Spritual Roots

As they reached the corner of the town square, they spotted another fellow sect member. Jack leaned over and whispered to Leo, "She's a personal disciple of the Ice Peak Master - Ava. I heard that she reached the Core Formation realm in just fifteen years. They call her the Holy Maiden of the sect."

Leo examined Ava, who looked to be in her early twenties. Her long, blue hair was accompanied by a pair of piercing silver eyes, which gave her a cold and distant demeanor. She was the classic ice-cold beauty, the type that people often admired.

But Leo didn't feel any interest or attraction towards her, or any other woman for that matter. After all he had been through in his past life, he had long forgotten how to appreciate beauty or feel any sense of lust.

As Rose approached Ava, she couldn't help but wonder why she was there. "Hi, Ava," she said. "I didn't know you were here too. Are you coming to the sect with us?"

Ava gave a slight nod in response, prompting Rose to turn around and introduce Leo to her. "This is Leo. We just met, and he'll be coming with us too," she explained.

As Leo watched the exchange between Rose and Ava, he couldn't discern whether they were friends or merely acquaintances. He could sense from Ava's demeanor that she wasn't much of a talker and had an almost expressionless face, as evidenced by her interaction with Rose where she didn't move any of her facial muscles.

Ava glanced over at Leo, expecting to see yet another boy staring at her with lustful and love-struck eyes. However, she was taken aback to find a pair of dimmed, lifeless green eyes looking back at her. For the first time, she encountered a boy who looked at her without any hint of desire. Despite feeling unnerved, Ava maintained eye contact with him.

After a few moments of silence, the boy broke the tension by introducing himself. "Nice to meet you, senior sister. I'm Leo," he said with a polite smile. Ava, caught off guard, panicked and responded without thinking. "Nice to meet you too, junior brother. I'm Ava," she blurted out.

After hearing Rose introduce him to her, he looked her way and met her gaze. He waited for her to start talking, but for some reason, she just kept looking at him without saying anything. Feeling bored, he introduced himself again, and only then did she break eye contact and introduce herself.

Leo observed Jack and Rose's shocked expressions and felt curious about what had happened. He turned to Jack and asked, "What happened? Why do you look so shocked?" After a moment, both Jack and Rose regained their composure, murmuring, "She introduced herself," while denying that anything was wrong. Deciding not to pry further, Leo changed the subject and asked Rose when they would be leaving. Rose looked around and replied, "We'll leave when the peak master, Derek, arrives." Leo followed her gaze and saw her pointing to the left, saying, "There he is."

Leo followed Rose's gesture and spotted a middle-aged man approaching them. Upon arrival, the man greeted them and asked, "Hi guys, did you wait long?" After a brief pause, he turned to Leo with a curious expression and inquired, "I see a new face here. Could you introduce yourself?"

For some reason, Leo didn't like the man in front of him, but he decided to hide his dislike and politely greeted him, "Junior sect disciple Leo greets the peak master." He then heard the peak master speak again, "You don't look like a kid. How old are you?" Finally, Leo found the reason why he disliked the guy: his voice was too kind. Leo had heard this tone of voice many times in his past life, and everyone who talked to him with this kind of voice always hurt him. Leo kept his expression in check and answered, "I'm thirteen years old, peak master."

After Leo revealed his age, even Ava, who typically wore an ice-cold expression, looked slightly taken aback. Leo gazed at his fellow sect members with a look of confusion, wondering what was causing their reactions.

Rose and Jack evaluated him and then shared their thoughts, "You appear older than we expected. Honestly, I thought you were around thirty. I didn't want to seem impolite by asking your age, but I assumed you would be closer to ours." Jack echoed similar sentiments, while Ava simply nodded in agreement.

Leo pondered, 'If you consider my age from my past life, you could be right.' Hearing them talk about their age, he asked them, "So how old are you guys?" Rose answered for all of them, "We are all twenty-one years old." After hearing petite Rose say her age was twenty-one, Leo thought, "Does she have some kind of hormone problem?" But being wise, he didn't break his expression and ask her the question he thought in his head.

Leo then heard the Peak Master continue his questioning with a different inquiry this time, "I didn't see you in the sect recruitment exams. Are you a personal disciple of a Peak Master? And you can call me Elder." Upon hearing the mention of being a personal disciple, Leo thought, "Is this guy really dumb, or is he intentionally avoiding mentioning my origin? It's not hard to figure out." Leo tried to determine what the man wanted to achieve, and the only thing he could think of was that the man wanted Leo to reveal his origin himself. Coming to this conclusion, Leo once again felt animosity towards the man. He glanced around and noticed that Rose and Jack looked puzzled while Ava maintained her usual expressionless face. Leo answered in an indifferent tone, "I'm not. I was promoted from servant to outer sect disciple after successfully reaching the first realm of Qi Condensation."

After his response, Leo once again scanned the room, only to meet the pitying gazes of Rose and Jack. Unsurprisingly, Ava's face remained expressionless. Such reactions were normal in this world, where only those with a spiritual root could become cultivators and were referred to as "immortals," while those without were called "mortals." Young Leo was a mortal who worked as a servant in the sect with others like him. Despite not having a spiritual root, he managed to cultivate, though he was not a rarity in the world. While there were others like him who managed to cultivate despite lacking a spiritual root, almost all of them lacked the acceptable talent for cultivation and could not reach higher realms.

The peak master responded with a simple smile, "Oh, I see" before taking out a Dharma treasure, a flying boat, from his space ring. Once we were all on board, we began our journey towards the Heavenly Immortal Sect.

As the boat sped towards the sect, Leo gazed downward, taking in the world from a bird's-eye view. Compared to Earth, this pristine land remained untainted by the pollution of machines. Leo then inquired with the peak master how long it would take to reach the sect. Upon learning it would be "more or less one day," he made his way to a quiet corner and settled down, hoping to pass the time with some sleep. Having gone without rest for five days since his arrival in this new world, he was beginning to feel a slight headache creeping up, so he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.