A few months passed by as the daily mundane routine reigns over the clan.
It had been 5 years since Xing Lao picked Long Ren up from his miserable life.
All 5 years were mostly filled with mundane cultivation things, some traumatic experiences splashed here and there and the friends and families he made along the way.
He got over Nid's departure rather quickly…maybe, it was just a short month.
He got over it by thinking that they will, sooner or later, meet again…hopefully.
She did leave him with a cryptic message of "Say hi to my kids if you meet them since I might die and all~,", but other than that, it's all good.
Probably.
He just needs to get stronger. Strong enough to tear a giant portal through the sky and into her supposedly higher realm. No biggie. His system will be there to help him after all, right?
Apparently not, as his pulls are just foods after foods after foods, oh, and then there are also foods. Oh, have I already mentioned foods?
At least when he reunited with Nid, whenever that is, she will be having a grand feast.
Sometimes, Long Ren really wished the gacha system had a pity system implemented in it. He tried asking the system if it does but it always denied to answer. Sadge.
No matter. He's currently 17 years old. An average cultivator with Long Ren's potential can live up to 300 at the bare minimum. That's a minimum of 99.645 daily pulls. He was bound to receive something good with that amount of pulls.
Surely…right? Right.
Though, he hoped he would be able to reach Nid sooner than that.
And then, after that, maybe he can start planning his way back to his home world, earth.
He always occupied his thoughts with ways to return to earth, to his family. But, he could not remember any transmigrated novel he read that allowed the MC to return.
He hoped to be able to return, but it was and is an unattainable goal. At least until Nid clawed her way back into her home world. That gave him a glimmer of hope. Hope to do the same and return to his home.
If she could do it, why could he not? Many reasons honestly, but in the end, power is everything. As long as he grows stronger, stronger than Nid, stronger than the laws of the world…everything will be possible.
If he couldn't…then, he would simply be sad. He missed his old family dearly, he really does, but…He didn't even remember how he died.
How he got into Long Ren's body. How he suddenly got chosen by Truck–kun…maybe, He didn't know.
His memories stopped right before he left his house, leaving for school. As if the door of his house turned into a portal to Long Ren's body.
He had not tasted death, yet here he is.
~
*Knock-Knock*
…
*Knock-Knock*
…
…
"Who dares disturb this young master's beauty sleep this frivolously! Do you not know who my Master is!!!", is what Long Ren felt like, but didn't dare to say, afraid of what he will become if he ever uttered such nonsense.
Long Ren slowly got out of his futon, store it in, and walked towards the door. His clothes crumpled, his hair messy and his eyes weakly opened.
A very unkempt man, if you will.
But that didn't stop Long Ren from opening the door, only to meet three figures greeting him.
One of them sighed at Long Ren's lazy appearance, while another chuckled lightly while the last one smiled, though her cheeks twitched, a bit annoyed.
The one who sighed, Xing Lao, quickly grabbed Long Ren inside while slightly apologizing to the other two.
He turned Long Ren into a somewhat acceptable state and brought the other two guests in.
They sat upon a larger table Xing Lao brought out and sipped in each other's respective cups.
Long Ren finally woke up from his half-asleep state and looked at the two guests, not minding the weird stares they gave.
One of them was an older lady with a forced smile adorning her charming features. She wore what seems to be a grand elder robe, the same one his Master wore.
Her figures are quite appealing to Long Ren, but he digresses. He had not seen quite a lot of human women in a while, much less let one out.
At this point, any woman would look appealing in his eyes. Though, she does have a charm of an older lady, befitting of her mature age.
The other person sitting beside her looks to be a woman of his age, around 16-17. Her face wore a confused smile as she stared at Long Ren, though, she looked cute even with that as he kept staring at her.
"Ah… Yun Ning!" Long Ren said, popping his fist on his open palm.
Yun Ning showed a wry smile. "You just realized that now?" she said, a bit perplexed at his slow realization.
Long Ren scratched his cheek. "Well, I was sleepy then."
"It's 2 pm…on a Tuesday,"
"Potato Potaato, I'm just a heavy sleeper." Long Ren said as he waved his hand in dismissal.
"I know that…but, I didn't expect this. Why do you think we visited you at 2 pm instead of 11 am?"
"..."
"...So, what brings you to my humble abode?" Long Ren asked, wanting to swerve off the conversation. Although he did not mind them seeing him like this, it still felt awkward.
Xing Lao held his head down in silence as the older lady kept staring at him weirdly. Her face didn't let out any of her thoughts, but Long Ren felt like she didn't like him very much, or maybe disappointed.
"We came here to visit you, seeing that we were acquaintances and now, both grand elder's personal disciples," Yun Ning said and showed a gentle smile towards her supposed teacher, trying to lift up the mood.
Seeing her student's efforts, she sighed. "I…really did not expect you to let him be, how to say, this lazy, Xing Lao." She said. But, contrary to her expectations, Xing Lao countered,
"It's fine, he gets the job done. He's currently rank-7, he joined only 5 years ago. All geniuses have their own antics right?" He said as pride swells up in his heart.
Long Ren, by definition, is almost a perfect student. He absorbs knowledge quickly, he rarely disobeys his master, he knows his own bottom line, and best of all, he's a genius.
A little eccentricity such as an overwhelmingly stupid amount of love towards sleeping is negligible.
He could hibernate all winter for all Xing Lao cared, as long as Long Ren did not neglect his duties as a student, he's a-okay with everything.
Yun Ning's teacher looked surprised. "Really? I suppose he's not half bad then…yes, not bad indeed." Her teacher said while nodding to herself, thinking about something the room could not tell what.
While she lived in her own world, Long Ren looked at Yun Ning and asked.
"Were you always a grand elder's disciple? I've never heard of another grand elder besides my master before…"
"Oh, when we first met, I was still an inner disciple, but after that, I met master and she took me in, as for your other question, I don't know much either," Yun Ning answered
Her teacher seems to have her thoughts sorted out and joined in on the conversation.
"I usually traveled around the nation and only came back two years ago. Seeing that I'm acquainted with your founder's son's wife's brother, I got assigned the role of Grand Elder, considering my strength and all."
Long Ren's face showed a wry smile, what kind of shady shit is this. How can someone assume the role of a grand elder just from that farfetched of a connection…Something seems off.
But, if the clan decided on that, she must be quite trustworthy. From his observations, the clan's higher-ups seem to be quite a close-knit bunch. For all, or most of them to agree on this must counts for something.
Nonetheless, Long Ren quickly changed his smile into an O expression.
Time soon pass as they talked with each other. Their purpose of the visit today was to only greet one another, considering he went basically off the grid for two years. Only Xing Lao really knew where and what he did.
One thing led to another and Yun Ning's teacher, Diona, asked for a spar between the two of them. Yun Ning and Long Ren both agreed.
Yun Ning had grown quite a bit since they last met, both physically and cultivation-wise. Her 180 cm figure, though not stunning, looked quite attractive, especially for a growing boy like Long Ren. She still had her petite stature, but now more pronounced.
Her face still looked cute to the eyes and her ponytail stayed at the same length. Having too long of a hair does burden cultivators after all.
And she is currently a rank-9 cultivator, quite a fast pace. Diona chose her for a reason after all.
She will be limiting her output to a rank-7 cultivator. They wanted a spar, not a one-sided punch out.
But even then, Long Ren believed he could still give Yun Ning a run for her money. He knew his strength is off the charts.
After all, He didn't get tortured by Nid just for recreational purposes.
They decided to conduct the spar at private training grounds. Long Ren felt having as few people knowing his power as possible would be the best. No one seemed to have any problem with it as well.
(A/N: Powerstones please .3.)