Shattering One's Image

Tang Wutong frowned heavily when she heard what he said! So it was all made up!?

As if reading her mind Xue Long clarified.

[No, I was not made up. I can show you the reports tomorrow after all the training.

You look like someone who only believes in black and white. And people are not just that. We hold both evil and good in ourselves 

Your Grandfather killed and crippled for the easiest slights in his self-righteousness.

Same for Spirit Hall, your Father and Grandfather most likely told about how evil it was. Even though their patron God is Angel God.

Did they ever tell how many homeless children they raised? How much gold do they spend to keep villages and cities safe from evil Spirit Masters and rampaging Spirit Beasts?

I doubt they cared to tell you because they were hunted down a single 100 thousand spirit beast which was revealed by Tang Hao in the first place.]

His words made her frown more and frown before she decided to sigh.

"Fine, FINE! I get it! It's not just black and white! I don't understand your reason for you to tell me all this!" She said that with a huff. Reminding Xue Long of how his princess and his little sister started to do that.

[*Sigh* so you now dissatisfied that I am teaching the basis of my cultivation technique?]

"Eh?" The girl squeaked how is this talk related…

Her eyes widened as she realised what he means. 

[So you noticed? Fantastic. Heaven and Earth are all about balance. Even people who look completely evil still have good. Balance exists in everything.

I thought to teach you by telling you some stuff about your Tang family, as they say, two birds with one stone.

This means the opposite as well. Even people who you know are good will have dark sides as well.

It's simply impossible not to have any bad things. Pride, greed all those will reveal some nasty stuff.]

This is where she snapped at him. Because Tang With felt the need to defend her family's honour.

"Even you. I know you—"

[Even me. Especially me. I am selfish and proud, have thing for females to look as beautiful as possible, I don't care about many things which one in my position should care about. 

I worship martial arts and look down on most of the Spirit Masters spirit abilities obsession—]

This was where he told everything about his shortcomings literary all of it.

Which made Tang Wutong utterly gobsmacked it was like he revealed everything about himself! 

Now she had a weird feeling of shame…

He was utterly honest, at least she thought that he was.

"...I-I see… I understand… can we talk about something else for a moment… I need to think…"  As she said that she started to space out and Xue Long knew that it was enough of conversations with her.

Instead, he focused on his cultivation speed which has increased to another level! 

'The multiplier has increased once again!' 

As he sensed it he knew reaching rank 40 is going to be a fast breeze.

~~~~~~Xue Long~~~~~~

When the meditation art was undone, I opened my eyes and looked around.

The breakthrough to stage five was not just to unleash the domain of cultivation at will, but my connection to the 'balance' of the world has increased.

Energy perception has increased to the point that I can see spacing out Tang Wutong.

I walked over to her and tried to touch her. But my hand went through her like she didn't exist.

This was truly sad. I would love to use her as a hugging pillow. None of my maids are at the level where I can use them as sleeping pillows.

With a sigh, I turned around and walked towards my bed.

Qiu'er who was awake since she cultivated saw how I was in my bed and quickly walked over and ended up laying next to me.

Since I can't use sexy girls as pillows, I am going to use the next best thing and that is the fur of the golden lion as a pillow.

*Satisfied sigh*

"Being Prince truly is awesome."

As said to myself I started to sleep.

~~~

When morning arrived Xue Long did all of his routines only this time he was able to see Tang Wutong which is interesting and slightly distracting. 

For one people would ask why he is looking where nothing is there. Which can evolve into some absurd rumours. Something he doesn't want.

While he did all of his training he started to think. Should he hold back his trip to collect the fourth ring? Wait for his maids and most importantly his huffing wife-to-be to reach Rank 40.

'Right, cores. I need to compress energy… so yes, we going to wait.'

After making up his mind he decided to compress his energy and focus on making his other two meditation techniques to reach stage 5.

Once morning routines were done it was time to train. First and at most, it was spending time with his main two maids Na'er and Hu Liena.

Hu Liena was an interesting case because her innate Martial Spirit Ability is her charm but we don't focus on it. Instead Xue Long forced her to train in hand-to-hand combat. And develop claw based fighting style.

With a casual hand smack, he sends the blonde maid backpedalling several steps.

"You know. I am thinking of getting you a fox pet so that you could observe how the animal is behaving." The Fourth Prince said that while lowering his hand.

"...I am sorry…"

"There is no need to apologise. The way you move is like a human who has claws. When you merge with your martial spirit you no longer are just human. You are partially that beast. And when you are that beast you have to fight like they do."

He explained that while transforming into his Dragonoid form.

"As Golden Dragon King my fighting style is direct and brutal attacks. Something which you tried to do. The difference is that you don't have my resilience and inborn strength.

So how would you proceed from here out?" He asked her while un-doing his merger.

"...Use my innate ability which is charm? B-But you said not to focus on it!?"

The girl said with confusion and even a desperate look.

"I never said not to use it. The point is that you don't need to fully charm someone. A simple single moment of confusion is enough to make someone lower its defence so that you could unleash your attacks."

The way he explained to her the moment she had almost like a flashback of how to do it! It made sense so she started to attack.

She started with a straightforward attack, but before she was close she used her charm which 'made' Xue Long 'fall' for it.

When she saw him being open she delivered her attack. Which did connect but Hu Liena felt pain! Lots of pain in her arm! She felt like she was trying to claw a wall of metal!

"Ouch! Damn!" 

"No swearing. You are a maid. Not a ruffian." 

"S-Sorry!" She said with teary eyes.

"Your tactic work however it's not as useful against a defensive system. So we going to work on your body strength and power behind your moves in future as well." He explained that while looking at her.

"What about the charm? Should I improve it as well?" She asked him while slowly shaking her hurting hand.

"It grows with strength alongside you. What you should focus on is instead applying it in your combat. Small uses of charms are hard for people to notice. Before they even realise you already would have them in the palm of your hand."

She had an understanding look, this made perfect sense! People wouldn't even notice such a thing when they are in heat of combat!

"While this idea is great you should never focus entirely on trying to charm someone. especially in combat situations if it works it works if it doesn't then try a different approach."

"I understand!" 

Once again she did a respectful bow and walked away to meditate on this. She is simply awed by that meditation technique.

When Hu Liena walked away it was Qian Renxue's turn. As she was the last one, she can take as much time as she wants! 

After all, he already instructed all his maids and now she is the only one who is left! Perfect plan! Not that she is going to brag about this!

"Shall we begin?"

She nodded at him and pulled out her training sword. While it was still hard to hold it with one hand. It was getting easier.

The only reason she can guess is that the potent energy she is absorbing is in truth improving her body as well.

At least this was what she thought.

~~~~~~Later~~~~~~

Xue Long had a few letter-like papers in his hands as he just dig up some old stuff from royal archives, he wants to show these to Tang Wutong.

As this was on Tang Hao. After all, in the early days, the Fourth Prince needed to know where he was in the timeline. The easiest way to do that is to find some stuff on Spirit Hall and Clear Sky Clan.

The best for that was Tang Hao and his brother who were travelling through Heavenly Dou Empire and its subordinate Kingdoms.

Eventually, he had some letters and amusingly he didn't need to edit anything to meet his agenda. After all Tang Hao is a young Master and genius. His attitude meets that. Such a character is not that attractive one would wonder how Ah Yin fell in love with such a person. Maybe he abused her naive side to look gallant and dashing? Who knows.

"Wutong. I have something for you." As he said that the ghost girl who was floating around looked at him and floated over to his side.

"These are the reports from our spies who were in the areas where Tang Hao was. Before we read anything this is all true because spies' lives depend on delivering real information, not made-up things." 

As he said that internally he was delighted to know that the Tang San's father was one of 'kind' before his son's birth. And appears he 'grew up' and became depressed when she 'died'.

*Sigh*

"Is it more dirt on my grandfather? I already know that he is not who he appears to be." She said with a resigned tone.

"I am simply showing to you that I didn't make up any sort of stories. This is all recorded from the perspective of spies in the taverns inns and restaurants where they visited."

As he said that he showed the papers, there were dates on them and a message from the spies.

Most of them mention visits of high-profile people like Clear Sky clan members and a beautiful blue-haired girl.

"You do know how to read? I doubt the language has changed that much from your time."

"It's fine. I can read it as it is. Just hold it properly." As she said the butterfly girl started to read the reports. Internally she still hoped that the prince has exaggerated. 

In truth, she took his lesson to heart. That her family member have some…faults, but not much! So now she started to read this and what she read was nothing of the man she knew who was her Grandfather!

Brash, arrogant, not caring, show off, someone who loved to fight.

Now she knew where her interest in fighting came from! That moment she had creepy goosebumps. This has completely shattered her image of her grandfather!

"I read enough. There is no need for others." After saying that she floated away and curled into a ball. 

"If you say so. Well, let's get some meditation done. I need to meditate on something interesting!" 

As he said that he took the Lotus position and started to meditate on Spirit Cores!

--------------------

My Discord server for advanced chapters:

https://discord.gg/56SVYQexDJ

Along with the advanced chapters, there are also a lot of other fanfics I wrote and did not upload to Webnovel