The deafening cheers of an excited crowd rang through a large pseudo-stadium. It was a huge room, with benches around the outside, while a slab of gray rock rose from the center. All the seats were on the same level or higher than the slab of rock, allowing for clear vision into the center. What separated this “stadium” from all others was what was on the large center part. Surrounded by Greek-style temple walls – featuring pearl-white pillars that looked unshakable and the overhanging ceiling that slanted upwards - stood a strange altar-like object.
And I say object instead of structure because the “altar” was indeed an object; a common one, in fact. Unique to the continent it originated from, this was called an “Awakening Altar”. And, once you consider what it does, the name makes sense.
The Awakening Altar was the foundation of this continent's path of growing stronger: through the cultivation of the Manifestation. Each human, not just those from this continent, contained a sleeping Manifestation. This Manifestation was the – as the name implied – manifestation of one's personality and consciousness. This, however, did not mean that the power and quality of the Manifestation weren't up to luck. While personality did lay a role in it, and no one ever had a Manifestation that did not fit them, luck was more important. This is because if one had bad luck, the grade of their Manifestation would be sub-par, while if one's luck was beyond the heavens, they would easily become an existence able to stand above the rest. No matter how heaven-defying you were, there was no way you could completely determine your Manifestation, and even if you were a genius with endless potential in the martial arts, if your luck was unsuitable and you awakened a bad Manifestation, you were trash. The cultivation path of this continent, as I stated before, involved strengthening the Manifestation. The process of this was called cultivation. One strengthened their Manifestation, and thus power, by absorbing an energy called Qi into it. This Qi was profound energy, with so many mysteries that even top-tier experts who devoted their lives to studying Qi did not completely unravel them. However, one thing was certain: the potential of Qi was unimaginable. Many saw it as the gift of heaven, bestowed uniquely upon their continent, while even more saw it as the energy of heaven. Either way, Qi was a gift, and it was to be used appropriately.
You might notice how I use the phrase “in this continent” quite often when referring to the system of strengthening oneself. This is because the above cultivation system is unique to this continent. In the vast world, many power-enhancing techniques existed, and the above example was just one of many. But even though there were huge differences between many of the strengthening techniques, all of them could be learned, simultaneously, by the same person. Due to this, the potential of one human in the world was high enough for one to become a god. Many people, upon mastering their “home” cultivation system – which is much harder than it sounds; as in a few centuries at least for talented people – travel around the world to master other systems, growing far beyond their ordinary limits and surpassing the peak on their continent.
This particular Awakening Altar seemed to favor the “nice” side of the world: the part including kindness, righteousness, and no mindless slaughter. One would know this due to the white jade exterior, sanctimonious and pure. It was completely untouched and represented the utmost holiness of the family that the Awakening Altar belonged to: the Lin family.
The Lin family was an ancient Daoist family and eventually grew to become a large clan that enforced good morals, virtues, and proper values. The Lin family's reputation was quite good within its nest – Iron Cloud City – due to the fact that it never broke promises, treated everyone kindly, and was willing to help out. Unfortunately, it was a fact of life that no family was perfect, let alone such a large clan. There were many poisonous, scheming snakes who silently vied for power within the clan and were willing to do anything to get a hold of that power.
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Back to Manifestations. Manifestations had several grades, each differing greatly from their predecessor. The lowest grade was the Stone grade. People with Manifestations at this level were at the bottom of the barrel, and in terms of talent, were the lowest of the low. After that was Iron. This was the average talent, but still rather weak. From Iron, the next grades were Steel, Silver, and Gold. Gold, the top of talent, was truly rare. Cultivators with this grade Manifestation were once-in-a-century geniuses. Among an entire country, there would only be around five.
Qi had many different types, called attributes. Manifestations controlled – in most cases – one of these types of Qi. Each attribute had a different strength and a different weakness. For example, the Earth attribute was unrivaled in defense but was slow. The Fire attribute was fragile but destructive and fearsome. Of course, there were exceptions. Some Manifestations, such as the famous Dual Dragon Sovereign, controlled two different elements. This example was the Manifestation of the legendary Dual Dragon Divine Emperor, a warrior fabled throughout history. The Dual Dragon Sovereign controlled both water and fire. As such, one could fight with the fluidity and unpredictability of water, and the destructive tendencies and swift ferocity of fire. Using this Gold-graded Manifestation, the Dual Dragon Divine Emperor stood on the top of the world, overlooking everything, before heading to other continents, having mastered the “homeland” cultivation system at the age of 50. Truly, a genius.
But all this did not affect the current situation. The target of all that cheering, all that roaring, was, of course, Tian Shi. Tian Shi was the genius child of the Lin family. Despite not being a blood member of the clan, Tian Shi was extremely valued in the eyes of those in power, as his maturing would greatly elevate the Lin clan's position in the world. As such, everyone was kind to Tian Shi, and he enjoyed the best resources; which, at this age, was just a kind and loving family, good food, and a nice home.
But now, this very day, Tian Shi was fated to step into his path of cultivation. He was about to undergo his Awakening.
Tian Shi, with the demeanor of a naive young child, walked onto the altar and sat in the pose his parents taught him, his body as still as a mountain. It perfectly exhibited the unique self-control and calm state of mind any young genius should have.
The moment Tian Shi entered his meditative state, the Awakening Altar emitted a huge amount of light, meeting the expectations of the crowd. The light, however, did not stop there. It slowly became more and more intense, reaching the point that ordinary people could not gaze upon it without feeling great pain.
“The birth of a genius!”
“A new chance for the Lin clan!”
“Young master's beginnings!”
“Thank the lords! Our Lin clan has a new talent who will shake the world!”
The crowd murmured, some even having the audacity to shout out praises and exclamations.
Meanwhile, the light emitted from Tian Shi's body grew brighter and brighter. The growth continued for five minutes, before the light eventually waned, revealing a shocking sight.
Tian Shi still sat in the meditative position, but coiled gracefully around him was an elegant crane.
His voice sounded out, naming the Manifestation and providing the affinity and grade. “Radiant Blade Crane God, Light and Sword affinity! The grade is... what?”
From the altar, the gemstone showed a strange picture. This was the gemstone that determined the grade of the Manifestation. One could see the grade by the color of the gemstone. Iron grade would result in a dull black color, while Steel was a dull gray. Silver was a gleaming gray, while Gold grade was seen as an extremely pale gray, endlessly close to white. However, what the gemstone currently showed was... nothing.
It had shattered into countless individually gleaming pieces. Obviously, the grade of Tian Shi's Manifestation was above Gold grade, but, what was that grade?
“Could it be... The Legend grade that only appeared in myths?”
“No, in the stories, the Legend grade only caused the gemstone to forcefully vibrate, not shatter completely...”
“Wait! I know! Who has heard of the Blood Saint Master? According to the legends, he possessed a Manifestation of a grade above Legend! They called this... Sacred grade!”
Many fainted upon hearing this, the shock overwhelming them.
Meanwhile, after calling out the information, Tian Shi was embroiled in a world of his own.
Awakening the Radiant Blade Crane God had also awakened a huge wealth of information, giving Tian Shi something akin to a library in his mind, but he had read each and every book and memorized the contents. He now knew all about the cultivation system, cultivation stages, and had a huge repertoire of techniques, all of them extremely high grade and perfectly suitable for Tian Shi.
As of now, Tian Shi was reviewing everything he learned.