Chapter 3

Shin Long only half listened to Shen Xiu's lecture, Most of her spiel was more or less dogma from her family, so a lot of crap he just wasn't interested in.

The only part that did peak his interest at all was when she revealed that she was a three star silver rank and unveiled her demon spirit transformation.

A Scarlet Flaming Fox.

It was quite the form. But despite his aunts talent and powerful demon spirit, it wasn't long before he lost interest again. The way she so readily wrote off her demon spirit as being a mere gold rank that she would dispose of for a stronger spirit when she got strong enough to handle them showed just how stupidly wasteful the Sacred Family were.

Even her, praised as a genius was taken in by it so thoroughly.

Scarlet Flaming Fox demon spirits while not the most powerful out there, had versatility in spades. They were kitsune based spirits with power over flames and illusions, and grew more tails the stronger they got. The fact that his aunts only had one tail yet was already a gold rank demon spirit showed how powerful it could be if cultivated properly.

'What a waste.' Shin Long shook his head in disappointment. And there he had been thinking his aunt was one of the few decent sorts from his fathers side of the family. Sure she was a condescending bitch, but she'd always treated him far better than anyone else from the Sacred Family.

He couldn't be that wasteful when it came to his own demon spirits. Unlike others he couldn't just get rid of his if a stronger species came along. And it was in his best interest to cultivate the strength of his demon spirits, since summoning them into the physical world was one of the true main strengths of his War God cultivation.

Thankfully his own Horned Sheep while not an amazing spirit of the extraordinary rank still had a good growth rate, rather than poor or ordinary. So it would see decent growth from his cultivation. And it was already a spirit on the level of a three star bronze rank, nearing the four star bronze rank when it came to soul force.

Paying no heed to his aunt, Shin Long reached into his pocket and pulled out a small green spherical pill. He hadn't had the chance to test out this concoction yet. A Soul Nurturing Pill that he learned to make from the War God cultivation manual, and enhanced further with Zoysia Grass. The Nurturing Pill from what he'd been able to decipher should have as high as ten times as much power in comparison to the only known pill used in Glory City, the Soul Assembly Pill. And with the Zoysia Grass included the effect should be even further enhanced.

'Let's see how this goes.' Shin Long mused, popping it into his mouth and swallowing before sinking into his cultivation technique and ignoring the bustle of the classroom around him.

There was a commotion going on as Shin Long cultivated. He tried his level best to ignore it as time passed him by, soaking in the massive amounts of QI flooding his system. The pill he created was amazing! He estimated that the total amount of power within the pill was a whole thirty percent higher than the War God manual had described.

Truly Zoysia Grass was amazing!

"Teacher Shen Xiu, I have a question." Nie Li's voice resounded in his ears.

"What?" His aunt asked.

Still, Shin Long ignored them.

"Teacher Shen Xiu says that only Glory City survived the age of darkness. What proof do you have to back that up? May I ask if teacher has been to the St. Ancestral Mountains and visited the Endless Desert? Or the Toxic Forest, the Blood Moon Marsh the Spirit Gulf, the Heavenly Luster Mountains or the Northern Snow before?" Nie Li questioned, his voice almost haughtily arrogant.

Odd. Shin Long with his eyes closed frowned as the words floated through his mind. Nie Li was a brash person, but he never came across as arrogant like that.

What would some random child from the Heaven's Mark Family know about the world outside of Glory City? Even he, with an ancient cultivation manual from before the age of darkness didn't know much at all of the outside world.

"What are you talking about? What Heavenly Mountains? What Northern Snow?" Shin Long could practically feel the frustration and confusion in his aunts words. "I've been in Glory City since birth and even been on a few expeditions outside, but I've never heard of any of these places."

"Since Teacher Shen Xiu has never been to these places, how can you be sure they don't exist?" Nie Li asked in return, tauntingly.

Shin Long almost left his cultivation and shut him up. Just because a child had an imaginary friend that nobody could see, didn't make it a possibility that they were real. He was trying to make a point with semantics. Twisted logic like that was childish and irritating to listen to.

"So what?" Shen Xiu demanded, and Shin Long could hear the frustration in his aunts words, "How can you prove that these places are real and we are not the last living humans?" Even distracted as he was directing his qi, Shin Long knew that was the wrong response. She floundered in the face of obtuse semantics thrown in her face.

"Proof?" Nie Li chuckled, "Let me tell you a story teacher. There was once a frog that lived in the depths of a well. since birth he has always been in that well. Since the start he could only see a part of the sky, so he claimed that the sky was only as big as the hole of the well. But is the sky only the size of that hole? No, because we know that frog is just ignorant." The implied wording that Shen Xiu was just as ignorant was not lost on Shin Long, and apparently his class either as he heard many burst into muffled laughter.

"You...." Shen Xiu huffed angrily.

"Teacher, I have another question!" Nie Lie continued over the laughter of the class.

Shin Long hated the Sacred Family. And he would make no excuses for his aunt, she was a bitch to anyone outside of her family. But at the end of the day, she was still his aunt and she had treated him kindly growing up, and some arrogant kid talking shit to her with no proof was getting on his nerves.

Not to mention, it was making it exceedingly hard to fully concentrate on his cultivation and it had taken him quite a while to gather the supplies needed to make the only pill he had!

With a growl of annoyance, Shin Long split apart the qi he was building through cultivation and allowed it to merge with his soul realm, half of it seeping into the the sphere containing his Horned Sheep demon spirit and powering the beast up.

In his minds eye he saw as it snapped awake and roared in triumph as its body began to expand and grow, but he was too annoyed to fully bask in the achievement.

His eyes snapped open and his crimson red soul force sparking with green lightning bolts exploded out of his body, his dual coloured eyes glowing and euphoria filling his body as he ascended and broke through into the next rank.

But he was too annoyed still to bask in it. The classroom moments ago filled with laughter went deadly silent as his soul force lit up the room.

"Shut up Nie Li," Shin Long snarled, "You can't prove a negative. the burden of proof falls to the one making the claims."

The orange haired boy turned to him and looked at him wide eyed with shock. As if he couldn't believe that Shin Long was rebuking him for his shit.

"Because of your nonsense I wasted my soul pill," he continued with a growl, lifting a hand and running it through his spiky black hair, "That's days of effort wasted thanks to you trying to act the clown."

__________

"Ah.....sorry?" Nie Li apologized sheepishly, bowing his head to Shin Long, but not Shen Xiu. A snub he was sure everyone caught on to. But he just wasn't willing to bow his head to one of the Sacred Family.

It had been so long ago that he'd forgotten that Shin Long was cultivating during this class where he broke through to the five star bronze rank.

It was almost surreal looking at brother Shin Long again. Almost as surreal as seeing Ye Zuyin alive and young again. It was perhaps only thanks to brother Shin Long that he had survived the fall of Glory City and made it to the silver rank. When he struggled with his lack of talent during those early days and was mocked constantly it was Shin Long who helped him out, even refined the cultivation technique he was using to suit him better.

He never got to see what killed Shin Long in the end. At the time Glory City fell, he was the vanguard the protected the city. The strongest demon spiritualist besides lord Ye Mo, a prodigy who had become a legend rank demon spiritualist by the young age of fifteen.

What he did know was that whatever killed Ye Mo, also killed Shin Long in the end. The battle fought back then could be felt for miles around and ended up with a mountain being erased from existence before the sounds of battle died down and Shin Long perished.

"Nie Li, go stand at the back of the class and don't disrupt the class again!" She Xiu snapped before sighing and turning to Shin Long and plastering a warm smile across her face, "Congratulations on breaking through to the next level Shin Long! That makes you a five star bronze rank now doesn't it?" she beamed with pride and affection.

It was almost enough to make Nie Li gag. He'd forgotten as well about the queer affection Shin Long had for his aunt despite the blood boiling hate he had for the rest of the Sacred Family.

Obediently, the orange haired time traveller made his way to the back of the classroom, ignoring as everyone around him began to gasp and mutter in excited awe at Shin Long's progress. To them, unknowing of Shin Long's War God cultivation technique, his talent must have seemed almost godlike.

He had to think some things through. He might have just burnt bridges with one of the people he was closest to in his past life. He had to be wary of consequences resulting from his actions it seemed.