Waking Up

"Drip, Drip, Drip" The constant beat of water falling on Long Shen's forehead woke him up. He urgently tried to sit up but before he could he felt a searing pain resound through his body, he felt as if a hundred mad dogs where tearing at his flesh.

'What's going on? Wasn't I struck down by the Heavens?' Long Shen's brow wrinkled a bit as he got lost in thought. He quickly pulled himself back from his inner thoughts as he needed to urgently asses his situation. His eyes darted from left to right, as his eyes opened wide due to shock.

He was in a almost pitch black cave, the only source of light was the cave entrance that was a couple meters away from him. Above his head where dozens of stalactites dripping water atop his head. He became annoyed as the water slowly dropped on to his forehead over and over again, it was getting to a very annoying point. He struggled as much as he could and managed to move his head a little bit. Just enough so that the water didn't drop on him anymore.

He once again began to look around, the ground was cold and wet, and from what he could tell there was a small reservoir not far from him, at most it was a couple feet from him. He put that to the back of his mind.

"I need to asses my injuries as quickly as I can, and then act from there" He mumbled. As he tried to manipulate his Internal Qi to asses his injuries he frowned. He noticed that there was almost no Qi in his body, and the amount he had was no more then a average human in the mortal realm. Long Shen almost cried out, how humiliating was this? The Dragon God! Emperor of the Immortal World was nothing more then a average human.

Eventually he gave up the humiliating thoughts as he used his very limited amount of Internal Qi to check his injuries. He noticed that there wasn't much damage to his physical body at all. In fact he was in peak physical condition. The only problem was that all of his muscles where so fatigued that he couldn't move at all. He decided to rest and wait for a bit before making his next move.

As he sat there he rummaged through his last memories before he woke up. He remembered that he was just breaking through to the Undiscovered Realm before he hit with the largest tribulation he had ever seen in his life.

'If that tribulation was so strong, how am I still seeing the light of day?' He thought, in his mind he should already be at the Yellow Springs waiting to be reincarnated, but for some reason that didn't happen. He grumbled as he tried moving his finger, to his delight he was able to move almost his entire hand.

After a hour or so he was able to sit up, he slowly sat in a meditative posture, as he closed his eyes. He was going to focus on recuperating his Inner Qi while he was waiting for the rest of his fatigue to wear off. As he started circulating his Qi he started to tap into the Natural Energies in the world, as he did so he frowned. The Natural Energies where extremely thin. Almost as if it was nonexistent.

'Why would the Natural Energy be so thin? Even in the Lower Immortal Worlds it isn't this thin…' Long Shen frowned.

A sudden realization struck Long Shen as he tried to bolt up, he had forgotten about his fatigue as he landed right on his face, but the mud and pain that struck his face didn't matter to him as he had a terrible thought.

'Could it be that I am in the Mortal Realm?' He almost screamed out loud.

If the other gods knew that he was in the Mortal Realm how much of a laughing stock would he be? Gods could naturally go wherever they wanted, but it was considered beneath them to go to lower planes. Even the Immortal Worlds didn't have such a privilege most of the time. But he The Great Dragon God himself was in the Mortal Realm, the lowest of the low.

Before he could get completely lost in rage something pulled him back to reality, it was the fact that he was feeling pain in his face from falling. Even if all of his Inner Qi was gone why would he be feeling pain from falling on his face? Shouldn't his physical body that was stronger then even the most notorious Divine Weapons be fine? He once again looked at his body with his Inner Qi, but this time he looked at where his soul resided, as he frowned.

His soul that would usually be glowing a great Gold color was now bleak, and black colored, but that wasn't what made him frown, sure that was bad, and usually he would be outraged, but there was something even more concerning to him. As he cast his consciousness inside of his Dantian he was taken aback, as there was a majestic ancient Chinese Gate that stood in front of him. The large gates where inscribed with glowing runes that unleashed a oppressive might that no one would be able to with stand. Well almost no one.

Both sides of the Gate had beautiful lightning patterns inscribed on the golden background giving the feeling of a Heavenly Tribulation. More so the gate was large, very large. The gate stood almost 150 meters. (AN: Empire state building is about 350 meters so imagine that)

Long Shen walked up to the door, as he slowly stroked the runes and lightning patterns, he instantly knew what was happening as soon as he laid his eyes on the Gates. This Gate was sealing his cultivation, and suppressing him to the level of a mortal. He did not know what type of seal had been laid upon him, but it was the strongest one that he had ever seen in his long life.

Normally that wouldn't make him that angry because after sometime he would be able to break it, but the problem was that this was not the only one. There where many all around him. Some taller some smaller. Some with different runes and some with drawings of Devils and Gods warring on them. Some reached so high up that they where holding up the Heavens.

He was suspecting that each of these gates corresponded to a level of cultivation, but he frowned as far as he recalled there where not this many realms of cultivation in all of the Realms that he knew. So how could there be so many gates?

He put that aside as he stopped looking at his Dantian. He was finally able to stand up albeit with some difficulty so he decided to walk over to the little body of water that was a few feet from him. He walked over and bent down to look at his reflection.

"What the F*CK!" He screamed, the face looking back it him in the water was not his, but that of a youth barely 14 Years of age.

"Why the Hell am I a child?!" He roared again.