Ten years did not pass in the way they usually do. A slow crawl of seasons—the searing heat of summer giving way to the crisp decay of autumn, followed by the biting frost of winter and the eventual rebirth of spring.
It was a period marked by the slow growth of trees and the gradual aging of faces. But for Mu Chen, time was a far more flexible concept.
Tired of the repetitive nature of childhood—the constant, irritating pinching of his cheeks by doting relatives, the endless ruffling of his hair by elders, and the general boredom trapped in a toddler's body—Mu Chen simply decided to skip it.
He didn't just endure the years; he bypassed them in the same way a bored reader might flip through the middle chapters of a tedious book to reach the parts where the plot finally picked up speed.
To him, the ten-year span was nothing more than a flicker of light, a momentary lapse in his conscious narrative.
Now, he was sixteen years old. The chubby-cheeked child of the past had been replaced by a youth of striking refinement. He possessed a handsome, polished appearance that seemed to radiate a quiet, effortless charm.
His figure was slender and graceful, yet there was an underlying sense of absolute stability in his posture, as if he were the fixed point around which the rest of the world revolved.
On this particular afternoon, Mu Chen was lazily sprawled across the thick, mossy trunk of an ancient tree, his eyes closed as he enjoyed the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves. The silence of the forest was broken only by a familiar, croaking voice that resonated directly within his mind.
"Hey, you kid! Are you even listening?" Diao's voice fell into his ear, dripping with exasperation. "Don't you even want to know what the actual use of this Origin Stone is? You've been the master of this thing for years and you haven't even asked about its functions once! Not once!"
Mu Chen didn't even bother to open his eyes. He remained perfectly still, his voice indifferent. "It has its own world inside, and that's more than enough for me. It's convenient. It can carry my spare clothes and my snacks without me having to lug a bag around."
Inside the void of the Origin Stone, the Celestial Demon Sable remained silent for a full minute, its jaw hanging open in sheer disbelief. It felt a headache brewing in its spirit form. Diao didn't know what to say anymore.
This was the number two artifact in the ancient rankings—a divine treasure that could spark world-ending wars—and to Mu Chen, it was nothing more than a high-end spatial ring for his laundry and jerky?
Diao took a deep, shaky breath, his voice rising in an attempt to instil some sense of awe into the boy. "This stone can temper your very soul, kid! It can expand your divine senses to a terrifying degree! It generates a drop of Origin Liquid every single year—stuff that can be used for instant enlightenment and to bridge the gaps between realms. You can even create clones of yourself inside this space, and they can train by fighting each other until your combat techniques are flawless. You can practice thousands of different cultivations at once, find the hidden flaws in any technique, and refine them into perfection. You can grow the rarest spiritual herbs and concoct pills with a success rate that would make alchemy grandmasters kill themselves in shame. And if that's not enough for your lazy hide, you can even control the flow of time within the inner world depending on your strength!"
Xiao Diao spoke the entire list in a single, desperate breath. He was genuinely afraid that if he didn't lay it all out today, Mu Chen would spend the next century using a primordial artifact as a glorified bento box.
Mu Chen, however, merely let out a soft hum. "I see," he replied, his tone as flat as if Diao had just told him, it might rain later.
Hearing that indifferent response regarding an artifact for which cultivators would bleed rivers of blood and pile up mountains of corpses, Diao felt his spirit tremble.
He really wanted to reach out of the stone, grab this kid by his refined collar, and strangle him. If he could have beaten Mu Chen up, he would have done it years ago. The sheer lack of interest was more insulting than a direct slap to the face.
Just as Diao was about to launch into another tirade, the sound of hurried footsteps crunching through the undergrowth reached Mu Chen's ears. A chubby boy came running through the trees, his face flushed and his breath coming in ragged gasps. He shouted out at the top of his lungs, "Mu Chen! Mu Chen! There you are!"
Mu Chen sat up on the tree trunk, looking down at the familiar figure of Mu Qiang. He watched the boy stumble to a halt and said, "Mu Qiang, what happened? Take a breath first before you collapse."
Mu Qiang waved his hand frantically, trying to force the words out. "Come with me! Quick! Xiaoyu has been stopped by Mu Shan and his followers! They've cornered her! Let's go, let's hurry!"
Mu Chen's knew of Mu Shan. The boy was a notorious bootlicker for Mu Long, the cousin Mu Chen had slapped years ago. Mu Shan was the type of person who thought that by doing Mu Long's dirty work, he could receive better cultivation techniques and pills from Mu Long.
Mu Chen jumped from the high tree trunk, landing swiftly and silently on the forest floor without so much as disturbing the dust. "Tell me the whole thing," he commanded.
"Mu Shan has been issuing challenges to you for months, but you never respond," Mu Qiang explained, still panting. "He said that since Mu Chen is too much of a coward to answer the challenge, they would fight his sister instead to smoke him out. They're fighting right now near the mountain road!"
Mu Shan had been challenging Mu Chen for a long time. He held a delusional belief that if he could defeat the "prodigy" of the branch family, he would impress Mu Long.
Though Mu Shan was just a normal clan member, he possessed a decent amount of talent and had managed to reach the seventh level of the Qi Gathering stage at his young age—a feat he thought made him a formidable expert.
Mu Chen sighed and started walking. "Okay, let us go."
Mu Qiang, seeing Mu Chen move so readily, looked at him with eyes full of deep emotion. He hurried to keep up, touched by the older brother's dedication. "Mu Chen, you're so kind. Xiaoyu is so lucky to have a brother like you. You must be worried sick about her safety, right? Your heart must be racing!"
Mu Chen stopped for a fraction of a second, glancing at the emotional Mu Qiang with a look of genuine pity. "No," Mu Chen replied, his voice filled with a profound sense of helplessness.
"I'm worried about Mu Shan's safety. What if Xiaoyu accidentally kills the idiot?"
Mu Qiang froze, his mouth hanging open. "..."
The logic was sound, even if it sounded insane to an outsider. Although Xiaoyu appeared to be a graceful, beautiful young girl, her fighting style was exceptionally ferocious.
Behind that refined exterior lay a temper that could scorch a forest. Furthermore, she wasn't some weak damsel; she was a powerful expert currently at the peak of the Foundation Realm. Mu Shan was merely a weakling at the seventh level of Qi Gathering. In Mu Chen's estimation, even if you tied a hundred Mu Shan's together, they wouldn't possess enough collective strength to withstand a single, serious punch from Xiaoyu.
If she accidentally pulverized Mu Shan, it would be a headache for Mu Chen. He would have to go through the tedious effort of resetting the local timeline or performing a mass memory wipe on the entire clan just to remove the entity named Mu Shan from everyone's mind to avoid a legal scandal.
It was just too much work for a sixteen-year boy.
Mu Qiang opened his mouth as if to argue, but Mu Chen simply grabbed his shoulder and pulled him along at a speed that left the chubby boy reeling.
...
Behind the Mu family's estate lay a vast, rising mountain covered in a dense forest. Because the area was rich in high-grade spiritual herbs, members of the clan often ventured into the mountain to seek their fortune.
Today, the entrance to the forest road was packed. A dense, impenetrable crowd of Mu family members had gathered, forming a ring around a spectacle that no one wanted to miss.
In the center of the clearing stood a girl dressed in light-coloured robes, her arms crossed defiantly over her chest. She had beautiful, sharp features and skin as white as fresh snow. Despite being only fourteen years old, she possessed an amazing presence that commanded the space around her. She was undeniably a beauty in the making, but her eyes held a spark of cold fire.
On the ground in front of her, five or six boys lay sprawled out in various states of physical ruin. They were writhing and groaning, their limbs tangled as if they had just been put through a meat grinder.
It was a pathetic sight, especially considering they had supposedly come for a "fierce battle."
"Mu Shan," the girl said, her bright, intelligent eyes glancing down at the boy at her feet with an unusually disdainful tone. "
Did you really say, 'If I can't beat Mu Chen, I will beat his sister'? Is this the strength you intended to use to challenge Brother Mu Chen?"
Mu Shan, slumped in the dirt, twitched in a spasm of pain. Upon hearing her words, he didn't even try to get up. Instead, he buried his face in the ground in a mixture of physical agony and absolute indignation. He wished the earth would simply swallow him whole.
In full view of the entire clan, Mu Shan—a seventh-level Qi Gathering "genius"—had been defeated by a seemingly frail little girl with a single, casual palm strike. Following that, this "witch" had swept away all five of his henchmen like autumn leaves being scattered by a violent wind.
Mu Shan's dignity was non-existent. He was the laughingstock of the mountain. He racked his brain, wondering how he was ever supposed to maintain his standing in the family after being thrashed by a fourteen-year-old girl. Just as he was pretending to be dead to avoid further eye contact, a voice drifted through the crowd.
"Young Master! Mu Chen is here!"
Mu Chen and the sweating Mu Qiang arrived at the edge of the clearing just as the crowd parted. Mu Chen scanned the area, his eyes landing on the groaning pile of bodies.
He walked over to the center of the clearing and reached out, gently patting Xiaoyu's head. "You scared me to death, girl. Luckily, you knew your limits and didn't kill that idiot, Mu Shan. I really didn't want to deal with the cleanup."
Xiaoyu's cool, arrogant demeanour vanished the moment her brother touched her. She let out a huff of annoyance and irritably swatted his hand away. "Ugh! Brother Mu Chen, stop it! I'm not a child anymore! I can tell the difference between a serious injury and a minor one."
She straightened her robes, looking at the boys on the ground with a sniff of contempt. "At most, these injuries will keep them bedridden for a month. They'll live, unfortunately."
She looked up at Mu Chen, her eyes softening but still carrying a hint of a pout. She hated it when he treated her like a toddler; in her own mind, she was already a sensible, powerful adult capable of handling any trash that came her way.
Mu Chen just smiled, looking at his "little" sister, knowing full well that to the rest of the clan, she was a terrifying force of nature, but to him, she would always be the girl who chased butterflies into dangerous caves.