Chapter 5: Ch.3 - Joining an organization
From what he could gather from the information, the broken crystal is half of the inheritance given to the Long family by their ancestor's husband who was a true dragon. This crystal is passed on to the eldest daughter when she turns thirteen. The predecessor then loses her power and only retains the amber blue pupils, the sign of the respectable lineage of Holy maidens as they are called by the others of the long family. Even though mike did not have a mirror, he could still feel that his face had changed very much. It was much more feminine. His skin had also gotten paler. If not for his study build and Adam's apple, Mike would think that he had turned into a trap.
He could also feel that his vision has changed. He could now perceive a larger spectrum of light waves, like the infrared and ultraviolet. Also if concentrated real hard, then he could also get penetrative vision. This meant that he must have also inherited the dragon eyes. This was a very big problem from him. He could make excuses about his face and appearance but the eyes would be a dead giveaway if he ever encountered a Long family member. The reason there is only one holy maiden every generation is because the inheritance ceremony is very complex and needs a special pool called the pool of dragon blood which is a speciality of the long family. Only the pool can provide enough vital energy to sustain the entire body reconstruction process. Unluckily, Mike had chanced upon and used the tears of a celestial immortal whose power is beyond the limits of this realm and it had forcefully activated the inheritance crystal even though Mike is not a female. Luckily this crystal was only half a half fragment, or Mike may have been forcefully transformed into a woman. But this also meant that Mike did not have the complete inheritance and only gained 2 arts.
Humans are born fragile and with limited lifespan therefore they can only concentrate on either body refinement or qi refinement unless they are heaven defying geniuses or have chanced upon some extremely rare lucky encounter. Dragons are not restricted by any such problems. Thus they are able to dual cultivate in both body-refinement and qi-refinement. What Mike had received was the body-refinement part of the inheritance called the "Heavenly Dragon Transformation". In the initial layers, the practitioner could grow parts of the dragon body like the dragon scales, dragon claws etc. Upon perfect mastery, one would be able to completely transform into a heavenly dragon and rule the skies. Mike did not dare to practise this art as this may be the exclusive art of the long family and he would be chased to the ends of the continent if he got caught.
There was also a combat art in the inheritance. It was called the Blood Arts. It helped the practitioner combust the energy in the dragon blood to multiply their combat prowess multiple times. Mike was somewhat interested in this art but not as a combat tool. There was a sub-art that was key to learning this combat art, called the "Blood Burning". Every human, be it man or woman had potent yang energy in one's blood. It is the reason why humans are warm-blooded and the reason yin-attributed monsters like ghosts and ghouls do not appear in crowded places. In the blood -burning stage this yang energy is released from the blood. Then after a series of complicated steps, it is turned into usable energy which is used to increase the combat strength of the practitioner.
But Mike was not interested in the subsequent steps. Being a male, he could cultivate with the yang element. Mike has a pure water attributed roots so his main arts needed to be water attribute. But water was very close to the wood attribute and yang energy is derivated from the wood attribute. This meant that he could use this as a supplementary art to increase his cultivation speed and increase his chances to enter the Wanxiang Realm. But first he had to get a cultivation art before he could start practising. His best possible option now was the Dragon Gate sect. Elder Shou seemed like an important personage in the sect and bringing his body back should atleast allow Mike to get a good water attribute cultivation art. Obviously he would not expect the core art of the sect. But sects have a tendency to hoard arts from other sources as well. He could ask for one of the less valuable ones.
As for joining the sect as a disciple, this idea did not even once entered Mike's mind. Due to the many xianxia novels that he had read, Mike knew that sects were a meat grinder that produced cultivators. Mike agreed with the views presented in the novels. Hundreds of disciples joined a sect every year but the richest sects only had the resources to nurture maybe 10 or eleven core disciples every generation. The rest were only cannon fodder who fought over the leftover scrap and worked as slaves for the sect. They had to fight for the sect anytime a conflict occurred or when the sect had to secure any treasures for themselves. Even if by chance, a disciple becomes strong, they had to shoulder huge responsibilities for the sect and even be thankful for it. Obviously, there was also cases of corruption and nepotism which suppressed the growth of any disciple who did not have significant backing within the sect. Mike did not have any intention of joining such a boring place. He wished to travel the world and explore its mysteries, not get bogged down by such boring things.
As Mike's leg were completely healed, he was ahead of his schedule by almost a month. He quickly placed the coffin in the boat and launched the boat into the river. He found out that he was still within the cliff area. Now that he knew the history of the river, he was awed by the completely ridiculous strength of the celestial immortals. But he soon got very bored of the repetitive scenery around him. Thankfully, he still had the fasting pills and did not have to worry about his sustenance. In the river water, he saw his reflection and confirmed the guesses he made earlier in the cave. His face actually very closely resembled his mother's, whose painting he had seen in his dad's room. Now he was really getting worried that someone will recognize him and come after him for the inheritance. He did not know how his mother has hidden the fact about giving him the crystal for so long from the Long family, but he knew that such a powerful family like the Long family would definitely not give up on their inheritance. Even the true dragon behind the Long family may get involved…
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