The third was on the Divination Compass that rested on the table after his initial calculation was throwing him weird results and he was doing it for a very good reason.
Divination and Children of the Heavens had a strange relationship with one another.
Out of the six he had met before, excluding this one as he still did not know her preferences, one had liked his presence, two tolerated his presence and three went homicidal on him for even daring to breathe the same air as them.
It had taken quite a few messy circumstances for him to finally understand one of the core teachings of his legacy, that just because you are Favored by Heaven, it does not mean that your life is full of roses and peaches.
' In truth, the greater the Favor the greater the misfortune that follows. ' Thinking of those circumstances, he used his Domain to hide the compass even more atop the natural one that it had.
Only after that was done did he speak up.
" I can't see any obvious difference between you and the one in the sky? Which is the real one and how did you find me? I clearly remember you failed to do so minutes ago? "
" Of course the one in the sky. I am not stupid enough to meet anybody who can evade people's notice like you do. " He heard the young girl reply to his question. " As for how I found you? Well… I must admit that it took quite a bit of memory parsing to notice the discrepancy you exhibit in them. After that, all that was left was to send this projection here and observe you. Your distraction only helped me. "
' That… makes no sense at all. How did I not notice her approach? I wasn't that distracted, was I? And what does she mean by parsing her memory? My Domain of Obfuscation should have left nothing to be remembered. Even her noticing me should have been forgotten by the time she shifted her attention away. '
" And how did you sneak up on me? " He asked the number one question burning with curiosity in his mind.
" That will remain my secret. " She replied. " So who are you and what are you doing here? Oh, and do tell me about that impossible thing that had tickled your nerves. I am curious as it has to do with my Father. "
Hearing the question, he thought for a second and replied. " You can call me Yuan Ru. I am a wanderer, you could say. "
" As for the impossible thing. " Yuan Ru said, looking and directing his Divine Sense back into the sky. " I am talking about the Domain Manifestation that your Father is undergoing. "
" Ah, and why is it impossible? "
" It's impossible because to manifest a domain you need a mature Soul of Qi and you don't get that until at least reaching the Soul Transformation stage. " Yuan Ru implied and replied with common knowledge. Yet it was the fact that it was common knowledge that tipped him off in a direction.
" Your Clan is a follower of the Path of Jade, however, it got into this backwater place. Could it be that your records are incomplete? "
" Without Father's approval, no comment on that one will come from my mouth, I am afraid. " The girl replied, but that was enough to tip him off that his thoughts were pointed in the correct direction.
" Domain? Domain? Hmm? " The girl murmured as she tilted her head left and right as if thinking. " I… think I can imagine your logic but I am pretty sure that it will be broken in a few moments. Either way, I have something even more important to ask. Were you here in this place before my fight with Xia Jingjie started or did you arrive right after? "
Hearing the question Yuan Ru broke his gaze on the sky and stared directly into the Jade green eyes of the Child of the Heavens and considered his reply.
On one hand, he could be truthful and probe her intentions or he could tell a half-truth and play it safe.
" I had just entered the city from the South Gate when I heard an explosion happening. That was when I decided to investigate it out of curiosity. " A half-decent truth came out of his mouth.
" I will take your word for it then. How about I schedule a meeting between Father and you in the coming days. I am sure he would love to hear what you have to say about the Clans Mantra. "
" You sound very sure that your Father will come out alive out of this? "
" Not really, but my Father knows how to stack the odds in his favor. " The young girl replied with a smile. " He would not have started all this if he was not sure of the outcome. How about a meeting in 3 days at our Clans residence? "
" That will do. " Yuan Ru replied.
" Alright, See you soon. " The girl said and vanished right in front of his eyes.
Blinking a few times, Yuan Ru strained his senses to see how she had done what she had done.
' I don't understand. How can there be nothing at all? ' His mind pondered for a few moments without answer and it remained that way as his attention was shifted back to the sky.
***
A sword made out of green Jade infused with a Cold Spiritual Art and clad in an Air Spiritual Art met the condensed form of heat that emitted a red-gold hue around a black metal blade tip of a spear made out of the same material covered in Formations depicting summer in its various forms.
The Air Spiritual Art dispersed the initial heat emitted by the Blazing Qi Spear Art when contact was made between the two weapons.
The Cold Spiritual Art negated any heat penetrating the Jade sword. As such when sword and spear blade briefly met, it was their base material that determined what would remain intact and what would shatter.
At least that was what should have been happening.
Instead what happened was that the Jade sword as a temporary construct of Jade Qi sustained its form and purpose, as long as there was enough Jade Qi to supply the strain the Jade sword received, but that was enough for Yu Liwei.
Clang, Clang, Clang.
Weapons clashed, parried, and scraped at each other numerous times, and every time they clashed unique phenomenon showed itself as a result.
Where the sword made out of Jade should chip, it did not.
Where the sword made out of Jade should crack, it did not, because the Qi protected its internal integrity but what it did not and could not prevent was the vibration the clashes produced.
The vibration traveled, infused, and rattled the internal makeup of the Jade that made up the sword. As a side-effect, a rebound happened thanks to the protection of Qi and produced a unique sound that represented the uniqueness of green Jade.
It was that sound that Yu Liwei was looking for.
To examine and engrave onto his mind. To replicate when and wherever he wanted.
Luckily he was not looking blindly for it, for he had heard that sound from the first moment his Bloodline Ability had manifested, he just never realized its true form.
Clang, Clang, Clang. The weapons emanated, as Yu Liwei's mind tried to look for that ghostly sensation that he had sought after for the last two years.
Stretching, twisting, and ordering his body into the proper motions to dodge, deflect and parry Xia Renshu's attacks with his sword, took far too much of Yu Liwei's remaining mental capacity, that he had suffered in the last two years, alongside the extensive use of Jade step to keep up with him in combat.
What was left of his mind was seeking the ghostly sound and touch in his Jade sword and occasionally on his Jade Skin Armor enveloping his body when he received blows on it.
Yu Liwei had no idea for how long they had been engaged in combat, or for how long he had been stuck on that razor's edge. Not since all he knew was motions of combat as there was no time to talk and there was no need to talk.
Talking required vast reserves of thinking and reacting, and in combat, it was useless unless you were superior to your opponent and could spare the spent time, otherwise by the time you thought of a reasonable verbal exchange, you would be dead.
By now most of the upper part of the green robes representing his clan had been torn, slashed, and burned off.
In its place, the Jade Skin Armor presented him as a statue of a well-developed man.
Only on it, there was no trace of the thing that had made him unique when compared to other users of the Heavenly Jade Mantra. There were no unique lines that represented him, only an ordinary Jade Skin Armor, but that was fine for Yu Liwei.
He had already found the unique Sound of Jade, once before.
The only reason why he had not yet re-assembled his bloodline Ability was that just finding the sound was not enough.
He had to sing with it and if there is one thing that Yu Liwei was sure of about himself, it was that in combat he manifested his Ability the first time, and in combat, he would sing it again.
Only ordinary combat would not make him sing, his older brother had already proved it for him.
No, what he needed was a fight for one's very life, where he had to scoop and scrape every tiny bit of talent from his blood and bones. As it was only on the razor's edge between Life and Death that his Will, as Jiao called it, would reach its peak potential and manifest.
So with his conviction of Will that he would sing, he clashed, parried, deflected, and took hits where it was convenient and found the sound again.
At first, it was there and vanished the next second.
It was an easy thing to miss in combat where every second counted, but Yu Liwei had found it again.
Edging closer to it, Yu Liwei only steeled his resolve in recklessness even more and a few exchanges later it had appeared and vanished again.
A few more exchanges later it came and vanished again and so it went for quite a few exchanges as Yu Liwei tried his best to make the sound sing in his favor.
Every time it appeared, he was closer and closer to the answer when at long last he sang the Song of Jade, in every exchange.
Using his Qi he transmitted the song to his whole body and immediately a result appeared.
The sound rattled his bones that had long since been infused with Jade Qi.
Infused with the unique Sound of Jade, his bones remembered a ghostly memory and produced a slightly different sound as if his bones were the strings of a zither.
Right after, he felt the Sound of Jade in his blood and muscles, and they too began to sing in a slightly different sound of their own.
Right after he felt it his whole body became the zither that sang the Song of Jade in its various forms.
In the stretched perception of combat where seconds could be stretched into Eternity, Yu Liwei finally realized what his inherited Ability was based on.
It was also in the same instance that he realized why his Ability had manifested into what it had once been. At the same time, the realization told him why he had such trouble using the Ability in the beginning.
No matter how much he refined the Ability, it would not change the fact that the song, it was based on, was not his but of some distant ancestor.
What he inherited was an echo and an echo it would remain without time-consuming refining of Mind and Body for that echo to find its place and sing again.
And that was what he had been doing half his life. The more his Mind and Body adapted the longer he could use the Ability or the Authority behind it, yet as his body played like a zither, Yu Liwei immediately realized a folly that he had been under.
No matter how much he adapted his body to the song of his Ancestor, he was not the Ancestor that had played the song.
If he embraced the song of his Ancestor, he would be forever bound to the song of his Ancestor and never rise above him no matter his talent and the effort he put into it.
' NO. That will not DO. '
' I will absorb the knowledge passed from him, but I will not be bound by it. '
With determination stemming from having already lost the inherited song once before, Yu Liwei stilled the song in his body that was producing the old song.
Unfortunately for him, such action carried consequences as the complete stillness of one's Qi and body left him wide open to an attack from Xia Renshu.
Yu Liwei knew it, yet he did it anyway.
Stuck in an awkward moment and pose, Xia Renshu stuck in his combat trance capitalized on the moment and his black blade spear tip coated in Yang Qi from the Blazing Qi Spear Art bypassed the Jade sword and struck Yu Liwei in the stomach.
With the stilled Qi negating the Jade Skin Armor of its supply, it quickly reached its limit due to the heat, and the searing metal blade of the spear pierced Yu Liwei's stomach.
Thankfully while the spear did pierce deep, at the same time it seared the flesh and the injury so no there would be no bleeding.
On the other hand, the Jade Skin Armor absorbed enough force of the spear penetration that it had not pierced all the way through Yu Liwei's body, and a second later, his body encased in the armor, was pushed away from the place in which he was speared in and like a comet bursting through the Heavens it blazed towards the city below him.
Only moments before hitting the ground, Yu Liwei circulated his Qi again. The rapid disruption of its natural rhythm meant a sluggish restart, but within seconds it was enough for him to expertly twist his body towards the ground and use Jade Step to dissipate his momentum enough to switch from rapid descent into rapid sideways sliding.
For those who observed Yu Liwei, they saw him start using the air as a vertical arching wall and changing his straight descent into an arching rapid ascent step by step.
Xia Renshu stood still for a moment as his mind processed what happened.
Right as he realized that Yu Liwei began his ascent and just before he wanted to teleport near him and re-engage in combat once more, a voice reached him.
It was a familiar voice as it belonged to none other than Yu Liwei.
" Qiao, Plan B, I need you to delay everybody for a few moments while I figure out something. "
Unsure of what to make out of it in the moments that he heard the voice, Xia Renshu saw Yu Liwei stop mid-air, dismiss his sword and Jade Skin Armor, summon a larger Jade platform, and immediately sat down in a meditation pose by crossing his legs with a straight back pointing up.
Stupefied at the audacity and arrogance that he was observing, Xia Renshu was speechless for a few moments.
Anger boiled in his mind that he, Xia Renshu, a Soul Creation Cultivator and Prime Minister of the South of the Azure Wind Empire was disrespected to such a degree.
Not once has anybody ever disrespected him to such a degree.
Not only was he sidelined by a Cultivator a stage lower than him as unimportant, but Yu Liwei had also behaved as if his death was already certain.
Now he even dared to meditate as if he would just sit there and wait for him to finish whatever he wanted.
Fueled with anger, Xia Renshu teleported near Yu Liwei and executed the fastest Spear Art that his Clan possessed.
His world slowed down even more than normal and it reached a crawl yet it was already too late.
In the slowed-down world, he noticed the distortions in the air between him and Yu Liwei.
Out of it stepped Yu Qiao. Unlike his younger brother, he had a real sword in his hand and his body was already encased in Jade Skin Armor.
Seeing him, Xia Renshu preemptively ended the spear art, before he had no choice but to execute it completely. At least this way the strain on his Roots was minimal.
" Yu Qiao, is this how the Yu Clan conducts itself now? Your Clan Lord declared a Duel to Death, yet the moment he gained an injury he called for help? " Xia Renshu shouted in anger. " This is a disgrace, you know. "
" Younger brothers are always the attention seekers, aren't they? " Yu Qiao declared laughingly. " Tell me Xia Renshu, why are you in such a hurry to have your head chopped off? "
Seeing the anger in Xia Renshu's gaze, he sighed loudly, showing clearly what he thought about him. " While I seriously would love to chop off your head personally, my Second Brother has priority in your case. Still… Second, what did you discover that made you call for Plan B? "
Hearing his older brother's words, Yu Liwei opened his eyes. " As I was re-assembling my Bloodline Ability during the fight, I encountered a very huge pitfall. Either I deal with it now or it will plague me till the end of my life. "
' Reassemble? ' Xia Renshu had a foreboding thought. ' It can't be? All this while I was used as a grinding tool. ' Yet, the moment that thought had surfaced, a hysterical emotion surfaced alongside it.
It consumed his bubbling anger and rooted itself even deeper than he thought possible.
Immediately he recognized that if he, Xia Renshu, did not crush Yu Liwei in this fight, a Heart Devil would spawn inside him.
" Does this mean you can't manifest the Ability or is it something else? " Yu Qiao asked his younger brother.
" Something else. " Yu Liwei replied. " I have figured out how it works, so I can manifest it easily but the ease with which I manifest it is the pitfall. I have to diverge the bloodline if the Yu Clan is to move forward. I… am not sure what will happen when I do it, but I can feel it will be big and the consequences will be long-lasting for us. Will you protect me as I do this? "
" If it's that serious, I will. " Yu Qiao replied without hesitation.
" Good. " Nodded the younger brother and spoke again. Only this time his voice was enhanced so that it would reach its recipient. " Elder He, I am in need of your help. Jiao, you come to, I need to ask you a few questions. "
With that said another voice pronounced itself.
" Gather. " Yu Qiao demanded and his demand was answered as five distortions in the air appeared beside him.
Out of them stepped five elderly men. All of them looked to be around 50 years in age with long black beards to complement their green robes indicating their origin.
" Anyone even attempting to close in on the Clan Lord, but the two he called, is to be put to death immediately, no matter who they serve. "
" Yes. " Was all that came out of their mouths as they reorganized themselves around Yu Liwei.
Once they were in position, another distortion appeared right beside Yu Qiao. Elder He Shoushan, the healer, stepped out. Yu Qiao gave him a nod and he moved closer to Yu Liwei.
" Elder, use everything you have, I don't care for the price, but I need to be in the best possible condition for what I am about to do. "
Hearing, and acknowledging the order, Elder He immediately began his job of healing the stomach wound.
Xia Renshu and Qi Jian, who quietly arrived not long after Yu Qiao, looked at the elderly Soul Creation Cultivators guarding Yu Liwei. Five still wasn't a big number for either the Xia Clan or the Royal Feng Clan leading the Empire.
Both of them could call on a few more Soul Creation Cultivators, but it nonetheless displayed a flaw in their information gathering and the commitment that the Yu Clan was willing to commit to for whatever Yu Liwei was attempting.
Seeing it nobody said a word for a few moments as it could easily escalate into a bloodbath that none of them wanted.
At least none said anything before Yu Jiao floated over in her inverted gauntlet chair.
She ignored everybody and casually floated towards her father.
" Good, you're here. Then I can begin slowly. " Yu Liwei said and with a simple motion of his finger, he summoned ten Jade tablets, stacked on top of each other.
Immediately he began to draw on the Qi in them, to replenish what he had lost in the fight and to top himself to the best possible condition.
Everybody present knew what those Jade tablets represented, so they only proved furthermore that he was willing to commit to his actions.
" Ying told me you have a Spiritual Art for barring any sounds. Do you have one for Light as well? " Seeing a nod, he continued. " Good, use it. "
" Alright " Jiao agreed and snapped her fingers. Immediately a bubble of Qi originating from the snap grew enough to envelop both father and daughter, including the healer, with lots of space to not feel cramped in any way.
To those on the outside the bubble blurred enough so that one could at least recognize the general shape of the people inside, and for those inside there was enough light to see.
When that bubble had done its job Jiao snapped her fingers again and another bubble rose to envelop the insides of the first.
This one was for sound, only for her to snap one more time for one additional barrier.
" Done. " She noted for her father. " What happened? "
With that said, Yu Liwei explained everything that had happened to him during the fight. From the beginning of the Sound of Jade appearing to his realization of the consequences of embracing the already set path.
During the explanation, a few ideas popped into Jiao's head, but aside from those one thought, kept reminding her of the 'wanderer' she had just encountered. " Father, as your fight ensured I noticed somebody observing me, yet no matter how I looked I could not find them. He was somehow hiding in plain sight. I have a feeling it's my different Power that kept it from working fully on me, so on a hunch, I investigated the closest place and found him. "
Jiao saw her father's intrigue as to why she mentioned it right after his speech.
" He said he was a wanderer. " Jiao explained. " He called you a Path of Jade user, so I am assuming in some other place there are those who use the Jade Mantra. The reason why I am mentioning this is that I have scheduled a meeting between you and him in the hope of him telling you a few things about the origin of the Mantra. "
" I am sure you won't mind it. " Yu Liwei nodded for his daughter. " Either way, in our talk he mentioned your Ability re-assembling as impossible as you don't have a mature Soul of Qi. Now it should not matter as the Seed I gave you would help you in re-assembling it, but if you are attempting to re-assemble it manually under a different configuration, I am not sure if it will work. At least, it should not without having already sprouted and since you have called for me, I imagine you have questions regarding it. Am I right? "
" You are right. " Yu Liwei answered. " In the last two years, I did not recover any bit of my Divine Sense so it's not hard to imagine where it went. Now that I know how to produce the Sound of Jade that you had asked me to look for, I can sprout the Seed whenever I want but what I am curious about is the adjustment you did to it a year ago. From that point on it had swallowed a lot of Jade Qi. You kept it vague but now I need to know why to account for the unknown. Specifically, I need to know how you imagined it would turn out? "
" Hmm. " Jiao hummed as she considered her next words. " Remember my phantom and how it was swallowed by the Authority in your Ability? " She asked her father.
" Hard not to. " Chuckled Yu Liwei at Jiao's prompting.
" It is based on that, only this time it would be under your direct control instead of it doing as it wants. " Jiao explained. " Unlike me though, who can preemptively figure out the shape of its form, yours will not be decided by you and for a simple reason. The Authority you will infuse into the Seed will summon a Dao's Descent. It will parse through your memories, and it will parse through every emotion and desire you have ever felt. Then it will take the most optimal and balanced option, and that will be the form it will take. "
" But you are the maker of the Seed. I doubt you would leave it like that if I consider your behavior. What did you do? "
" I placed a guideline inside it, of course. " Jiao answered. " During the Dao's Descent, the Seed will reflect your human physical body in a similar way your Ability had before. But that is not enough. We need you in full control, therefore the Seed will reflect your Root structure in minute details. That should be enough to have the Dao choose the most optimal choice for you, but as Tao Fang completed the base form of her Mantra two years ago, I understood a few more things. Therefore I adjusted the Seed for that revelation. If things happen in the way I imagined, then you will gain a Mind Core. "
" Mind Core? " Surprised, Yu Liwei repeated. " I thought it was impossible to create an additional Core after entering Foundation Establishment? "
" And it is, I think. " Yu Jiao replied with a cheeky smile. " But we are cheating here, so it should work, as it's not you who is establishing it, but the Dao's Descent. "
" Fine, I will trust you on this. Here is the next question. "
***
Yuan Ru, still on the ground, observed everybody posing around that small blurred area in the sky.
All of them were silent and stared at each other and all of them had one thing in common, including him.
All of them had tried to have their Divine Sense penetrate that blurred area of space and all of them failed.
The others paid it little mind, but Yuan Ru could not do so as he was so far above everybody here in Cultivation, it would take but his pinky pointing in their way to dominate them and that included his Divine Sense.
After he examined the two barriers the girl had set up, only the way they worked intrigued him for a bit, at least before he tried to penetrate and look inside them.
That was when he encountered a different kind of barrier.
It wasn't even that strong but he could not penetrate stealthy, no matter how he tried.
He could destroy it. But that would be a foolish idea as the barrier was set by a Child of the Heavens, and they could take slights for the weirdest of reasons if his experiences were anything to go by.
Waiting just like anybody else was the only choice for him, yet his mind was consumed by one more thing.
Re-assemble the Bloodline Ability, and diverge the Bloodline. These were the words that consumed most of his attention.
" I know of a few ways to diverge one's bloodline but I know only one that has to do with a Domain. Could it be that they dont know of the consequences of doing it that way? Either way, this needs to be added to my collection. " Yuan Ru nodded to himself.
With a thought of his, a crystal globe, half the size of his right hand appeared.
In it, he sent part of his Divine Sense and initiated a Mind Spiritual Art called Chronicles Memory.
With it, the crystal globe would store everything his Divine Sense could observe, to the tiniest details for later perusal, and it was just on time as the barriers vanished.
The young girl distanced herself from her father and the old healer showed a tired face as if he were a mortal and had overworked himself.
The man in question was still in a meditation pose, only now he had a sword made out of Jade placed horizontally on his lap.
He tapped on the sword with his right forefinger and closed his eyes.
It took but a few moments later for the sign of Domain Manifestation to show.
" Can't wait to report this to my Senior Sister, if he survives, that is! " Yuan Ru proclaimed with glee. " There is no way she will reject me with something this juicy. Umm… I shall call it; Jade Rebellion? "