CHAPTER NINETEEN

Once, long ago, a man from a prominent cultivation family couldn’t use cultivation. His father had obtained the rank of 6-Ascendant by the age of thirty, and all of his brothers had at least gotten to the Body stage before their tenth birthday.

However, the case concerning Liao Dong was very strange. In his case, he only had a rank of 17-Mortal at the age of five years old, and showed no signs of improving. Liao Dong trained with his family every day, but never improved his cultivation more than one or two levels a year. Finally, at the age of ten years old, Liao Dong had only achieved a rank of 24-Mortal.

The head of the house was furious. “How could my son be unable to cultivate?!” The man would frequently scream and yell. This continued for many years, until a war broke out with a neighboring kingdom. The head of the house and all his children were conscripted in the army, including Liao Dong.

Knowing Liao Dong would not survive if caught between two cultivators, the head issued him an unbreakable command, “Liao Dong, do not fight in this war. You must run until peace has been reached. If the army finds you, you won’t survive a single battle. Run, and never come back to my home or this city,” The head told his son.

So, when recruitment officers came to the Liao household, Liao Dong was nowhere to be found. The soldiers had many more houses to take able bodies from, so they let the missing person pass. They knew the rumors that the youngest son of the Liao family had no talent for cultivation, so they decided him being missing as a minor loss.

Over the next twenty years, the members of the Liao family, save for Liao Dong, fought with their kingdom’s army against the neighboring kingdom. One brother died, but the other three remained alive. Though the war had not yet ended, the family head and three of his children could return home.

A few months after the end of the war, a masked stranger came upon the Liao household. “Dong?” The family head asked, recognizing his youngest son’s aura.

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“Yes, father. It is me,” Liao Dong replied, hugging his father.

“What are you doing here?” The head asked, pulling back from his son. “The war has not yet ended.”

“That’s no concern for me,” Liao Dong said, and stuck his fist out into the yard. “Watch this.”

Liao Dong pulled back his fight and punched the air, causing a boulder in the yard to explode into hundreds of pieces.

“Incredible!” The head shouted, seeing the exploding boulder. The boulder had survived in his yard for decades. Even though the head or any of the sons could move it, the head kept it around as a decoration. For Liao Dong to break it without even touching it was too incredible.

From then on, Liao Dong went to help out in the ongoing war, eventually becoming a major player in it. Though his cultivation stayed in the Mortal stage, his abilities exceeded even those an Ascendant stage cultivator could produce.

Thousands of years later, Liao Dong’s story was found in a certain library in a certain city. The young man reading it thought to the contents to be too outrageous to be fact. ‘There’s no way a vacation would cause a man to become something greater than a cultivator,’ A young Li Wen thought, putting the book back on the shelf after finishing it.

Except, twenty years later, Li Wen came back to the library and took the same book out. This time, he felt himself in a very similar situation to the father in the story. ‘How did it work?’ Lord Wen questioned, looking for a clue on how to increase his youngest son’s cultivation.

When the incident at the Demonic Beasts Parade happened, Lord Wen felt enlightenment. He had orchestrated the beasts escaping, but he couldn’t go around causing disasters in his city every day until Li Feng unlocked his special ability. Until Li Feng could use the mysterious power he exhibited on the day of the Demonic Beasts Parade, he’d have to explore the empire for enlightenment.

Lord Wen knew all too well that a cultivator could stay in one city their entire life and live happily. If Li Feng stayed in Shijiang, he’d likely never stumble upon a catastrophe with the power to unlock his ability.

So, Lord Wen sent his youngest son to travel the empire. Li Feng is much younger than Liao Dong from the story, so Lord Wen sent Li Feng’s favorite servant to go with him, but the theory still stands. Making Li Feng confront the evil of the world is Lord Wen’s plan, and where better to start than the Ant-Hill city, where under the peaceful surface masquerades more villainy than any other city in the empire.