Family Secrets and the Truth of Bloodline

Wang Quan stood at the sect's task board, quietly scanning the various missions listed. He decided to avoid Li Cang's wrath for now and leave the sect on a mission. By doing so, he could temporarily distance himself from the brewing conflicts and take the opportunity to hone his strength.

Eventually, he chose a mission suitable for his current cultivation level: exterminating a group of beasts in a remote area. The danger wasn't excessively high, but it provided enough challenge for him to refine his combat skills through practice.

After accepting the mission, Wang Quan packed his belongings and left the sect. However, his first destination wasn't the region where the beasts roamed—it was his long-abandoned family estate.

Wang Quan returned to what was once a place of prosperity for the Wang family. Now, the grand manor had become nothing more than a dilapidated ruin. Weeds had overtaken the grounds, walls had collapsed, and the former glory and splendor of his family had vanished with the wind, leaving only a few decaying buildings standing, lonely and forlorn, as if mourning the demise of an entire lineage.

Standing at the entrance, Wang Quan felt a wave of sadness wash over him as he took in the silence surrounding him.

"The Wang family… is truly gone."

His eyes scanned the remnants of the estate, and memories from his past came flooding back. He could almost see the familiar faces of his family and hear the echoes of their laughter. Yet now, everything had turned to dust, leaving him as the last living remnant, standing alone before the ruins.

He slowly entered the courtyard and made his way to the ancestral hall. Kneeling before the shrine, he bowed his head three times, paying respects to his departed loved ones.

"Father, Mother, Eldest Brother, Second Sister… The Wang family was wiped out, and for a long time, I didn't know where my path would lead. But now, I am training within the sect. Though I have not yet avenged our family, I, Wang Quan, will not let down the honor of our bloodline!"

He made a silent vow in his heart. Just as he was about to rise and leave, he felt the ground beneath his feet shift slightly.

"Huh? What's going on?"

Looking down, he noticed that one of the stone tiles seemed out of place. It looked no different from the surrounding stones, but when he pressed down with his foot, he felt an unusual vibration.

His heart raced. Instinctively, Wang Quan channeled his Five Elements Secret Technique, sending spiritual energy into the ground to investigate the hidden anomaly beneath the stone.

As expected, the flow of spiritual energy revealed the presence of a mechanism, with a faint surge of spiritual energy radiating from beneath the stone. Wang Quan's eyes lit up with curiosity.

"So, there was a hidden secret here all along…"

He had never noticed anything strange about this area before. If it weren't for the fact that his Five Elements Secret Technique had progressed to this level, he might have missed this family secret entirely.

Cautiously, Wang Quan triggered the mechanism beneath the stone tile. With a soft click, the ground opened up, revealing a passage leading down into a hidden underground chamber.

The narrow passage was lined with stone walls, dim and cold, with a few old lamps hanging lifelessly along the way. Wang Quan descended the steps cautiously, his mind alert to the possibility that this secret chamber might hold important information about his family's past.

At the end of the passage, he found a small, simple stone room. The chamber was sparsely decorated, with only a few yellowed scrolls neatly arranged on a stone table. Wang Quan approached the table, filled with a mixture of doubt and anticipation. Carefully, he picked up one of the scrolls and began to read.

The contents shocked him.

"The Wang family… foresaw its own destruction?"

The scroll detailed how the elders of his family, during a fateful divination, had sensed that the Wang family would face an impending calamity. As a result, they decided to take precautionary measures, sending the young Wang Quan to the sect, hoping to shield him from the catastrophe.

Wang Quan's heart trembled with disbelief. It turned out that his entry into the sect had not been a mere coincidence but rather part of a deliberate plan to preserve the last surviving member of the family's bloodline.

"I exist… to carry on the hope of the Wang family."

As he continued to read, Wang Quan uncovered even more secrets regarding his bloodline.

The Wang family, it seemed, did not originally hail from the Eastern Continent. They were a branch of an ancient clan from the Southern Continent. While the family wasn't particularly prominent in the south, they were known for their unique talent in Five Elements cultivation, possessing an extraordinary affinity for elemental spiritual energies.

"No wonder… my affinity for the Five Elements is so high."

Wang Quan finally understood. His ability to cultivate the Five Elements Secret Technique so smoothly stemmed from the unique bloodline of his family. It seemed that everything had been predestined.

However, what shocked him even more was the revelation regarding the origin of the Defiant Law Bloodline.

"The Inverse Law Bloodline… wasn't originally passed down by the Wang family?"

The scroll explained that the patriarch of the family, Wang Ce, was once a powerful cultivator at the Nascent Soul stage. However, he hadn't always possessed the Inverse Law Bloodline. In fact, he had acquired it during an expedition into an ancient ruin, where he discovered a mysterious token that held a strange, ancient power. Within the token was a type of blood imbued with the ability to reverse the laws of the universe.

Wang Ce had incorporated this bloodline power into his cultivation and passed it on to Wang Quan's mother. When Wang Quan was conceived, this bloodline had been inherited by him.

"That token… it's the one I now carry!"

Wang Quan realized that the mysterious token in his possession was the key to awakening his Inverse Law Bloodline. The token's power had been passed down through his family, and this bloodline was also the reason behind the Wang family's downfall. The scroll revealed that the family had been destroyed after an ancient evil spirit, once sealed within the same ruin, had escaped and sought vengeance on those who possessed the bloodline.

Reading this, Wang Quan's emotions became a whirlwind of shock and anger. All along, he had believed that external forces were responsible for his family's destruction, but now he realized that the true threat came from the ancient evil spirit tied to the ruin.

"If I stay here any longer, it's only a matter of time before those evil spirits track me down…"

Wang Quan understood that, despite this being his ancestral home, it was not a safe place. The power of the ancient evil had been enough to obliterate a family protected by a Nascent Soul cultivator. With his current cultivation level, he stood no chance against such a force.

"Even with enemies like Li Cang in the sect, at least the sect offers some protection. It's far better than being hunted by an ancient evil."

Having made up his mind, Wang Quan knew he needed to complete his sect mission as soon as possible and return to the sect. He realized that only by continuously growing stronger could he face the harsh truths of his bloodline and the enemies that awaited him.