Halfway to my chambers, an old man blocked my path. I could feel his strength. I could feel his anger. However, my bodyguards immediately stood in front of me, enveloped in power no less than his.
"Out of the way! I'll personally smear this brat!" he barked, but they didn't move.
"We have orders from the head!" they answered in unison. The old man clenched his jaw, and I felt the pressure of his power intensify.
"Answer me, you worthless creature, what trick did you use? Our family amulet couldn't have been destroyed by techniques from a weakling like you!"
"Is that what concerns you? Not Ho's death, but how I overcame your precious amulet?" I smirked.
"You little bastard... I should have strangled you in childhood when I had the chance!" he spat on the pristine palace floor and walked away.
Anger began to rise within me. How much more of this! I just want to sit and cultivate in peace and quiet. To become stronger, to see this absolutely new world! But everyone wants something from me. Was that technique worth everyone wanting to kill you, Kai? And from somewhere deep in my soul came the understanding—the technique had nothing to do with it. It was just an excuse to stop holding back and remove masks. Another revelation made me think and sigh heavily.
A surprise awaited me in my chambers. Almost all my clothes had disappeared somewhere, replaced by red and white hanfu without any patterns. The fabric had also changed—instead of silk, it was now cotton.
"You are no longer part of the Phoenix sect, so you can't wear their colors," my guard explained. So, let's note, the sect has a patent on red and black.
When I was woken up in the middle of the night and led in an unknown direction, I thought I was being taken to my execution. I was being led by the twins, silently, and when I attempted to escape, they reacted at a speed invisible to my eye by putting a blade woven from fire to my throat.
However, contrary to my expectations, they didn't lead me to an execution or torture chamber, but to a spacious and quite beautifully furnished hall. Inside, it smelled pleasantly of incense, and behind a massive red wood table sat the head of the Shen clan, who was also my father.
"Sit down, Kai Shen. We have a difficult conversation ahead," he waved his hand, pointing to the chair opposite. "Tea?"
"I won't refuse," I nodded, catching a pleasant aroma. I wasn't afraid of poisons—if he wanted to kill me, he would have done it long ago.
Kao Shen reached for an elegant porcelain teapot and personally poured the drink into two cups. He pushed one towards me. This is probably considered a great honor, but I didn't care. Local traditions had somehow passed me by, so I just nodded gratefully and sipped the drink.
"This is the most delicious tea I've ever tasted," I couldn't help but compliment. No, there wasn't a drop of spiritual power in the tea, I checked specifically. "What's the secret?"
"Does everything have to have a secret?" he raised an eyebrow. "When you live as long as I have, you inevitably learn how to brew tea properly. The main thing is to find the right variety. And control the heat during brewing, of course."
"Is there really a special technique for brewing tea?" I was genuinely surprised.
"You'd be surprised, but yes. A technique of the heavenly rank, for which the Dragon and Tiger sects once waged war. Unfortunately, I don't possess it, so I make do with simple control of fire Qi," he sipped his drink. "By the way, congratulations on your victory. Won't you tell me why you refused to finish off Ho?"
"I am merciful, as befits a righteous Taoist," I shrugged. "Is that bad?"
"It's bad to show weakness in front of thousands of spectators," Kao Shen sharply changed his tone. Steel cut through his voice. To his credit, he didn't pressure me with force, as all the locals love to do. I appreciated that.
"They already despise me. They want to kill me. Let them now start to underestimate me too. Trust me, they're in for a big surprise."
"Excuses," he frowned. "You've always been sharp-tongued, even when it was out of place. By the way, restraint is also a virtue."
"This practitioner is just beginning to comprehend the Dao," I smiled, taking another sip. Delicious.
"You're surprisingly calm for a person in your position," the man sitting in front of me drawled. "Perhaps due to ignorance?"
Saying this, he fell silent and looked into my eyes. It seems he's waiting for questions from me? Fine, let him wait. There's still plenty of tea, the chair is comfortable, I have nothing to do, so he'll have to wait a long time. The pause dragged on. He was the first to break.
"It seems you've become even more insufferable. Apparently, along with the techniques, all your upbringing has evaporated from you," he shook his head. "Do you see the map? Do you know what's wrong with it?"
There was indeed a huge map hanging on the wall. All the lands on it were divided into three colors—red, blue, and purple. Phoenix, dragon, and tiger, I read the inscriptions. The three zones were also divided into various areas, with inscriptions like "Mountain Stream Sect" or "Fort of Darkness". A political map? Well, it turns out I'm in one of the three most powerful sects of this world. Or more precisely—I was.
"The minus of this map is that you can't understand the real scale from it?" I suggested.
"Hm, you're right," he glanced at me. "But no. The main drawback is that this map is incomplete. Our world is too vast to be depicted on a piece of paper."
After this statement, he fell silent again. Decided to continue playing this game? No, I'm not interested in that. If he wants to, he'll tell me himself. Meanwhile, I had accumulated too many other questions.
"Honorable head, your goons said that techniques can be removed from the locuses. Could you enlighten me on the details?" I asked the question that had been bothering me. Although the Dance of Embers technique had saved me, it was frankly weak, unpromising. Even the system showed that it couldn't be developed.
"Decided to squeeze everything out of me? You know, maybe there's still hope for you. But explain, did you really ask Shocho for advice?" his eyebrows crawled up. Hm, and why did it seem to me that he combined their name into one?
"You yourself assigned this practitioner to me. Surely he couldn't have disobeyed the head's order and somehow harmed me?" I grinned, remembering the pile of setups my brothers had pushed me into.
"He is a powerful demon, imprisoned by me in two bodies. His malicious nature is firmly bound by chains of spirit, but even so, he strives to distort and violate any order. He didn't lie, you can indeed get rid of the secondary technique. It's just too dangerous and there's a huge risk of destroying both the locus and the cultivation."
"You mean to say that all the setups were his personal initiative?" I couldn't help but chuckle.
"Don't ask questions you don't want to get answers to," he grinned. And there was something very familiar about the expression on his face. I make that face myself periodically! Indeed, family. And this led me to another thought.
"Father," I drawled. "Would you mind telling me why half the sect calls me a bastard?"
"That's not a question I'm ready to discuss with you," his face seemed to turn into an icy mask. "At least, not yet. Ask me again if you can form a spirit core. However, it's unlikely we'll see each other before that moment. More tea?"
I nodded gratefully. Sho and Cho are a demon. And one demon at that. This explains the oddities in spiritual perception. And he also set me up with the technique. Would I have used it if I had known I couldn't change it? Damn you, yes! I simply had no other choice! If it wasn't for it, I wouldn't be sitting here drinking tea now, but lying as a pile of ashes in the middle of the arena! And what secrets are there about my origin? However, the noble head of the sect again decided to remain silent. Hundreds of questions were on the tip of my tongue, but I didn't ask them. He called me for something, right? Let him tell me himself.
"It won't be easy to take the twelfth rank of Qi concentration," he suddenly said. "Perhaps even more difficult than transitioning to the meridian stage. But I'll be greatly disappointed in you if you don't manage. To waste such potential in vain is to go against the will of Heaven. Although in your place, I wouldn't get cocky. The Concentration stage is dust. Just in my lifetime, many thousands of practitioners showed much greater promise and most of them vanished into the abyss of history."