35 YOU WAVE YOUR HAND, WE sGENIUSESs CAN ONLY CRY! (1/2)
It must be said, Xu Ling's past was a mysterious one.
Even before waking up as Cheng Hao, when he had first appeared as the blue-eyed youth he had also awoken in the body of a child. At the time, the memory-less him had then been taken care of by the Four Divine Kings, who had seemingly randomly taken him in and chosen to treat him as their own. Just like that, he had lived in their floating island in the skies without a care in the world for a few years.
At the moment that everything turned over on its head and chaos erupted, he had yet to turn ten.
According to a prophecy of a human soothsayer, the Heavenly Lord Tian would fall at the hands of one ”Not of the countless Earths, nor of the Heavens, but birthed of Reality, the fabric of both Time and Space itself”. Of course, Xu Ling, who had appeared out of nowhere, had greatly aroused Tian's suspicions.
Tian was no fool. Although he had might above anyone else, power he had stolen from the previous Heavenly Lord, Hundedth Xu, he was still extremely cautious in the way he handled matters with the Primordial Beasts. After all, he himself was no Primordial Beast. Tian was only a Heavenly Beast and had only gotten so far and successfully stolen Hundredth Xu's cultivation base through countless schemes and plots. Prior to that, he hadn't been anything special when compared to those monsters who had lived for countless years.
After being crowned as Lord of the Heavens however, he proudly displayed his newly acquired power: he used only eight fingers to separate the True Heavens of Hundredth Xu into nine, making them into the Nine Heavens of Tian! The power he showed on that day made many bow down in fear and acknowledge him as an existence that shouldn't be offended! In the years to come, he would spend no small effort in taking care of any Primordial Beasts and Heavenly Beasts that could pose a threat to him. Even the Four Primordial Emperors had been banished and bound to contracts. Their descendants too, the Four Divine Kings, had also all eventually been forced to pledge allegiance to the Nine Heavens!
As soon as the news of a young human boy 'appearing from the void under mysterious circumstances' had reached the Tyrant's ears, Tian had immediately flown to Worldlord Island, where the four Kings and Xu Ling resided. He arrived there with the intention to kill the - at the time - not yet ten year old child, intent which only grew stronger after hearing his name: of the previous Heavenly Lord, the only thing known had been a title - the 'Hundredth' -, and a name... Xu!
Finding out that the boy that had appeared at Worldslords Flying Island was also surnamed Xu, Tian was overcome with panic and fury and immediately struck a fatal blow…
Due to some unknown events however, Xu Ling survived the encounter and managed to flee, ultimately going into hiding amongst the humans. There, he lived his life as a mortal... until he met Blindlight. At the time, the blue-eyed youth had been but a mortal, yet Blindlight decided to help him out in achieving the first step as a cultivator; becoming an Inferior Stage cultivator.
To do that, he would have had to sense a Qi and absorb it into his body, whereupon he'd begin gathering Spiritual Energy; that was to build a foundation to form the Qi River in the future. However... all would depend on which Qi he would manage to sense! At that time, Xu Ling was parentless, penniless, and had neither a scripture like many sects would, nor - to his knowledge - a special bloodline like some clans did, that would help him get a high-quality Sensed Qi.
Fortunately, Blindlight had come to the rescue, using a special method to forcefully aid him in sensing his own Qi, known with the name Golden Gates of Old. As for its quality... it ranked amongst the top few hundred or so known Qi's. It was not bad at all, considering Xu Ling's situation at the time.
There was one shortcoming however.
Blindlight's Sensed Qi was simply too ancient and mysterious and did not match the requirements of most modern techniques, making Xu Ling able to learn a very pitiful number of cultivation magics. This had caused the young Xu Ling countless headaches, as he would be forced to study magics and change them around to suit him first before being able to use them.
Fortunately however, he was lucky enough for his bloodline - which had seemed worthless up to that point - somehow managed to earn him a ticket into the Tower of Babel; a mythical building of unknown origins! Within it, he was allowed to browse through countless books, containing many records of locations, treasures, and, most importantly, countless techniques, both ancient and modern! He eventually found a few of which he would be able to use without too much of an itch... as well as the knowledge that all those who had the purest bloodline of Xu would never experience the decay of the flesh, nor the death of the physical body: it was there that Xu Ling would come to find out of his quasi-immortality.
In his later years, Xu Ling razed many Clans and Sects, while others he took under his wing. He acquired countless magics which, coupled with those from the Tower of Babel, would have been enough to shake the world! Due to the requirements of Qi however, he had never had the chance to utilize some precious and unparalleled scriptures of various Sects and Clans despite them being right under his nose!
This time around however, reborn as Cheng Hao with the ever-changing Sovereign Sensed Qi, things were different! As far as he was concerned, even those techniques the likes of the Ascending Black Dragon's Four Deifications were all at his complete disposal! For now however, he would be aiming for the second technique in his and Xiao Lan's arsenal: 'I See A Purple Moonlit World'!
The only problem was that unless he had a Xiao Clan's Purple Moon Martial Way, the technique couldn't be practiced no matter how much he tried! After all, Xiao Lan had always relied on his Martial Ways, the techniques he developed obviously were built taking them into account! Fortunately, unlike Cheng Hao, Xiao Wu did not lack one and he would be able to secretly utilize it together with her, as long as he kept it hidden from her.
”Time to experience the Purple Moonlit World myself!” Cheng Hao chuckled expectantly, his eyes beaming with excitement, all the while looking back at Xiao Wu apologetically.
I'll have to secretly hijack your Purple Moon Martial Way for this! Sorry about that.
As for why he couldn't just be upfront… he hadn't asked her directly because he knew just how severe of a punishment would be for somebody to be freely distributing a Clan's secret Scripture to strangers, let alone helping others in their cultivation of them! He didn't want to make things difficult for her by making an unnecessary request, which she couldn't agree to despite wanting to... when he could just do it in secret anyway and save up time!
”It's not like I'll steal the technique itself... I may be shameless, but I have a conscience too!”