The air was heavy with the scent of ash and smoke as Shen Yuan followed his new master through the ruins of the sect. Each step felt surreal, the echoes of laughter and life now replaced by the eerie quiet of devastation. The moon hung high above, casting a pale light over the remnants of what had once been a thriving community.

“Come,” his master commanded, his voice a low rumble that resonated within the hollow remains of the sect. “We have much to discuss.”

Shen Yuan quickened his pace, curiosity igniting within him. Despite the destruction around them, a sense of anticipation filled the air, as if they were standing at the precipice of something grand. He had barely scratched the surface of understanding his master’s true nature, and this moment promised revelations that could change everything.

They entered a makeshift chamber formed by the skeletal remains of a once-majestic hall. Broken pillars jutted from the ground like jagged teeth, and the air crackled with latent energy. Shen Yuan felt a shiver run down his spine—not from fear, but from an electric thrill of possibility.

His master turned to face him, his dark eyes gleaming with a mix of excitement and seriousness. “You have just become part of a grander scheme, Shen Yuan. The sect’s demise was not merely an act of destruction; it was a stepping stone towards a greater purpose.”

“I am Wang Zhiqiang, and who I am really…. You will know with time, as for why I chose you as my disciple out of all”, The man called Wang Zhiqiang sighed, “Since the Nether Dragon Scripture acknowledged you, you shall naturally be my disciple.”

“But master, if I may ask, what is the Nether Dragon Scripture really?”, Shen Yuan spoke with natural curiosity

Wang Zhiqiang rubbed his beard and spoke, “You will know what it really is as you advance, so all you need to know at this point is that, it is the strongest cultivation art at a cosmic level.”

Shen Yuan frowned at all the secrecy but also understood, that it was his path to unravel what the Nether dragon scripture really was.

Then Wang Zhiqiang stood up and formed an array, a ice and fire spiritual array to be exact, and it was a grade 3 array on that!

A grade 3 array meant that a cultivator is of the purifying realm or higher, Shen Yuan swallowed his own saliva out of fear, respect and most of all excitement.

Come and sit it will help you advance faster and will also give you the power of fire.

Without any hesitation, Shen Yuan stood up and walked over to the array and sat down, cross legged. He could feel the cold and heat both entering his body, it was very painful, but it was worth it.

As his training continued, 4 years had passed in the blink of an eye.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Many things change in such a long time, the once destroyed landscape, looks to be healing as many spiritual beasts roam around, freely.

As the spiritual beasts continued to go as their daily routine, some started to freeze out of nowhere and became ice statues.

The other beats noticing their kin becoming into an ice state got alerted, as they tried to run but fate seemed to have not been on their side, a cold sinister energy covered a radius of 100 km, freezing anything to that of ice in its path. The spiritual beasts as well which were all grade 1-2 beasts, froze and became literal ice statues, their fate was seriously dead.

Then footsteps could be heard coming out of the forest, where the Lotus cloud sect was previously destroyed, now a forest.

A young man could be seen, wearing black robes, his hair as black as the night and his eyes a rare shine of purple, he was the source of such cold energy…!

On a close look one could see that it’s Shen Yuan! Shen yuan the once weak boy of fifteen or sixteen, has grown to such a strong degree, he was at the 3rd layer of Qi Gathering Realm.

At this realm after once advances from foundation establishment you will be able to sense the power and energy from the planet and they can use their Qi to temper their whole Body even cells, but there is a weakness, cultivators at this realm lack of strong spiritual strength. Also, at this level of cultivation, the body is immune to sickness. One also has a lifespan of around 400 years.

“It’s time for me to finally enter the starting point, the zeroth stage of the Nether Dragon Scripture”, Shen Yuan sat down cross legged.

As he started to cultivate, his whole body started to emit a cold energy which was his Yin Qi, the grounds as well started to become ice.

“Open the 9 cold meridians…...”, he said inside as he continued to circulate the yin qi and started to form the first of the nine cold meridians, it felt like as if thousands of needles were piercing his body from all directions, the meridian seemed to be unstable and just in few minutes exploded as Shen Yuan coughed blood.

Even after the backlash, he continued to cultivate, cultivate and cultivate, non-stop, even after failing over a hundred times.

Each fail only helped to intensify the pain.

After 3 days of rigorous trying Shen Yuan finally formed the first cold meridian, then the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, slowly but surely, he formed the eighth meridian. Only the last one, the ninth one remained.

The ninth cold meridian was the hardest, Shen Yuan, very carefully started forming it, as he felt not thousands bur millions of needles pierce his flesh, but the physical pain didn’t matter anymore.

As the ninth meridian started to take shape, he felt a lot relaxed as if the pain was slowly going away and the injuries, he received from the backlash also seemed to heal slowly, after another day the ninth cold meridian finally formed, as a powerful cold sister aura escaped from Shen Yuan’s body, freezing everything around the next 6000 km.

Shen Yuan then spreads his divine sense and sees that everything be it anything, everything in the next 6000 km have been frozen and slowly started to shatter, the 6000 km wise ice shatters it leaves behind only a 6000 km crater, even he himself was dumbstruck by the sheer devastation.

Shen Yuan laughed and smirked, “Well then since I don’t know where master went when I was cultivating for the past 4 years, I shall decide my own destination….”

After a bit of pondering, Shen Yuan finally decided to go to the Gui City as it was the nearest from here, only 10,000 kilometres from where Shen Yuan was.

With full speed Shen Yuan rushed towards the east of the Fengyue Country, the fengue Country was big it was so big that one might call it a sub-continent, it’s area itself was over a 50,000 kilometres, from this Shen Yuan theorized that it would take him exactly 3 minutes to reach the Gui City, as it was 10,000 kilometres away from him at the moment.