In the Celestial Mountain Empire, Emperor Zhao Guangxu was a powerful cultivator, standing at the mid-stage of the Tribulation Rank. Despite his immense power, he had struggled for years to produce an heir; nothing had worked. Until today.
...
The sky rumbled.
In a room packed with servants—all of whom were skilled cultivators—a woman was giving birth.
"One more push!" urged a female cultivator at the Nascent Soul Realm.
The woman gathered her strength and pushed once more. Finally, the baby—much larger than an ordinary newborn—emerged.
The servants took the baby, who was fine and healthy, but the mother was not.
"She's dying!" The Nascent Soul cultivator cast a healing spell, but it didn't work; the woman's life force was slipping away.
...
Leo, now a newborn, looked around with a mixture of astonishment and realization. "I was... reborn?" he thought.
"Her Majesty is dying!" The Nascent Soul cultivator tried desperately to stop the bleeding, but the curse placed by a powerful Void Refining cultivator on the emperor seemed to have taken its toll.
Looking at his birth mother, Leo decided to help. The system's power was clearly more overwhelming than he had imagined; even if he died again, it could revive him.
"Wait, maybe there's a limit on the number of reincarnations? Or maybe I could only reincarnate because of my A+ rating?" He hesitated briefly, but the thought of letting his mother die didn't sit well with him.
Opening his Skillstore, he bought a powerful healing skill and maxed it out. Then, he used it silently on his mother without anyone noticing.
To everyone's astonishment, the empress's condition began to improve rapidly. Within seconds, her bleeding stopped, and she regained consciousness.
"What happened?" she asked, dazed.
The Nascent Soul cultivator was dumbfounded, at a complete loss.
"Where is my boy?" Emperor Guangxu demanded, entering the room. Royal etiquette required him to wait outside while his concubine gave birth, but impatience got the better of him.
"Your Majesty!" everyone bowed as the nurse holding the newborn handed him to his father.
Leo looked at his new world's father—a clean-shaven man with golden eyes and a powerful aura. In his current body, Leo felt he could hardly resist that aura.
"Are my summoning cards still there?" Leo quickly checked his system and grinned. He had 1 Ultimate Summon Card, 1 Super, 14 Ultra, 99 Mythic, 999 Legendary, and 9,990 Heavenly cards. He had no idea how powerful these cards were in this world, but they had to offer at least some level of protection.
Emperor Guangxu looked at the boy, who, though only minutes old, smiled up at him.
"My boy has innate intelligence! This is a cause for celebration!" he announced loudly, breaking into hearty laughter.
There are few who are aware of their surroundings from the moment of birth; these babies usually don't cry and can recognize their parents right after they are born.
"Feng Yu, my precious, see your child!" The emperor handed the baby to his concubine.
Looking the baby up and down, Concubine Feng Yu couldn't restrain herself and broke out in tears. Even as a cultivator of the Core Formation realm, giving birth to the emperor's baby had been a torturous process lasting over three years! Looking at the baby, her tears stopped; with this child, she now felt like a tiger with wings.
The Celestial Mountain Empire is one of the five major countries in the world. In addition to the emperor in the Tribulation stage, there are many royal ancestors in the Void refining stage, and even a royal protector in the Half-Step Celestial Ascendance stage.
Cultivation realms in this world start from Qi Condensation, followed by Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, Tribulation, Void Refining, and Celestial Ascendance. Those who truly break through Celestial Ascendance will be unable to continue living in this lower world and must ascend to the upper world. The Celestial Mountain Empire has ancestors of realms above Celestial Ascendance in the upper world, but those are too distant for the branch of the Celestial Mountain Empire in this lower world.
"Your Majesty, our child is truly extraordinary!" She was genuinely impressed by the baby's performance so far; he hadn't cried at all, and only smiled and looked around with curiosity.
"He may be the reincarnation of an immortal!" the emperor said excitedly. In very rare cases, even immortals may fall and reincarnate in the lower world. Raising a fallen immortal as one's son is an extreme fortune and luck; such individuals are guaranteed to rise high and are bound by karma to repay their parents.
"As your parent, I will name you Zhao Xuanyuan!" The emperor chose a name suitable for the suspected reincarnation of an immortal from the higher world.
Not all children with spiritual wisdom are reincarnations of immortals, but all reincarnations of immortals have spiritual wisdom from the moment of birth. What's more, the emperor had seen how the injuries on Feng Yu healed mysteriously; it was an amazing ability that even left him impressed. He couldn't detect whether the child was the one who did it, but there was no one else, and he chose to believe it was probably the child.
...
Leo was guarded all the time by many guards and hundreds of maids and servants. Each and every one of his needs was met with absolute care. Once, he became dirty and cried to alert the servants to clean him. As a result, the Emperor beheaded a hundred servants and their families. After that incident, Leo didn't dare to cry anymore; the servants were good to him, and he didn't want to cause their deaths for no reason.
"Why is there no skill to speed up my growth?" he wondered. After being reborn, the skill store had changed completely; even after browsing through it for days, he found no skill to help him grow up fast. In his current body, he felt completely helpless.
"It can't be! I must have at least a heavenly knight to protect me! Who knows, a servant or a spy may want to kill me from a foreign empire or sect!" he thought. Surrounded by so many servants, he knew he couldn't summon help without anyone noticing, but he felt he had no choice.
"Let's try with a weak summon first!" Leo decided.
Beside the high-grade summons, he also had accumulated thousands of low-grade summons. After the Infinite Knight incident and the gift box, he no longer bothered summoning knights; after all, with a super knight, using a few chicken-level normal troops was a waste of time.
Now, he had over three thousand ordinary summon cards, 102 knight summon cards, 5 great knight summon cards, 2 silver knight summon cards, and one golden knight summon card. This did not count his 9,999 heavenly summon cards, 990 legendary summon cards, 99 mythic summon cards, 14 ultra summon cards, 1 super summon card, and 1 ultimate summon card.
"I have no idea about the power system of this world; to be on the safe side, let's summon a silver knight for a test!" he decided.
...
Even though he was never left alone, there were times when fewer people were around him, such as late at night.
"Summon a silver knight!" he ordered.
With a flash of blue light, an old man with a wrinkled face, dressed in Taoist robes, appeared.
"If he is a knight?" Leo was taken aback; it seemed that with the change in the world, the shapes and clothes of his summons had also changed.
"Master!" the old man kneeled.
"AAAAAA!" The servants who saw an old man appear out of nowhere right beside the prince all screamed, creating a commotion.
Leo didn't pay attention to them and looked at the details of the old man.
Name: Liang Qingyun
Age: 850
Cultivation: Mid-stage of Nascent Soul.
"Quite old!" Leo thought.
With his current body, Leo couldn't really talk, but he had a skill store, so a few days ago, he bought a skill called Vocal Communication, and since then, he has been able to use the spell to speak.
But before he could say anything, an invisible hand tore off the floor and grabbed the old man, taking him away. Obviously, it was an imperial guard, probably in a higher realm than Nascent Soul.
A moment later, Leo felt as if his connection with the summon was severed.
"He was killed so quickly!" Leo thought, and again summoned another knight, this time one of heavenly rank!
With a flash of red light, another old man appeared, bowing and saying, "Master!"
Leo quickly looked at the details of his new summon.
Name: Chen Xuanfeng
Age: 5,211
Realm: Early stage of Void Refining
"Good!" Leo thought. He didn't know how strong the Void Refining realm was, but at least in the previous world, a heavenly rank was something capable of easily destroying a kingdom. If the people here could easily kill a heavenly rank, he would be terrified.
"Who is this fellow daoist?" Suddenly, a vast aura emerged, trying to take Leo away. But it was stopped by Chen Xuanfeng, who saw it as his most important duty to protect his master.
"What should I do, Master?" Chen Xuanfeng asked Leo.
"Just wait a moment!" Leo responded.
...
An old woman in the sky, one of the ancestors of the royal family, saw this scene and frowned. Using the royal capital's protective formation, it should not be difficult to crush this mysterious Void Refining cultivator that suddenly appeared, but she didn't do it. Void Refining cultivators are very hard to kill, and if she attacked and this Void Refining cultivator ran away, it would be a disaster for the royal family. High-level cultivators never fight unless there is no way to achieve peace.
...
"Summon an ultra-rank knight!" Leo ordered. Now that he was sure there was no issue with the summons, he decided to summon a high-ranking knight for better protection.
With a flash of pink light, another old man appeared.
Leo quickly looked at the details.
Name: Wang Xuanwei
Age: 1,552,300
Cultivation Realm: Ethereal Mastery (restricted down to Half-Step Celestial Ascendance)
"Master!" the old man kneeled.