With the space twisted, the Emperor appeared in the study room of Prince Ling Xiao. In slow steps, he walked towards Ling Xiao. He did not disturb him but sat in a nearby chair. The air was thick, suffocating with a palpable despair. The energy around Ling Xiao was not the clean, crisp Qi of breakthrough, but a malignant, curdled cloud. He saw Ling Xiao drenched in sweat and encompassed by a dark aura.
The Emperor watched his son's struggle, a man caught between two absolute duties. The first was to the Imperial Bloodline, to stability, to the continent itself. The second was the simple, primal bond of fatherhood.
"Oh, Heaven, cast your gaze upon this innocent face. Why such cruel partiality? Why must this child alone bear the weight of such a desolate fate? Where is your justice?" He was the Emperor, but he was also a father who felt pain for his child's sorrows. How could he just sit on his throne without offering any help?The throne was like a cage to him.
With a silent flick of his finger, the purest energy dispersed from the Emperor's hand and enveloped Ling Xiao, his intervention was as stable as a ripple on a calm lake. This was the True Primordial Qi, a power so vast it was immune to the taint of malice or grief. It did not fight the darkness; it simply made its existence impossible. The dark aura slowly dispersed like smoke. It was like cold water on fire.
What was the most important thing during cultivation? It was the purest energy. First, a person has to take Qi from the air; then, he has to refine it. If a person allows impure energy to flow through his meridians, that person will suffer a severe backlash and could even be crippled.
For Ling Xiao, this help was like a blessing. With the external purity washing through him, the turbulent Qi inside his dantian found its anchor, and his energy stabilized immediately. With that, his Qi core became firmer.
The inner space, which moments ago was a stormy, chaotic sea, became a silent void. Slowly, methodically, the refined Qi began to coalesce. Slowly, it took the shape of a round, golden-colored object, hovering in his inner space. It was like a mini void pocket space present inside his body, where only the golden core was present in the middle.
But no one observed that a black dot also formed in the deep of that Qi core. From the outside no one could tell such corruption present with even careful observation.
He successfully reached the Qi refinement stage, but he did not stop there. With more effort, he absorbed more energy. Two hours passed, and he finally reached the 1-star of the Qi refinement stage. He then took a few minutes to stabilize his core.
Ling Xiao opened his eyes. The dim light in his eyes and the smile on his lips revealed his joy. He quickly jumped from his seat to examine his new power, but he only saw his father sitting nearby, observing him with a slight smile. His joy popped like smoke, and his mood grew heavy. All his past grievances appeared in his mind.
"Oh! Did the sun rise from the wrong direction today? Or is the world going to be destroyed today? Because it's not normal that you, the Emperor of the Central Continent, come to my room!" he asked in a somewhat angry tone.
"I know that you are angry at me, but my hands are bound by my status," he said in a helpless tone. "You didn't eat the pills?"
"Oh, so you came here only to ask this?" he asked in a complaining tone.
After encountering silence for a few minutes from his father, he asked in suspicion, "How did you know?" "Did it happen again?" He checked his body and his hands but found nothing.The dark energy was gone, but the fear of its return was a cold sweat on his body.
"Don't worry, it is alright," his father told him, with the same expression.
"What was that disease? Why didn't I find any information about that in "our Imperial Library?" One year and six months ago, when he was breaking through to the 8-star of the Body Refinement stage, was when the first incident happened.
At that time, his father gave him a pill to eat every week in order to suppress the disease. After that, another two incidents happened while practicing a skill. During those times, he asked his father many times about his disease when he had the chance to meet him, but every time he faced silence from his father. It was as if his father was hiding some mystery behind this. He himself spent all the days in the Imperial Library reading countless physician books.
But at the last encounter with his father, he got a clue from his father's room. It was a few papers, likely a physician's description of a patient. At first, he ignored them, but after reading two lines, he was shocked. It was the same as his disease but with some minute changes. He quickly checked the patient's name only to get another shock: It was his mother, Jin Yue.
"Is it related to my mother? And what actually happened to her?" He looked directly towards the Emperor's face, demanding an answer.
From the determination in his son's look, the Emperor, Ling Sha, realized that this time he had no other way but to answer all his questions.
"Okay, there is no meaning in hiding this thing; you will eventually come to know about this one day," Ling Sha took a pause, then continued, "It was the time of that great fight between the two continents, Central Continent and Burial Shadow Land," He continued telling, and from his expression, it was as if he had returned to that time.
Ling Xiao patiently continued listening without another question. The small, bitter anger had been replaced by a vast, consuming curiosity.
Ling Sha continued absentmindedly, "It was the cruelest time ever. It was those monsters who did not spare innocent children and old men whose one foot was already in the grave. Forget that, they did not spare even their own blood, their kids, their own people. They are like political tools for those monsters, used to sacrifice for gaining political power. And behind all those, there is one person, Jin Lei." Then he maintained a long pause.
"What happened next?" Ling Xiao grew more curious and was getting more impatient to know the truth.
With the sudden question of his son, Ling Sha came to his senses. After some hesitation, he left his seat and went to a window and continued facing outside the window so as not to show his expression. "Your mother also participated in the fight. At the last of the fight, it was a very crucial time because in that time only a few people lived to decide the destiny of the fight. But at that moment, a very powerful cultivator appeared to sneak attack. The attack directly landed on your mother. We don't know why that powerful cultivator suddenly appeared and suddenly gone."
"We won that fight. As a result, we banned them from exiting their continent and also decided that no one from the human race will enter their continent."
"After that, I called the best physician and best alchemist of the Central Continent, but they could do nothing. Even my teacher personally examined your mother but found nothing. It was like a dark aura surrounded her body. It was slowly corroding her body from inside. All impurities gathered inside her meridians, crippling her cultivation path. In that time, you were in her belly. After a month you were born, we got relieved that you were safe." Then Ling Sha sighed.