Soaring Dragon Sect

Weapon Refinement Hall, Soaring Dragon Sect.

"Master, shall I kill him?"

A beautiful voice filled with killing intent spoke calmly to Zhao Long.

"N-no… it's okay Miss Fei… he's my old man" he quickly responded, his voice filled with exhaustion.

Zhao Long had been kneeling down for the past 3 days on the cold floor of the Weapon Refinement Hall with no food or drink. Sitting at the nearby table while leisurely studying a scroll was Ren Liu, food and drink laid ready at the table. Hearing the exchange between the snake woman and Zhao Long, Ren Liu once again scolded him.

"It's your own fault! Going off on your own and missing the annual martial arts competition, and then you go and bring a random wife here! This is the Soaring Dragon Sect! Haven't you had enough already of being disdained by others for your pathetic cultivation level and your lazy attitude?!" reprimanded Ren Liu while putting down the scroll.

Zhao Long had always been lazy in his cultivation, often doing the minimal amount of effort as other disciples, hence his current mediocre cultivation. Hearing his words, Zhao Long remained silent.

"I'm not his wife. I am his follower." Fei Ruo suddenly interrupted, wanting to clear the misunderstanding.

"Same thing! Why would you follow such a lazy brat like him with such a low cultivation level anyway?" spoke Ren Liu full of disdain.

"Old man, I've already told you that I went out to explore. It's not what you think, she– " Zhao Long tried explaining but was soon interrupted again by Ren Liu.

"Shut up! Tell me girl, are you with child? Is that why you followed him here?" asked Ren Liu with a serious look on his face.

Seeing the serious look on his face, the snake woman known as Fei Ruo immediately blushed at Ren Liu's questions. As this was the first time she had interacted with other humans besides Zhao Long, she found herself slightly uncomfortable being stared at by such serious eyes.

"N-no" she looked away in embarrassment, "Senior, I decided to follow him because I liked his smell." Left with no option under Ren Liu's domineering stare, she had to blurt out the truth. Her shyness increased at the mention of Zhao Long's 'smell', as she covered her face in embarrassment.

Hearing the snake woman's reply, Ren Liu was momentarily speechless. Afterall, what kind of person goes smelling people? Having no other way to reply, Ren Liu cleared his throat.

"Err….I see. Girl, do you want to marry this brat?" asked Ren Liu with a grin on his face.

"Senior I…." Fei Ruo gulped while a blush crept on her face. The previous superior demeanor shown back in the forest toward Zhao Long was completely gone. "I wouldn't mind it".

Hearing her words and witnessing the shyness of the snake woman, Ren Liu could see that this maiden was pure and innocent. The grin on his face widened while he winked at Zhao Long while saying, "Alright, Miss Fei is it? You can stay!"

Zhao Long who saw the interaction between them both, and the mischievous wink the old man sent him, was left speechless at the shamelessness of the pair. His lips twitching, he decided he would completely ignore what he had heard just now.

"Kid, you can stand up now." commented Ren Liu while he got ready to leave.

"That's it?!"

Seeing the old man standing up to leave, Zhao Long couldn't help himself and asked whether that was really all there was to the 'punishment'. However, he soon realised that all the old man wanted to do was to pair him up with a woman. Upon witnessing the old man's shamelessness, all he could do was throw him a glare while trying to stand.

"Kid, try registering the girl as your contracted beast." said Ren Liu before leaving.

Ren Liu had long since noticed the problem in keeping a snake woman in the sect. In fact, he had been startled by Fei Ruo's high level of cultivation. Afterall, a 9th rank beast's cultivation was equivalent to that of a peak nascent soul practitioner's! Ren Liu's cultivation was only at the Early Nascent Soul Stage, so he wouldn't tease Fei Ruo too much.

Zhao Long too realised this point. Keeping a snake woman in a sect was not going to be an easy feat. Once he decided to follow Ren Liu's advice, Zhao Long was all ready to go and get things ready. However, unfortunately for Zhao Long, being in a kneeling posture for 3 days straight had completely numbed his legs. When he attempted to stand up, he felt a sharp pain run through his legs and could only helplessly faceplant the floor.

....

That same afternoon, after regaining the feeling in his legs and satiating his hunger, Zhao Long headed towards the Registration Hall to register Fei Ruo as his contracted beast in the sect.

This was usually done upon arrival at the sect, however, Zhao Long had been in a rush to explain his unexpected disappearance for the past couple of days. Furthermore, since she was a snake woman, Zhao Long had to first be cautious for Fei Ruo, as she would normally be considered a dangerous demonic Beast.

Before entering the sect, Zhao Long had made sure Fei Ruo suppressed her cultivation to that of a 4th rank beast's. This would allow her to look like she was at the level of a Foundation stage practitioner and wouldn't incite trouble with any expert at the sect. Upon arrival at the Registration Hall, Zhao Long made sure to register Fei Ruo. The pair didn't seem to encounter any issues in the process, which made Zhao Long think that it might have been Ren Liu who had notified the elders of the hall about Fei Ruo.

After registering her, Zhao Long went over to the Medicine Hall to collect his monthly set of qi condensing pills. Every disciple of the Soaring Dragon Sect would get his monthly share of pills depending on their rank and contribution to the sect as a disciple. Currently, Zhao Long was only an Outer Sect Disciple of the Soaring Dragon Sect, once he reached the Foundation Stage, he would immediately be promoted to an Inner Sect Disciple.

The amount of cultivation pills an inner sect disciple received was different to that of an outer sect disciple. Zhao Long's share amounted to that of 3 qi condensation pills and 1 sea calming elixir, while an inner sect disciple would receive foundation level pills for their cultivation as well as access to higher level cultivation techniques.

Zhao Long had been stuck at the peak of the Qi Condensation stage for the past 2 years. While he had previously been considered an above-average talent among the outer sect disciples. Make no mistake, Zhao Long was no prodigy in the sect, he could only be considered of an average aptitude. In comparison, a lot of his friends had already been accepted into the inner sect. Leaving him with all the other younger brats, if not careful, Zhao Long could become an old uncle of the outer sect. Now that would be a greater humiliation.

"Elder Zhu, I'm here to collect the monthly share of pills." announced Zhao Long upon arrival to the Medicine Hall.

In front of him was an old man who seemingly nodded upon hearing Zhao Long's words. This elder was well known in the outer sect, as he had always been the one handing over the pills to the disciples.

"Badge?"

"Here."

Zhao Long handed over a red-colored badge with his name engraved on it. Upon receiving his badge, the elder noted down Zhao Long's name and took out a bottle from a drawer, noting it all down in a scroll.

Shortly after, the elder handed over the badge back and gave the bottle to Zhao Long. Inside the bottle laid 3 yellow pills, upon checking the contents, Zhao Long nodded his head in approval and left the medicine hall.

Having obtained the pills from the medicine hall, Zhao Long decided to first head over to his residence together with Fei Ruo, who had been waiting for him outside of the hall, she was wearing a dark cloak that managed to slightly cover her tail. Under the cloak she wore a long red dress which also helped cover parts of her tail.

Ever since her arrival at the sect, Zhao Long had explicitly warned her that she must hide her tail whenever possible. In the end, she decide that as long as she shrunk her tail slightly and covered it in a long piece of clothing it wouldn't be a problem.

As Zhao Long had finished all his errands, he decided to return to his residence. The residences for outer sect disciples were rather small, with a rather modest amount in terms of commodity. Since he now had Fei Ruo as his follower, he had naturally looked into providing her a residence of her own, after all it would not be proper for her to stay with Zhao Long.

Luckily, followers of sect disciples usually were allowed to stay with their masters, as such it wasn't surprising for Zhao Long's residence to have an extra room or two. The room itself was rather small, but for a cultivator it was more than enough, as most of the activities they did mainly involved the meditation and practice of martial arts.

"Master, what will you do now?"

"Train for a bit, then sleep." Zhao Long replied casually.

Having settled her into his residence, Zhao Long now had time to inspect the contents of the ring further. As this ring was now his treasure, he naturally had to keep it a secret from others, thus with the pretext of training, he excused himself and went to his room.

The mysterious ring he picked up from the Immortal's cave had turned out to be a storage ring of some sort, the foreign objects that came from the ring intrigued Zhao Long.

After all, aside from certain objects such as the crimson staff and women's clothing, he was sure that the other objects were outside of his knowledge. However, being only a 15 year old at the Qi condensation stage, he knew that his knowledge of the world was very limited. As such, it was only natural for him to not know or recognise certain objects.

Taking out the items from the ring, he first decided to have a look at the scrolls. The first time he had glanced upon the three scrolls, he had thought they were some sort of secret cultivation technique that an expert had left behind. However, to his disappointment, when the first scroll was open he realised that the writing seemed to be from a different place.

'It's a different language!'

To Zhao Long's dismay, it now seemed that this scroll would be useless. Whether it was a treasured ancient technique or a useless scroll, he knew it was impossible to figure out. He similarly opened the other two scrolls, only to find the same result. Zhao Long could only look grimly at his findings, as he knew that even if they were treasures, he wouldn't be able to use them!

"Sigh…"

Even though it was a depressing outcome, he didn't give up yet and decided to look into the other items.

After a few hours, he had gone through almost all of the things within the ring.

"Cannot use, Cannot use, Cannot use!"

Zhao Long didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He had just realised that this ring might just be a completely useless object. Other than the crimson staff, the rest of the items seemed completely useless to Zhao Long.

"Sigh..."

Another depressing sigh had come out of Zhao Long.

Having inspected all of the items, he turned his attention towards the crimson staff. Zhao Long had not forgotten that he had found the staff awfully nostalgic when he first laid his eyes on it. This feeling seemed to have arisen from deep within, as though he had seen it somewhere else, a long time ago.

"This staff…"

If someone had seen Zhao Long's expression at this moment, they would only know to describe it as deeply melancholic.

Zhao Long was perplexed.

Why did this staff force such feelings out of him? And why did it make his heart feel restless and pained when he saw it?

As these thoughts ran through his head, his hand held onto the staff.

What he didn't expect was that as soon as he grabbed the staff, the green flame which had long since been resting in his dantian suddenly flared up and covered his whole body and the staff in green flames.

"Fuck!"

The flame's sudden action had shocked Zhao Long. Previously in the cave, he had not managed to touch the staff, which was why this reaction had not happened. This sudden reaction had scared poor Zhao Long to death just now.

Strangely, despite being covered in flames, he felt no heat coming from the flames. On the contrary, the flames seemed to soothe his mind and calm his spirit.

Unknowingly, he had entered into a state of deep meditation. The green flame had surprisingly relaxed Zhao Long's mind, and the previous fear and restlessness disappeared. Zhao Long seemed to enter into a trance-like state as his eyes began staring fixedly at the staff. At some point, he placed the staff on his lap while sitting on a lotus position.

However, Zhao Long was not meditating and instead, he seemed to be dreaming with his eyes wide open, a rather frightening appearance.

Within his dream, Zhao Long seemed rather lost in thought, as though he was trying to remember something. Just as he was thinking it was nothing, a cold voice suddenly spoke–

"We meet again, stupid dragon."