Home. Father once said that as an outer disciple, it is not much different from being a servant. The elders are the managers, and the Sect Master is the ultimate boss. All this, it felt like work, and she didn’t know how much she missed home after just her first day at work.

Sana returned to their home exhausted. Her mind swirled with things she had to do tomorrow. She had to prepare for a spar with Lady Aria, or whatever whims she came up with. She also needed to prepare for the weekend dinner date-

Wait.

Sana paled as she realized she promised her weekend to her husband. That- she suddenly did not know how to break the news.

She stepped in, and couldn’t feel her husband’s presence at all. Still feeling dirty and sticky from all the stains, it didn’t feel appropriate to look for her partner while dirty, so she went for a shower. Most cultivators don’t need to shower, some have special cleaning tools and artifacts that could restore their appearance. Despite that, many still do, because they enjoy it. For the outer disciples that joined through the trials, they made use of communal shower halls. They would have to earn a promotion, or achieve sufficient merit and trade in their merit points for such higher-quality accommodations.

For invited outer disciples, their homes came with their own shower facilities. Small, but good enough.

When she was younger, she remembered her father enjoyed showers, especially after a long trip to the areas around their city. As she splashed the bucket of water on herself, she felt the gunk on her skin, and her exhaustion faded away.

Two splashes later, “Sana.” She paused as she heard Zahar’s voice coming from outside the washroom.

“-oh. Yes?”

She flushed briefly when he asked to come in. “I’ll come in?”

“Ah. Okay.”

Zahar stepped in and then sat behind her. He picked up some soap and a gentle soft brush, and rubbed her back. “I could smell your stench when you walked in.”

“Oh- you- you were home? I didn’t see you.”

“I was in the garden.”

“We have a garden?”

“We do now.” Zahar chuckled as the brush rubbed her back. Most of the gunk was off now, though some of the stench remained. “How’s your first day at work, as a lady-in-waiting?”

Sana recited her day, and then the last part where Lady Aria’s requested to attend the dinner and test her suitor, Shah Bahrong’s character.

“Ah, the antics of high society never change,” Zahar smirked.

“You sound experienced. Any tips for this young, clueless one?” Sana pouted.

“Honestly, relax, they are just people pretending as much as you are,” The ancient Zenith Emperor smiled. He gently touched her shoulder. “In the end, people are just people. Don’t overthink it.”

“What if I screw up and offend them?”

“So?” Zahar laughed.

“What if they find trouble with me?”

“Again, so?” Zahar chuckled, and she turned to face him. Zahar looked amused and leaned close. “What can they do?”

“They can do a lot.”

“Troubles that can be solved with strength isn’t a trouble at all. You just need to have the strength to defeat them.”

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“But I don’t-”

She couldn’t continue her sentence because he had grabbed her for a kiss. Thankfully, it didn’t escalate, as Zahar continued to scrub her back. He was almost done.

“I promised to spend the weekend with you, but now I have this-”

“It’s fine,” Zahar swatted her concerns away. “You’re stuck for an eternity with me, what’s a day?”

Sana paused for a moment to digest his statement and found his response actually amusing. “Well- when you put it that way.” She then remembered her mother’s advice once more, and so gave her partner a warm, grateful smile. “Thank you.”

Zahar nodded, stood, grabbed her towel and night robe, and offered it to her.

***

“These things you are seeing seem to be a certain type of Qi-residue,” Zahar said as he finished checking her eyes. “I think your eyes are currently undergoing change, and I think it’s because of my presence.”

“-huh?”

Zahar sat. His mind considered the implication of this development. He knew exactly what it was. Sana’s body was adapting to high exposure to a powerful person that emitted unique types of Qi. Just like how beasts that grew up around powerful Qi nodes or dragon veins were more powerful and experienced mutation, Sana’s body now experienced a similar process of evolution.

The fact that they were deeply intertwined with each other physically, and his Qi frequently flowed through her body only amplified the evolutionary changes. This was fast, even by his standards. He thought it’d be at least a few years before Sana began to adapt.

Could it be that she had some latent talent in her bloodline that was long hidden?

He did not consider himself a master of bloodline arts, there were immortal emperors that experimented with progeny, trying to mix and match their offsprings to engineer greatness. But he knew enough. Every Zenith Emperor was old enough that their knowledge of every single field accumulated over time. Often, the Zenith Emperors like himself just needed to dig for it.

"Sana, I need a drop of your blood. I’d like to check what’s in your bloodline."

Sana stopped reading her cultivation manual, and gently pricked her finger on a small knife. Her eyes focused as Zahar withdrew a clean bowl of water and mixed her blood into it. The water glowed as she felt his Qi swirl within the mixture.

She had heard of techniques using one’s blood to identify their future or study their cultivation, such as Blood Divination, but this was the first time she saw it.

Her little droplet of blood scattered, and mixed with the rest of the water turning it a faint pink. The glowing water then began to separate, and then, those separated parts separated some more. Certain blobs of the water-blood mixture boiled, while others went through their own changes. A small blob turned into dust, another somehow had sparks in it.

It was incredibly fascinating, and Sana couldn’t help but stare as all of it went through their own phase changes.

About two hours later, Zahar nodded. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Sana nodded. “What was that?”

“The Test of Twenty-Four Families of Beasts. It’s a test for the 24 main types of beast lineages.”

“I- I never heard of it. But it’s so pretty.”

Naturally, there are far better tests, especially if there’s relevant equipment. The greatest of such tests was the Ten Thousand Blood Transmutations, and the Divine Blood Dissection, each a test made performed with a massive formation.

Zahar just nodded. “Well, there appears to be a distant strain of a Lionbeast in your family, and that explains the Fire affinity, and also a mild strain of the Mist Faeries, likely from your mother’s side. It’s very diluted after many generations, but it’s there in your blood, somewhere around fifteen to twenty generations ago.”

“My family doesn’t have records that long.” Sana explained. As far as she could remember, her ancestor, ten generations or so ago, was a commoner that somehow managed to become a middling cultivator, and that set their family off as a cultivation family.

“Well, almost all individuals have some beast or nature-origin blood mixed in them.” Zahar quickly clarified. “It’s just an outcome of beast-origin or natural-origin cultivators intermingling with mortals. Usually whatever talents inherited from such ancestors remain dormant as it’s heavily diluted.”

Sana thought about it. “Lionbeast and Mist Faeries- So- so how is it related to my eyes?”

“I suspect you are manifesting some earlier bloodline talents. The Lionbeast family of beasts are fairly diverse and I am aware of some that have eye-type talents. We would have to do more tests and observe how your ability changes over time to pin down which of those bloodline talents you are developing.”

Sana’s mind immediately wondered how Zahar knew such things, but she mentally concluded it was one of those old-monster types of knowledge. Of course he would know. “Oh- so we just wait?”

“Not exactly, knowing this, of course we amplify its strength!” Zahar laughed. “I’ll need to go collect some materials, it shouldn’t be too hard to find something that works for you. Should take a few weeks.”

“Oh.” Sana thought Zahar would pull off some miracle and concoct something before her very eyes.

“You sound disappointed.” Zahar chuckled.

“A little. I suppose I’m too used to surprises.”