Black Level Chaos Mark.

Three years ago. Several days after Na'er died. Spirit Hall HQ.

A middle-aged man fully clad in black attire moved stealthily through the unlit corridors of the palace. He had a pale face and thin body. His tall and slightly humpback figure didn't interfere with his seamless movements. He was like a silent shadow, gliding over the floor to his destination.

Still, the man had some misgivings about his current task. It was an order from above, so he was forced to comply, but recently he noticed too many movements among the top-ranking members of the Spirit Hall. They started to spy at each other and be wary of one another.

And now even he was involved, albeit his task was rather special.

The man sighed inwardly. He wasn't stupid enough to do it out loud during sneaking. He shifted and finally reached the window directly below the room he was ordered to look into. With a skill of his Shadow Crawler martial spirit, Disappearing Tilted Douluo shifted inside the shadow and moved on the surface of the outer wall.

He entered the next floor and plastered himself to the dark corner near the column. The next moment his eyes slightly constricted, noticing a visitor in the chambers of the Supreme Elder.

"You had a simple task, Qian Daoliu. No, simple is an overstatement of its difficulty. It was trivial. Very trivial. All that you had to do is arrange a trivial delivery of a trivial target into a trivial place. How much more trivial your task can become? Yet, you ruined it. You know, I killed thousands for a more trivial thing than your felony. So give me a reason to not do it again." - a tiny figure of a child hovered in the air on the rolling winds of cold black energy. It was as if death itself graced the room with its presence.

What astonished the man in the shadows is the Supreme Elder kneeling on the ground with a face pale from fear.

Yes, he saw and felt it even from up here. The terror Supreme Elder exuded because of that strange creature.

"Your Excellency, I will do everything within my power to fix the mistake I made." - said the old man with trepidation.

"Fix?" - the figure of energies arched closer while hovering in midair. It was transparent, yet one can see the clear features of a four to five years old kid. - "I gave you direct coordinates and divination of the time. It was such a simple thing to go there and to pick her up, yet you let her commit suicide. Suicide by Spacial Life Disintegration! Do you know what it means? It means that not even a drop of her bloodline remained. And it means that the painless way to open the veil is lost forever. The Key will never be forged without all six cornerstone bloodlines, you old fool!"

The figure, albeit only an avatar of the real being, pressed Supreme Elder to the ground, implanting his body into the tiles of the floor with tremendous might.

"Mercy..."

"Mercy? You dare ask for mercy?" - screamed the child hysterically. But the next moment it changed attitude like flipping pages of the book. - "Of course, my dear slave. You still have many uses. But now we are forced to go the troublesome route and locate something very hard to find. Now we need to move to Cradle of Life. Yes, but do you know how smart the previous civilization was? Smarter than you, at least. They hid it in separated space, extricating from our timeline and surrounded by primordial chaos for protection. Now you tell me, can you find Cradle of Life or not? And without destroying it, we will need to wait for tens of thousands of years. Is it long or not?"

"Your Excellency, there should be a way..."

"Oh, there is a way, but sadly it won't be now. I need you to find a certain tablet... but before we continue, let's take care of a pest, shall we? I believe he heard enough."

The dreadful apparition turned around and fixed its black evil eyes on the corner by the column.

The man in hiding felt chills run down his spine and tried to leave immediately to warn Her Eminence about what he saw, yet he didn't realize, that what moved from the corner was his dissipating soul, because his body already fell down like a pile of ashes.

The last thing he saw was the terror of the Supreme Elder and bored gaze of death itself.

* * *

Current time. Aiden. After a month of absence because of Dugu Bo business.

Summer was still here, showing it's might with the scorching sun and lack of rains. The road ahead of them was long, full of little rocks and raising dust, numbing senses of smell and making throats dry. The only water out here was from their sweat and sometimes even tears. They moved as one, all twelve, braving through hardship Grandmaster put them through.

It was just first lap, however with rocks on their backs, the sun at their faces and a long road ahead pressure still was there to feel and touch.

"Bing'er, let me take some of your rocks." - said Bai Feng being very familiar with her already. But the girl with aqua long hair and sapphire eyes only dismissively gave him a glance before ignoring. She was emotionally tired of the boy who just keeps pestering her all day long with signs of affection.

"Stop talking and preserve strength." - said Tang San. - "We have a long way to go."

Tang San and Xiao Wu were stronger in terms of the body, because they received Aiden's methods way before the rest. After them, were three seniors of Shrek and only then two girls, who only converged one mark each but still were stronger than normal masters of their rank.

Regarding this a wish of Bai Feng was ridiculous as not only he won't help, but lessen the speed of her training. Bing'er was a smart girl, understanding this issue fully well.

Suddenly they saw a figure leisurely walking to them. He was clad in platinum-blue clothes of strange design. They were eye-catching, yet simple, portraying laconic elegance. His long black hair garbed in ponytail went to the side with the wind and had moon-like luster around that is hard to notice.

"So, it is running time." - he said something meaningless at first thought. - "Hey! Mubai! Where is my share?"

People looked at him. Some with smiles, others with pity, after all, they saw the basket that Grandmaster prepared for him. It is something else alright! One might think Aiden stole his wife and robbed his home, and that was revenge.

"Aiden." - Bing'er and all of them never stopped running. While the former greeted him with a smile of relief. Aiden only nodded at her, but it was evident his mood was good after seeing them again.

"Here, take it, and don't tell me I never warned you. Grandmaster surely is a ruthless fellow." - Dai Mubai waved his hand and with an enormous thud basket landed on the road sending tremors all around. Even Aiden's eyes twitched for a bit. One can see not only the grumpy hand of Yu Xiaogang here but vindictive thoughts of Liu Erlong, whom he didn't visit for a long time even if he wanted to do so.

'Ah, they love me so much I can cry.'

Aiden walked up and lifted it. Basket was made from ironwood and filled only up to half, but the contents of it made his mouth twitch. Steel ingots!

'They really went all out even leaving space for me to take others' burden. You adulterous couple sure are ruthless! You just wait, next time I cook, expect some chilly surprise inside!'

Aiden took it and started running. He never wanted to separate from Shrek students. Although he was way more powerful, he wasn't ready to live life alone without teammates. With demons out there and many hidden talents that should be present, he didn't dare to call himself unrivaled.

Just taking Spirit Hall Divisions in equation with their demon rings... they are very strong, far stronger than normal masters. Up to now, he can't even win Zhao Wuji because of the gap in cultivation, and the fact that all teachers of the academy received methods from him only made things worse. Currently, Zhao Wuji made another step forward and gained the eighth ring, directly stepping into first-class of masters – Spirit Douluo.

The first three laps were relaxing, but after that, Aiden developed muscle fatigue. His weights were chosen surprisingly well, suppressing his powerful body to the level of others.

When it came to the sixth lap stronger people took some stones from the weaker, Aiden filled his to the brim. The worst among all were Ning Rong Rong and Aaron Cloud. They were auxiliary and food type masters respectively with weak bodies and also, Aiden didn't have a chance to impart them with proper methods.

However, Rong Rong actually directed her gaze at Oscar from time to time and it was filled with astonishment. He had a weight comparable to Ma Hongjun and Dai Mubai, but could keep up.

The run ended only in the afternoon and all of them except for Aiden fell to the ground, hugging each other. The reason Aiden didn't is actually simple – he performed an experiment that played out well.

"Chaos".

This mark was referring to the origins of all power, the root of any energy, and matter. What Aiden did was a very dangerous process of instilling chaos inside his body, making marks move as they pleased with no restriction at all. He destroyed the bounding of them in the dantian. It was perilous, such a process will destroy other marks and make them evaporate through the pores.

But apparently it was the right way to train in "Chaos". They roamed and destroyed his body under immense pressure, which he healed with Tree of Life power afterward. Gradually this process became natural with no harm and marks evolved to black ones, additionally creating two more to achieve seventeen. His breakthrough in quality didn't go unnoticed, because even outer appearance had some minor changes. One can only say that now Aiden looked even more perfect with slight feelings of mystery and illusive might about him.

When he was standing at the entrance Grandmaster even had a misconception that he was one with nature itself.

"Go, we prepared a medical bath for all of you." - Flender said to him as the last man standing, but one can see a pained look in his eyes. Looks like these baths burned a hole in his pockets.

The next day Oscar was late for the training.