The path forward

Bai Yun contemplated how he should change his plan, as he started walking once again. He knew that reaching the late qi condensation stage and skin sewing stage simultaneously in seven months was going to be extremely difficult.

The butler had left his side after he started to ponder. Bai Yun continued walking, while taking out the different books that he had gotten from the library and reading from them along the way. He kept on switching them around and at the same time polishing his plan in his mind.

After spending over a day, Bai Yun finally reached home. Just as his hand touched the doorknob, his god sense started throbbing in warning. Bai Yun froze, and then opened the door anyway.

The next instant Bai Yun felt an ungodly pressure descend on him. He felt as if a mountain was placed on top of him. Bai Yun instantly fell on one knee, and put both of his hands on the floor to prop himself up. His three tendrils of soul quickly went to work resisting the pressure placed on him. Sweat broke out through his entire body.

With great difficulty he looked up. The front room of his house felt like a gateway to hell. All he could see in front of him was red and black. He felt a hot wave of air blast at him from inside the darkness. In the middle of the darkness, he could see four spots of light. He knew that they were his parent's eyes.

"I heard about the situation outside the library. Aren't you ashamed to be defeated by someone who is younger than you?" His father asked.

Bai Yun opened his mouth to answer. But his throat felt dry. No words would come out of his mouth.

"Tell me what you intend to do."

Bai Yun knew that he had to answer. They were trying to determine how he would proceed on his cultivation path. Under this suppression brought about by their state of existence, a normal person at the first ring stage would instinctively tell the truth from their subconscious. Perhaps even the person who spoke would not be aware of their true intentions until that moment.

But Bai Yun was a titled god. This did not have much effect on him. But the pressure brought about by their aura still caused his mind to crawl to a slow speed.

Bai Yun also knew the importance of this moment. This would be where the dao of his heart would be decided.

Suddenly Bai Yun thought of the Grand War. On the first day of the Grand War, after he was constantly defeated by immortal step devils, he was very depressed. He remembered what his mother said to him.

"I am not going to anything. The only person I intend to defeat is the me of yesterday."

For a moment silence reigned. Then the pressure that was suffocating him suddenly lifted. Bai Yun fell on the floor, spread out and panting like a dog.

"What do you intend to do from now? Old Hai told me you told him about the clan meeting. Do you want to participate in it?" His father's voice sounded in his ears.

Bai Yun raised his head and looked. The aura that seemed to be coming from the depths of hell had disappeared. His parents sat on two chairs at the end of the hallway. They were clothed in regal clothes, depicting their power and status, and not the casual robes they used to wear around the home when he was ill.

'Is there any need for all of this?' Bai Yun thought. 'You could have just asked me and I would have told you the truth. You should try to solve problems with words. Are your mouths for biting people.'

"I don't want to participate. I want to win." Bai Yun declared.

"It is good that you have targets. Based on what I heard your combat instincts seem to be good, you just lack experience. You should be able to win the clan meeting next year."

Bai Mu had heard how his son fought. Everyone saw him attack people at their weak and unguarded moment and disrupt their rhythm. For a person who had never fought before, it would take incredible fighting talent to fight like this. When Bai Yun was still damaged Bai Mu would also tell him about the fights he had in his life as well as many fighting tactics when he was free. The tactic of disrupting the opponent's momentum was also included in this list. They also saw how his body would shiver every now and then. They attributed this to the fact that he was reacting by instinct and was scared after he moved. All of this together created the misunderstanding.

Bai Yun smiled in his heart. He probably had over a hundred times more fighting experience than both his parents combined. It was true that he was talented, but it was not to such an expend as the two of them believed. And the reason his body shivered was because he had to use a lot of energy to stop himself from killing them all.

"I don't have time until the next year. I need to win in seven months."

Bai Yun's parents frowned. "It will be difficult for you to reach the foundation establishment stage in seven months."

"I don't need to reach foundation establishment, I only need to reach the peak of qi condensation as well as skin sewing."

Bai Mu thought about this. With the skill shown by Bai Yun earlier, he might have a chance. "Are you serious about this? Walking both paths is going to be difficult. If you were to wait for a while it would be easy."

"Yes I am. And the reason I can't wait is also because of that. I am already fourteen. I don't have a lot of time when it comes to the body tempering path. Soon my body would finish growing and body tempering would become even more difficult. I don't have the time to wait for a year and a half before stepping into the muscle tempering stage."

"And how do you propose to do that?"

"There are two things I need to watch out for: improving my techniques, as well as maintaining the stability of my foundation. Staying here and cultivating will not help. Which means I need external help."

"What are you thinking about."

"There must be places in the Bai clan which will allow people to gain combat experience right."

The moment Bai Yun said this his father's eyes narrowed. His mother started to panic for a moment, but instantly calmed herself. Then a smile appeared in her face.

"There are four places in the Bai clan that can help you. They are the beast garden, the prison mansion, the coliseum, and the spirit tower. But the spirit tower requires one to have a combat ability of foundation establishment and you can think about it later. All other places where you can train combat techniques or help improve your cultivation requires a lot of resources. And the places where you can go to for free are not as effective, and can only help you with only one of them at a time anyway."

"The beast garden is a large area of the Blue Moon mountains that the clan has domesticated. In there many beasts in the first step are trapped. There are also many medicinal ingredients, resources and some legacies and so on there. They are hidden and depend on your luck to find them."

"In the prison mansion, dangerous criminals from all over the world which the Bai clan has arrested are put in there. The deeper you go the stronger they will become. They also carry some cultivation elixirs with them. But they will also try to kill you to take the resources on you. This is a deadly place, where everyone simply tries to kill each other."

"These two places are extremely dangerous. Even if you die no one will care. But you cannot kill clan members easily. If there is proof you could be punished severely. They are build so that people of the Bai clan who doesn't have a powerful background, and thus cannot use many of the other facilities, also have a chance. In the Bai clan as long as you have money nothing is restricted to you. Since this is advantageous to the children of powerful people, these places were set to help those who were willing to risk themselves to have a chance."

"As for the coliseum, it is a place where you can fight against monsters or other people and win prizes depending on how you perform. You can also place bets there. But the experience you gain there is much worse than in the other two places. Also just stay out the golden section there. It is filled with rich pricks. You can get a lot of money if you just beat the crap out of them though."

"Which of the three places do you want to go to?" Bai Mu finally asked.

"I don't want to go to the coliseum." Bai Yun replied after thinking for a while. "In the beginning, I will need some space to practice my techniques. So which of these two places is less dense."

"That would be the beast garden."

"The beast garden it is then. I will go after I reach the first level of qi condensation."

"Fine. Just ask old Hai to take you there. Also if you go there that means that you are not following the path we set for you. So don't expect any resources from us. You will have to rely on yourself for it. We will help you go to places to collect resources, but you will have to get them by yourself."

"Okay." Bai Yun nodded.

"Fine." Bai Mu stood up and left passing by Bai Yun who had struggled to a standing position by now.

As his mother reached him she stopped and asked in a concerned voice. "Are you okay?"

Bai Yun was stunned. 'You're the one who put me in this position.' he wanted to shout. But he simply said "Yes."

"You seem tired. You should take a rest. Drink lots of water okay." She said.

'Are you a crazy person?' Bai Yun wanted to ask. But he just nodded.

She kissed him on his forehead, and then quickly walked away. Bai Yun just stood there stunned.

"What the hell just happened old Hai."

The butler appeared out of nowhere. "It's nothing. Now that you are fine they are simply reverting to their old personalities. Did you think your father got the name of iron tiger by being a soft person."

"Then what about my kind and gentle mother." Bai Yun asked.

The old butler was doubled over in laugher. "Kind and gentle. Ha ha ha. Only you would call her that. When she was in the Shadow Stream Academy, she was the leader of all the female disciples there. She even caused them to change their rules in her first year there using her fists. If anyone who suffered under the demon queen of the Shadow Stream Academy heard you call her gentle, they just might murder you. The training plan that the two of them came up for you when you were born was so extreme that I was sure that you would be dead by now."

For a moment Bai Yun thought that being mentally damaged was truly a beautiful thing.

"But there should be other places in the clan that are not as dangerous as the places father recommended right. Why did he tell me to go the most dangerous of all the places."

"Of course there are. But when your father was young, his father offered him the same deal, and his grandfather offered the same deal to his father and so on. This way of training has been followed for a long time."

Bai Yun then understood. He was born in a family of psychopaths.