Winter was a season of quiet, of solitude. Perfect for divinations, if there was a need to perform them. Zhu Tianyao, young master of the illustrious Zhu clan, set out to deliver the results of a divination about the future talents of the Wei clan, braving the cold and snowstorms.

The snowstorm had intensified to the point where visibility was nil, and the snow wolves were out in force. He halted his rapid flight to find shelter, eventually settling for a naturally formed cave. The packs of wolves often had Nascent Soul realm leaders, and being caught in the open wasn’t something he could survive.

Zhu Tianyao withdrew some wood from his spatial ring and arranged it into a campfire. Lighting it with his true qi, he took a seat and began divining when the snowstorm would ease up.

As he received his answers, a wisp of a peculiar will slipped into his mind alongside them. With a shrill scream, Zhu Tianyao was no more, infiltrated and possessed by something else. With a crack of its neck and a blink of its eyes, the body broke through in its cultivation, reaching the low tier of the Nascent Soul stage.

“Been awhile since I inhabited something this weak,” it muttered, and with that, it was gone, flashing out of the cave and into the whistling winds of the icy plains.

~~~

A middle-aged man stood atop the gated walls of a small city, looking out into the vast frozen distance. A lone road led off into the horizon, not a traveler visible along its depressing length. The wintry gale made his gray robes flutter madly, a dark cloud over his sharp face. A female cultivator flew out from the central area of the city on a sword, purple robes fluttering as she stepped off of it gracefully atop the wall.

“Haotian, it’s looking like he won’t be arriving today either.” she said with a glance towards the empty plains. Haotian simply shook his head and continued his vigil. The woman gave him a meaningful glance, sighed, then stepped on her sword, flying back to the central district.

Hours later, a small glowing dot showed up in the night sky, rapidly approaching the city wall. Zhu Tianyao landed, giving off the pressure of a peak Golden Core cultivator, and bowed towards Wei Haotian out of respect. 

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Wei Haotian frowned at the boy's brazenness in landing directly on the wall, but before he could speak, Zhu Tianyao cut him off. “Clan leader Wei, the results of the divination are these: sometime in the future, twins with the Extreme Yin and Extreme Yang physiques will be born to your clan. There will be a great battle between the two, and the victor will bring the clan to prosperity, while the loser will slink off and cause troubles from outside. I hope that you would find me in the future if you need to have another divination performed.”

The man dismissed Zhu Tianyao with a casual wave. A smile slowly bloomed on his face as he flew towards the center of the clan on his sword, leaving Zhu Tianyao on the wall alone. His face distorted into expressions of anger and disdain, followed by a sinister smile, which was seen by no one. He stepped onto the flying sword, flying off into the frozen plains.

~~~

Several thousand years later, Wei Haotian was merely decades from the end of his life, and the Wei clan had cemented itself in place as one of the Four Clans. They became known for their formations, which allowed them to take over several key resources in exchange for helping other clans with their guardian formations. 

However, Wei Haotian knew that this was not what the clan was founded on. They were supposed to be powerful, able to use their strength to suppress all others! But, in the war against the Lin clan, the young talents who had the potential to reach the Nascent Soul realm died, and few reached it afterwards. He and his brother, Wei Haoqing, were both severely injured, cutting off their path of improvement. Wei Haoqing turned to the formations that he had a foundation in, while Wei Haotian focused on the way of the sword, in a bid to keep his battle power from stagnating while waiting for the prophesied twins.

Over the years, there had been several false alarms, where mortals and cultivators alike gave birth to twins, but the best talent among them possessed merely 40% elemental roots, not even enough to reach the Nascent Soul realm, much less to bring the clan to greater heights.

It was a cold day in late autumn, and the great freezing had just passed just days before. A  woman laid in an alleyway wrapped in shadows, her face contorting in pain as she went through labor. A single resounding cry rang out, but it wasn’t over, as a second cry soon followed the first, drawing the attention of a nearby elder, on his way back from his favorite tavern. He entered the alley to see the quickly cooling body of the mother, two baby boys grasped in her arms. He checked both boys’ bodies, and found that the boy on the left was abnormally warm, while the boy on the right was abnormally cool. The umbilical cord had already been severed, and was nowhere to be seen. The elder retrieved some spare robes from his spatial ring and carefully swaddled the two babies, then carried them in his arms as he headed towards the clan head’s home at a rapid pace. He had a feeling that these were the children of the divination...