meanwhile, in the same location an above average fair looking man was standing at the top of a mountain looking at the vista below as if searching for a lost object with a fairly gleeful look

"I want to see the look on his face when I finally deal with him"

he then brought out a Jian sword start gathering his Qi and momentum readying the latest iteration of his SWORD PIERCES THE HEAVENS TECHNIQUE fairly pissed by its long wind up the previous iteration to this technique do not need that long time to wind up, then he asked the elders that came with him about their preparations of which, he then went through his memory about this 'thorn on his side' of which their enmity started some 400 years ago or so.

"this is still an incomplete technique, but it got praised by the training hall elder as the only technique that I have that could severely threaten him , as for the others even with my best effort it was 'passable at best' bringing the words directly from the training hall elder"

"all thanks to you Yu Ren it's because of you that I was able to upgrade this technique to this level and I will thank you by making you the first person it felled, and lead an army to wipe of your sect off the face of Jia yuan"

"I will never have imagined that not directly exterminating you will lead to all what has happened to me through you till today," "in a way it was a disaster but who is a cultivator if not for someone who is to defy the heavens, ready to do what is necessary to achieve what he wants"

the image of a person barely old enough to be considered a man showed up in his mind glaring bloody murder at him as he coldly blocked the only exit from the ancient ruins to the outside world

"talented though, your age just worked against you, if you just have started cultivating since very young to have been qualified to be called a talented genius if barely" he said as if the person he was talking to was present

he had now fully gathered his energy which he is now layering on the sword albeit with some difficulty then he continued with a sneer

"all thanks to you little old enemy, of all the time we have battled, from time and time again we have met and battled, time and time again there was no conclusion to it, fairly equal we are an observer of our history might think, but I know this time there will be a conclusion to all these 'minor scuffles' we have had in the past, for I have come to exterminate you this time you won't be so lucky"

"humph! you were just an ant that I deigned to allow to enter the ruins temple with me, glaring at me helplessly while I did what must be done to cover my secret fortune, you should have just obediently died in the collapsed temple, never in an eternity will I have known that we would have met again."

" Imagine my surprise when we met years later, how I almost lost my life, severely injured the instance we collided, the shock of witnessing you decimate my retinue all with just some skills I considered basic and not worth much, without much protection I ran... from who I once considered an ant? Such a shame." "jeered at by my colleagues in the sect, and losing my standings in the hierarchy of respect, due to what befell me during my second expedition to the ruins that only the fact that I sacrificed my retinue kept me alive from you as the threat you are."

he then dove into his memory while also being alert to his environment

*********************

Song Zi Chen remembered the time that he was but a lowly disciple at the LITTLE CLOUD SECT he was but a mere outer disciple then even for a young master of the song clan which is barely stronger than a gang.

He still felt discontent with his position being a young master taught him one crucial truth, which is 'to always delegate the unpleasant works to the others and take the glory of their success to add to your own' thus, this is the path of a young master.

This lesson was thrust to him during a certain occasion when he helps devised a diverting plan to save two cites from a beast tide that could while not wipe the city out will cripple its ability to defend against other hostiles.

It was a success that which the reward was heavily discounted by the higher ups with my cousin the legitimate heir to the clans head was handed most of the rewards why the elders excuse was that the recommended 'a more fitting person' for recruitment to TAI XIU ZHEN SECT a lesser-mid ranked sect famous for their battle techniques being the strongest in the province.

It was due to the fact that he was made the leader of the mission and of course a core disciple of the sect if not for my little ingenious plan he would not have succeeded he in his testimony of what happened almost negated my contribution to nothing.

What was witnessed here by me first-handedly is the callousness of the relationship dynamics between the 'lessers' and the 'betters' and blatant nepotism, he could still feel the echo of the vitriol he once had for this 'cousin' of his before he surpassed him.

I took this in as fish takes in water and learnt from it was a profound lesson to be learnt that 'the essence of being able to progress quickly on my path is to be able to make people contribute or sacrifice in my cause regardless of whether they want to or not'

I went to a form of 'seclusion' in this case I did not go to increase my cultivation but to form a network of acquaintances in the sect spanning the elders and disciples alike even servants in this to pave my way for me and that being done I took a long-term sect mission which will afford me contact with the local Jiang Hu which enabled me to build a base of lackey outside the sect .

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It was also not without profit because, one of my contact brought to my attention a rumor about an ancient ruins discovered, I decided to take the initiative he informed his parents about his plan came clean as much as needed using their influence to gather needed manpower and to scout for a recruiting sect.

Since he told them about his plan of moving beyond the province, using some contribution point to buy supplies from the sect, I enlisted about three loyal outer disciples whose influence in the outer court depends mostly on their connection to me then set off .

All said and done my parent had used the families influence in the sect to secure an audience successfully with a sect elder who therefore brokered a deal that involves submission of his findings to the sect and they will also recommend him for the sect recruitment exercise that will take place at the PURPLE CLOUD SECT which they are being subordinated to.

Midway during the mission he suspected that the other young master and mistresses must have panted spies among his retinues and the people he hired along the mission to the ruins, to which he devised an extremely simple but vicious plan.

The plan is simple burying them all there, with some exceptions though, like his sect mates and those whom he personally trained during his time posing as a dojo master in Jiang Hu, there was where he first met that lad whom he so totally suppressed, tossed in alongside the other suspects and buried alive along with the ruins.

It was a total success things went as planned even as an outer disciple here if things go right then he will be more powerful than an inner disciple in the LITTLE CLOUD SECT where he came from.

"Success!" I thought, "in just a few years I have reached the minor realm of 'dantian formation' fully on my way towards body refining and gained an entrance in a tier III sect all those competing siblings of mine at home I have left in the dust, never again will they be an obstacle to my ambitions, after my second expedition to the ruins my cultivation will grow by leaps and bounds ha! ha!!"

I settled myself in my new sect for some years growing my cultivation to peak of body refining, mastering my techniques, taking missions outside the sect to grow a sizable influence there and improve my acquaintance with people of higher status within the sect, outer sect elders, inner disciples and such while subtly gathering lackeys both in the outer sect and in the jiang hu even managed to have some disciples there in case I might need them but mostly to maintain a presence there.

After I have gotten a headway in the sect and my momentum is increasing, in order to take things up another notch, I intended to visit the previous ancient ruins since I did not take all that is in it leaving some behind.

In case the arrangement does not go as planned even if all things went well should I now obediently handover all my earnings to the sect just for some nebulous recommendation from what might not be the sect but an elder with a fairly good connection to the higher ups? oh no!.

And so did I song zi chen gathered up a new crew of both sect lackeys and jiang hu lackeys before setting off to what devolved into a disaster in the form of Yu Ren a previous ant, seemingly at the level of a dojo master in all but cultivation level, who then gave me the defeat of my life.

The horror the loss of face amongst peers and lessers alike, I took a painful lesson that "never!, never will I song zi chen I will never leave a loose end ever again any enemy that come across me is better off dead or in a state of which they are of no threat again, I will start deepening my martial training that just my presence in battle alone will skewer victory into my team's side making me come out on top in every battle, this from henceforth with the path of a young master I forged for myself shall be my DAO!".

With my 'DAO!' and my resolve to back me I improved by leaps and bounds made breakthrough to higher and higher realms won sect competition and trials one after the other not without some losses though got scouted and become a promising recommendation to one of the sects that PURPLE CLOUD SECT must answer to if called and the sect is SWORD CONTROLLING PAVILLION a rank V sect and a subordinate sect to the SWORD HALL as a recruit.

It is like all the bad luck from the strings of the good fortune I had comes crashing upon me, once I decided to go after his trails to hunt him down only to met him and he broke out formations and talismans like they are bok choi and I almost got refined alive by him.

I never knew that he was the 'demonic master' that I was sent to capture or kill in my mission's descriptions, had I knew then... well there is still nothing that I could have done about it at that time damn it!, there I realized that as I was developing the world will not just sit down and wait, my enemy from back then is also developing .

Now we will be meeting again me as a sword's master of the SWORD HALL and him as the sect master of the BLOOD CONTROLLING PROFOUND SECT, by fate or by a fortuitous encounter, I came by a news from some of my lessers who is an elder of the... sect a tier III sect sent for their help I almost got angry and punished the messenger for wasting my precious time which I could spend cultivating or tempering my techniques into reading trivialities.

However when I heard the name of the aggressor involved caught my attention, Yu Ren the man that I song zi chen is totally determined to kill by my very own hands, with that I collected myself controlled my anger and sent a servant to check whether the mission of exterminating the sect master of the BLOOD CONTROLLING PROFOUND SECT is still available, of which was available.

This was the time I took a glimpse of something that eluded me for a very long time how you make seemingly lesser techniques strike beyond its normal capability and I managed to partly comprehend it and fused the little I gleaned into this new sword form of mine, now we meet again, Yu Ren and today will be the day you die by my sword!

*************************

His eyes grew sharp he sensed the swell of Qi sensed a formation rising to the sky fifteen li away summoned another jian sword from his spatial ring linked the fully loaded jian blade with a thread of Qi so as to achieve limited control in its ultra high-speed flight towards the target and also prepared to enter close combat in case he blocks the opening technique

At that moment, a grand formation that astonished even him activated his jaw almost dropped he only knew vaguely what Yu Ren is up to, and not everything he is up to and set up his pawns right under the enemies nose to assist him in crucial times and he kept secrets to everybody but himself and those strange band of disciples he showed up with right after he vanished from the cultivation world for around sixteen years and came back

The formation grabbed his attention from his mild reverie because instead of going up piercing the sky to infinity it converged and...

"Wait is that a hol...!"

Something vaguely humanoid fell from the sky an elder looked to the sky" he is summoning...!"

Yu Ren rose up to meet it and Song Zi Chen will not be having any of that hence, launched his opening attack.

Belatedly, he remembered some ancient text warned about summoning which was about the fact that they could inadvertently summon a demon to their realm if not done precisely he was going to use this to discredit Yu Ren that even if he escapes this time he won't even have sanctuary available for him in the unorthodoxy

'Right turn him into public enemy number 1'

'Let's see how this goes' he thought and acted on his concocted scheme since the opening attack did not kill Yu Ren outright.