Heavenly Stars

In the Stellae family courtyard, Bruce was cultivating to reach Elemental Profound. Over the past couple of years, he had been intentionally delaying his cultivation to remain under the radar.

Also, he really wanted to be lazy and sleep whenever he can. With thousands of low energy crystals at his disposal, it was time to level up as much as possible in one session. It's likely that he'll die in the next couple of weeks if he's not strong enough.

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

Bruce consumed the low energy crystals crazily and funneled everything into his meridians, which increased in size ever so slightly every minute. Eventually, his meridians grew at extreme speed. After one hour, he reached peak body refinement stage. After two hours, he reached Early Stage Elemental Profound. After six hours, he reached Mid Stage Elemental Profound.

'Alright, now that I've used up all the low energy crystals, I'm much stronger now. I'll need to go talk to my parents to absorb more power from low energy crystals to stabilize my foundation. Probably a few more thousand low energy crystals should suffice'

Bruce walked to his dad's office and saw a figure sleeping on the table.

"Hey old man, sleeping in the middle of the day is my specialty. Why are you copying me?"

After Bruce kicked the desk and woke up his dad, Logan opened his eyes and started to complain.

"It's because of you! I haven't had much time to sleep these days due to the mountain of paperwork"

"Your mom is making me do all the paperwork while she coordinates with the Imperial Guardian for your trip to the academy"

"How dare you interrupt my sleep you ungrateful brat!"

Bruce rolled his eyes after hearing his dad's excuse. This is the head of the Stellae family, the ruler of the country. It's probably much easier for his enemies to send him a mountain of paperwork and have him work himself to death than defeating him in a battle.

"I'm here to get a few thousand low energy crystals from you. I just reached Mid Stage Elemental Profound and I need to stabilize my foundations"

Logan looked at his son as if he were looking at a monster. Mid Stage Elemental Profound at the age of ten. That never happened in the history of Fire Kingdom. Even in the vast continent of Valrok, only a few prodigies with Great Emperor backgrounds could do this.

"Bruce, you can have anything in the family treasury to help you in your cultivation. I am very happy that I have a son like you. Our wish is to be alive when you reach the pinnacle"

Logan looked at his son warmly as he recalled the words of his wife earlier. It does seem like his son is meant to be someone extraordinary in the future. It is practically impossible for someone from the small Fire Kingdom to be this talented.

"Relax old man. I will reach the pinnacle one day and all of you will be alive to see it. I promise you that"

Sensing that his father is going through countless emotions. Bruce smiled and stopped teasing him like he always does.

"I'm sure you'll be way stronger than me when you graduate from the academy, so I want you to inherit the family's secret before you leave for the academy"

Bruce got curious after hearing his father mention the family's secret. As far as he knows, the Stellae family is an ancient family in the country of Meropis. The family has been existing for thousands of years and gained control over the country by having the strongest strengths couple of decades ago. What secret could there be for him to inherit?

Logan took Bruce to the family ancestral building which only the members of the Stellae family could enter. In the building stood a statue of the first head of the Stellae family, Issac Stellae.

When the two stood in front of the statue, Logan cut his finger and dropped his blood on the statue. He then imbued the blood with his energy. The statue absorbed the blood and opened a secret tunnel.

Bruce and Logan walked into the tunnel and kept walking until they reached a small room at the end of the tunnel. In the small room, there was a book floating in the air. Logan grabbed the book and passed it on to his son.

"This is the secret of the Stellae family. Normally, you will come to know the story of the Stellae family when you become the head of the family"

"However, given the circumstances, I want to give this to you now so that you can be as prepared as possible for your journey"

Bruce looked at the ancient book with some torn pages inside.

"Dad, why are there torn pages inside the book"

"That's because the book was given to the first head of the Stellae family in this condition. The owner of this book did not intend harm when he gave this to our ancestor"

"If a mortal tries to operate the full technique of this manual, most likely, the mortal will die!"

Bruce was shocked when he heard his father's explanation. Why would someone die by using a technique to its fullest? Is this technique some sort of suicide technique intended to raise the power of the user in exchange for the user's life?

"I know what you're thinking and it's not like that. You see, the first head of the Stellae family was a lowly servant to a noble family"

"By chance, he helped out someone when that person fell from the sky. That person remained unconscious for one month and our ancestor took care of that person out of the goodness of his heart since that person did not have anything on him"

"When the person woke up, he began asking our ancestor questions and thanked him for taking care of his body for one month"

"Before he left, he ordered the noble family to be under the control of our ancestor and left him with this manual. He said that only 10% of the original manual should suffice for our ancestor to use and become someone great in this land"

"With the help of the noble's family, our ancestor was able to rise through the ranks and defeat countless enemies using the powerful technique. Eventually, he named our family Stellae due to the technique in the manual"

Bruce couldn't believe that his ancestor went through such a situation. It's quite uncommon for powerful people to be that kind to commoners after all. If anything, Bruce expected the unconscious person to leave without saying anything.

"The name of the technique is Heavenly Stars. Though the technique is incomplete, it allowed the Stellae family to dominate over others in the same cultivation stage because we are able to gather and use energy from the stars"

"As you know, there are countless stars around our planet and as cultivators, we can only use energy surrounding us within the planet"

"With heavenly stars, you can actually combine the energy of the surrounding stars and that of the planet to unleash deadly attacks!"

"Whenever I used it in the past, my attack powers usually went up by about 20%, which is extremely significant when facing opponents at the same cultivation stage."

After hearing his father's explanation of the technique, Bruce became more intrigued with the technique because having a permanent 20% power boost is quite overpowered.

"What's the reason why the original owner didn't give our ancestor the full manual then? Wouldn't the attacks be even more amplified?"

"Yes, while it's true that the attack would be even more deadly. Not everyone can use this technique. When you absorb the powers of the stars, there's a good chance that your body will explode due to incapability between the two energies existing in your body"

"The original owner modified our ancestor's body before leaving so that it would be able to handle both energies to an extent. Only true descendants of the Stellae family can use this technique because our body is special."

Logan looked proudly as he explained things to his son since this technique is exclusive only to the Stellae family. Even if it's stolen from the family, no one else can use it. Unless that person is related to the original owner of course.

"We don't advertise to the public that we have this technique because it would bring more harm than benefits. So, take your time and look through this manual before you leave"

"If you can master this technique, then you'll always win against those at the same cultivation stage. From my experience, every single power enhancement technique in today's world has some drawbacks and cannot compete with this incomplete technique at all"

After explaining everything to his son, Logan walked away from the room to let his son digest the technique. He has full confidence that Bruce would be able to master the technique in no time.

'Huh, this technique is definitely at least a Divine Emperor technique given its complexity. It looks fairly difficult to master as the stars' energy is difficult to consume by normal cultivators, but if one succeeds, the benefits are boundless'

'Wait a minute, what are these hidden characters on the last page' Bruce noticed a name slightly smudged out on the last page of the manual, but he could piece everything together.

'Ok, so that letter is P, that one is D, that one is A, … Hm, if I were to take a guess, the name is…'

'Pendragon…'

'Why does it sound so familiar to me?'