As he was packing, he thought about the invitation to study with the true sons and daughters in the inner academy. The invitation sounded tempting, but he wasn't willing to give up his future for it.
Swearing fealty to the family means prioritizing the interests of the family in all things. It means always helping the family as long as he can and to the best of his ability.
If he swears the path and leaves this place for a faraway land. If something unfortunate happens to the family when he is gone and they send a letter to inform him or he hears about it, he has to rush back to help if he can.
The oath doesn't mean he will become a slave to the family, but it will shackle him to the cause of the family.
They won't ask him to die for them, but they will surely ask him to protect some of them. If he dies when doing so, then that's just an unfortunate event for him.
One particular reason why he immediately rejected the invitation is because it will invalidate the goal of the training. It is something he is very clear about thanks to his research and information received from Lady Vena.
If he swears the oath and reaches the ninth transformation, he is sure that he will have to help the true sons and daughters of the family during the sect exam. That means they will drag him down.
Also, if he gains an opportunity that will make him succeed in joining a sect, because he swore the oath, he might have to give up that opportunity for the true sons and daughters of the family.
So the oath will turn him into a lackey for the family. All of these reasons are why the invitation looks like a poisoned apple to him, despite it being enticing.
It is also why he doesn't plan to rely on the Dyson family for the force diagram needed to transcend the first mortal coil.
Besides, he doesn't want the family to find out that even though he is at the sixth transformation, the upper limit of what he is capable of is beyond the first mortal coil.
He brought up his system to check his power again.
MOUNTAIN SITTING DAO
State of Existence: First Mortal Coil (Sixth Transformation)
Life Span: 103 >>> 100
DIVINE ABILITIES
1. Mountain Karma: Level 2 (278,836/10,000,000)
2. ????: ------
ATTRIBUTES
Power: 6 × 2 (Mountain Karma)
Mind: 1. Mental Energy: 8 >>> 11
Body: 4 >>> 6. Life Energy: 16 >>> 20
TECHNIQUES
A: RANK 1
1. Fire-Breathing Mana Technique: 73% Mastery.
2. Fire-Movements Exercise Technique: 71% Mastery
3. Fire-Fighting Mana Technique: 72% Mastery
4. Savage Sword Weapon Technique: 35% Mastery.
He saw and smiled. Then he said to himself with confidence, "I'll find my way. If I can't, then no one can."
The Mountain Sitting Dao is the source of his confidence, not his mother or his family. With the Mountain Sitting Dao he is beyond extraordinary.
It is extraordinary that he can achieve the sixth transformation in three years instead of seven years that it usually takes normal people. But it is beyond extraordinary that he can achieve that while being eleven years old and having an upper limit of strength at the twelfth transformation.
The fact that the twelfth transformation doesn't end is confirmation of his beyond extraordinary capabilities. So he wasn't concerned that he wouldn't be able to find his way.
He chuckled and said, "Even if I have to sell myself and my future, it won't be for some resources to reach the ninth transformation of the first mortal coil. That's just too shortsighted."
After he was done parking, he went downstairs to get Ruff for one last mission in the compound before he leaves.
He climbed onto Ruff's back and rode him towards their destination. His destination is a place he passes by almost every day, so he is very familiar with it and can find it at night.
Besides, it is not completely dark. The light from the golden Ethera world tree shines all over the world and provides light at the level of moonlight to Ethera.
It is not a strange thing in Ethera for a giant tree to be producing light. It is not strange that they don't have moons either.
They don't even know what moons are. What they have is a golden tree that produces some light in the night, and that is completely normal for them.
He reached his destination after 10 minutes instead of the 20 minutes that a carriage ride would have taken. As a sixth transformation beast, Ruff could still maintain high speed despite carrying a large human on his back.
Ruff took four years to rise from the sixth transformation. It is not just because of his incredible potential but also because of the humans that he had eaten.
Many of the people he killed during the early morning rides with his mother were fed to Ruff. Lady Vena had insisted on it for what she called "pragmatic reasons."
Most of them were at the third transformation, and some were even at the seventh transformation. That and sheep's he ate every day supplied Ruff with a lot of nutrients to grow quickly.
He hadn't agreed about her pragmatic reasons three years ago, but he has changed his opinion now. Instead of letting the bodies rot in the ground, it was a more efficient use of the corpse to help his dog grow stronger.
That pragmatic reason becomes more convincing now that he can ride Ruff to places he wants to go and also use Ruff for delicate missions like this.
The two of them stopped in the middle of the road. They had stopped in front of a large plain full of grasses.
Arthur began giving Ruff a pep talk. He said to the dog, "We've prepared all of our lives for this moment. Our training was preparing for this moment. When we see the demon, we must be brave and strong. We must subdue it quickly and then drag its carcass away as our bounty."
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A/N: Can you guess which great enemy they are after?