Ning left Ely early in the morning to go check out the secret realm behind the palace of the Blackspire royal family.

Ning was still not sure if the secret realm was Origin or not. After all, he had to ask the system to list out all the secret realms and weed out the ones that didn't have enough Qi capacity or were of not much importance.

He was worried this one would be in the sea as well, but after learning that the people around this area had the highest cultivation base, Ning decided to check upon this place.

It was this or the other one that was the origin and having stayed here overnight, he was starting to believe that this was the Origin.

After all, the Qi in this place was vastly superior to any out there.

Ning walked through the streets and approached the royal palace in the distance.

"My god, so lavish," he thought as he looked at the massive palace. As if a god lived there, the castle was built upon the clouds themselves.

The palace floated in the air, nearly 50 meters into the sky, and was large enough to be considered a city of its own. There was some sort of formation being used here that made the palace invisible for the most part and one needed to come this close before seeing it with their own eyes.

Each pillar seemed to be made up of gold, and each wall was made up of jade. The white marble laid everywhere else from the floor to the ceiling, giving the palace a truly celestial feeling.

Ning looked at the ground beneath the palace. The garden down below was full of the rarest and most beautiful flowers one could find in the entire world. The gardener that was working on the flowers himself was an Immortal King, making the Immortal Emperor that rules the continent that much more legitimate in Ning's eyes.

He walked into the garden and looked through the flower. 'Not bad,' he thought as he touched them. Suddenly, the gardener next to him cut off some of the flowers and stored them away.

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'Huh? Why did he cut them? I didn't see anything wrong with the flowers,' Ning thought. That was a little weird to his eyes, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Not like he could lift his concealment to ask the gardener about it.

He left the garden, going underneath the cloud that held the palace, and arrived at what would normally be the backyard.

"Hmm… that's quite a strong Qi output from in there," he thought as he felt the air around him. "If not the Origin, there must be a massive cluster of spirit veins in there."

Ning was about to enter when he felt the space fluctuate around him and he stepped back.

A woman appeared from inside the folded space, one that seemed to be so beautiful that she dwarfed everything around her. There was a natural halo of light around her, following her every step, and the people that were behind her were barely maintaining their composure.

If they let go of their composure, they would fall to the ground and start praying to the woman in front of them.

Ning felt the aura around her and was a little surprised. 'Immortal Emperor 8th realm? Who is she exactly?' he wondered.

He used Qi analysis for a moment and was given the exact answer he needed.

"Tina Blackspire… Empress of the Blackspire Dynasty, I see. The Empress, huh?" Ning thought. "I wonder what the Emperor's name is."

Ning hadn't bothered learning about him till now, so he finally checked it. When he did, he was a little surprised at the piece of information he got.

"Dawn Blackspire, Emperor of the Blackspire Dynasty… dead. Then, I suppose I just witnessed the Ruler of the domain I'm at," he thought.

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He looked back at the majestic woman that was flying overhead to her palace and turned around to walk into the secret realm.

However, before he could walk in, another group of people walked out. This time, there were 3 of them. 2 of them were young men, and 1 a young female.

They all shared similar facial features, so Ning guessed they were a family. He quickly checked their names to realize that they were indeed the youths from the Blackspire family.

'These must be the prince and princesses,' Ning thought as he watched them leave. He wanted to see how strong these 3 were and checked their cultivation base.

One of the young men was in the Immortal King realm, and the girl was in the Immortal Saint realm. However, the last man was surprisingly lacking a cultivation base.

"Is he a cripple?" Ning wondered. But, he quickly ignored thinking about the Blackspire youths and thought of his own situation.

He was finally free to enter. He turned around to go into the secret realm when once again he felt the space twist around him as someone else appeared out from the secret realm.

"Goddammit! Can't they all come out at once? Why do they have to come out one at a time?" Ning thought to himself angrily.

He looked at the newcomer and saw that he was a man wearing a simple robe and had a blank look on his face. He had a very handsome face, and as for the cultivation base…

Ning froze. "The hell?" he thought when he saw the man's cultivation base.

This… was an Immortal God.

"So there is one like that," Ning thought to himself.

"How may I help you, friend?" the man suddenly spoke as his head turned towards Ning and he looked him directly in the eye.

Ning was shocked that someone saw through his concealment. Even if he was an Immortal God, he should not have been able to.

Ning slowly let go of his concealment and looked at the man in front of him. "You are not of the Blackspire family," he said. "Who are you exactly?"

I am Halios, but you knew that already, didn't you, Ning?" the man asked.

Ning frowned a little. "You know about me? How do you know about me?" he asked.

"I do not know why I know about you. I only know that I do," Halios said. "I have known about you for the past month and have wanted to meet you to ask you why I know about you, your thoughts, and your feelings."

"You know what I'm thinking?" Ning asked with a shocked expression. "Doesn't that mean that you are… holy shit!"

"What… is a Will?" the man asked.

"You're a will of this world, born from the minds of the living, manifested from the energy of the planet," Ning said. "Of course. A planet with this dense of a Qi should absolutely have a will. I did not expect to meet you here at all."

"Can you tell me more about who I am?" Halios asked.

"Sure, why don't we talk inside?" Ning asked.

"I…" Halios looked back. "I cannot let you enter. You must get permission from my mistress if you wish to enter this place."

"Your… mistress?" Ning gave Halios a confused look. "Are you talking about the Empress?"

"Yes, the Empress is my mistress," he said.

'How is that possible?' Ning thought to himself.

"What do you mean?" Halios asked. "Should it not be possible? Why should it not?"

"That's because you are a will. No one should be able to control you," Ning said. "Anyway, we can talk inside."

"As I said before, you are not allowed to go in without the Empress's permission," the Will said.

"I don't need anyone's permission to go anywhere," Ning said and continued walking forward.

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Halios acted to stop him. Space twisted around Ning, forcing him away from the location where one could enter the secret realm. However, Ning was simply too strong for the Celestial Will to be able to stop him.

No power amounted to anything in his presence and he walked into the secret realm.

Inside was a city-sized piece of grassland with different houses and training grounds. There was no one here at the moment, but just a few minutes ago, the Blackspire family members along with members of their court were in this place.

Ning looked around and quickly found a small pond at the center of the land. "So I was right," he thought to himself. "This is the Origin."

Ning felt the energy in this place and took a deep breath in. At the same time, Halios entered quickly to follow him.

"Please come outside. You are not allowed to come in here. Only my Mistress and her people can come in," he said urgently.

"God, what the hell is wrong with you?" Ning asked as he turned around. "Are all planetary wills too dumb to do things on their own, or what?"

He remembered Alexis being a similar kind of being, that did what the lord of the Aether tower told her to do.

Now, this Halios was the same.

Suddenly, Halios fell to the floor and grunted in pain. "Please… get… out… of… this… place!" he shouted through what seemed like pain.

Ning was surprised and turned serious. 'It's not an act,' he thought when he saw the will on the floor. 'Something is wrong with him.'

Ning grabbed Halios and walked out of the secret realm again. Only then did Halios breathe in relief and was fine.

"What's wrong? What happened to you?" Ning asked.

"I… I broke my oath… and I was punished," he said.

"You broke your oath? What oath?" Ning asked.

"To always follow my master's commands and do what they say," Halios said.

Ning frowned. 'An oath can hurt a Will?' he thought. "Why did you make an oath?"

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"I… I was young… and naive, and I didn't know any better," Halios said.

Ning's senses notified him of someone's arrival. "Come visit me when you can, or I will come to visit you tonight," he said and disappeared.

Halios looked up after Ning left and saw the Empress slowly float down to the ground. "What happened?" she asked. "Your oath stone showed signs of breaking."

Halios was unable to lie, so he told the Empress everything. "Someone came and tried to enter the secret realm. I tried to stop them, but they managed to enter anyhow," he said.

"What? Someone entered?" the Empress got angry. "How could you let that happen?"

"I'm sorry, mistress. I was unable to stop him," he said.

"How are you unable to stop him with your strength? Are you saying there's an Immortal God roaming around in my city?" she asked.

"No, he was not an Immortal God," Halios said.

"Of course not. Who would think that?" she snarled. "Next time he comes back, let me know immediately."

"Yes, mistress," Halios said.

The Empress left back with anger on her face. "Goddammit, I hope whoever it was didn't realize how good the secret realm was," she said softly as she flew away.

Halios was a little dejected and stood by the secret realm. That was all there was to his job after all. Unless his mistress explicitly asked him to do something else, he was supposed to stay here all day long.

"Brother Halios, was stepmother here just now?" the young boy from before, the one that could not cultivate at all came from the garden area.

"Yes, the mistress was here," Halios said.

"I heard her shouting. Is everything alright?" he asked.

"It's okay," Halios said. "It has resolved now."

"I see," the young man said. "By the way, do you think you can help me find this fruit called the Bewitching Vine's spirit apple? I can't seem to find any in the treasury and I'm not sure where one could find it."

"Bewitching Vine's Spirit apple? It's a rare fruit," Halios said as he views the entire planet that was basically his body.

"There are a few in the next continent. I can get them for you once I get the mistress' approval."

For a Will to manifest on a planet, there were 3 conditions that needed to be fulfilled.

First, there needed to be an Origin that had formed on the planet. Most Origins were randomly formed, but one could influence the formation by planting energy on a planet. That, however, would require an unimaginable amount of energy to do so.

Second, there would need to be a considerable amount of souls on that planet, each of which would influence the will of the planet to form a will.

Finally, the amount of energy on the planet had to exceed a certain level of threshold that was different for each planet based on its size.

When all the conditions were met, there was a good chance for wills to manifest on that planet.

Halios was one such will. Long ago, when the world of men was still learning to reach the pinnacle, he appeared.

He did not understand who he was or where he had come from. He was like an adult with no memory of their past. The only thing he knew was that he should care for the people of this world.

So, he sought for people to help. The very first two people he met were a couple of cultivators that were out in the depths of the forest where he had manifested to find something for themselves.

When they met Halios, Halios told them that he wanted to help them. He did not know why he wanted to do that, only that he did.

At first, the two friends didn't like how Halios followed them around, but they found it hard to send him away as they felt scared because of the cultivation base he had.

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They did not want to simply reject a man that was trying to aid them. They were afraid of being killed after all. However, at some point, Halios revealed to these two that he was not a human, but something that had simply taken its appearance.

After learning this, instead of becoming afraid, the two cultivators made up a heinous plan that took advantage of the will's naivety.

They planned to make the will form a bond with them. Debating on who would be the one that would bond, the two fought each other.

In the end, one of them emerged victorious while the other one remained wounded from the fight and helplessly watch.

The winning cultivator started the bond of master and servant with the Halios, who didn't know any better. He accepted the bond and became a servant to the cultivator.

However, there was something the cultivator had not expected at all. Because bonds required a strong soul or mental strength to handle the bond of another being, the cultivator with his weak soul could not handle the pressure that came from the bond with a will manifested from the planet.

It was akin to having the planet itself settle on his soul, which the man could not handle. As a result, the man died right then and there.

The other wounded cultivator realized what had happened and decided that he could not form a bond with Halios. However, he still couldn't give up.

Normally, he would be scared of trying anything else against someone that was this strong, but because of how lacking in wisdom Halios was, he decided to try something.

He picked up a random stone next to him and walked up to Halios. "Make an Oath that you will follow the commands of whoever holds this stone. If you do not follow their command, you will die."

Halios didn't know any better, so he spoke the oath, and unknowingly, he himself accepted the oath.

From then on, the man became one of the strongest thanks to Halios as his servant. However, he soon found out something he hadn't expected at all.

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Before making an oath to him, Halios had made another oath of his own, one that even he wasn't aware of.

Halios would never hurt another human or beast in this world. No matter how much the man tried, Halios couldn't break this oath of his. It even went over Halios' oath to always follow the man's words.

If there was ever a command to hurt a person, Halios did not have to do it at all.

Still, using Halios, the man improved at a tremendous rate. Not only was Halios full of information, he could also go around the world and get anything the man needed.

The man reached immortality and then reached The Immortal Saint realm. Around that time, people were starting to catch wind of his impressive increase in cultivation.

Most didn't know why that was what it was, but they decided to find out.

Before the man realized it, he had died in an ambush. The people searched his storage and found nothing of importance.

One of the men responsible for killing the owner of the Oathstone took back the stone with him, along with a lot of other treasures the first man had gathered.

Halios waited around for this man to command him, but eons passed and not a single command was made. The man that took the stone had no idea about the importance of the stone anyway.

It was only after millions of years that a weak youth with trash talents held the stone and wished for power that Halios finally appeared to help him.

This was the first order he had been given in a long time.

The young man understood the value of the stone and kept it. With it, he grew incredibly powerful, defeating all of his opponents and even showing talents that were never seen before.

Very soon, using Halios, the man found the best place in the entire world to cultivate. He came to that place to cultivate and got even stronger. Realizing the impressiveness of this place, he built up a castle there, and then a city formed around it, which would go on to become the Nightfall city.

The man then became the first Emperor the continent had seen in a long time. This was Dawn Blackspire, the late ruler of this Continent.

Ning read through the information that the system gave him regarding Halios and how he came to the current situation. It was weird to see someone as great as a manifested will get taken advantage of because of their naiveness.

But, one didn't necessarily have to be naive to be taken advantage of. From what he read, even the late emperor wasn't someone that was immune to being taken advantage of.

"Poor guy," Ning shook his head as he read about him, but that did not matter anymore. His death had taken place thousands of years ago anyway.

"Did you learn anything important?" Ely asked from the side. She had just finished cultivating and was making steady progress.

She was a few realms into the High Immortal realm and was doing so much better than the few hundred years she had spent in this world cultivating.

"I did learn something," Ning said. "As long as I can get my hands on that Oathstone, I can easily acquire the usage of the Origin. I might even get a personal guard for everyone."

"Halios? I feel bad learning about him. Do we really have to take advantage of him too?" Ely asked.

"We won't necessarily be taking advantage. I'm sure Anya, or Ning, or whoever handles this secret realm after we leave will take good care of him," Ning said.

"I'm sure they will, but still…"

"We have no choice," Ning said. "Let's rest up. I will go there later and take the stone. After that, I will try to come to some sort of settlement with the empress so that our people can live in the Origin while she still rules. However, I'm not sure if she will agree to it or not."

"I doubt she will. Not after you steal from her. Anyway, why don't you just dominate her mind? That should be so much easier," Ely said.

Ning shook his head. "That will cost a lot of energy, way more than I'm comfortable with at the moment," he said. "It would be okay if she didn't fight back, but she will and then I will have to spend a tremendous amount of energy just to control her. With so many Constellations back on earth, I'm not sure I am comfortable losing any at the moment."

"Didn't you already kill one without this energy?" Ely asked.

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"Yes," Ning said. "But that was one. I do not know what I can do if they were to gang up on me. I really need to be prepared for it."

"I see…" Ely said as she finally understood his train of thought.

"I will still do that if all else fails. Anyway, I will go there later tonight and see what I can do," Ning said and lay on the bed. All he could do now was wait.

Night fell, and Ning teleported into the compound of the royal palace. The moment he appeared, he heard the alarms sounding everywhere.

Ning couldn't help but frown. "What the hell? How did they know I am here?" he thought. He was pretty sure he had concealed himself quite well.

Just then, he heard a loud crack from the sky and saw a massive glowing fist launch from one side. At the same time, Ning saw the space being cut in half as the glowing fist simply fizzled out of existence.

On one side was the empress, fighting with all of her powers. On the other side was a young man who didn't seem older than the princes and princess he had seen this morning.

'Who?' Ning wondered and checked the person. It was someone called Marcus Greiss that was fighting the Empress on equal grounds.

His cultivation base was actually an entire realm lower than hers, but he was somehow matching up with the Empress in terms of strength.

"Woah, how did he do that?" Ning thought as he continued watching.

The entire palace was shrouded in formations so the people of the city had no idea that this was even happening. They were completely unaware that a battle of this intensity was happening right now.

"Halios! Where the hell are you? Come and kill him," the Empress shouted. She was starting to realize that she simply did not have the strength to kill this young man on her own.

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Halios, however, wouldn't move. Even when ordered, he could not harm another person after all.

"Ahaha! Bitch, you should know better than to rely on him to fight a human. He can't harm anyone," the young man shouted at her.

The empress was getting increasingly afraid of the young man. "Who are you? How do you know this thing?" she shouted at him, but the young man ignored her and chucked out attack after attack at her.

The defensive formations of the palace were shut down beforehand, so she had no choice but to fight on her own. However, she had never been a fighter. She was always the damsel in distress, which was why she had done what she did to gain power. She wanted to become so strong that she never needed another man's help.

However, at the moment she wasn't finding that power any more helpful.

"Please, what do you want? I will give it to you," the woman shouted.

"Give me your life then, bitch," Marcus shouted and attacked even more furiously than before. The woman simply couldn't protect.

"Stop, I give up. Don't attack me anymore," the woman shouted.

Marcus attacked even faster. "You think I can't see through your lies, bitch? I have seen enough of that face to know just how fake it is," he said as he attacked.

"Why… why are you doing this? I've never hurt you," the Empress cried out. At the same time, she prepared for a strong attack.

"Never hurt me? Bitch, you betrayed me and then killed me. And now you have the gall to say you did not hurt me?" Marcus asked. "All for what even? That stone? That was yours, along with everything of mine anyway. But you were too greedy to share, weren't you?"

The Empress's eyes went wide as she realized just who she was talking to. "Dawn?!" she asked.

"Yeah, bitch!" Marcus, the reincarnated Dawn said. "I'm back, and now it's time you die."

Dawn? That's the Dawn that was betrayed and died?" Ning thought with a surprised look.

From what he had learned of the late Blackspire emperor's past, he had realized that his wife, the current empress had actually betrayed him to get her hands on the oathstone, which was what had made the late Emperor so strong.

Ning didn't know much more than that. The only reason he even knew that was because the knowledge about Halios had also included that part.

"How did he become so strong so fast," Ning wondered. "That strength doesn't feel normal at all."

Ning watched the man fight all his might in the air and checked something. When he got the answer, he couldn't help but be surprised.

"A system?" Ning was surprised. "He really found a system huh? And somehow remembered his past life as well. That's… quite lucky of him."

Marcus swung his sword, sending out a sword slash that bent space and cut reality. The empress pulled out a lantern that glowed with a light that healed space and reality at the same time.

An invisible barrier appeared around her at the same time, blocking the sword slash.

"I see you've made good usage of the Divine Flame I brought back from the secret realm, bitch. Now, I'll be taking back that as well, along with everything else you own," Marcus said.

"How are you alive? You aren't supposed to be alive," the Empress cried out. Her emotions were in shambles as she didn't know what to think.

Until now, she had let everyone believe that Dawn's death had been a complete accident and had taken over what he had owned. However, if they somehow were let know that it was her that had killed him, there were people that were loyal to Dawn that would certainly come after her.

She was grateful all of them were unconscious at the moment. For now, there was still time.

"Halios, come help me," she shouted. "You don't have to attack, just protect me."

Halios quickly flew into the air and stood in front of the Empress to protect her.

"You… are you really going to defend that bitch? After what she fucking did to me?" Marcus was getting emotional himself. "I thought of you as my friend."

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"I follow the will of whoever holds my stone," Halios said.

"Damn you! You fucking betrayed me too," Marcus shouted and started swinging attacks at Halios, but he was simply too weak to be able to hurt an Immortal God realm being.

"Protect me while I prepare," the Empress said and started preparing for an attack.

"Mistress, the person from this morning has reappeared again," Halios said suddenly.

"What?" the Empress looked surprised. "That wasn't him?"

"No, he is standing down there," Halios pointed towards Ning who was on the ground.

The Empress turned around to look and saw Ning who was watching everything that was happening in the air with a relaxed look on his face.

"Who are you?" the Empress asked.

"Oh, don't mind me, just keep on fighting. I'm just here for the Oathstone," Ning said with a genuine-looking smile from the ground.

"You!" the Empress got angry. "You actually told someone else about the Oathstone. Is that how much you want to kill me?"

Marcus looked confused. "He's not with me, bitch. If someone told him about the Oathstone, then it's you," he said. He then turned towards Ning and looked at him with a worried look on his face. "How are you still standing?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Ning asked.

"How are you still conscious inside the formation, bastard? Stop acting like you don't know fucking shit," Marcus shouted.

"Geez, stop cussing so much. Do you have a cussing system or what?" Ning asked as he looked around. "I didn't even realize there was a formation working around here. It was too weak for me to notice."

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He looked up after saying as much and was confronted with a look from Marcus that looked like he had just killed his mother.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" Ning asked.

"How… how the fuck do you know about my fucking system?!" Marcus asked with a terrified look.

Ning's eyes went wide as well. "No way! Is that your system? Really?" he asked. "A cussing system? How does it work? Do you get strong by cussing or what?"

"How the fuck do you know so much?" Marcus shouted even more.

"Goddamn, you sure like making use of your system," Ning said after listening to Marcus' shouting. "Well, at least it makes sense why there is no one out to watch the fight. You made everyone fall asleep huh?"

He looked back at Marcus. "Stop looking at me so intently, she might just kill you," he said as he pointed back towards the Empress who was just done preparing her attack.

A fire billowed in front of her, turning into a sun three times her size. The glow from the solar attack was so bright that an unsuspecting person would believe it was day already.

Ning looked at the attack in the sky and saw Marcus prepare to block it. His sword glowed a weird silver as he readied his attack.

Sword domain appeared around him, attacking everything with the Sword Qi, while he prepared to launch his own attack.

"Die, bitch!" he shouted as he slashed in front of him. The world distorted once again as the attack flew towards the Empress. However, before it could reach her, Halios appeared in front of her and put his hands forward.

The attack disappeared like mist in sunlight. So much power was gone just like that.

"No! My attack," Marcus was shocked. He still had a hard time understanding that Halios was going to actively stop him now.

The woman saw the look on his face and smiled crazily. "Hahaha! That's what you get for trying to kill me. This would've been so much easier had you stayed dead," she shouted at him.

"Never mind it though," she said. "I will do it for you."

And then she launched her attack.

The massive ball of brilliantly glowing fire, made from the divine flame found in the depths of a very unknown secret realm blazed through the night sky as it made its way toward Marcus.

Marcus looked at the attack with a gobsmacked expression as he didn't know what to do.

His life flashed before his eyes as he knew he was going to die.

After being betrayed, poisoned, and quite literally backstabbed by his second wife, he somehow managed to get reborn in a lesser world in the body of a recently dead young master.

There he realized that he could remember the memories of his past life, and along with that he realized that he had gained something called a System.

The system wasn't very intuitive to use and it took him some time to understand that it made him stronger every time he cussed.

However, it couldn't just be a normal cuss, it had to be directed at someone and it had to have come from an emotional place.

Slowly, he grew stronger and stronger and he learned to cuss more and more. Soon enough, every sentence he spoke would have a few cuss words in it.

He became strong thanks to it, but he also got into a lot of trouble thanks to cussing at the wrong moment in front of the wrong person.

Many young masters wanted him dead because he cussed at them, so he had to kill them. But then, he would have to fight their father, their uncles, their grandfather, ancestors.

Little by little, he learned to tame his cussing, but he still continued it so he could become strong.

He lived his life carefreely until he reached the Immortal realm. When it was time to ascend, he randomly wished to be able to go back to this world.

To his surprise, he actually was teleported here, just according to his will. When Marcus realized that the had come back to this world a thousand or so years after his death and that the current Empress of the Blackspire dynasty was the woman that killed him, he made plans to kill her.

She may have been his wife in the last life, but in this life, she was just someone who needed to die at his hands.

As such, for the past hundreds of years, he had worked hard to reach a stage where he could comfortably kill her.

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Having planned it all out, he finally came here today to take his revenge.

However, it seemed he was a little too hasty. No, he was way too hasty. He had completely overlooked Halios' presence and did not anticipate that the weak woman he knew could have improved her cultivation base by so much.

Revenge had blinded him and he was going to die for that.

As the fire got bigger and bigger in his eyes as it approached him, there was just a single thought in his mind.

'I'm going fucking die again, aren't I?'

He closed his eyes and let it happen.

However, it didn't happen. Nothing happened. There was no pain, no heat, no sound. Nothing.

'Did I die so fucking fast that I didn't even realize that I died?' he wondered. 'Or did I already reincarnate somehow?'

Slowly, he opened his eyes, hoping to see an unfamiliar room where he had taken over the body of another person. However, what he saw was that he was still in the air and in front of him was the man front down below.

"I'm sorry," Ning said slowly as he put his hand down. "I can't just let you throw out such a strong attack without any care. It would be a problem if this were to go land on the city outside."

The woman's eyes were wide in shock. She could not understand what had just happened.

One moment, she was looking at a bright and strong fireball that was flying through the air, and at the next moment, it was gone.

It wasn't even destroyed or anything. It was just gone as if someone had devoured it. And in its place was Ning who calmly stood in front of Marcus.

"How… how did you…?" she couldn't believe it.

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"I'm not going to bother explaining anything. I'm here for the Oathstone. I was wondering how I was going to take it off of you without letting you know, but as it turns out you aren't that good of a person for me to have worried about stealing from you. So… I decided to take this without giving you anything in return," Ning said as he put up a storage bag in his hand.

"That's… " the woman noticed the color of the bag. She quickly looked into her own robe and she was surprised. "No, it's not here."

"Of course," Ning said. "This is yours after all."

"You bastard!" she shouted at him. "How did you get it? Give me back my storage bag."

"Sure," Ning said and handed it over as easily as she asked. "I only wanted the stone anyway."

In his hand was the oathstone that controlled Halios' action. With his holding the Oathstone, Ning was Halios' master now.

"Halios, step aside please," Ning said.

Halios nodded and stepped away from the woman, leaving her without any guard.

"No… no… you can't do this to me," the woman said with a blank look on her face that suddenly got hideous as she got angry. "You know how much I sacrificed?"

Ning looked at her. "You know how much I care?" he asked as he made a massive circle with his fingers. "A big, fat nothing."

"Haha… hahaha… hahahaha!" Marcus started laughing like a maniac. "Who is going to protect you now, bitch?"

The Empress suddenly got on guard as the fight was going to get even more serious for her now that she had lost Halios.

"Halios, can you turn off the formation," Ning asked.

"Yes, master," Halios said and went away.

"Wait… what are you doing?" Marcus asked.

"I'm sorry, but it just feels wrong letting a woman die like this, no matter how much of a bitch she is," Ning said. "Why don't you wait and see if you can change your mind to some other punishment than just killing?"

People started waking up one by one, and one by one they walked out to what was happening.

Two figures floated in the sky, the Empress and a young man whose identity they could not ascertain.

"Empress, are you alright?"

"Mother!"

"What going on?"

People started shouting one after another. The Empress looked around at her people and her children. However, she couldn't be happy to see them, for she knew that she was just a moment away from being revealed for who she was on the inside.

"Everyone go back inside, it's dangerous out here," the Empress said. However, the people found it hard to just leave.

Marcus felt awkward as well. He did not want to be seen like this. He did not want his people and his own children to see him kill his wife, which was why he had put up the formation in the first place.

However, now that the formation was gone, he didn't have any choice at all.

"Gordon, take the kids away," he said to one of the men that was down below.

The old man looked confused when he heard Marcus. "How do you know my name?" the old man asked.

"Of course, I know your name," Marcus said. "I was there when you were born after all. I'm glad to see you are still using the sword I gave you on your 14th birthday."

The old man's eyes went wide. "No way…!"

"Bran, it might be late, but congratulations on breaking through to the Immortal King realm. I see that suggestion of going to the Immortal woods paid off for you. You always did have a strong wood constitution," Marcus said.

"How? No one but…," Bran's shocked face was everything that was needed to convey his current emotion.

"Mellisa, Mercil, you two have grown up better than I had expected, even when you had a bitch for a mother," Marcus said.

"Hey! Who are you to dare call our mother a bitch? I will cut you," Mercil shouted all of a sudden. However, Gordon stepped forward to stop him.

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"Is… is that really you, lord?" he asked.

Marcus couldn't help but sigh. "Yes, it is me," he said. "I have returned, and I've come for vengeance."

He pointed in front of him. "I don't know what you heard but it was that bitch who killed me. She betrayed me, and by association, she betrayed you all as well. Today, I will kill her, so please take away the children."

Mellisa and Mercil looked up in shock.

"Father?"

"That's our father?"

"Seems like it," Gordon said.

"But… even if he is our father, he can't just kill mother," Mercil said. "Uncle Gordon, you must save her."

Gordon put on a dark face, but he couldn't help her here. "No," he said. "If what the lord says is true, I will not help her."

"But she's our mother," Mellisa said.

"I'm sorry, but I owe too much to your father to stop him from taking his revenge here," Gordon said.

"No, if you won't stop him then we will," Mellisa said and tried to fly out, but Gordon stopped her. His cultivation base was stronger than Mellisa, so he could deny her of any action.

However, Mercil was there as well, and he fought back. Gordon was strong, but he had limitations. It was pretty much impossible for him to fight an Immortal Saint and another Immortal King with his cultivation base, while absolutely not harming them.

In the end, Mercil slipped past him and went into the sky.

"Stop, father! Please don't kill mother," he said with wide open arms.

"Step aside, Mercil. I have to do this," Marcus said.

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"You are probably wrong. Mother didn't kill you. You died because of Qi deviation," Mercil said.

"Heh, and where is Vanessa? Did she die because of Qi deviation as well?" Marcus asked.

"Stepmother? No… she… she took her own life," Mercil said. "She was saddened by your death and not long after, she took her own life."

"Hah, and you believe that? You believe someone like Vanessa could kill herself?" Marcus asked. "Isn't it too convenient that I died, and then Vanessa did too? You all must be idiots to not see the truth."

The few people that were there started looking around as they questioned everything they knew. Was it true? Did the Empress kill the emperor and then her sister? They looked at the Empress with accusatory eyes and the Empress could feel it.

"I did not kill Vanessa," she said. "She took her own life."

"Hah, I will believe nothing that comes out of your mouth, you little bitch," Marcus exclaimed.

"Then, believe me, father," another voice spoke as a new person appeared in the air.

The Emperor's son who could not cultivate was in them, held up by Halios who he had requested to bring him there.

The young man felt fear at such a height, but he stopped himself from being afraid for the moment. "Father…" he spoke. It felt weird to call someone that looked younger than him 'father', but he could tell this man was.

"It is true. Mother took her own life," he said.

"Varsil, you believe her too?" Marcus asked with a disappointed look on his face. He shook his head as he said, "she has you all wrapped around his wrinkly fingers. If you truly believe that Vanessa could kill herself just because she loved me so much, and leave you behind, you are truly an idiot."

"Mother did kill herself," Varsil said. "Whether you believe it or not, that's the truth. However, she did not do it because she loved you and she was saddened by your death."

Marcus was surprised. "What do you mean? Why else would she kill herself then?" he asked.

"Because she felt guilty," Varsil said.

Marcus' heart sank when he heard that. "Gu-guilty… of what?" he asked, but he already knew the answer even beforehand.

"She felt guilty that she was involved in the plot to kill you as well."

"I remember the day," Varsil spoke. "It was a rainy night with a lot of thunderstorms. I was but 12 at the time, and with no cultivation to give me strength, I was scared of the thunderstorm."

"I went to my mother to stay with her until the thunderstorm passed, and that was when I saw her crying. I asked her why she was crying, but she wouldn't answer at all. All she would do is cry and scream apologies. I did not know who they were directed towards at the moment, but later I realized that it was for you."

"Mother explained to me later that night what she had done. What she and stepmother had done. She said it was a stupid, impulsive move that she should have thought more about. But, she was too dumb to think about it and plotted to kill you."

"That night, the poison that poisoned you had come from the tea my mother made you. She had expected something more substantial to come out of killing you, but nothing changed for her. And slowly, she realized that she had killed you for nothing."

"The guilt was too much for her. She couldn't stand it at all. Especially…" Varsil paused as tears rolled down his face. "Especially because I continuously reminded her of you at every second."

"Unable to handle the grief and guilt, mother told me everything that night, and later that night, she took her own life," Varsil said.

Marcus was distraught. "No… that's not true. No, Vanessa wouldn't. But she… why would she?" he couldn't make sense of the knowledge he just received.

All this time, he had come here with vengeance in mind. When he learned that his other wife had died, he put the blame on the same person that he was vengeful against, and that enhanced his drive.

However, now learning that the person he partially wanted to avenge was responsible for his death as well. How was he to feel after that?

"No, I will still kill her. She was the one that stabbed me in the back," Marcus said.

"Father," Varsil moved up front with Halios' help once again. "I can understand your pain and anger, and I can see why you would want stepmother to die, but please don't kill her."

"I have to," Marcus said. "That has been my only goal since I was born again. If I don't fucking do this, then what's the point of me being born again?"

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Varsil's tears were still flowing. "It took me a while to realize something, father," he said, grabbing Marcus' attention again. "I always loved mother, and I thought she loved me back as well. But… it took me a while to realize that she never truly loved me."

"Not that she didn't want to, but rather she simply couldn't. Every time she looked at me, she would see you and instead of love, the only thing that would be in her heart would be guilt and sorrow. Such a person would never be capable of true love."

Marcus looked at him. "What are you trying to say?" he asked.

"It was only later that I learned what maternal love really was after my stepmother started taking care of me. She treated me like her own offspring. She took care of me when I was ill, she brought alchemists and physicians to look at my condition. She even went to many places to find various materials for me to extend my mortal life way beyond what was possible for a mortal."

"I guess what I'm trying to say is… please do not take away from me the only mother I still have."

The Empress was the first person to tear up after listening to her stepchild. Varsil was mostly reclusive, so she could never be sure what he was thinking.

She did what she could for him, but she never believed that she could replace his own mother. However, hearing what he had to say for himself, she couldn't help but realize just what she meant to this man.

She placed her hand on Mercil and pushed him aside.

"Mother?" Mercil asked.

"It's okay," she said. She slowly flew up to the front and went past Halios. She stopped momentarily next to Varsil and said, "thank you for calling me your mother."

Then, she moved in front of Marcus.

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"Since you are here to kill me. Do it. I have no fight left in me, and I do not see myself getting out of this situation anyway," she said.

Marcus growled in response and raised his sword. The Empress closed her eyes and softly said, "Goodbye, my children."

"Mother!" they all shouted, but the Empress had accepted her fate.

"YAAAH!" Marcus shouted as his sword glowed a brilliant silver. She slashed down in front of him releasing all the energy directly into the air.

However, not a single bit of it landed on the Empress.

The Empress opened her eyes with a confused and surprised look on her face. "You… didn't kill me?" she asked.

"You bet your ass I didn't," Marcus said, still growling clearly in his voice. "What sort of father would I be if I killed my own children's mother after hearing the pain in their voice."

He was still quite agitated and wanted to kill her but he had to stop himself. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" he shouted in anger. He continued cussing for a while before he stopped.

"Have you calmed down?" Ning arrived from the side.

"Do I look like I'm fucking calm?" Marcus asked.

"Well, calm enough," Ning said. "What do you plan on doing with her now?"

"What's it to you? Who the fuck are you even?" Marcus asked.

"Never mind I asked that," Ning said. "So, since you seem to be somewhat done with it all, can you take this flying castle away? Now that I have the oath stone in my hand, I'm taking over the secret realm, and I would love it if you moved the castle elsewhere."

Leave? But this is my place. You should be the one to leave," Marcus shouted at him.

"Hehe, do you think you can say that when I have this?" Ning asked as he showed Marcus the oath stone.

"You bastard! Give that back. It's mine," he shouted.

"Well, not anymore," Ning said. "I mean, you can stay here if you really want to, I don't mind it as much, but the secret realm back there will be with me."

Marcus was still angry, but he had to deal with his current situation, so he couldn't go on shouting at Ning. Besides, he had saved him earlier, so it didn't feel right to continue cussing at Ning.

And since it wasn't coming from a place of emotion, cussing wasn't going to help Marcus with his system.

Grumpily, he took his people and went into the palace, leaving only Ning and Halios behind.

Ning's spiritual sense reached far and wide until he found Ely in their hotel room. "Can you come here?" he asked her.

Ely heard him and left the hotel.

Ning waited for a while before she arrived and once she was there, together they entered the Origin, leaving Halios outside as a guard.

Ning walked in to see the grassland again, with various different buildings and gardens that were clearly man-made.

"Wow, this is beautiful. And there aren't even that many mountains here, unlike back in Kumia," Ely said.

"Yeah, it's so full of Qi as well," Ning said. He looked around at the size and the place was large enough that it could house everyone that he was thinking about.

"I wonder how far you can reach if you cultivate in here just for a few days," Ning said. "Wanna try?"

"Sure," Ely said. "I will start cultivating then."

She sat by a small sitting area built inside to sit around. She started using the cultivation method Ning had provided her and soon enough she was collecting Qi at a speed that was absurd.

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"How many times faster can she get in this place?" Ning asked the system.

14 times.

"Not bad," Ning thought. Ely was already a High Immortal 3rd realm cultivator. If she continued cultivating at the speed she was doing right now, it wouldn't even take her a week to reach the True Immortal realm.

From there a month or two was all it would need for her to reach the Immortal Saint realm, and from there on it was a smooth journey to the Immortal King, Emperor, and God realm.

Ning sat by her and watched her cultivate for a while before deciding to leave.

"Halios, watch after her for a few minutes. I will return in an hour or two," Ning said once he walked outside.

"Yes, master," Halios said. He agreed to everything that Ning told him to do without question.

Ning teleported away and arrived at Baelon city, where he found Aegis.

"Master?" Aegis said with a surprised look on his face. "Why are you back already?"

It had been no more than 2 days since Ning had left and somehow he was back already.

"Grandmaster!" his two children shouted the moment they saw him with wide smiles on their faces.

Ning looked around at the two that had found their human form only recently thanks to the cultivation method he had given them.

"Hey!" Ning said. "Sorry to drop unannounced, but I found the place I'm looking for."

"Already?" Aegis asked with a surprised look. "But it has only been 2 days."

Ning shrugged. "What can I say? I'm just that good," he said.

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"Where is this place, master?" Aegis asked.

"It's the Origin of this planet. Just like back in Kumia, I found a similar place here as well." Ning looked around at Shaana, Haana, and Raelis. "Are you guys ready to leave?"

Shaana gave an awkward smile, not knowing what exactly to say.

"We didn't prepare for it to be just 2 days later, master," Aegis said. "It will take us some time to say farewell to our friends here, and I have to sell my shop as well, along with this house."

"Ah, it seems you have a lot to do then," Ning said. "Alright, take however much you need. There are a few other people that are Anya's and Hyesi's kin that are scattered around this world, so I should go get them too."

"Okay, master. We will call you after we are done," Aegis said.

Ning teleported back to Nightfall city and walked up to Halios. Since Ely would be cultivating for a long time, he decided to leave a message that Halios would give her once she had stopped cultivating.

With that said, he left the place to go around the entire world to look for the rest of his people.

The Klavians and Anya's folks were in different places, in different situations, all of which required Ning to spend some time solving the problems around them.

Some were disciples in sects, while some were mercenaries that worked to earn a living. Some had opened up a shop, while some were imprisoned for some reason.

Anya's descendants were into alchemy, so Ning had to be around Scholars to reach them. They were the ones that had found a job for themselves.

Hyesi's descendants were body cultivators, so he found them in places that required intense physical activity.

There were in total 5 different people that he found and he asked them all to come back with him.

2 of them refused, stating that they had a life of their own where they were and were happy with it, while the other 3 immediately accepted Ning's request.

Ning brought them all back to the Origin a week or two later, and at the same time, he brought back Aegis' family as well.

With those all back, Ning had nothing else he needed to do in this world. So, very soon, he could leave for the other worlds to find more of his people as well.

Ning opened a portal back to Kumia after a few weeks to bring back Dahlia and the rest. He had to wait around a day or two there while they finalized the gathering, and only those that were willing to migrate came along with Ning.

That included Dahlia, Iris, and a lot of the different other folks that were closely related to Hyesi and Anya.

Ely was more than excited to meet with all the familiar faces that she hadn't seen for hundreds of years, so Ning stepped aside.

Not only her but the others he had brought along from all over the world were also excited to see their family members again.

Ning stepped to the side and watched them bond all over again with a smile on his face.

"Master," Halios spoke to him from the side.

"Hmm? What is it?" Ning asked.

"There's someone that wants to meet you," Halios said.

"Is it Marcus again? Didn't I already tell him I won't give him back the oath stone? He should be happy that he is at least getting to stay outside at all," he said.

"No, It's not Marcus. He hasn't come by since you talked to him that one time," Halios said.

"Not Marcus? Who is it then?" Ning asked.

"It's his son, Varsil."

Ning walked out to meet the young man without any cultivation base, who was surprisingly a few thousand years old.

"Thank you for allowing me to speak so many nights ago. I might have lost my stepmother if you didn't allow it," he said.

"Sure, that's no problem," Ning said with a smile. "I was happy to see that you could stop your parents from escalating it any further."

"I am too," Varsil said.

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"So, how is it going lately? Everything fine?" Ning asked.

"I mean, I wouldn't necessarily call it fine, but I suppose only the best outcomes have happened luckily. Mother has been house arrested by father and is forced to live her life in a single room."

"Father has taken up the throne again, but there are people claiming that this is wrong and don't believe that it really is Father. And then there is me… who, unfortunately, is dying," he said.

"Huh?" Ning's eyes narrowed as he quickly looked him up and down. "You're dying?"

"Well… I'm always dying," Varsil said. "I'm way too old of a mortal that the day I die is just around the corner. It's been that way for a long time. Only… now it feels like I'm taking a turn on that corner and I can see death already."

"Explain what you mean exactly," Ning said.

"There's this flower that I use when making a pill that is extremely rare. It only grows in a place of high Qi, and I've been using it to improve my longevity for a long time. It was something a great Alchemist once taught me, and it is what keeps me alive until now."

"So what's changed now? Me?" Ning asked.

"In a way, yes," Varsil said. "I'm not blaming you or anything." He quickly made sure that Ning didn't get the wrong idea. "It's just that a few of the flowers are inside there, and I haven't been able to get my hand on them for the past month or so. If I don't get it for another week, I will surely die."

"Ohhh! You should have started with that," Ning said. "Such a long-winded explanation for no reason. You can ask Halios to take you with him inside to get your flower whenever you want. You don't have to ask me for that."

"Really?" Varsil asked with a blissful eye.

"Yeah, just go in and take what you want. It's not like you have any bad intentions, and I as a person like helping others," Ning said.

"Thank you," Varsil said and turned to Halios. "Brother Halios, let's go."

He quickly walked towards the secret realm's opening when Ning spoke again. "Stop!"

Varsil stopped as dread filled his heart. Was he taking back his words? Did he suddenly have a change of heart? Did that mean he was going to die?

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Many negative thoughts swirled around him while Ning slowly walked up to him again.

He stood there, giving Varsil a very curious look he started for a while before stopping. At this time, Varsil had imagined every single horrible thing that could come out of Ning's mouth that would lead to his eventual death.

However, what came out left him so stunned that he didn't know what to say.

"Huh? I think I can fix your crippled body," he said.

Varsil couldn't parse the information his ears had just heard. He had to imagine the words in his head 5 times before he understood their meanings when strung together.

"Wait," he asked. "Did you say you can fix my body?"

"Yeah," Ning said. "But it's going to be a little hard though. Wait, let me get the healing method too."

Ning closed his eyes and asked the system for the answer.

"Yeah, I got it," he said. "I will need something known as the Heaven Devouring Bamboo. With a piece of that, I can take away the Qi blockage that has been the cause of your problem."

"You know the reason why I am crippled?" he asked.

"Yes," Ning said. "It's tragic really. You were supposed to be one of the best cultivators out there, but because you started cultivating before your meridians and dantian was fully forced, you ended up collecting Qi so thick that it jammed up your meridians."

"The only way to get them moving is to strip away the Qi, and you will be all good," Ning said.

Varsil couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Is that really true?" he asked.

"Yes, why would I lie?" Ning asked. "I have no reason to."

Varsil got happy. "Okay, this bamboo, can brother Halios bring it to me?" he asked.

"Ooh… there's the main problem right now," Ning said. "There is no Heaven Devouring Bamboo in this world."

Just as Varsil was about to get sad, Ning spoke again. "But don't worry. It is available in other worlds, especially one that I will be visiting very soon."

Varsil returned after getting the flower he had come for and was quite excited at the prospect of cultivating very soon.

He trusted Ning's words wholeheartedly since someone that strong would have no reason to lie to a mortal like him.

Ning returned back to the secret realm where the people were working hard to create houses by themselves. Some were working in open ground to make gardens and fields where they could grow food for their children, and others were busy cultivating using the cultivation method Ning had provided them with.

Ning was also working on a way to let them go in and out of the secret realm without having to come out of the Royal palace in the middle of the city.

He ended up making a teleportation formation that would take the people to a house in the city that was bought to be theirs. Some people would live there, but most would use it to come directly into the Origin.

Once he was done, it was time for Ning to leave this world and find the others.

There were still many people that he needed to find and he didn't feel like wasting any more time.

So, after letting Ely and the others know, he got ready to leave.

"Grandmaster, can you take this child along with you?" Dahlia asked bringing Iris forward. "She has been couped up in a single place her entire life, so I want her to experience the outer world."

Ning hesitated a bit. He didn't want to be in charge of another child, but in this case, she wasn't a child so he accepted.

"Sure, she can come along," Ning said. Iris had already broken through to the Immortal realms, so Ning found it not as worrying to bring her along.

"Thank you, Grandmaster," Iris said.

"Alright, I will see you guys in a few months at most," Ning said and opened a portal directly inside the Origin.

He stepped into the portal, and behind him, Iris stepped in as well.

She looked around with a bewildered image when she realized that everywhere she looked, there was nothing but the ocean.

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She was stepping on a piece of land that was no larger than 5 meters in all directions and the waves were already touching her feet.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Just a random island in the middle of the ocean on a planet called Granaxx," Ning said as he looked around.

"Is my Ancestor in this world?" she asked.

"Uh… Tanya is in this world if that is who you mean," Ning said. "If you meant Anya, then no. She is doing quite well for herself at the moment, so I don't need to worry about getting to her immediately."

"Oh! My Great Grandmother is here?" Iris asked with a surprised expression.

"Yes," Ning said. "Have you met Tanya before?"

"Grandmother says I have, but I don't have any recollection," Iris said. "She ascended long before I could form concrete memories."

"Well, at least she got to see her Great Granddaughter before leaving," Ning said. "Do you want to go meet her first?"

"Umm…" Iris hesitated a little. She felt nervous when thinking about meeting her ancestor whom she had heard so much about. "Okay." She accepted the idea in the end.

"Let's see, they sent you here to know more about the outer world, so I guess shortcuts are out of the question," Ning said. "Then I suppose the only thing we can do is find her the old-fashioned way."

Ning smiled and looked toward Iris. "You will have to be the one to find her," he said.

"M-me?" Iris asked with a blank look. "But I don't know whe—"

"Here, look at this map," Ning said as he brought out a paper map. On the map, there were 5 different continents, two of which were nearly in contact with each other, and the other 3 were in a cluster, but obviously split up.

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"Tanya is in a city here," Ning pointed. "Your job is to find her."

"Uh… okay," Iris said as he looked at the map. "Then let's go here."

"Sure," Ning said. "Take the lead."

Iris put down the map to start moving when she realized that she had no idea where she exactly was.

"Where is this island?" she asked as she turned to Ning. Ning, however, simply shrugged.

"I am leaving everything to you. Take as long as you want to figure out where we are or where we are going. The only help I will give you is that map and the city where Tanya is," Ning said.

Iris was befuddled. What the hell was she supposed to do right now? She took some time to wonder and in that time, the portal behind them disappeared.

"I don't know where to start," Iris said. "Grandmaster, can't you help me with some hints?"

"Sure," Ning said. "Here's your one and only hint. Everything in that map is absolutely accurate."

"That's… not very helpful," Iris said.

"You will be fine," Ning said. "Just look at the map and you will figure things out."

Iris continued looking at the map for a bit before suddenly looking up. She looked at the direction in which the sun was and quickly pulled out a spear from her storage bag before slamming it onto the sand before her.

Then, she waited for a few minutes to see how the sun would rotate. The shadow of the spear changed slightly and that told her what direction the sun was in.

From there, she could make a general guess of what direction she was facing. After that, all she could do was take the east or the west and hope to see land as she was definitely in between the 2 or the 3 continent clusters.

"Let's go east," she said, hoping that she was on the right side of the map. Otherwise, the 3 continent cluster would be to her west.

She started flying and Ning flew with her, going in the direction that would hopefully lead her to some land.

The world of Granaxx was about the size of Earth, so as an Immortal that flew through the ocean, it would take Iris about 3 hours to reach land, assuming she was at the furthest point away from any single piece of civilization.

Ning flew along with her at a leisurely pace, doing nothing but following her. From time to time, beasts would pop out of the ocean to harm them, and depending on the beast's strength, Ning would either deal with it or let Iris handle it.

Iris got into some very gruesome fights where she had to give it her all to beat the aquatic beast. Other times, she watched as Ning got rid of a stronger beast with merely his thought.

She wondered if she could ever get as strong as him. After a few hours of flying, she finally found a flying boat that going in roughly the same direction as she was, so she stopped to ask.

The people of the ship suddenly got on alert, wondering if she was a bandit that was around here to rob them.

A few of the stronger folks in the ship got ready to attack, so seeing this Iris quickly spoke up.

"Excuse me, I seem to be lost. Is the continent Hallinar in that direction?" she asked.

"No, that's Orlean. Hallinar is in the other direction," the people said.

"What? Seriously?" Iris exclaimed. She looked at the map and got a little angry. "You could've told me we were going in the wrong direction."

The people looked around but couldn't see who she was talking with. In fact, Iris herself couldn't see where Ning was.

"Uhh… Grandmaster?" she called out, but Ning was nowhere to be seen. "Grandmaster? Where are you? Did you leave me?"

Iris was very close to being in tears because of how lost she was in this new world, and now Ning had left as well.

"No, I'm still here. I am just concealed so the others don't see me," Ning told her.

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"Oh," Iris calmed down and turned towards the ship. "Thank you for answering me."

Once she had learned where she had to go, she turned around and started flying in the other direction.

Ning chuckled a bit and followed her. He found it funny to look at her mad little face when she realized that she had been in the wrong direction the entire time.

He also felt a little pity, so he used his aura to scare away all other beasts from approaching her so that she could fly halfway across the world without any worry.

By the time she reached the other continent, it was already nightfall.

Iris flew down to a city that was at the edge of the continent. Ning let her know a rule that was exclusive to these three continents that she should remember.

It was illegal to fly around on your own without a vehicle. Iris was annoyed at the piece of knowledge. "That's a stupid rule," she said softly.

"It is," Ning said. "But apparently you can only fly on your own if you are an Immortal Saint or above. Otherwise, you must use a vehicle."

"Where do I find a vehicle? Can you make me one?" she asked.

"Nope," Ning said. "I am not helping you with anything here. You will have to find a ride on your own."

Iris grumbled a bit and quickly walked into the city in hopes of finding anything. She asked a few people in the city and soon learned of a transportation agency that rented simple boats, however, they cost a bit more than she imagined, and unfortunately, Iris didn't have that sort of money on her at the moment.

"Grandmaster, what am I supposed to do?" she asked with a nearly crying voice.

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"Figure out on your own," Ning said. He was starting to think that he was being a little harsh on her. She was someone who didn't know the outer world as much, so maybe he should have started off slower.

But, it was too much fun for him to stop it at the moment.

Iris checked what she had. A few pills, two spears, some spirit stones that weren't Immortal spirit stones, and finally a set of clothes. Since she was randomly sent along with Ning, she hadn't prepared anything else.

Dahlia hadn't imagined that Ning wouldn't help her at all, so she hadn't prepared anything for her granddaughter as well.

Iris realized that it was too late and the city was starting to go quiet. Since everyone had closed the shop, she decided to find a place to stay as well.

Ning sat on the roof of the place where she was staying for the night and waited for the sun to rise.

Iris started cultivating, and soon the night turned to day. Since it was a new day, she went out to find transport for herself.

Since she couldn't buy any transport, she could only walk to the city where her Great Grandmother was.

Based on the map, she was on the right continent, so about 5 days of walking was enough for her to reach that city.

If she could fly, she could reach there in just half a day, but she didn't have that choice. "Stupid rule," she said under her breath as she left the ocean-side city.

When she came out, she realized that she didn't exactly have to walk all the way. There were many carts and carriages that were leaving as well, so she could find a ride in one of those.

Ning smiled when he saw her recognize the opportunity. That was certainly what he would have done as well. Plus, this would allow her to enjoy this planet for the few days she would be in the carriage.

One of the caravans accepted her the moment they realized that she was an Immortal expert. The guards there were mostly Nascent soul or Spirit Transformation cultivations, so having one that was in the Immortal realm was certainly something they would welcome.

Along with them, Iris started her journey toward her destination.

Iris was treated as a queen and was given the most lavish carriage in the whole caravan. She was allowed to sit towards the front where she could enjoy the journey without having to deal with the crowd towards the middle and back.

Immortals almost never meddled with them, so when they did, they made sure to respect them a lot.

Ning watched the caravan leave and switched his attention elsewhere. While the little girl was on her journey, he could go meet a few people before coming back.

He kept an eye on Iris just in case she got in some trouble, but mostly he focused on other things.

He teleported to another continent where he arrived in a city and entered a sort of guild where people could take up missions to earn money. There, working as a clerk was a Klavian, a girl who was related to one of the original few Klavians that Ning met a long time ago.

The girl was surprised when Ning found her and told her who he was. She didn't even hesitate to accept the opportunity and in fact, requested to be taken to her people.

She was feeling lonely recently after coming to the world in the last 50 years and wanted to meet her family again. However, she hadn't found a way back, so all she could do was try and live her life, and hope that her parents and relatives found a way to this exact planet.

"Wait around for me, I have to gather more people before I take you all back with me," Ning said.

The girl nodded and Ning left elsewhere.

Ning found Anya's nephew who had come with his own wife long ago. They were both in a sect where they were assistants to actual alchemists and were learning from them.

They had lived an okay life, but they were definitely not going to refuse Ning's offer to move back with their own people, especially after he mentioned that they could become stronger while doing so.

Ning was about to leave for another person when he noticed that Iris was about to get in slight trouble.

It wasn't going to be much of a problem for her, but it was definitely a roadblock and he wanted to see how she would act in this instance, so he teleported close by and started watching.

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Bandits suddenly attacked the caravan that Iris was in from all sides, They jumped out of the bushes to ambush them.

Formations were laid on the ground at once to confuse the guards of the caravan and quickly they started killing them.

Iris wasn't alert, so it took her a moment to realize they were being attacked. However, never before having come across such a problem, and she didn't know what to do.

The guards were dying left and right and Iris was all alone. Without even thinking much, she brought out her spear and went on the attack.

The bandits were much weaker than her, with only two of them being in the Spirit Transformation realm, so none of them were able to handle her.

However, they were able to handle the other guards who they were killing.

Iris got angry. "Stop it!" she shouted at them, sending fear bubbling through every bandit. The bandits stopped and fell to their knees in fear.

They had finally realized that they were dealing with an Immortal here. They immediately kowtowed in front of her.

"P-please spare us, immortal senior. We were wrong." They slammed their head on the ground as they apologized.

"Miss, please kill them quickly," the head of the caravan said. "They are bandits, you need to get rid of them."

Iris hesitated. She had fought a lot and knew that she was strong, but she had never killed before. Killing someone was a foreign concept to her who lived her entire life inside the Origin that was filled with nothing but friends and families and thus it was nothing but peaceful.

She was told that she had to learn to kill at some point in the future, but she didn't know if this was the moment.

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Was it honorable for her to kill a bunch of weaklings instead of killing someone that was comparable to her? But then, they were bandits. They deserved death for not only trying to steal but also killing so many of those around here.

"What will you do?" Ning's voice drifted to her ears. "Will you kill them for their transgression, or spare them despite of it?"

"I…" Iris's heart started beating faster as she didn't know what to do. She had never had to make such a decision in her life and there was no one to help her through it.

The bandits cried for forgiveness, while the merchants asked for slaughter. She didn't know who exactly to listen to.

"Don't think much," Ning said. "Don't listen to anyone else. Listen to your own heart. Don't let the others decide for you."

Ning's words helped her calm down a little. She took a deep breath as she blocked out the appeal from both sides and came to a conclusion.

Her spear moved with an incredibly quick and precise movement as she stabbed through the navel area of all the bandits, instantly crippling all of their cultivation bases.

"As much as they deserve their death, I do not believe I should be the one to deliver it," she told the person of the caravan. "Please capture them and give them to the authorities in the next city. Maybe you can use some rewards that are on their head to—"

The guards from the caravan that had 'died' started getting up one by one and their blood had suspiciously disappeared.

"Wha—"

"Miracle!" everyone started shouting. "Thank you, Immortal senior."

The people started thanking her and started capturing the bandits while Iris herself looked blankly. "But… weren't they dead?"

"They would've died had I not intervened," Ning said. "I stopped the killing blow from landing on them."

So… they were fine, and I didn't have to cripple the bandits?" Iris asked with a blank look on her face.

"No, the bandits struck to kill. Had I not been here, these people would've definitely died," Ning said. "What you did, what what you would have done in a normal scenario where I would be absent."

"I see," she said. She still had a hard time processing everything. "What I did… was that the right thing or not? What would you have done?"

"I would've killed them," Ning said. "I've killed people for less, but that's not the point. It's what you would have done, and you made a choice for yourself. There is no right or wrong answer here. As long as you make one, that's enough. You have shown me what sort of a person you are, and that's enough."

"I see," she said.

"Take some rest. You went through a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions and probably don't know how to feel right now," Ning said.

"A what of emotions?" she asked.

Ning chuckled. "Nothing, go back to your little carriage. I will go visit other people," he said and left.

Ning arrived somewhere else where he went to find another Klavian, but at the same time, he kept an eye on Iris to see that she wasn't too distressed by what she did.

A day passed and she slowly got back her composure and was more accepting of herself for what she did. She felt that the decision she took was the right one. Especially since the bandits did turn out to have bounties on their heads that she earned a part of.

Suddenly, she had enough money to take the flying ship away from the city she was in.

The money would be just enough to reach a city that was close to where she was going, so that was enough for her.

Iris boarded the flying ship and looked forward to meeting her Great Grandmother that would have no idea that she was coming for her.

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The flight was very fast and it took her no more than 3 hours to reach the city next to the one where her grandmother was.

Once she landed, she left that city and just ran over to the next one that was merely a dozen or so kilometers away. As an Immortal, she reached there in just a couple of minutes.

"Grandmaster, I'm here. Now what?" Iris asked as she looked around the city. This place seemed like a major metropolis with giant buildings that threatened to touch the sky.

The crowded street told her that this was one of the more important cities and thus there would be way more people there than she could ever imagine.

"Now find her," Ning told her.

"Huh? But where is she?" Iris asked.

"That's your job, remember? I left the task of finding her to you," Ning said.

"But… this city is so massive. How am I supposed to find her?" Iris asked.

"That's for you to figure out. Don't expect me to help you here." After that, Ning didn't speak anymore.

Iris grumbled but there was nothing she could do, so she instead spent her energy on trying to find a way to find her Great Grandmother.

"Are there some sort of information-dispensing buildings around here?" she wondered. She wanted to release her sense to find something like that, but using divine sense was not allowed in this place at all.

Instead, she had to ask around to find such a place. When she did find one, she realized that she didn't have any money at all for that.

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She looked to the sky and realized it was going to get dark soon. If the city shut down, what was she going to do at night? She didn't even have money to stay anywhere.

"I need to find my Great Grandmother," she thought to herself. Since she couldn't rely on anything else, she had to rely on herself and the information she had.

If there was one thing she could tell that was true about her family, it was that they were all very talented in Alchemy. Not only were they introduced to alchemy from a very young age, they also had some of the best books in Alchemy which let them learn a lot more than other people.

So, if Iris wanted to find her Great Grandmother, it had to be at a place where there was the most usage of Alchemy. So a pill store, or an alchemy guild.

She asked around some more and made to go around the city to different pill stores. She didn't believe anyone from her family would be selling pills, and instead would be making them, but the stores were on the way to the guild, so she visited them.

She had never seen her Great Grandmother before, so recognizing her was not something she could easily do. But all she had to do was look for someone that looked like her Grandmother, which she thought she could do.

She went around the town and found nobody that looked similar to her grandmother, before finally arriving at the Alchemy guild. It was already late towards the night, so she had to be quick here.

Iris went up to the reception and asked if there was an Alchemist named Tanya in this place.

"I'm sorry, we cannot give information about our alchemists. Those are private information, so that's impossible," the girl at the reception said.

"Please, she is a relative of mine. I need to know if there is one with such a name here or not and I will leave to find her in some other place," Iris said. "Please. Her name is Tanya. Is she here or not?"

"Who are you? And why are you looking for me?" a voice spoke from the side.

Iris' eyes went wide as she turned around to see the beautiful woman that was standing in front of her.

Looking at her, she could tell that her grandmother was a spitting image of her.

Iris hesitated a bit. The awkwardness was clear as she didn't know what her first words should be. Should she greet her? She should definitely do that right? She should say her name as well, but then will her Great Grandmother recognize her by just her name?

"I… I am Iris," she spoke up. "My mother is Lily, and my grandmother is Dahlia. I-I am your Great Granddaughter."

Tanya looked surprised, and somewhat shocked as well. "Iris? Is that really you?" she couldn't help but ask.

"Yes, it's me," Iris said, her hands shaking from nervousness.

"Oh, my girl. How you've grown." Tanya walked forward and hugged Iris with tears in her eyes. "I never expected to see you here."

She let go of the stunned Iris and asked, "Where's Dahlia? She said she would only come after she had made sure everything was okay back at home and she felt okay to leave it up to the others."

"Grandmother is not here," Iris said. "She's waiting for you and the rest, only I came here to get you."

Tanya's eyes narrowed. "Only you came? She let you come here alone?" she asked.

"Oh no, not just me. I came with—"

"She came with me," Ning spoke from the side, finally revealing himself.

Tanya's eyes went wide. "Aah! Uncle Ning? How- how are you here? When did you come back?" She asked.

"A few months ago," Ning said. "How are you doing, little girl?"

Tanya couldn't help but feel like a child again in front of Ning and quickly jumped into his embrace. "I missed you so much, uncle Ning. I'm glad you are finally back."

"I'm glad I am too," Ning said and patted her a bit.

Tanya let go and looked at the two of them. "Only you two came? And what is this about taking me back? Are you here to take me back to Kumia?" she asked.

"No, not Kumia. I've found a better place which I'm sure Iris will tell you about in due time. I hope you don't have anything important to do here as we will be leaving tomorrow if possible," Ning said.

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"You came here just for me?" Tanya asked.

"No, not really. There were too many of our people here, so I came for all of you. I don't know if you know this, but your cousin is actually on another continent right here on this planet right now," Ning said. "Along with him, and many other Klavians, I came to take back all of you."

"Wait, my cousin is in this world too? I wish I had learned about this before, I could've gone met him," Tanya said.

"You will meet him tomorrow. Uh… go rest for today, I still have to go let a few more people know that we are leaving. Once I've notified all, I will come to get you and take you all back," Ning said.

"Okay," Tanya said and turned towards Iris. "You've really grown up to be a fine woman. Come tell me about your childhood that I missed."

"Alright, I'll see you later."

Ning teleported away and went to get the final few people that he needed to find. He had already met with over 50 different people by now, so he had to let them all know that he was coming to take them after that.

Iris and Tanya went back to Tanya's home where they talked for the entire night. Then, once morning came, they heard Ning's voice ring in their head.

"It's time to leave."

Ning went up to everyone and teleported them all to an empty island in the middle of the ocean that one wouldn't necessarily find.

The people who saw familiar faces after hundreds of years couldn't help but converse with each other, voicing their regret for not meeting earlier.

Once everyone who wanted to come was here, Ning opened another portal door back to the Origin where the rest were.

One by one, the people started walking through the portal and arrived at the place where they saw even more familiar faces.

Mother and daughter, uncles and nephews, brothers and sisters, and many other people were reunited with each other. They all started tearing up and talked about how much they missed each other.

Ning watched from the side with a soft smile on his face, seeing so many people find happiness in what they thought they had lost forever ago.

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Seeing that only motivated him to go out once again to find the rest.

He spent a day or two with Ely, going around the Origin that seemed to have more buildings built already.

"These people are working quite fast," he said as he looked at them.

"Everyone is excited about meeting their family members again. So they want to prepare the best place for them to return to as they can," Ely said.

"That's understandable," Ning said.

"By the way, where are you going next?" Ely asked. "You mentioned that you are going by based on which planet has the most people, right?"

"Assuming that someone doesn't immediately need my help, I'm going around based on what you said," Ning said. "My next one is most likely going to be Halyms."

"Who's on Halyms?" Ely asked.

"Uh, Sonya and her children, little Ning, Hijaka, and a few other Klavians," Ning said. "All in all, about 40 different people. It will be a quick journey."

"Alright," Ely said. "You should go and get them quickly then."

"Sure, I will leave tomorrow morning then," Ning said.

Ning kept his word by opening a portal early in the morning and left for the Planet Halyms. Most folks didn't realize he was gone for the whole day until they came around looking for him.

Then, 2 days later, a portal formed once again inside the Origin from where more familiar faces walked in.

Once more, the atmosphere turned happy as everyone enjoyed the company of someone they hadn't seen for a very long time.

Ning watched them with a smile on his face. "I should go around even faster," he said.

Ning spent a month going through the various planets, getting the estranged immortals who had left Kumia and bringing them back to the Origin.

By now, there were only 3 more planets he had to go through, and for him, those were the 3 most important ones.

Halios arrived next to him suddenly and told him that Varsil was outside.

Ning arrived back outside and met the young man. "What's up? Do you need something?" he asked.

"Umm, senior. You mentioned the bamboo before, have you obtained it yet by any chance?" he asked.

"Bamboo? Oh right, shoot. I nearly forgot," Ning said. "Let's see… it's in a planet called… hm, Earth? That's not right."

The planet was definitely not the earth, but for some reason when he heard the words his System spoke just now, it definitely said Earth.

"Oh wait, no, it's not earth. It's called Diqiu. It just happens to sound like Earth to my ears. I swear this is the same shit that happened in the other universe too," Ning said. "Alright, I will go there today. I need to go there anyway, and after a few days I will be back."

"I will let you know after I have the bamboo. Rest assured until then," Ning said and went back.

He met up with Ely and the others and told them that he was leaving again. This time, his journey would be to the planet named Diqiu.

He opened a portal and arrived in a desolate piece of a mountain range in the land of Diqiu.

Ning quickly learned about Diqiu and couldn't help but be surprised at its size.

This continent was nearly as large as Kumia, and unlike Kumia, most of it was just a landmass. There were water resources everywhere, but there were no giant oceans like the one in Kumia.

Ning quickly learned the location of the bamboo. But, that came later. First, he needed to go find the one he had come here for.

He teleported away and arrived next to a massive city in a desert area. He looked around with a confused look on his face. He couldn't understand why he would ever want to stay in a city like this.

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But then, seeing the situation of the planet he was in, there wasn't a that much better place for him. Besides, he must have come here first and never thought of leaving.

Ning walked into the city and directly went towards the arena in the distance that everyone in the desert city visited every day.

Ning felt the cultivation base of everyone in the city and was surprised at how weak they all were. Barely any of them were Immortal cultivators at all.

But it seemed to be a matter of talent, as the Immortal Qi was very prevalent in this world all around. In fact, one could reach the Immortal God realm on this very planet, which was one of the very few when considering the entire universe.

"Are they speaking Chinese?" Ning thought as he listened to the words that were spoken by the people here. That definitely sounded Chinese to his ears.

It wasn't like the other universe where they just named themselves in Chinese words, these people were speaking actual Chinese.

'Why are they speaking perfect Chinese?' Ning asked his System.

Long ago, the Immortal God named Yanxu Qiuguan who was a transmigrator from planet Earth came to influence due to his overwhelming might and power.

Due to his influence, everyone started learning the language he taught them, and soon enough the Chinese language, more accurately Cantonese became their main language.

"I see," Ning said. "Weird that they got rid of their own language for his. Where is this Yanxu Qiuguan right now?"

He has faked his death and is now living a simple life on a farm in the Transcendent Ruins towards the east.

"I see," Ning said and continued walking towards the Arena. As he got closer, he started realizing he was wrong about this place.

It wasn't that there were no Immortals around this place, but instead, they were all gathered by the arena where they were watching two people fight each other.

A big smile formed on Ning's lips as he realized something.

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Anyone could join the fight.

"Hehe! Let's go fight," Ning said and entered the arena. Instead of going toward the audience section, he went ahead and registered himself for a fight.

There was a simple test to see if he was fit to join, but Ning easily cheated his way through that by lowering his prowess as low as he could without failing.

Once he was allowed to fight, all he had to do was wait for his turn.

The fight in the Arena would last forever until one person lost. If you won against someone, you didn't have to fight against them until you lost once as well.

Doing that, if you fought through everyone and beat everyone, including the champion, you yourself would be crowned a champion.

It was starting to get dark, but the cultivators didn't care. All they cared about was seeing the fight in the arena.

Ning walked out to the cheer of many people, but obviously, those cheers weren't for him but rather for his opponent who had just won.

"Hahaha! Another one to be my stepping stone!" the buff man in front of Ning shouted, and the crowd roared along with him.

The crowd started chanting the name 'Goyu', while the referee looked at Ning. "Are you ready to start?" he asked.

Ning nodded and the match began.

Just as it started, Goyu attacked Ning. He used a massive metal staff which he slammed downward.

Ning stepped to the side, dodging the attack. Staff intent came after the staff, following its path, and attacked him, but that attack barely even ruffled Ning's clothes.

'Hmm?' Goyu noticed something weird, but the crowd kept chanting and didn't notice the abnormality. He attacked again, swiping horizontally, but Ning simply stepped back, letting the staff miss him by just a bit.

"Stop running away and fight!" Goyu shouted

Ning smiled. "You're not worth any other actions from me."

The buff man in front of Ning got ticked off. Without any warning, his metal staff grew red as he poured fire Qi into it, turning it red hot.

Suddenly, the rod created an illusory image of itself that was larger than its physical form. With both length and width at his side, the man didn't think he would lose at all.

He slammed down the staff, bringing along with it the illusory image.

Ning smiled and flicked his finger. A small spear Qi flew out of his fingers and hit the physical staff, creating a massive explosion in the ring. The barrier around them blocked the shockwave from hitting the audience, but the man in front of him took the brunt of the force and was pushed back quite a bit far.

The audience stopped cheering after this exchange and looked in awe. They had never seen such a massive display of power with something so small.

"How… how did you…?" the man couldn't understand how a spear Qi could be that strong at all. After all, he had never seen anything like that at all.

"Wanna continue fighting? Or will you quit right now?" Ning asked.

Goyu frowned. It was apparent that he was weaker, but he had come here with the intention to defeat the long-time champion, so there was no way he was going to give up just yet.

"I will beat you!" he shouted. He took the staff and swung it around. The fire spread from the tip of the staff with such intense heat that anyone that had recently reached the Immortal realm would have to give up on the fight certainly.

The fire continued building up on the stage and soon enough Ning was surrounded by a tornado of fire with heat reaching as high as 2000 degrees. Even the floor was starting to glow red from the heat.

However, Ning stood there with a gentle smile on his face. He didn't feel the heat uncomfortable at all.

For someone who stayed hundreds of thousands of years close to stars, such little heat was child's play to him.

Goyu saw it and was surprised. "How are you not—"

Ning suddenly took in a deep breath. He sucked the air around him and along with it most of the fire on the stage. The lack of both oxygen and qi made the fire grow dull all of a sudden.

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Then, he breathed it all out.

The massive force produced by so much air blew apart the stage, sending chunks of stones flying and completely extinguishing the fire. The air hit Goyu and sent him flying out as well before the rest of the debris could hit him.

Space rippled around where he blew out the air threatening to rip apart from the sheer physical force of the air being blown out.

Ning wasn't worried about an Immortal being hurt by flying debris, but it was still best to be careful given how strong he was.

He turned his target towards the sky once Goyu was sent away and nearly blew a hole in the barrier dome above him from the air.

"Phew!" he made an audible sigh as if he had done something tiresome. He looked around at the stage which was completely torn apart and asked, "There's no penalty for destroying the stage right?"

The audience watched in shock at what had just happened. One of the strongest newcomers to the arena was defeated just like that by someone blowing at him.

If they were to tell others about it later, there was no way anyone would believe them.

Goyu got out of the rubble from outside and stage and looked at Ning in shock. His most powerful technique, the Flame Domain that he had practiced and perfected for so many years just so he could beat the champion was so easily destroyed by the man in front of him.

"Who is he?" he couldn't help but ask.

Ning looked around and looked at the referee. "When does my next opponent come in?" he asked.

The referee was too dumbfounded at the moment to think properly, so it was only after Ning's words that he even remembered to announce his victory. After that, he called a few people to fix the stage.

Surprisingly, these people with Earth-based techniques easily fixed the stage within a minute and then another one of Ning's opponents was out.

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This time, it was a barbarian girl wearing skimpy clothes with tanned skin. He hair was sort and her body was built like a bodybuilder. Ning checked quickly and realized that she was what he thought she was.

A body cultivator.

'This will be fun,' he thought.

The girl was loud or aggressive at all. In fact, she was very much paranoid about Ning's powers. She had seen how the fight before her had gone, so she was trying to figure Ning out before she attacked.

"Want a handicap?" Ning asked the girl.

"What?" the girl replied, unable to understand his words.

"A handicap. Tell me what I'm not allowed to use and I won't use it for the remainder of our fight," he said confidently.

The girl gave a confused look. "Are you saying that if I say you can't use your body, you will stay there unmoving without even blocking?" the girl asked.

"Wait… no, that was not my intention," Ning said. "I just… you know what, fine. I will do what you say. I won't move a single muscle. Do you want the handicap?"

"And what about me?" the girl asked.

"Nothing for you, I just wanted to give you a handicap so you won't feel scared of approaching me," Ning said.

"Hah! You are really confident," the girl said with a massive smile on her face. "Fine, I accept. If I can have one less thing I have to worry about, then so be it,"

"Great," Ning said and suddenly sat down. "You may start whenever you want. Don't be afraid to use weapons either."

The girl started the match by dashing toward Ning. She got close to him before suddenly changing her direction away as if to dodge an attack that would come from Ning. However, Ning made no such action.

He had chosen to sit there without moving, so he didn't even move his eyes to see where she had gone.

The girl went around towards his back and finally got close to him. She kicked him in the head as hard as she could to send him flying.

However, when her feet touched Ning's head, she realized that she had made a mistake. This was not someone she could just kick without hurting herself.

"Aaagh!" she shouted as she rolled on the floor while grabbing her right foot. The pain that coursed through her body was far stronger than anything she had felt previously while body cultivating.

"What the hell? How is your head so hard?" she asked.

"Just like you, I am a body cultivator too." Ning didn't speak, but his voice drifted into her head.

"Seriously?" the girl asked as she stood up. She limped a little before rushing forward. She punched him in the stomach this time around, but the force behind her punch was far lower than her kick before.

She didn't want to hurt herself this time around either.

Just as she expected, his stomach was hard as a diamond as well. She backed away with a confused look on her face.

'How the hell am I supposed to win this?' she wondered. She went ahead and attacked a couple more times, but no matter how much she attacked, Ning didn't budge even the slightest bit at all.

All that resulted from her attacks was burning pain in her fist, elbow, knee, and leg.

In the end, she was forced to admit that there was no way for her to win this match at all.

"I give up!" she said with frustration clear in her voice. After all, she never expected someone to be so much stronger than her in terms of body cultivation while looking weaker than her.

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Ning finally moved. He stood up and smiled at the girl before looking at the referee.

The referee hesitated a little bit. Was this even a fight? Was this what the audience had come here to see?

Still, as a referee, he did his job and announced Ning as the victor before calling over the next contestant.

Ning's next contestant was a man that had a few beast companions that he fought with, namely a leopard with a scorpion tail, and an armored lizard with poisonous spits.

Neither of those beasts was effective at all. They were already handicapped by the fact that poison attacks weren't allowed in the arena just for safety reasons, and on top of that, the person himself wasn't used to fighting on his own.

Until now, he had defeated a few people by virtue of having numbers on his side, but that didn't work against Ning at all.

Ning threw out a few spear Qi and the match was over.

His next few fights went on in a similar manner as well. He either used his spear Qi to defeat them or simply withstood the damage they dealt to him until they were no longer willing to fight.

After nearly 10 battles, the audience was starting to realize that there was a chance that they would have a new champion today.

They cheered loudly, chanting 'Gong' aloud as that was the name he had registered under.

Ning raised his hands toward the audience who cheered even louder. He was enjoying this quite a bit.

His next opponent came onto the stage and stood in front of him. 'Hmm?' Ning gave a curious look when he saw the man.

The man looked not very powerful and was giving out an aura of a cultivation base of somewhere in the Low Immortal realm, but Ning could see through the concealment.

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This man was no Low Immortal realm cultivator, but rather a True Immortal realm cultivator, a full 2 realm higher.

'He's hiding his cultivation? Is he like me?' Ning wondered. It was possible that there was someone out there that was there just to have some fun.

'I should let him have his fun,' Ning thought.

As soon as the battle began, Ning dashed forward, going on the offensive for the first time ever in the last dozen or so fights.

The man was surprised to see him come for him as that was not how Ning fought at all. His hands moved suddenly, creating a barrier in front of him to block Ning's attack.

Ning's punch landed on the barrier, but it did nothing. He had purposefully lowered his power to the point where he couldn't even create a ripple in the barrier at all.

'Wait, did I hold back too much?' he wondered. Earlier he was creating explosions with spear Qi and blowing wind strong enough to rip apart stones, and now he couldn't even break through a barrier?

Ning then flicked his finger afterward and finally, the barrier shattered, forcing the man behind it to take a few steps back.

'That should do it,' he thought. He hoped no one noticed that he was holding back a lot.

The man brought out a sword and slashed downwards, sending along a Sword aura at him that threatened to cut him.

'That's a bit strong,' Ning thought and brought out a spear of his own to attack back with his Spear Aura that was strong enough to overpower the man's own attack.

The man looked shocked and used his sense on Ning, but he couldn't see how Ning could ever create a stronger aura than his. After all, his cultivation base was only at Low Immortal.

The man did not believe that Ning could be concealing his powers at all. After all, he had an artifact with him that notified him of all sorts of concealment and transformations of those around him.

"You're strong," the man finally spoke. "I'm sorry, but I will have to use all of my strength on you now."

Oh!" Ning was a little surprised. "Are you not trying to have some fun?"

"Why would I want to have fun?" the man asked. "I came here to complete my mission. Anyone who stands in my way will be defeated."

"Oh, okay," Ning said. 'Weird, I thought he would want to have fun like me. Maybe I misunderstood.'

The man in front of him used a sword to slash at Ning. The sword threw out a brilliant glow of golden light that destroyed space as it traveled.

Ning noticed the power behind the attack and it wasn't something the people he was fighting against earlier could have survived at all.

'Well, he isn't holding back alright,' Ning thought. However, just because the other person didn't want to have fun didn't mean he wasn't going to continue.

Ning pulled out his spear and swung it as well, sending an attack that was of almost the same strength as the attack he was countering.

The two forces collided and neither one of them came out victorious.

The man in front of Ning was surprised. He hadn't expected Ning to be so strong at all. "You are hiding your strength too?" he asked.

"Hey, don't go spoiling the fun. Just fight," Ning said.

"Are you here for him?" the man asked.

"Here for who?" Ning asked.

"The champion," the man said.

Ning looked a little surprised. "How did you know?" he asked.

"Of course," the man said to himself. "We were stupid enough to think only we noticed."

Ning's eyes narrowed. "What are you planning exactly?" he asked.

"Don't act innocent, bastard! You know exactly what we want," the man said and prepared his next attack.

A fiery bird appeared in the sky, one that burned with blue flames and came diving down towards Ning.

Ning smiled a little and snapped his fingers. A fiery bird of his own appeared one that burned with blue flames as well, looking eerily similar to the man's attack.

The man was surprised how Ning knew their signature skill, but the truth was Ning was forcing his way into making the bird with all the Qi he had.

The two birds collided, and flames rained from the sky all around them.

The referee who was much weaker than the two had to quickly get off the stage and go far away. The fire burned the stage beneath the two, leaving holes of molten rock behind.

The man Ning was fighting looked shocked once again to see how easily Ning was fighting him.

"Too strong," the man said softly under his breath. "I will need help."

Ning's eyes narrowed when he heard that and increased his senses. Just then, he caught a divine sense falling onto the man and intercepted the words that came in through the sense.

"Fall back for now."

The man's face looked conflicted, but he accepted. "I give up," he said and walked away. Ning remained on the stage, victorious as ever, but he no longer gave any thought to his victory.

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The people came to mend the stage while the referee announced his victory, but Ning's sense remained on the one that had just left.

He followed the man with his sense and saw where he went. The man went to meet with 2 more people that wore similar robes as his own.

"I'm sorry, I failed," the man said.

"It's fine. Even without you, our plan will go accordingly," a gruff voice spoke.

"Let's just wait for that man to win it all."

Ning couldn't help but wonder what exactly their plan was, but he was going to be here for all of it. There was no way he was going to miss so much fun.

The next couple of opponents were easy for him and after the fight with the mysterious man he felt no need to continue fighting them to have fun. He just wanted to see their end goal now.

After fighting 10 or more different fighters, Ning was approaching the moment when he no longer had any opponents to fight.

Then finally, after beating one more person, he had defeated all but the champion.

The crowd started chanting his name loudly as they now believed they were finally going to have a new champion.

Ning waited quietly, preparing for his final opponent in the arena. The Champion.

The doors opened on the other side and a young-looking man with a maniacal look on his face walked out.

The champion wore no clothes for his upper body and which showed off his dark-skinned body that looked almost chiseled out from a block of marble. His long hair curled slightly as it fell to his shoulders and his eyes looked like they were craving for a fight.

He jumped from where he was and landed on the stage with a bang, sending dust flying everywhere.

The ground shook at his arrival and the crowd went silent for a moment.

He took a deep breath and raised his hands, stretching them out wide. "Your champion is here!"

With those four words, everyone forgot about Ning and started chanting for the champion.

"BLUE! BLUE! BLUE! BLUE!"

Ning smiled as he watched the blue-haired humanoid dragon in front of him. He was happy to see the silly flood dragon doing quite well for himself.

'High Immortal 2nd Realm. That's not bad,' Ning thought as he sensed Blue's cultivation base. Unlike Aegis, Blue descended from the True Dragons, so his bloodline had knowledge of how a dragon could reach the pinnacle of cultivation.

As such, he didn't have to be unable to cultivate once he reached the Immortal realm, unlike many others.

"My friend, you have done well getting here," Blue spoke. "But this is the end of your journey, for your opponent is me, Blue!"

Ning couldn't help but smile even wider when he heard that. Blue didn't recognize him at all.

How even could he? After all, Ning had changed his name and appearance entirely before coming to the arena.

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Everyone chanted for Blue and soon enough there was no one on Ning's side at all. Still, they weren't here to see two people, but to see them fight, so the referee started the match immediately.

"Let us fight until one of us can no longer," Blue said and moved his arms. Suddenly, water burst out from all around him and covered the entire stage. The referee who was used to his fighting style moved away immediately and let the stage fill with water.

Ning started flying and looked around at the water that filled the stage. Blue did well in water and could even heal in it, and now he had made a place for himself where he could fight to his heart's content.

"Not bad," Ning said softly and looked toward Blue. "You've certainly improved."

Blue got a little confused by the comment, but with the spirit of fighting burning in him, he quickly forgot about it and charged with an attack.

Streams of water flowed out from the water domain Blue had created and slammed upward. Ning dodged what he could and punched the others to destroy them.

"Oh!" he thought with a surprised look on his face. The attacks while coming from a High Immortal cultivator, had the power of a True Immortal cultivation base.

Ning's smile widened when he realized what had happened. 'He's finally a True Dragon,' he thought.

Blue no longer had the blood of a True Dragon but had evolved to become a True Dragon. Ning could not be any happier at the news.

"Hahaha! Good! Great!" he shouted back as Blue continued attacking him with plumes of water sprouts.

Blue continued attacking but soon realized that he wasn't getting anywhere. Ning was destroying or evading every single one of his attacks.

"You're good, my friend. It seems I will have to get serious as well," Blue said. A blue halo started appearing around him.

Ning was prepared for whatever attack was going to come next when he heard something crack.

Both he and Blue stopped and turned to the side to see the barrier that was protecting the audience crack open.

The 3 mysterious figures from before entered the stage and surrounded Blue.

"Hey, we're fighting. What are you doing?" Blue asked.

The 3 didn't answer Blue. One of them turned towards Ning and said, "this fight is over. You can leave."

Ning stayed where he was with his arms crossed and was going to see how this would play out.

"Who are you three? Why are you messing with my fight?" Blue asked.

"We are here to confirm something," one of them said. He brought out some sort of device and dropped it to the ground. The device fell into the water the Blue had created, and suddenly a pulse of energy was shot out from it.

Ning felt his concealment being attacked when the pulse passed through him. At the same time, Blue was attacked by the pulse as well.

However, instead of his concealment being targeted, it was his transformation.

Blue scales appeared all around his face as his fingers grew longer and sharp nails appeared around them. His back bulged a bit and his clothes threatened to rip.

The pulse came once again and the changes became even more apparent.

The continuous pulse kept forcing Blue to change but even just the start of it was enough to convince the three that they were here for the right cause.

"As expected!" the older man with the gruff voice said. "You really are a Dragon."

Each pulse of the artifact stripped away the transformation that Blue had done to appear a human. He had tried to hide his heritage so he could live with the humans without being driven away while he was still weak, and now that was being taken away from him.

His limbs turned to talons, his iris became slit. His mouth and nose came outward, forming a snout and wings sprouted from his back.

The only cloth, his pants that he was wearing was torn up as his muscular limbs became visible. Scales appeared all over them as they soon grew up to his torso and then his face.

Two horns appeared on his head and he landed on all four.

The three men looked with awe and greed as the Dragon finally revealed itself to them.

Blue struggled to push back his transformation, but he simply couldn't while this pulse was going on.

His eyes turned toward the device and he suddenly opened his mouth to shoot out some water. The three men moved immediately and created a barrier in front of them to stop the water.

When the water hit, the weakest of them struggled to keep his barrier active and couldn't help but be shocked at just how strong Blue actually was.

"How is he hiding his cultivation base?" he asked worriedly. The other two looked worried as well since no one was supposed to be able to hide their cultivation base while under the effect of the pulse.

"It can't be," the older man said. "That is his cultivation base. As expected of a dragon."

The other two looked with awe. "How strong will we be after we manage to tame it?" they asked.

"Tame the dragon? Is that why you are here?" Ning asked from right beside them.

The three of them moved aside immediately when they heard Ning. The older one looked worriedly as he didn't even sense Alex coming close.

"You can leave young man, you have nothing to do here," the older man said.

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"Oh, but I told that man that I'm here for the champion too. Did he forget to pass along the information?" Ning asked. "Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. You shouldn't let your mind be so broken with a single loss that you forget such critical information."

The older man's eyes narrowed.

"Behind you!" another man shouted as Blue attacked again. Shard water slices flew through the air as they came down towards all of them, including Ning.

"You bastards! You made me reveal myself. You will all die for it!" he shouted. Surprisingly, Blue had gotten stronger after his transformation was taken away.

Ning wondered if it worked similarly to how it was with Derel. She had become weaker after turning into a human too.

Blue's long, serpent-like body twisted as a water tornado appeared all around the stage. The stage was getting ripped up and pulled into the water as it was then sent out in every direction.

The audience started running away after seeing such a dangerous situation and within moments there would be no one else in the arena.

Blue started going even more wild, attacking with everything he had. He was getting angry now that he would no longer get to stay here and enjoy his life as he had for the past hundreds of years.

The three figures attacked back as well, destroying the water tornado as best they could. The two younger men were not as strong, but the older one was strong enough to fight Blue and even overwhelm him.

He struck with his sword, destroying every single one of Blue's attacks, and slowly started cornering him.

Blue fought back as hard as he could, but the 3 attackers were strong and prepared. He only had one way to win this fight, which would be to use his blood essence, but then, he would have to go for years without it, which was dangerous.

The 3 of them slowly cornered Blue, flanking him from all sides and forcing him with no room to fight.

Blue was getting desperate and he no longer felt like he had a choice. If he didn't fight back with everything he had now, he was either going to be killed or enslaved, and there was no way he was going to be either of those things, not unless…

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"Hmm, why do you guys keep forgetting about me?" Ning asked from not far away again. "Am I that forgettable? Or are you just not bothering to be cautious around me?"

The older man turned around to see Ning standing there without looking like he had to fight anything. 'Did he dodge everything? Or did he fight them easily?' he wondered.

Blue's attacks had run wild, which was to say that there were only a few ways one could have gotten out of it unscathed.

The old man was worried that Ning had used the worst one of them all.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Me? I'm a nobody really," Ning said "what about yourself? You look mysterious enough to be from some organization. What's your origin?"

The old man kept quiet. He didn't believe Ning was a nobody, so he didn't answer either.

"Uhuh… the Beastmaster's faction. I would've thought you guys would be more honorable, given your job," Ning said.

The old man's eyes went wide. "Bastard! How do you know that?" he asked. He had gone to great lengths to hide their identity while coming here, so there was no way someone should have that info.

And yet, Ning had so casually found his origin. He couldn't help but think that someone from the organization had leaked their mission.

"Do all Beastmasters go around looking so shady? You could have come here in your actual clothes, but I suppose you were worried Blue was going to run away," Ning said. "Well, you are lucky then. Blue won't run away."

Suddenly, the entire world seemed to go dark as a massive barrier appeared all around them.

"Go on, fight to your heart's content," Ning said. "I want to see just how strong he's gotten."

:)