"What! You're telling me that the Grand Elder has gone senile and actually accepted a disciple?!" a girl who looks around the age of twenty yells.
"Yes, mistress!" the maid yells while quivering in her shoes. The person yelling at her has recently reached peak 5th mortal Realm at the age of 14 and is considered a genius. When evolving her body, the 9 year old at the time grew up to look like a twenty year old, compared to Zao who went from a four year old to currently looking like a twelve year old.
"Impossible! I refuse to believe it! To think he'd take someone over me? The genius of Xi'an and the number one beauty?! HAS HE GONE RETARDED?!" Yu Yan screams at the top of her lungs. Yu Yan had always wanted to be the Grand Elder's disciple as he has connections to bigger branches and Realms outside of Xi'an and would help Yu Yan improve tremendously.
"Mistress, I have no idea, all I know is his name is Zao Ning." the maid says as she remembers hearing the rumors from the other maids.
"Zao Ning huh? Imma go fuck him up right now."
Yu Yan is fuming with anger as she cannot accept reality and is in a stage of denial. Yu hurries out of her estate to go ask around where the soon to be famous Zao Ning resides.
Zao Ning on the other hand is just now waking up. The time is now around mid day by the time Zao wakes up and he moans while managing to roll of out bed. Zao's body is extremely sore from pushing itself to the point of bleeding from the pores on his skin, but the wounds have closed and Zao's body has healed, coming back stronger than ever.
The inside of Zao's body is becoming more and more blue as Zao's body tries to get used to being fused with Ki.
If I fuse with Ki completely, no matter my cultivation, I can fight anyone in the Mortal Realm while being confident in at least being able to get away without dying. Even Grand Elder Chi.
Zao looks down at himself and realizes that a bath wasn't take last night, so the blood soaked into Zao's clothes, staining the white robe and hood a sinister crimson and also staining his white sheeted bed the same color.
Zao simply sighs and walks over to the bathroom on the otherside of his room. Going inside, the tiny bathtub, at least to Zao Ning, is already full of warm water. Zao Ning smiles and takes off his now crimson colored robe.
Not wasting a second, Zao jumps into his bath and feels warmth covering his body. The smell of strong medicinal herbs hits Zao's nose and he can tell that this bath was prepared with Zao's injuries being taken into mind. Zao dips his head into the water and takes a big gulp.
To Zao's surprise, the herb is a top tier Mortal Realm Herb called Returning Root, something that even some Spirit Realm cultivator's would fight for. Thinking about how influential his master is, Zao smiles as the former dragon decides joining this sect was the right decision.
The Returning Root returns whoever baths in it back to their top physical form and helps solidify their body's strength. Zao let's out a deep breath and leans back against the wall of the tub, currently enjoying life to the fullest. The blood that was once caked on the boy's skin has now dissipatted and mixed into the water.
About 5 minutes into his peaceful bath, Zao can feel a large aura of anger heading towards his estate.
What an arrogant and childish aura of anger. Who dares approach my estate with such emotions?
"ZAO NING, COME OUTSIDE YOU SNIVELING COWARD SO I CAN MURDER YOU! I, YU YAN, REFUSE TO BELIEVE YOU'RE STRONGER THAN ME!"
Well I guess that answers Zao Ning's questions. Zao Ning just closes his eyes and sinks down into the bath tub. He has no reason to fight at the moment and only wishes to relax and even begins cultivating while bathing.
A few more minutes and Zao is currently inspecting his azure worm wriggling inside of his body. The worm seems to be more profound than before and even has small traces of the weak version of lightning dao. This amazes Zao Ning as you don't start touching upon any daos until the Spirit Realm. The worm even seems to have a scar where its eye would be due to pulsating too much power from when Zao fought the monster trying to kill his mother.
Zao tries to guide the worm back to the main cultivating vein to help cultivate faster but is interrupted by the ground violently shaking.
BOOOOOM!
Followed by a loud exploding sound.
"IF YOU DON'T COME OUT PUSSY, I'LL BREAK MY WAY IN!"
Zao is now becoming very irritated with this woman who claims to be Yu Yan. Remembering that the path of cultivation is never relaxing and is constantly filled with nuisances, Zao finally leaves his bath.
Stretching his now fully strengthened limbs due to the Returning Root, Zao picks up his crimson robe and gets ready to deal with the intruder.
*Outside the newly established Ning Estate*
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Yu Yan stands right outside the gates, fuming. She had discovered where Zao Ning lived from a Elder that Yu has some connections with and ran here as quickly as possible. After challenging Zao he first time, Yu had hoped he was mentally strong enough to come face his doom, but Zao never even responded.
"He didn't even send someone to tell me to leave! Does he think that I'm not even worth his servant's time, let alone his own? What a disgraceful brat! I'll kill you Zao Ning!"
Yu Yan continues her ranting while sending blasts of her power towards the Ning Estate. After Zao didn't show up after the first challenge, Yu resorted to destroying the Ning Estate to draw out Zao Ning.
While sending out a streak of water that causes a deep hole to appear in Zao's yard, Yu finally smiles for the first time today. Zao Ning had finally left his house.
Seeing his new estate in near ruins, an ugly expression of irritation shows up on Zao's face. Though an estate of this size is nothing to Zao, he still is angry is someone destroys what belongs to him so Zao finds the cause of the damage.
On the outside of his gates, a woman stands there with a wicked smile of bloodlust on her face.
Ahhhh, there is the weakling. Peak 5th Mortal Realm? She's one step from being 6th Mortal Realm too, what have I done to make someone like this so upset?
"What is it you want scant woman?" Zao says with a deep tone. Yu Yan is surprised for a second but calms down quickly. With Zao only being in the 4th Mortal Realm, Yu can basically kill him whenever she wants, or she believes so.
"You do not deserve to be Grand Elder Chi's disciple! I have came here to wipe you of the faces of the Realm and take your spot!"
Ahhhhh, I see. The poor little human is jealous. What a cute little thing.
Zao's eyes show his pity and how he is humiliating Yu Yan is his head. Yu Yan catches onto to this and the fury inside of the woman explodes forth like a tsunami.
"Do you wanna die?!" Yu Yan screeches, causing Zao's windows to shutter and almost shatter due to the screams intensity.
"You think you can kill me? A fellow member of your sect and disciple of the Grand Elder? In your dreams weakling."
Zao has started enjoying teasing the woman as she is jealous of something Zao has, which always strokes a dragon's personality in a good way. Yu Yan realizes that she cannot in fact kill Zao Ning due to the rules of the sect, and also Grand Elder Chi would most likely not be very happy about that.
"I might not be able to kill you, but I can humiliate you! The sect will have a tournament in 2 months! We will meet there and then we will settle this!" Yu Yan screams at Zao. Zao rubs his ears to try to disperse the ringing due to the screaming of the banshee like woman.
"Fine, fine. Just leave, you're too annoying to be around and that's probably why you don't have a husband yet hag."
Yu, who turned to leave, stops dead in her tracks and her face turns bright red. Yu has plenty of people throwing themselves at her feet, yet she hasn't found a man worthy of her. Even though she is only 14, she has the body and urges of a 20 year old. The only reason she doesn't have a husband yet is no one is worthy of Yu in Yu's eyes.
"I'll kill you." Yu growls.
"Yes, yes. You repeat the same things over and over. If you fight like that then I won't have to worry about our fight. See you in two months."
Zao finishes his taunt while laughing and walks inside now that the woman isn't destroying his lawn anymore. Being humiliated instead of humiliating, Yu nearly cries and begins to trek back to her estate to train vigorously.
Zao's mood has been uplifted due to the stroking of his ego and decides to go find out if his mother is awake yet. As for the damages to Zao's yard, he will get a maid to take care of it later.
Zao manages to find the room where he had put his mother before and he quietly opens the door. Inside, Zao's mom is simply laying in her bed, reading a book that came from Zao's new study hall. As Zao makes his way into the room, Wei Ning looks up at her son.
A bright and proud smile spreads across Wei's face and Zao can feel his body begin to become warm from the love radiating from his mother. Zao walks over to the side of his mother's bed leans onto it.
"Welcome to our new home, mother." Zao says with pride as he had just fixed all of their former problems. Wei Ning smiles at her son and draws his face towards hers. Planting a kiss on her son's forehead, Wei Ning cannot be any more happy and proud than she is now.
Turns out her son is a prodigy that gained entrance into one of the most prestigous sect in the town of Xi'an and even became the disciple of its most powerful elder. Wei Ning knew her son's growth was not average but never did she realize that her son was a cultivator.
Hey, I never said Wei Ning was the brightest.
"What about catching the fish? You trained so hard and once you managed to catch them, you were so proud! Are we just gonna leave that all behind?" Wei Ning says as she is worried Zao will miss how they used to live.
"What? Why would I care? We have our own home now and we can eat some actual meat now? Catching fish was just something I wanted do to help out mother." Zao Ning says like his mother is spitting something crazy.
"Oh... ok. Thank you for being such an amazing son Zao Ning."
Wei Ning rubs her son's head and Zao simply laughs and blushes at the praise of his mother. If only Zaragnathor of the past could see how he is acting now. The dragon would go into a rage of blood lust.
"Well mother, I'll tell the servants to listen to your commands. I need to go cultivate if I intend to go anywhere in life."
"Alright, if you need anything, I'll be here."
Zao Ning leaves his mother's room feeling refreshed and prepared for rest of the day.
The first thing Zao did was seeking out a maid and telling her to obey his mother's every beck and call. The maid acknowledged her master's orders and gracefully waltzed her way to Zao's mother.
That's the first thing checked off the list.
Zao then walks to his backyard and sees a wide open space that is 100 meters by 100 meters of pure grass land. Zao nods his head and heads towards the middle of open space.
Sitting down, Zao begins to cultivate. Lightning crackles from Zao's body, burning marks into the grass as the Lightning Ki within Zao is becoming more pure and wild by the second.
The scarred lightning worm within Zao is soon accompanied by another lightning worm but this one isn't scarred and is intimidated by the other. Zao then trains his multiple abilities, even though they are trained to the max. The reason for this is so he doesn't get rusty at them.
Zao, now covered in sweat decides it's time to look at the mission's board inside of the Missions building.
With his crimson robe on that makes Zao Ning stand out, he goes to leave the estate before rolling his eyes in displeasure.
"JUST SO YOU KNOW I CHOOSE NOT TO BE MARRIED. I HAVE MANY PEOPLETRYINGTOWINMYHANDAND..."
Yu Yan has returned to the Ning estate and is currently ranting at Zao as he tries to leave.
"Why the fuck are you here again? Go out and get laid or something and leave me alone!" Ning yells at the ranting woman.