Inside the inn, Long Jingyi was meditating and cultivating, trying to consolidate his foundation because he made a minor breakthrough in the domain. His cultivation was faster than his peers, but he did not feel like it was enough.
He always felt like he should be stronger than he was.
Moreover, his father had revealed a vague clue about cultivation before abandoning him at the Hallowflame Academy. The clue haunted him and made him want to become the strongest, so he could reach where common cultivators could not.
His father told him: No one would achieve Godhood on the Obsidian Continent because they did not understand the immensity of the world.
After that, his father told him that he was leaving Obsidian and going to another place, and if chance allowed, they would meet again. Long Jingyi understood his father's personality. He was an adventurer who was always looking for the next thrill.
He was always searching for something.
But he was never one to lie.
Long Jingyi wanted to see how far he could go in cultivation even if he never ultimately reached Godhood. That meant he could not stay on his home continent forever. He needed to go outside and experience the so-called immensity of the world as his father spoke about.
On the Obsidian Continent, cultivation could begin at any age.
Of course, there were detriments to starting the process too early or too late.
If the child was too young, the cultivation process would hurt their bodies and cause physical developmental issues. In simple terms, it was like forcing a small and fragile vessel to hold a mighty flood without breaking. Even if the vessel did not break, it would be damaged.
On the other hand, if the person was too old, their meridians would become too stiff to allow for exponential growth. An older person could become strong, but it would be an uphill battle to progress because they would be doing something that felt unnatural.
Therefore, the Obsidian Continent encouraged cultivation to begin at the age of thirteen because it was the age when the body would change and grow fast. The goal was to sink up cultivation with the development of the adult body to maximise results.
However, it is important to note that talent can be tested at any age. Talent was the potential for the growth of a cultivator. If someone had strong cultivation talent, they could become a powerhouse that changed the course of history.
Weak talent meant that the person would only be a little stronger than those who did not cultivate at all.
Most families and clans would test the cultivation talent of their children when they were below five years old for one simple reason: to determine if they should invest resources in them. If someone was a cultivation waste, they would be neglected immediately.
With the former Emperor's reforms, parents did not dare to kill or abandon their talentless children carelessly. In the ages before that, it was one of the most common practices, even among the aristocratic families.
Usually, the poorer people would kill their untalented offspring because it was a waste of food and money to raise a child that would not benefit them in the future. In their minds, it was better to keep trying until a gem appeared.
For aristocratic families, it was all about their honour. Most felt that having a child who could not cultivate and become a true powerhouse was causing them to lose face. So, even if they could afford to feed and clothe a child, they would throw any waste away.
Talent was usually measured using a Testing Stone made by alchemists. The quality of the stone could differ because of the materials and cost as well as the level of the mage who made it. Most commoner clans could only afford a simple Testing Stone without numerical indicators.
During the evaluation, the Testing Stone would light up in different colours when measuring the potential of a target. The specific colour emitted from the white stone would indicate the element to which they had the most affinity.
For instance, the red, yellow and orange hues would indicate affinity with fire elements while blues would be more water-oriented. Greens and browns were considered to be under the earth element while colours like violet and purple were associated with thunder.
However, some unique shades could be difficult to pin down with regard to affinity, and some colours were mixed and entangled in the testing stone.
In the olden days, people believed that those with a pure colour were the most talented because they had one basic spiritual root. In most cases, that was true. But the thought changed when one of the concubines of the former emperor showed great power with an aurora palette.
Still, pure hues remained the most popular.
The intensity of the light from a Testing Stone would indicate the potential of each person. Better quality products had a scale from zero to nine, but most cheap ones would just show brightness, allowing people to judge the value of the talent for themselves.
Long Jingyi had a rare talent, rated at eight with a perfect pure colour that blended a unique colour made of yellow and red. With that level of talent, he was destined for greatness and countless masters wanted to recruit him, especially after they discovered his unique fire element was the sun plasma.
However, his progress was delayed because he chose to continue travelling with his father and experience life. It was not until he was seventeen, almost eighteen, that his father unceremoniously declared his intentions to depart the continent and left him at Hallowflame Academy.
That incident was over five years ago, and he had progressed exponentially as a cultivator. But it just did not feel like it was enough. He wanted to get stronger and faster and discover the secret of cultivation that his father hinted at.
As Long Jingyi continued to cultivate in the little room at the inn, he heard a low gurgling croak coming from his window. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and stood from the hard floor. He looked to the window and found a dark bird already in his room.
The window remained closed.
He was familiar with the spiritual beast as he was with most creatures.
It was an Umbra Envoy Raven.
Long Jingyi frowned because these spiritual beasts were rare and hard to catch, let alone tame for use. They lived in the shadows, literally. As long as there was a shadow, they could disappear into it and travel within it at an incredible speed.
This characteristic made them valuable as messengers, but only an expert could get one unless the beast itself decided to befriend a person. That was highly unlikely. Therefore, the presence of the bird in his room could only mean that someone sent it.
Long Jingyi approached the bird and held his hand. After a light sniff of his hand, the ravel regurgitated a small white scroll into his hand. It was fortunate that the paper was not wet. The tiny scroll was light, but it felt heavy in his hand.
He opened the scroll with care and found a message written in a delicate script in gold on the thick white paper.
{The royal envoy of the Obsidian Continent under Princess Xuefeng requests assistance from Long Jingyi of Hallowflame Academy in investigating an incident at the Five Villages, north of Riverside. Please gather two or three more capable cultivators to assist in the quest. Prince Zhizhao will be leading this undertaking. Make haste.}
Long Jingyi frowned.
What could have happened?
And why was he getting involved?