With a loud thud, Longwei was dropped butt-first onto the stage.
He let out a muffled whimper as his sore butt made contact with the reinforced concrete.
His face had also turned pale white and a few tears were seen in the corner of his eyes.
Crawling up on all four, he gave a hateful stare towards Longmin who in turn just smiles at him apologetically.
Suddenly, another voice echoed above the stage.
"Wei'er, come see me in the Ancestral hall."
When Longmin heard that voice a complicated emotion flashed past his blue and gold pupils, but his smiling expression didn't change.
Longwei grunted before struggling up fully and walking as a penguin would off the stage.
His butt was in excruciating pain. A sort of fire was in his chest at being humiliated by that old fart, but he had nowhere to vent. He could only suck it up.
However, Longwei's eyes suddenly landed on a young man that was trying his best to blend in with the crowd.
When Longwei came close to the main entrance of the training grounds, he pointed at the crowd of disciples that were off to the side.
A blue Sword Qi was shot from his fingertip and curved its way around several people before landing on a male disciple.
Letting out a miserable scream, the Sword Qi hit that male disciple in his chest and caused him to fly back to land some distance away from the crowd.
Without even turning his head, Longwei said.
"For the next three months your not allowed to use any of the clan's cultivation resources."
Longwei was halfway through the gate when that disciple stood up and cupped his fist before saying.
"Many thanks for Young Master's mercy."
He was the disciple that had threatened Longwei earlier.
Everyone in the crowd turned to look at the disciple’s disheveled figure wondering what he had done for Longwei to punish him.
Normally, Longwei wouldn't have bothered to pursue it as he was the one hiding his appearance, but that young man was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Longwei just so happened to see him and thought he who could help release some of his pent-up anger.
As for the punishment, the young man was way too unbridled. Even if Longwei wasn't the young master of the clan, he had no right to go around threatening other clan members just for a minor inconvenience.
Maybe Longwei was like his grand-uncle at the end of the day, and he didn't like seeing someone that could potentially tarnish the clan by making people think it was filled with a bunch of arrogant people.
He was arrogant, but not to the extent he would be unreasonable. Give him a reason and he'll be the most arrogant person in the room. The more arrogant the person in front of the more unbridled he would be without a shred of reserve.
It was this overbearing but upstanding nature of Longwei that made people admire him. He wasn't afraid of expressing his thoughts and making people care. Only those who were in the wrong that he called out would be offended by his words and actions.
After taking the teleportation circle at the training grounds entrance, Longwei returned to the Ancestral Mountain.
Walking past the guards, he entered the large hall and came to a stop below the throne.
The Grand Elder had a grim expression on his face as he said.
"If I ever hear you being so disrespectful again, I'll give you a beating that's twice as hard."
Hearing that, Longwei shivered a bit and lowered his head not daring to say anything.
The Grand Elder let out a snort before he turned around and started walking away. Three steps into his walk his figure abruptly vanished.
– – –
– –
–
Longmin watched Longwei take the teleportation circle before he turned to the crowd of disciples and said.
"That's all for now, although it was short I hope I was able to help some of you move further on your path of cultivation."
After saying that, he hurried towards the teleportation circle that led to the Formation Pavilion mountain, where his courtyard was located.
All the disciples bowed in respect and thanked him as he got teleported away.
The Formation Pavilion mountain had courtyards for their outer, inner, and core disciples. It was separated into three sections on the mountain.
The outer disciple courtyards were nearer to the foot of the mountain, while the inner disciple courtyards were in the middle and lastly the core disciples were close to the peak.
The Spiritual Qi abundance on the mountain was also a lot more than outside because of the Qi Gather Formation on the mountain. It was also purer the further up you go.
The core disciples were the cream of the crop, among the four divisions. They were given access to purer Qi and more cultivation resources to develop their talents further to increase the strength of the Wu Clan.
The other divisions' mountains had a similar layout to this as well.
At the very peak of the mountain, where the Head Elder of the Formation Pavilion resides, and also where Longmin's courtyard was located, the purity of Spiritual Qi there was even higher.
If someone were to cultivate there for five days it would be equivalent to a month outside the mountain!
Stepping out of the teleportation circle which was at the foot of the mountain, Longmin immediately used his movement technique the Soaring Cloud Steps, and rushed to his courtyard.
Three Outer disciples who were at the side waiting to use the teleportation circle only saw Longmin's figure appear and then faded away, with a gush of wind blowing past them in the process
"Wasn't that Young Master Longmin?"
The disciple on the left said with a shocked expression while turning to his companions.
"I saw too, it was definitely him."
The one on the right said with confirmation.
The one in the middle that had a slightly sturdier build thought for a moment before he said.
"I wonder what would cause our Young Master to be in such a hurry to return? He should go out more, he hardly interacts with us on the mountain."
“I heard he held a cultivation meeting in the clan training grounds, I wanted to go but was too busy.”
“Well, that’s a sign that he’s recovering from that incident.”
The three disciples then conversed some more as they took the teleportation circle.
After some time, Longmin had already weaved his way through the outer disciple courtyards all the way to his.
He was so fast that some of his afterimages were still in process of fading away in the core disciples sections.
Arriving at his courtyard's entrance, he was greeted by an old man in servant's clothing.
"Welcome back, Young Master Min."
Longmin smiled and replied.
"Hello grandpa Li, I will be cultivating in my room so don't allow anyone to disturb me."
Even though Longmin said that. not many people would come to disturb him. Likely only grampa Li or Longwei, occasion his runes and formation teacher Wu Fei, who is also the Formations Division Head Elder, and his grand-uncle would visit him. But asides from those people, there was no one else.
"As you wish Young Master."
Grandpa Li responded as he turned around and left, while Longmin entered the courtyard.
The courtyard wasn't that large compared to some disciples, it was equivalent to about 2/3 acres of land making his room only a short walking distance away from the entrance.
Upon reaching his room, Longmin went in and closed the door behind him.
His room was thirty meters wide, consisting of a window and a second door that was connected to a thirteen-meter-wide bathroom.
His training grounds that were at the back of his courtyard were bigger than both the room and bathroom, being around a hundred meters.
Under his window was a chair and desk that was full of open books. Its pages were fluttering in the wind coming from the slightly ajar window.
Walking past his plain desk and chair, Longmin sat on the white blanketed bed that was the only other furniture in his room.
After letting out a sigh, Longmin reached into his inner robes which were a bit tattered from his earlier fight and took out a badly beating up book.
This book was something that the Grand Elder, had given to him when he started cultivating at the tender age of ten.
Even at that time, the book was as old and decrepit as it was now, but when the Grand Elder had given it to him he had said that as old as it may be not even he could tear a page corner from the book.
He also said that the contents in it were written by the founder and first Patriarch of the Wu Clan.
Opening the book to its first page, instead of written words, what greeted Longmin was a complicated rune inscription.
Not being surprised by that fact, he continued skipping pages passing one rune inscription after another until he came to a stop on the thirteenth page of the fifty-page book.
After staring at the page for a while, he mumbled to himself before closing the book and putting it back into his robes.
With a concentrated expression on his face, he made several hand seals that created dozens of hand shadows in front of him.
At the same time, two runes suddenly appeared in his eyes.
In his gold pupil, the color of the rune was gold, while the rune in his blue pupil was blue as well.
If Longwei was here to see this he would've made a snarky comment going something like this, 'So what if you possess the Mystical Dao Eyes? They're only good for faster rune and formation comprehension, my Legendary Dao Physique can break through any cultivation bottleneck, it's definitely better by far...'
As Longmin hands came to stop forming the last hand seal, both of his pupils pulsate with power while his intangible Spiritual Sense spread out from his yin-tang acupoint into the surroundings, causing the Spiritual Qi in the room to become restless.
With his right hand outstretched, Longmin used his Spiritual Sense to gather the Qi in the room into his palm.
With a swoosh, the pages of the open books flipped continuously, while his clothes and shoulder-length hair whipped about.
At the center of Longmin's palm, the Spiritual Qi had converged into a circular yellow rune that had complex symbols at its center moving about erratically.
Seeing this, Longmin wanted to jump up and down to celebrate his success, but he quickly calmed himself down before he lost control of the rune, making it disperse. If that had happened he would probably have slapped himself for his carelessness.
Letting out a long breath, his eyes started to glow again as he stared at the center of the rune. The symbols moving about erratically paused, before resuming their movement. Only this time it followed a specific pattern.
Longmin started to grin foolishly as he couldn't help his excitement.
"If I didn't have Spiritual Sense, I wouldn't have been able to use this rune technique."
As Longmin muttered to himself, muffled voices could be heard coming from the yellow rune.
He perked up his ears and started to listen to the voices that were becoming clearer and clearer, and surprisingly, it was the voice of the Grand Elder speaking to Longwei in the Ancestral hall.
"...I'll give you a beating that's twice as hard."
– – –
– –
–
In the Ancestral hall, after the Grand Elder left the Patriarch looked at his son that had his head lowered, and said with a sigh.
"You shouldn't have said what you've said, you know how bad his temper can get especially if someone calls him old."
Longwei looked up at his father and cautiously asked.
"Is he really gone?"
The Patriarch nodded his head at his son's question.
When Longwei saw that confirmation, the cautious look that was on his face immediately vanished. Then, in a mocking tone, he said.
"That old fogie! He actually dares to humiliate me in front of so many people, wait until I reach the Saint realm, we'll see how I pay him back tenfold!"
Longwei started walking left to right, then right to left in the large hall. All while clenching his fist and plotting his revenge.
That revenge would be carrying out a month-long continuous beating of his grand uncle. Only with that could all the times his butt was beaten black and blue would be repaid in full.
Meanwhile, Longwei was praying for that fated day to come quickly, the Patriarch was sitting on his throne with a helpless expression on his face.
He knew that this son of his was extremely stubborn and persistent. Even if you advised him not to do something, once he decides on doing it you'll have a hard time changing his mind.
The Patriarch shook his head and thought.
'This is one of his strong points now, but as he grows older this type of mentality might become his biggest weakness. He might grow up to become too single-minded and easily influence by his emotions.'
The Patriarch sighed for the umpteen time before he spoke.
"How did you do at the Tournament?"
Longwei stopped mid-walk and let out a breath to calm his emotions, but before he could fully calm down he seemed to have recalled something, after which his heart started to itch with annoyance.
"I came 4th. I was beaten by that bald donkey Zen Chi in the semifinals and that lecherer Li Fang for 3rd place"
The Patriarch nodded his head at Longwei's words.
"That's not too surprising, Zen Chi is considered a rare genius from the Chan School on the Holy Continent who possesses the Legendary Buddha Physique. Li Fang is also a prodigy from the Li Clan on the Central Continent, having awakened with the Legendary Yin Yang Physique. Both of them and many others in the Tournament were a couple of years ahead of you in cultivation, with some, if not all being at the late stage of the Foundation Realm realm. So, for you to reach the top five with your cultivation is a huge accomplishment."
The Patriarch had a smile on his face as he looked at Longwei. He was really happy to see his son doing so well against the other continents' geniuses. As a father what more can he possibly ask for than having a son so talented and outstanding? He was sure his son would accomplish great things for the clan in the future.
After hearing his father mention legendary physiques, Longwei remembered that he had wanted to ask his father a question that was puzzling him ever since he left the Central Continent.
His voice was filled with confusion as he spoke.
"Father, I've been wondering about something really peculiar. When I was younger I didn't question it at the time, but ever since I came back from the Central Continent this time I suddenly realize that it was very strange."
When the Patriarch heard that he couldn't help but become curious about what his son was referring to. He rarely ever saw his son so puzzled, so he promptly gestured for him to speak what was on his mind.
Longwei hesitated for a little bit as he tried to find the right words to explain his confusion.
After collecting himself he asked.
"Father… what phenomenon that’s causing the rare and mythical Legendary Physiques to start popping up like common weeds?"