Chapter 25: Major Factions

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In the Long Dynasty, there was a population of nearly one billion people. In the entire Lower Region, this large country was considered quite decently sized, in both population and wide span of land. And with such a huge number of inhabitants, there were naturally many strong factions dwelling in there.

Amongst those few famous factions include the Thousand Flower Clan, Zhang Clan, Ji Clan, Du Clan, and the royal family: the Long Clan!

However, these five merely encompassed the lower ladder of the power hierarchy. Above them, there were some powerhouses that possessed even greater influences and strength than the previously mentioned ones!

Those were the Yin Clan, Yang Clan, Tian Zhu Clan, Shen Clan, Immortal Spirit Pavilion, and the four major Sects. With the exception of the Shen Clan, the others were all powers that the Godly Supreme Hall had no association with, and were factions that did not originally belong in the Long Dynasty. As such, it was not unusual for them to be on par, or even greater than, the royal family residing here!

And according to Shen Yin Tian’s words, out of the nine great factions, the Tian Zhu Clan was possibly the most dangerous one. This clan rarely shows itself in public and has never gotten into a power struggle with the other clan. Not even the people from the Shen Clan could determine the depth of this organization’s strength. Thus, it was viewed as a neutral faction. However, it was rumored that both the Yin clan and the Yang clan, these two superpowers, were supposedly retainers of this same mysterious Tian Zhu clan!

While this rumor had not been publicly confirmed yet, if it was truly the case, then in the entire Long Dynasty or even several hundred miles beyond, the Tian Zhu clan could absolutely be considered a peak existence.

As for the four major Sects, they are the the Sun Dragon Sect, the Serpent Moon Cult, the Celestial Illusion Sect, and the Six Ocean Sect. Out of these major clans, the Six Ocean Sect has the least historical value, but its current power was no less than its counterparts!

“Seems like there are still some hidden tigers and dragons even in this lowly plane…” Huang Xue thought to himself. While he had expected that this Shen Clan may not be the most powerful faction in the Long Dynasty, he did not expect that there would be this many groups that could actually rival the former. It was, at least, much more than he had anticipated.

Huang Xue continued to listen to Shen Yin Tian talk as the day slowly lumbered on.

“Does your Shen Clan have any enemies?” Huang Xue asked as picked up his tea for another drink.

Shen Yin Tian paused in his talk, before he gave a wry smile and replied: “Many of our enemies have already been dealt with when our clan rose into prominence. But like they used to say, the greater one rises, the more trouble one would find. After our Shen Clan established our standing in the Long Dynasty, we thought we would finally be able to flourish undisturbed for the next few thousand years. But who knew…”

Hearing the elder’s words trail off at the end and the embarrassed look on former’s face, Huang Xue calmly said. “Continue.”

Shen Yin Tian hesitated for a moment. While he was happy that the ancestor was willing to stay at his Shen Clan and be apart of it for a while, Shen Yin Tian did not wish to involve the other party, even though he knew the latter’s terrifying background. It was his own sense of responsibility and integrity that prevented him from bringing up his clan’s problems to the ancestor. But hearing that Huang Xue wanted him to continue speaking, Shen Yin Tian could only comply as he continued:

“...But who knew that just when everything was going well, one of our younger generations had actually went and provoked three core disciples from...the Immortal Spirit Pavilion!”

“Hm? Just that?”

“Ah, supreme master, while these matters may be beneath your notice, they do indeed pose a bit of a threat to our little Shen Clan. As our clan’s strength is comparable to the Immortal Spirit Pavilion, it would not be much of a problem if it was only them.

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However, they had actually joined together with the Serpent Moon Cult to plot against us behind the scene! With their combined strength, we have actually been thwarted at every turn these past few years because of them!” Shen Yin Tian gnashed his teeth when he thought back to hearing his son reporting the vile actions of those two super sects.

Huang Xue calmly drank his tea, before he spoke: “I see. Well, seeing your service to my Godly Supreme Hall for these past several years, I will try to help your clan out. But do not expect me to be able to do so now, as I’ll have to hide my identity for some time…”

Shen Yin Tian’s face lit up when he heard Huang Xue’s words, before he immediately saluted to the latter. “Thank you for your benevolence, supreme ancestor!”

“Alright, lead me to a secluded room. I want to further meditate a bit more. When your son has finished gathering the Shen clan techniques, have him bring it to my room later on. Tomorrow, I’ll be going to the Six Ocean Sect’s disciple selection exam.” Huang Xue waved his hand as he got up.

“Yes, of course, supreme master! I will be sure to do as you’ve instructed.” Shen Yin Tian quickly got up from his seat as he led Huang Xue towards a quiet area of his Shen mansion.

Located near the upper right border of the Shen mansion, the place consisted of a large courtyard decorated with pond and fresh flowers, and a large interior room. After being led to his residence, Huang Xue dismissed Shen Yin Tian and sat down on a soft, luxurious bed to meditate.

A few moments later, there was a knock on the door before Shen Lin entered Huang Xue’s room and politely left a batch of eight scrolls, consisting of three jade color, two red, one yellow, and the rest purple, on a nearby table. A beautiful white fan and an azure colored sword were placed on the table as well. With a respectful bow, he silently exited the room right afterwards.

Huang Xue got up and went to sit down on a table seat. Picking up a purple colored scroll and opening it, Huang Xue saw a bold ink title that read ‘Heavenly Lustra Sword Arts’. A faint sword intent could be felt emanating from the very words itself.

“Two purple scrolls, five stances, and relies on strong sword intent; follows the Sheng Dao of Sword, creates powerful attacks but lacks defense in certain areas; requirement of being at least in the 5th stage Jie Hai realm to practice…” Huang Xue silently briefed through the content inside the scroll.

Putting down the purple scroll, Huang Xue searched through the other scrolls. In the end, he found that there was a total of four core techniques in the Shen Clan.

The first was the ‘Heavenly Lustra Sword Arts’, which was broken down into two purple scrolls.

The second was called the ‘Thousand Buddha Arms’, which had five forms like the previous sword arts and was kept in two red scrolls.

The third was called the ‘Supreme Cardinal Sutra’, which was a meditation skill used to tempering one’s mind, soul, and body; placed in a yellow scroll. It was one of the common skills given to almost each Godly Supreme Hall disciple, and the only skill that Shen Yin Tian had brought back to the Lower Regions to make as one of his family’s core skills...

The last one was called the ‘Dream Feather Arts’, a weapon technique that uses the fan as the foundation, being split into nine styles. Huang Xue recognized this technique’s name was the exact one that Shen Yin Tian had briefly mentioned to him about when he talked about his family’s core skills. This...was actually considered a Lower Sea-grade skill!

The rest could only be considered Upper Earth-grade, but even though this might not sound like much to Huang XUe, it was already extremely good for the Shen Clan to be able to acquire these! Especially considering that martial art skills were generally valued higher than most artifacts of the same grade.

However, none of the Shen clansmen had been able to fully master this fan art. It was simply because none of them could go beyond the second style! Even Shen Yin Tian had difficulty in understanding the graceful concepts behind this profound art. And given that other core skills were relatively easier to master and yielded power greater than that of the second style of the fan arts, this skill was soon left in the dark.

Looking through the scrolls, Huang Xue decided on to learn three of the skills. That is because for the Supreme Cardinal Sutra, he had already learned such basic arts. After all, he was the one had actually created this martial art skill himself and passed it on to the new coming disciples of his Hall! There was no need to re-learn it and it would pose no use for him either way, especially with his current cultivation and goals. The other three skills were worth learning to help consolidate his identity as a ‘Shen clan member.’

“These low skills that someone like the previous Huang Xue would not even bother learning, are now being learned using his body...ahh, in the end this is all for my cause! Learning them should not increase my overall current by any large margin, so it should be fine…” Huang Xue dryly muttered to himself. With his desire to be ‘within reach of his opponents’, Huang Xue truly did not want his present body to become any stronger than he was already, lest he gathered all the materials that would finally enable him to once again ascend.

Compared to other cultivators who were constantly seeking strength and wanted to get stronger using any means, Huang Xue’s present mindset was truly going against the way of cultivators --and perhaps even following the will of Heaven itself.  

After settling down on what he needed to learn, Huang began to seriously immerse himself in the scrolls’ contents.

Taking no more than an hour reading each scroll, Huang Xue quickly finished going through the seven jade scrolls that contained the Shen Clan’s core family techniques.

By now, it was nighttime. Walking back to his bed, Huang Xue sat down once again in a lotus position and entered a meditative state. With all the information and the new set of martial arts skills he received today, Huang Xue now needed some time to fully digest them and ‘make them his.’ It was also time to further his plan now.

Sitting there in a lotus position, Huang Xue’s eyes were closed while he meditated. A faint red glow was beginning to form around Huang Xue’s body.

Like this, the bright moon hanging in the sky outside was gently covered by a blanket of passing dark clouds, as the night dreamed on...