"Fated? What do you mean by that?" Each words he exchanged with this weird ball only made him more and more bamboozled.
"What else could it mean except that it was predetermined?" The bead said like it was the most obvious thing.
"And what this "remnants" even mean?" He further questioned.
"It meant exactly how it sound. I was a remnants of a once great cultivator." The bead explained in a flat tone.
'Yeah. That certainly helped me understand.' Li Kong dared not to voice his words openly lest he heard "off with your head" but still grumpily complained in his heart.
The bead watched Li Kong, who couldn't hide his displeased face properly, and sighed.
"Imagine a ball of glass. That ball of glass was the great cultivator. Now imagine the ball shattered by a hammer. After it shattered, it would leave behind little pieces. Pick up one of the pieces and that is what I am."
Li Kong was enlightened and clapped at the explanation.
"What's the name of the great cultivator?" He asked curiously.
"Learning it now will bring you more harm than good." The bead flat out refused.
"Oh..." Li Kong felt a little disappointed.
"But you can call him White." The bead continued its words.
"Great cultivator White." Li Kong murmured the name almost reverently.
Suddenly he realized about something and tried to recall his memories of that something but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't reach it.
Li Kong creased his eyebrows and dove as deeply as he could to his memories but to no avail, it ended futilely.
He gasped for breath and wore a confused look.
"Why, why I can't remember?" Li Kong felt something strange. Something very strange. Not even five minutes had passed since he awoke from that vivid dream and he couldn't recall anything at all?
Li Kong felt like a part of his heart had gone with that dream. He gripped his chest at the sense of nothingness.
"The "scenes" you have seen before was the memories of White and I've sealed the memories deep inside of your mind." The bead calmly responded.
"Why?" His voice shaky.
"Because if I don't, a tiny fragment of the great cultivator White would awaken inside of you and replaced your entire being and live inside of your body." The bead stated.
What? was what Li Kong wanted to spoke out but his state of mind now was too shocked to even uttered any single word.
"Sigh... From all of the memories and you just so happened to saw the memories of that day." The voice inside of the bead mumbled in a low voice so Li Kong couldn't hear it.
"Now after hearing all of that, do you still want to remember?"
Li Kong was immediately roused from his trance and shook his head as fast as he possibly could then he thought of something and immediately asked it.
"Why did you let me saw those memories in the first place?"
"I intend to show you world beyond your knowledge but unknowingly it backfired and almost taken you."
"The world beyond my knowledge?" Li Kong's eyes glimmered at the thought. Although he couldn't remember what the scenes were clearly, he could still feel it in his heart that what he had seen was nothing but extraordinary.
The bead coughed and continued his words.
"Now back at what I was saying."
Li Kong didn't interrupt this time and let the bead continued its words.
"I was tasked by the great cultivator to roam around the world to find the fated person and to gave them an opportunity.
"I've roamed for hundreds of years and still yet to find someone fated to this encounter until now."
Li Kong subconsciously held his breath as he felt the bead staring at him.
"You are the fated one. The one who was chosen by the ■■■."
Suddenly, Li Kong felt like something just passed by his mind but couldn't made what it out exactly. He shrugged it off as nothing and raised his hand.
"I wanted to ask something." The bead gleamed before dimmed. Li Kong's eyes widened at the spectacle but quickly regained his self control and coughed.
"You said that you've been roaming for hundreds of years, right?"
"That's right."
"How come there was no one ever noticed you then?"
Li Kong recalled the scene of the bright falling star. It pierced through the dark sky of the night and left a trail of light as it divided the sky partly into two.
'I don't think someone could ever miss it even if it was in the afternoon.' Li Kong had a very hard time believing that someone could miss that practically begged-to-be-seen spectacle.
"Bright falling star? Trail of light?" The bead sounded even more confused than the one asking the question.
Li Kong, perplexed by the ball's reaction, now was staring at the ball with a slight questioning look.
'Could this be an arrangement from him? No, it couldn't be... The others hadn't said anything about it. Then what is this child talking about?' The bead fell into contemplation and after a while, it realized that Li Kong was already staring at him with a full expectant eyes.
It gulped at the child's expectation and coughed before weaved a string of lies.
"That might be the secret arrangement by White for the fated person."
Li Kong couldn't contain his excitement and jumped up and cheered at the thought being the fated person before something inside of his head clicked and he abruptly turned quiet and gazed at the bead.
"Come to think about it. I still don't know what is this "opportunity"."
Watching the puzzlement in his face, the bead smiled silently and commanded him to sit down.
"As a great cultivator, naturally White had many treasures at his disposal. Each of them could make even the talentless soared like a dragon and became the bravest warrior under the sky. Not too mention that White had personally prepared something special for the fated one. With such treasure even you yourself could easily become a brave young warrior." The bead stopped speaking and from the bead, Li Kong felt like the bead was letting out a grin.
"Now, don't you feel excited after listening to it?" The bead spoke with a teasing voice.
Li Kong nodded energetically.
The moment he heard "personally prepared" excitement already tinged inside of Li Kong ready to explode and he already fantasized about what treasure would he got.
'Would I be able to fly on a sword? Or maybe slaying a monster in one single slash? Whatever it is, I can't wait for it to come.' Li Kong couldn't held back his excitement and giggled like a little children that just received a new toys.
Watching the display of excitement in front of it made the bead felt warm. There was no greed in those glittering eyes, only pure curiosity with a tinge of impatience. It was refreshing to saw such pure unadulterated happiness after hundreds of years of life experience.
"Now." It spoke in a round manner.
"Would you rather take it yourself or let me take it for you?"
"I can take it myself?" Li Kong spoke in disbelief while pointing at himself and the bead responded with a gleam.
Li Kong's expression brighten and he nodded repeatedly in clear excitement.
"Put me on your palm and bring your other hand closer to me."
Li Kong did just what he had been told to and his hand was directly on top of the bead.
Li Kong once again observed the bead and it still looked like a pretty marble but aside from that nothing worth mentioning. That was before all of a sudden the bead turned pitch black and clusters of stars emerged from the deep of the bead's inside, trapping an entire cosmos in it.
Li Kong's mouth gaped at the sudden change of the bead as he felt like the entire night sky was right on top of his palm.
He rolled the bead around his palm and each time the bead rotated, Li Kong saw the stars inside of it move too. Li Kong's mouth was wide open as he played around with the bead.
The bead didn't interfere with his fun and waited for a little bit before explaining.
"Before the great cultivator felled, the great cultivator had connected this bead to his hidden spatial storage effectively making me a portable door to his treasury and as a door, naturally I can open it and by sticking in your hand to me, you should be able to grab the treasure."
Although Li Kong didn't fully understand what the bead was talking about, he knew that it was something extraordinary and nodded enthusiastically before he realized something important.
"How will I receive the treasure? It's not like I can stick my head inside you, right?"
"Well technically you could but the result won't be pretty." The bead replied without changing its tone.
Li Kong dared not to ask what the result was and decided to forgot the matter all in one.
The bead glowed brilliantly and the gleam of resplendent stars inside of it followed the bead and shone brighter than before. Myriad colors flooded Li Kong's vision and Li Kong was placed into a trance at the radiant beauty of the cosmos.
"Now stick in your hand." As he heard the calm voice instructed, Li Kong couldn't help but tensed his body and reached his hand toward the radiant cosmos nervously.
"Don't worry about messing up. The spatial storage didn't work like the storage your familiar with. Just let yourself flow with it and you'll find it." The bead's voice suddenly turned warm.
Li Kong ceased his nervousness and braced for anything that would waiting him as he pushed his arm forward but he suddenly stopped.
"Why do you stop?" The bead befuddled.
"I just remembered that I haven't introduced myself yet." Li Kong facepalmed.
The bead fell silent and Li Kong could feel it saying "Now you've just think about that now?" by the stare he received.
Li Kong scratched his head in embarrassment before calmly declared.
"My name is Li Kong. Nice to meet you, White!"
Although the bead was silent, Li Kong could tell that it was taken back by his words.
"Was White no good then?" Li Kong asked with concern.
"No, not at all." The bead spoke but for some reason, this time Li Kong felt that the voice became a little warmer than before.
"My name is White. Nice to meet you too, Li Kong." White replied with a warm voice.
"Now shall we continue our little treasure hunting session?"
Li Kong nodded and reached his arm to the bead.
"Woah!" Li Kong exclaimed in surprise as he watched half of his arm was swallowed by the bead in amusement.
Although he couldn't see the other half, he could sense that it was still attached to his arm but just in somewhere and honestly, his half an arm on the other side of the bead felt a little weird. No. It wasn't that he felt something that it became weird but it because he felt nothing at all on the other side.
Li Kong tried opening and closing his palm repeatedly and his face turned weird before he done the same thing with his palm that was holding the bead.
"It's different." Li Kong's voice ridden with puzzlement.
"It's because your other arm was in a vacuum of space meaning that there are no air in there. That's what make it feel so weird." White explained coolly.
"Ohhh." Li Kong opened his mouth in acknowledgement.
"Now try looking around with your hand."
Li Kong reached around the empty space for a while before he suddenly felt something grazed one of his fingers.
Within a fraction of second, his arm immediately reacted and snatched it away.
"I got something! I got something! White, I got something!" Li Kong's voice full of excitement.
"Pull it out quickly!" White didn't know if it was because of Li Kong's genuine excitement or what but all of a sudden, he couldn't help but feeling excited too.
'I wonder what he would received. If it was a treasure specially prepared by him then surely it'll be an item at the level of the highest forger throughout the heaven, right? No. Knowing about "Him", I wouldn't be surprised that he gave an ancient cultivation methods or maybe even his original cultivation methods.
'Hearing the others replies, it seemed to be some kind of things like that. But something that was certain was that it would be heaven-defying...'
All kind of possibilities was forming inside of White's mind as he watched Li Kong tried pulling the treasure out.
The awaited moment had finally came as Li Kong successfully pulled the treasure out of the bead and it shone brightly, blinding Li Kong for a moment while the bead turned back to white.
The light slowly subside and Li Kong opened his eye lid a little and it seemed like Li Kong had pulled something akin to a book. While on the other hand, White was filled with shock and awe.
'It won't be what I think it is, isn't it?'
Li Kong and White slowly directed their gaze to the characters inscribed on the book cover. Nervousness came back to strike at Li Kong and he gulped.
"The fuck?" White let out a curse while Li Kong blinked for quite a few times before rubbing his eyes.
On top of the book, inscribed the words of "A Basic Cultivation Manual and Qi Methods" and at the bottom-right of the title was written with a tiny characters that wrote "Advanced Version by yours truly, White".
Li Kong looked at the book at his hand with incredulity before turning his head towards the bead on top of his palm as if asking if this was the right treasure.
White couldn't blame Li Kong for feeling that way because he, himself, too was shocked at the revelation.
'Again!' The bead's surface turned pitch black again as stars were swirling inside of it and light immediately emerged and filled the surrounding with a bright light.
Li Kong wasn't prepared at all and let out a little gasp before quickly covering his eyes with his arm.
"My eyes!" Li Kong cried out.
After the blinding light was gone, Li Kong opened his eyes slightly and saw another item that looked like a book floating in the air before fell and hit the ground.
"Read the words, Li Kong!" White urged him.
Li Kong instantly seized the book and read the words on top of it.
"Wind Steps?" Li Kong tilted his head.
"Tch." Li Kong heard White clicking his tongue before hearing him saying,
"Again!"
Li Kong was caught off guard and asked White to wait but unfortunately,
"No! White wai-" Light immediately filled Li Kong's vision once again and throwing him into the state of blindness.
After that, the cave blinked out for a few more times.