The day he was discovered to have a 5-pronged spiritual core was the starting point of his bright future.
The 5-branched spirit core is a rare phenomenon that has not been seen for many centuries. Among 10,000 people, there is only a 0.01% chance that someone possesses this kind of talent.
With few resources, the person can show a cultivation speed five times faster than that of people who have very good talent and sufficient resources.
A cultivator can only counter up to 3 elements according to his spirit core, which in many cases makes it difficult to master all of them at the same time. However, as the name suggests, the one Xie Ren possesses allowed him to control these 5 elements casually.
That is why, as soon as the news reached the Lu Family Patriarch and the other leaders of the major powers.
Patriarch Lu, outraged by the situation of his family's relationship with them, asked his daughter to arrange things to lure Xie Ren into their camp no matter what.
Lu Lin, conflicted by this situation, tried with regret and some hope to repair her relationship with Xie Ren. She started with chance encounters, then with small beauty tricks and excuses, saying that she was forced to follow her family's will and had to marry against her will to reduce the "pressure" exerted on her family by the other sect, despite some small difficulties at the beginning, she managed to make progress in convincing her family to get closer to her and to transform her relationship into that of a close friend.
Thus, several months passed during which Xie Ren, having become a member of the sect, distinguished himself thanks to his successful raids and his incredible prowess shown in the various youth activities and competitions, which brought glory and resources to his sect.
Upon hearing the news from her supposed fiancé, Pei Huan, angry at this situation, decided with her father to organize a meeting between elders. During the match against Xie Ren, she launched a sneak attack that endangered Xie Ren's life. However, thanks to Xie Ren's prowess, he managed to deflect the attack, but did not come out completely unscathed, due to an injury in his core that caused a kind of qi deviation.
Injured in his cultivation, but not losing hope on his journey, he continued to seek to heal his cultivation to regain his former power and return to beat Pei Huan in order to reveal what he did, that is to say the sneaky blow that was dealt to him during the fight.
Unfortunately, all attempts to recover were in vain, no matter the resources provided by his own efforts or those offered by the Lu family.
He had already tried to tell the truth about the battle, but this attempt was in vain. No one believed or bothered to believe him, for fear of offending the Pei family. Over time, even the Lu family began to treat him with less and less respect, until they considered him a useless piece of trash, except for Lu Lin, his only friend.
This attitude continued for a month, until one day a huge beam of white light pierced the heavens, accompanied by a huge icy spiritual power at the immortal level was struck by all the small and large forces.
From the moment of this phenomenon, many powers that became aware of the significance rushed en masse to appropriate as much as possible, because indeed, this beam of light marks the creation of an inheritance site. Given the spiritual power that is emitted, it is likely that it is at the immortal level.
Inheritance is a site, like a grave, when a cultivator dies and wishes for everything he owns and believes to be passed on to future generations by designating a successor according to many conditions and rules set by the owner of the place.
And this inheritance beam was no exception to this rule from the moment many forces became aware of the criteria, the first being the age threshold allowed. A competition between the geniuses of the younger generation took place.
Xie Ren, who heard this news from the family master, and was invited to join the group, was very grateful and excited at the prospect of being able to explore a city of inheritance and perhaps find a way to heal his long-standing injuries.
With his senses sharpened by his core, despite his injuries, he was able to bring the expedition group led by Lu Lin with the minimum of injuries and casualties possible to the final stage of the Hall of Inheritance.
However, as soon as Xie Ren turned around to consult the group on their next move, a spirit sword was implanted into his body. While he was still in shock from the events, a delicate, slender hand resembling pure jade penetrated his body sharply and cruelly tore out, without hesitation in its movements, his five-pronged spirit core that he had carefully nurtured for all these years.
Shocked by the course of events and the incredible gravity etched on his face, Xie Ren looked at the person he had, in the past, decided to dedicate his life to, grotesquely and violently removing his heart.
"Why?" he said, his eyes empty like a bottomless abyss, devoid of the usual warmth, accompanied by a certain bloody redness.
The owner of the hand, Lu Lin, trembled a little when she noticed that unfamiliar gaze, but forced herself to give a calm and stoic answer, but also one with a hint of pity.
Sorry, I'm really sorry, Xie Ren, but you have to try to understand me. I had no choice, the war of millennia has cost us too much and this inheritance is the only way for our clan to maintain its status and even bring it back to its former glory. The only way to open it is through a core blood of a similar type to that of the owner of the inheritance, therefore to you. I'm sorry, but you can understand it, right?
The sect supported you with all the help possible, so it's only right for you to repay it. It's the duty of every disciple. Isn't it? If it weren't for the sect, you would have died long ago, right?
Lu Lin's gaze at Xie Ren changed from pity to a request for understanding, then to a flash of smile with a hint of madness and disdain, as if sacrificing himself for the sake of his sect was an honor.
Xie Ren looked at him with a gaze as if he no longer recognized this person or had never fully known him since the very beginning.
"Only the strong can live in this cruel world and have respect." This sentence made perfect sense in Xie Ren's mind at that moment.
Xie Ren swallowed his rage and prepared to turn around and escape.