In the predawn hours of the Ye Manor, the chubby Ye Feipeng slept soundly, a faint smile on his lips as though his dreams were especially pleasant.
He had no awareness of the dark figure that materialized beside his bed.
The figure waved a hand, and Ye Feipeng's head lolled to the side, sinking into deep, unconscious sleep.
The figure's right hand curled into a claw and came to rest atop the boy's head.
A moment later, it slowly withdrew.
In the figure's palm sat a single thick drop of essence blood, so dark it was nearly black.
Ye Feipeng, whose face had been flushed and healthy, immediately went wan and feeble, as though he had been struck by a sudden, severe illness.
The globule of blood seemed alive, possessed of its own will. It writhed and squirmed against the figure's palm, straining to escape.
The figure's fingers slowly closed. The space left for it to struggle shrank bit by bit until it was finally absorbed entirely into the figure's body.
The figure stood motionless in the darkness for a long while.
Thwip!
Two skeletal wings tore violently through the fabric on its back.
Tendrils of flesh and sinew wound around the bone frames, emitting faint sizzling sounds as they spread outward along the spurs. In the blink of an eye, the ghastly white bones were swathed in flesh.
The wings became full and whole.
Yet in the moonlight, the flesh at their edges was still visibly wriggling, a deeply unnatural sight.
"The Kun-Peng bloodline..."
The figure murmured. Then, without hesitation, it reached back and tore the twin wings free.
No blood came. The living flesh at the wounds stirred briefly before being expelled by a surge of immense, pure vitality.
The figure returned to its original state in an instant.
"An ancient great demonic beast truly does have its own methods," it said softly, gazing at the pair of wings still twitching on the floor.
The dark figure was, of course, Li Fan.
On arriving in the capital of Great Li, his first act had been to extract a portion of the Kun-Peng essence blood from Ye Feipeng's body. He stored the greater part in his storage ring and absorbed a small portion directly into his own flesh.
It was far more domineering than any of the exotic beast powers he had previously drawn from the Beast Soul Pearls. Where those were like infection or grafting, the power of the Kun-Peng bloodline was one of devouring and total assimilation.
No wonder Ye Feipeng's speech, actions, and even his thoughts grew more and more like those of a true demonic beast as time went on. That was the inevitable consequence of wielding the Kun-Peng bloodline's power.
But by using the Creation Forge Technique to emulate it, I am spared such worries.
A faint smile touched his lips.
“Kun Devours. Peng Soars. Startling Peng Transformation.”
Murmuring the phrases, Li Fan's form began to twist and contort in the darkness. At times it shifted into the shape of a whale, sometimes into a great Peng, and at others into a human form bearing Peng wings.
A long while later, he returned to his original appearance.
The amount of Kun-Peng essence blood I extracted for comprehension was too little. I've grasped its form, but I can't yet fully replicate the Kun-Peng's divine abilities.
No matter. There is a ready source right here.
He looked at Ye Feipeng, and a look of benevolence crossed his face.
He scooped up the chubby boy and shot into the sky, vanishing into the night.
The next day, the capital erupted into chaos.
Children from the powerful Su, Ye, Han, and several other noble households had vanished without a trace. The families joined forces and turned the capital inside out, yet found no sign of the missing children.
Panic spread quickly, and rumors ran rampant. The afflicted families convened in secret, and their conclusion was unanimous: aside from the legendary immortals, only the Emperor of Great Li himself could have managed something like this.
Immortals would not stoop to such underhanded methods, which left only one possibility: the Emperor had made his move.
The powerful ministers and nobles found themselves recalling old rumors they had long set aside, and resentment began to take root. Beneath the capital's surface, undercurrents began to swirl.
By then, the instigator of it all, Li Fan, had long since departed the Li World.
After returning to the Xuanhuang World, he did not stop. His destination was not within the Xuanhuang World. He traveled through the Immortal-Severing Passageway and returned to his homeland, Great Xuan.
The Taiyan Boat cut swiftly through the wind. In the cabin, sixteen children huddled together, their faces etched with fear and confusion as they trembled.
Li Fan stood at the prow, gazing down below.
Both were complete minor worlds, but Great Xuan was at least ten times the size of the Li World. If a place as small as the Li World could produce cultivation geniuses like Su Xiaomei and Xiao Heng, then there was no reason Great Xuan could not.
His first stop was Hanguang City, the most prosperous city in all of Great Xuan. His vast divine sense swept across the mortals below, searching for suitable candidates.
Before long, his brow furrowed.
How is it that barely any of them have better aptitude than I do?
He shook his head. The Taiyan Boat accelerated toward the next city.
The results continued to disappoint him. After nearly half a month of searching, Li Fan had searched almost the entire population of Great Xuan. Yet those with aptitude for cultivation were astonishingly few.
It seems the immense difficulty I faced when I first set foot on the path of cultivation was no accident.
Heaven... Man...
He soared high into the sky and closed his eyes, reaching out to sense the intrinsic aura of the Xuan World itself.
Humans are the spirit of all things, recipients of heaven and earth's fortune. Those favored by that fortune can sense it, practice the Dao, and embark upon the path of immortality.
That is how it should have been. Rare as that blessing is, Great Xuan's vast population should still have given rise to a meaningful number of so-called geniuses.
His thoughts returned to the Realm-Splitting Whales lurking beyond Great Xuan's borders, attempting to peel the entire Xuan World away from the Xuanhuang World.
If heaven and earth are impartial, who severed the Immortal Path? And why is the Li World so special?
Doubts crowded his mind. Li Fan let out a soft sigh and set aside his original plan.
He made a detour to the vicinity of Jieli Mountain, collected the two youths with unusual bone structures, and departed Great Xuan once more for the cultivation world.
"I knew it! Immortals really do exist!" Sun Erlang exclaimed, pacing back and forth with barely contained excitement.
Beside him, the burly Wang Xuanba wore a worried look.
"Erlang," he whispered, "what do you think the immortal wants with us? When can we go home?"
"Have some ambition! How can you talk about going home before you've learned to ride the clouds, command the mists, split mountains, and tread seas?" Sun Erlang shot back, plainly disgusted.
Wang Xuanba opened his mouth to respond, then froze. A figure had appeared beside them without warning.
"Immortal Master!" Wang Xuanba lurched back in fright and dropped to his knees, kowtowing.
"Immortal Master, please teach me cultivation!" Sun Erlang likewise threw himself down and kowtowed deeply.
Li Fan looked them over without a word and led them into the ship's cabin, where Su Changyu and fifteen other children were gathered.
They were the children Li Fan had taken. Many had been separated from their families, and lost and helpless as they were, they had dissolved into uncontrollable sobs.
"Make them stop crying. Consider this your first test. You are not to strike anyone," Li Fan said to Sun Erlang. Then he vanished.
Sun Erlang, who prided himself on his considerable martial prowess and mastery of combat in all its forms, stared at the gaggle of sniveling children and was immediately at a loss.