Everyone finally remembered the reason why they were here!
It was not to ponder if an odd, expressionless child did or did not hear the popping of a demon’s balls. It was to take the inheritance of the Peach Blossom Sage within the Peach Blossom Sage relic!
And right now, the Peach Blossom Sage Relic was open!
****
The hairline crack extended all the way from the front to the back before it covered the entirety of the barrier.
The expressions of the spectators became frenzied as the time for them to enter came closer and closer.
“Alright, young ones, remember to be careful! The inside of the relic has many untold dangers, so don’t let your guard down!”
“The treasures are all protected and have many traps surrounding them, so don’t take the slightest oddity for granted!”
The elders were all warning and giving advice to the disciples in their own camps so they could know what to look out for.
Long Di couldn’t help but furrow his brow when he saw this. “Why are the elders not going inside to steamroll the younger, weaker disciples? Is there some law?”
“Hm? You don’t know?” Yaomu Shou asked upon hearing his question.
When she saw Long Di shaking his head and saw the blank expression on the other disciples’ faces, she took the initiative to answer their question with a question. “What do you think happens when the local and foreign powers all want a piece of a pie that’s not big enough to share?”
Long Di hardly hesitated before answering. “They steal it and then suffer from type 2 diabetes, just as karma intended?”
“Wha—” Yaomu Shou was stunned after hearing Long Di’s answer. “N—No! Wait, what the heck is type 2 d—diabeetles!?”
“Diabeetles?” Long Di raised a brow at this. “Oh, that is just precious.”
“Are you calling me precious?” Yaomu Shou asked, unsure of where this conversation is going.
“Oh, well, I am simply using precious as a euphemism for naivety and ignorance and the adorableness of it,” said Long Di.
“Wait a minute, are you calling me stupid!?,” Yaomu Shou was getting a bit angry at this point.
Long Di was genuinely surprised hearing this, though his expression remained unchanged. “Interesting, the sense within you seems to be a bit common. Maybe there is hope for this world yet. That’s a compliment by the way.”
“I don’t follow,” said Yaomu Shou, the red from her cheeks receding upon hearing the word ‘compliment.’
“You wouldn’t be the first. In any case, am I right regarding diabeetles?” Long Di asked as he stared at the ever-weakening barrier.
“I don’t think you are,” Yaomu Shou answered in an unsure way due to being thrown for a loop thanks to Long Di’s weird phrasing and seemingly non-existent words.
“Unable to answer due to your preciousness, eh?” Long Di asked as he gave her a side glance.
“W—Whatever, just listen.” Yaomu Shou decided that she was going to stop getting caught up in his flow… though she would fail. “If every time a relic opens up, the sects and clans were to fight all out, there would be endless bloodshed on a level that no one would be able to bear. As a result, a tacit agreement was made where the younger generation would compete for the inheritance and the treasure within would belong to the fated.”
“I see,” Long Di nodded when he heard this. This would make things easier for him, he was just about as ‘younger generation’ as any of the other disciples here were.
Pssshh!
Long Di’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud crash, which was nothing less than the barrier, no longer able to remain erect.
“GO!”
No one knew who shouted first, but this lit a fuse within the crowd as thousands of cultivators suddenly rushed to the small temple and the small portal within that led to the Peach Blossom Sage’s Relic.
“Let’s go!” Yaomu Shou shouted, ready to set off with Long Di and the others.
“Wait!”
“Hm?” A shout from the distance stopped Long Di’s group from moving.
Long Di turned his head to the side, and through the sea of people rushing past him to the relic, he could see a human race expert that was coming towards them.
“He seems to be coming for us,” Long Di advised.
Yaomu looked at him in disbelief, “W—Wait a minute. Why are you able to tell that he wants to speak to you in this sea of people amongst all this noise, yet you couldn’t tell that I was calling for you on a quiet street with more than adequate description!?”
Obviously, Yaomu Shou still had Long Di up for not acknowledging her during their first meeting.
“You can think whatever you’d like. I still have half a foot in the door thinking that you’re currently exhibiting hyperacute looking-at-me-but-calling-someone-else syndrome.”
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“You can’t be serious!” Yaomu Shou’s jaw dropped to the ground when she heard Long Di. “We’ve been holding the conversation nearly the whole way here!”
“Let’s suspend this conversation for a next time,” Long Di advised, redirecting his full attention to the human race expert who was heading towards him with what appeared to be a group of disciples behind him.
“Greetings, my name is Shen Dai, an elder from the Soaring Cloud Immortal Sect,” he came to Long Di and the others and introduced himself, before gesturing to the disciples behind him.
“These are a few of the disciples that I’m accompanying on this trip to the relic.”
The disciples he referred to took one look at Long Di before they sneered in their hearts.
Apart from Yaomu Shou, Long Di and the others were wearing clothes that could be described as being only a bit better than a group of beggars.
Them wearing such rags made it painfully obvious that they were from some backwater sect in decline and that was if they were even in a sect to begin with.
In these disciples’ eyes, the status between the two groups was painfully apparent. All the more they found it puzzling why their elder brought them to meet these beggars.
“Greetings senior Shen Dai, this junior is Long Di, and these are my friends, Feng Yu, Shen Ling, Tie Lang, Jie Yan and the legendary straggler.”
“Legendary straggler your butt! My name is Yaomu Shou!”
“Y—Yaomu!?”
The elder appeared visibly flustered upon hearing her name and his expression became grave.
Yaomu Shou was a Yuan demon, which was a special type of demon that had an exceedingly high status in the Demon Region. This was also why many people were surprised when they saw Yaomu Shou.
Her race’s traits couldn’t be hidden, but at the same time, the power behind her was not one that any here could afford to offend.
“Are you truly—”
“Let’s not talk about that,” Yaomu Shou cut him off, apparently knowing what he was about to say.
“I’m not here to represent… them,” the last word she said with a bit of reluctance.
The elder said nothing more, as if this was something that was well above his station despite being the elder of a fairly big sect.
Shen Ling and the others, Long Di, included turned their head to look at Yaomu Shou with a bit more scrutiny than before.
It seems there was more to her than being a legendary straggler.
Nonetheless, it was about time to head in, which meant it was time to wrap this up.
“Elder Shen Dai,” Long Di said whilst cupping his fist, freaking the hell out of Shen Ling and the others since they didn’t even know he possessed the foreign object called etiquette.
This was a boy that made two grown men cry and then called it good manners!
“I’ll be going in first. If we meet again, I will invite you for tea at my sect.”
“Ah, hold on young one,” Elder Shen Dai cried out, stopping Long Di and his friends once more.
Long Di looked back at him, a bit perplexed. ‘Why is this elder so intent on keeping me here? Does he want me to do something? I can feel my chronic laziness acting up. I’m going to coin that term as a legit disease.’
“I’m sorry for holding you up, young one,” the elder said, a little embarrassed.
He was an elder of a sect that was well known. Not just any cultivator had the chance to join their sect, much less get the chance to talk to one of their elders, yet this boy remained indifferent to it all.
Of course, this didn’t sit well with the young disciples that came with the elder either, thinking that Long Di was acting too arrogant. He should be proud of the opportunity that a beggar such as him even had the opportunity to talk to their esteemed elder.
Unfortunately, they just weren’t aware of the more profound truth, which was that Long Di didn’t give a flying poopstick about anything.
“I wanted to ask you that when you enter the relics, could you look after the young ones since this would be their first time doing something like this?” the elder asked Long Di.
The disciples’ expressions changed when they heard of this.
A boy in particular quickly stepped out to speak. “Elder, we don’t need this country bumpkin to look after us! We can take care of oursel—”
“Silence!” The elder’s voice and aura forced him to step back before nearly falling over. His friends quickly moved to his side to help him stand up.
He was embarrassed and humiliated, but he didn’t dare to direct that anger at the elder, so all this was sent towards Long Di instead.
“What do you say, young one?” the elder asked.
Long Di sighed inwardly. ‘This old man saw. I guess I didn’t try THAT hard to hide it, so this is all my doing.’
Long Di was naturally referring to the time that his feet landed ever so delicately upon the testicular region of a certain Si Bi demon and the lightning that covered his feet as he did so.
Lightning-attributed cultivators were immensely rare, but there was something even more so unusual about Long Di’s lightning energy, something almost divine about it, but it came and went too fast for the elder to do any probing.
However, what shocked the man even more so was that in the flash of time that Long Di made his move, he felt a cultivation base that defied all common sense if one takes Long Di’s age into consideration.
He wasn’t entirely sure, but if what he felt was the case, he would rather get closer to Long Di, even if he had to be the one to come over first and initiate a conversation.
It would be ideal if, by forging this relationship with the boy, he could pull him into their sect.
He was going to extend an invitation outright, but when he saw the Yuan demon and not just that, but a girl of the Yaomu family, this would complicate things somewhat. He needed to get some information first, to see what their relationship was before he made any moves such as trying to recruit Long Di.
So asking him to look after his disciples were the next best choice. This way Long Di would at least travel with them, therefore building a friendship that could come in handy down the line.
“Okay, I will look after your disciples.”
“Perfect!” The elder was ecstatic upon receiving Long Di’s acceptance of his request.
“Alright, so just… wait, where are you going!?”
The elder was surprised to see that Long Di, his friends and the legendary straggler were already running towards the Peach Blossom Sage Relic, right after agreeing.
Long Di, hearing his question, looked behind him before answering. “To the Peach Blossom Sage Relic, of course! I would travel with your disciples, but they seem insufferable and would drag me down like a comatose vulture strung around my neck!”
After explaining, Long Di didn’t bother saying anything else and was already upon the portal with everyone else.
This was it, the first cultivation-based adventure, a bona fide relic!
It was time to formally start the legend. It would start here, at the Peach Blossom Sage relic.