In the Dark Water empire, was a teenager no older than 17 lying on a bed. His eyes were closed and it seemed as if he was dead. This teenager looked exactly like a younger version of Xu Ken!
Suddenly his eyes opened and he slowly lifted his body up.
Where is this place?, Xu Ken thought. He should have died once he entered the spatial crack. Xu Ken started to use his spiritual sense to examine the surrounding area before realizing that he was only at the peak Martial stage! His spiritual sense could barely cover a few feet rather than trying to cover the surrounding area.
Xu Ken looked around and saw a mirror on top of a desk that was next to the bed. He picked it up and found that he looked like a younger version of himself.
This can’t be right. I should have died, but instead I’m alive, he thought. Xu Ken wasn’t stupid and pieced everything together rather quickly. He had somehow taken control of a teen in the lowest realm that looked exactly like him. Xu Ken resolved himself and decided to not let this chance at a second life go to waste. He would cultivate to the highest level and go to the fourth realm!
Xu Ken suddenly heard footsteps coming close to his room and prepared himself for whoever was about to enter. The door opened and suddenly three people started to enter the room. A middle aged man who looked a lot like Xu Ken’s father suddenly started to tear up when he saw Xu Ken was alive and well.
“Ken! Are you feeling better?” Xu Ken’s father asked while shedding tears of joy.
Xu Ken couldn't help but feel slightly warm inside as he looked at a father who was clearly worried about his son.
“Yes father, I’m fine.” Xu Ken replied emotionally.
Xu Ken glanced at the other two who came with his father. One was a male teenager and another was a female teenager. They looked like they were twins.
Suddenly his head started to feel like it was going to explode. Xu Ken’s father, upon seeing this, began to become worried.
“Quick! Xu Chen go get the doctor!” Xu Ken’s father shouted.
Xu Chen quickly nodded and started to walk out before Xu Ken put up his hand and signaled him to stop. Xu Ken quickly recovered and he now knew why he his head suddenly felt like it was going to explode.
“Don’t worry. It has passed.” Xu Ken said.
Xu Ken actually received the memories of the Xu Ken of this realm the moment his head felt like it was going to explode! Apparently, this realm’s Xu Ken was bedridden for over three weeks. The cause was unknown, but now he was back to normal.
Xu Ken looked towards the three people in the room and began to search through his new memories. Xu Ken’s father was the Xu Clan’s 1st Great Elder, Xu Gong! Not only was he the 1st Great Elder, Xu Gong was also at the Empyrean Martial Stage! His strength was second to only the Patriarch and Esteemed Ancestor of the Xu Clan! If not for his strength, he would have long lost his current status with Xu Ken as his son.
The Xu Ken of this realm was very much like the current Xu Ken when he was younger. He had low latent talent and was a spoiled rich kid to the core.
Xu Ken then glanced at the twins. Their names were Xu Chen and Xu Li. They were the same age as Xu Ken. Originally, they weren’t a part of the Xu Clan. Their father was a close friend of Xu Gong and when he and his wife died, Xu Gong adopted them as his own.
Xu Chen and Xu Li were both easily accepted into the clan. Their latent talent labelled them geniuses even in the Xu Clan! By the age of seventeen, they were already at the peak of the Profound Martial Stage and could breakthrough at any minute. Compared to Xu Ken, who was not even at the Great Martial Stage, despite having Xu Gong as his father.
Xu Chen didn’t have anything against Xu Ken and even thought he was a good brother. Xu L,i on the other hand, thought Xu Ken was worthless.
One could say Xu Ken’s latent talent was actually slightly below or even average without the help of any resources. The Xu Clan, however, wasn’t some small and weak clan. To the Xu Clan, average was trash. Since he was always considered trash, it further slowed his progress because this gave him no drive to cultivate.
In this realm, there were twelve stages of cultivation. The stages went as the Martial Stage, Great Martial Stage, Profound Martial Stage, Supreme Martial Stage, Legendary Martial Stage, Enlightened Martial Stage, Soul Martial Stage, Saint Martial Stage, Empyrean Martial Stage, Holy Martial Stage, Sacred Martial Stage, and Divine Martial Stage.
“Nonsense! We must still get you checked by a doctor.” Xu Gong said.
Xu Ken could only wearily smile and agree with Xu Gong. Once the doctor finished examining Xu Ken, everyone left so that he could continue to rest.
----------------------------------------
Xu Ken ended up staying in his room all night to organize his new memories. The next day, he proceeded to look through his mind and find good cultivation techniques and martial arts that he could use at his current level.
In his memories contained billions of information. Since his father had powerful techniques, it was only expected that his son be granted powerful techniques as well.
Xu Ken began to search and he eventually decided on four cultivation techniques to start with. These four techniques were the Beetle Body Technique, the True Spirit Technique, the Real Domain Technique, and the Blood Qi Technique. These four techniques were the only ones that didn’t require a high level of cultivation and were extremely high quality which was why they were chosen.
Despite the simple name, the Beetle Body Technique would train the body to unimaginable levels. If cultivated to the highest level, one could easily have their current power be multiplied by over a thousand! This technique was a Divine Immortal Stage level technique!
The True Spirit Technique wasn’t so simple as well. This technique was only a Soul Martial Stage level technique, but it allowed the user to create a spirit clone! This spirit clone was essentially a second soul. It would be like having two souls at once. This allowed the user to multitask with ease. This technique, however, didn’t separate the two souls, but linked them together. This was so that the soul clone and the original soul would share each other’s power. If the clone is destroyed, then the original would be completely fine. If the original soul is destroyed, then they would both perish. While Xu Ken’s cultivation was weak, his soul was incredibly strong. This allowed him to easily use the technique.
The Real Domain Technique was a rather special technique. The level of this technique was unknown, but his father had told him that it was a profound technique and that it came from his mother herself! This indicated that his mother was at a much higher level than even his father. Ever since Xu Ken was a boy, he’d never seen his mother. One of his goals would be to locate her if she is still alive.
The Real Domain Technique created an almost infinite space inside the mind of it’s user once the technique was in it’s final stages. Xu Ken found that once he used the True Spirit Technique, he would be able manifest a body inside this space and cultivate! Usually one would be required to create a true body clone in order to do this, but Xu Ken was able to dual cultivate with ease with just these two techniques! Making a true body clone is incredibly difficult as well. It usually required rare resources from the highest level realm! It also required the separation of the original soul, essentially taking away half of your soul strength! You couldn't cheat and make a spirit clone as they can’t be connected outside the original body. Only the original soul could be connected outside the body.
The final technique known as the Blood Qi Technique is a Divine Immortal Stage level technique! It was created by Xu Ken’s father himself! This technique increases the quality of a cultivator’s qi and transforms the user’s blood to red liquid qi. This technique was what gave his father the famous name Immortal Blood Monarch. While the level of the technique was high, it could be cultivated at any level. It was simply turning the blood into qi. This gave the user higher quality qi and extra reserves of qi. Once the qi in the blood is depleted, it would only take some time for the qi to regenerate. The qi’s quality would also increase with the body’s quality increasing as well.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Xu Ken wasted no time as he quickly began to cultivate these four techniques. He first started work on the True Spirit and Real Domain technique so he could double his cultivation speed. It only took him about eight hours to enter the initial stages for these two techniques thanks to his strong soul and original understanding of the techniques.
Xu Ken manifested a spiritual body inside his domain. The domain was currently only twelve feet tall and twelve feet long. It wasn’t that big, but it was good enough to let Xu Ken dual cultivate.
The other two techniques combined would require at least four days with just his spirit body cultivating to successfully enter the initial stages. Xu Ken wasn’t in any rush and could easily help his spirit body from time to time so Xu Ken decided that it was finally time to step outside and explore this new world.
Xu Ken stepped outside and saw that his room was located next to a courtyard. This courtyard was most likely his private area inside the Xu Clan’s territory.
As Xu Ken was stepping out, a person nearby saw this and started to walk towards him. Xu Ken looked at this person and found that it was his personal servant, Xu Jin. Xu Jin was only a year younger than Xu Ken and was the son of servants within the clan.
Xu Jin cupped his hands and bowed towards Xu Ken, “This lowly servant greets Young Master.”
Xu Ken examined Xu Jin and looked through his memories to see what type of person he was. The previous Xu Ken didn’t treat Xu Jin too well or too bad. It seemed that Xu Jin thought of Xu Ken as any other spoiled master within the Xu Clan. Xu Jin, however, seemed like a loyal brother towards his friends, which was a quality Xu Ken wanted for people that were close to him.
Xu Ken looked towards Xu Jin and slightly nodded before turning towards town. Xu Ken had decided the first thing he’d do would be to buy a slave or two! The slaves would be used so he could have subordinates that would die for him at a moment’s notice.
Xu Ken knew that he had plenty of enemies inside the Xu Clan and the sect he was a part of. The sect Xu Ken was a part of was the strongest sect in the empire! The Star Sword Sect!
The Star Sword Sect wasn’t simple, but Xu Ken was able to stay in the sect thanks to his father’s connections. Xu Ken would always stay as an outer disciple and even have a chance of being kicked out if he never advances though.
“Bring some money and meet me at the front gate. I wish to go into town and buy a slave or two.” Xu Ken said to Xu Jin.
“Yes Young Master.” Xu Jin replied before running off to grab some money.
Once Xu Jin and Xu Ken were at the front gate of the Xu Clan’s territory, they both went into town. Xu Ken ignored most shops and directly entered the slave market.
Inside the slave market, the slave master noticed Xu Ken walking in and directly went to great him.
“Greetings Young Master, what brings you here today?” The Slave Master asked.
“I wish to buy a slave or two to be trained as my personal guards.” Xu Ken replied.
The Slave Master smiled and continued to rubs his hands, “That’s excellent, we have a new batch of slaves that might interest Young Master. Please, follow me.”
Xu Ken simply nodded and allowed the Slave Master to lead the way. Once they arrived at the new batch of slaves, Xu Ken began to examine them. All the slaves looked clean and well fed. The slave market couldn’t sell dirty slaves or their reputation would drop. The only ones that were interesting to Xu Ken were three slaves.
The first slave was a man that looked to be nineteen. The second was another man that was about Xu Ken’s age. The last slave was a woman that seemed only a year older than Xu Ken.
Each one of these three had incredibly high latent talent from Xu Ken’s examinations. All three of them were also surprisingly at the peak of the Great Martial Stage. Unfortunately they were born into the wrong families.
Xu Ken pointed towards the three slaves that interested him and quickly bought them with the money that Xu Jin brought.
The three slaves were branded with a slave tattoo that bound their souls to their master. This allowed their owner to control how much freedom they had. Xu Ken didn’t need to worry about spending any money thanks to his father’s position in the clan.
The three slaves looked uneasy when they saw their new owner. Xu Ken simply looked at them for a few moments before saying anything.
“I simply need you three to become my guards. Do you accept or not?” Xu Ken asked.
The three slaves looked at each other before hesitantly nodding. They didn’t have much choice in the matter anyway.
“Good, let’s return then. Xu Jin, setup a place for them to live within my courtyard.” Xu Ken said.
While they were walking back to Xu Ken’s courtyard. Xu Ken decided to get to know more about them.
“What are your names?” Xu Ken asked.
The three looked at each other and the oldest man replied first, “Master my name Cao Tao.”
The second man then also replied, “Master my name is Guo Zheng.”
Finally, the woman replied, “Master my name is Wu Xiu.”
“It is nice to meet you all. My name is Xu Ken and this is my personal servant Xu Jin. As of today, you all will be a part of the Xu Clan.” Xu Ken said.
With that, no one said anything else. They all immediately walked back to Xu Ken’s courtyard. Xu Ken allowed Xu Jin to set everything up for the three slaves while Xu Ken went to visit his father in the main hall of the Xu Clan. Before he left however, Xu Ken gave the three of them a martial art that was best suited for them. Xu Ken transferred the martial arts directly to their minds.
Cao Tao was given the Golden Fist. This martial surrounded the fists with a golden qi that could turn every attack into a physical qi attack.
Guo Zheng received the Diamond Shell martial art. This would cover his body with glowing diamond color qi that would protect his body.
Wu Xiu received a movement martial art known as the Spatial Steps.This martial art was rather special. It allowed the user to distort space to reach a location faster.
The three slaves were very surprised by the level of these martial arts and thanked Xu Ken. They felt their master wasn’t a bad person at least and would try their best to serve him.
Once Xu Ken finished giving them their martial arts, he went to find his father.
Xu Ken’s father was in a meeting with the upper echelon of the Xu Clan so Xu Ken decided to wait for them to finish. Xu Gong noticed his son was waiting for him though and motioned for him to join them.
The other elders in the meeting couldn’t help but have a glint of disdain in their eyes as they turned and looked at Xu Ken.
Xu Ken could only sigh and walk next to his father. The other elders didn’t say anything since Xu Gong’s position wasn’t to be trifled with.
Once Xu Ken was next to Xu Gong, Xu Gong started the meeting back up.
“Patriarch Lan, how should we proceed in dealing with the ancient ruins?” Xu Gong asked.
Patriarch Lan could only think deeply while searching for an answer.
Xu Ken was also thinking of these ancient ruins. The Xu Clan managed to find information of ancient ruins that were once an area of an ancient sect from the Chaotic Star era.
Trillions of years ago, the four realms used to be one complete realm. Eventually, events transpired and the realm was split into four. The beginning of these four split realms were known as the Chaotic Star era.
Not much information is known about the Chaotic Star era, let alone anything before this era. Even Xu Ken didn’t have much information about the era before the Chaotic Star era. The only information Xu Ken had was his father saying that he was only a young child when the realm was split into four.
Patriarch Lan seemed to have decided on what the clan would do as he suddenly stood up.
“In two years, all of our family’s experts above the Soul Martial Stage shall enter the ruins!” Patriarch Lan proclaimed.