The Inheritance
With the awakening ceremony over, the parents and their children returned to their residence.
Inside a somewhat humble manor, a man and a woman with a baby in her arms were having a conversation.
"To be honest? Though I wasn't expecting our son to be a prodigy, I never thought he'll turn out to be a cripple…sigh!" the man gave a deep sigh thinking about the hardships his son would have to face due to his misfortune of being born with blocked meridians.
"Don't be like that Brian! He's our baby boy…for others he might be a waste, but for us he's always God's grace!" the woman told her husband, Brian, while gazing lovingly at her child.
"That's true Elina, but you do know what our child will have to go through due to his identity as a wastrel!"
"But isn't Sera to be wed to our child, Celes, when he comes of age? At least that would make my son be treated much better." Elina looked at her husband Brian expectantly
"That's exactly why Celes will face even more danger" Brian continued "as if those shameless elders would allow a wastrel to marry their clan's gem just to hold up a promise made by two dead old geezers. They might just assassinate our son and blame it on his bad luck, just so that the marriage is cancelled. Now that Sera was taken in by the clan leader, this has more chance of happening." Hints of anger and disgust could be noticed as Brian spoke.
When Eline heard this, she started weeping; Brian held his wife's shoulders and brought her into her room to console her and to not disturb the sleeping baby.
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2 months had passed after the ceremony.
Inside one of the houses, a 2-month-old baby could be seen standing, in its cradle, with his legs separated and his hands stretched upwards forming a star all the while, laughing hysterically.
"Aaahahahaha…Ahahahaha" next instant, something astonishing happened, the baby started speaking in a shrill and squeaky voice "Finnavy! I manashed to cultivate till the novice stashe" as if reminiscing about something, the child gave a deep sigh and continued "I never thought that one day, even me, the shrongesht human veing that ever exshishted, would have to go through such horrorssh after reincarnating…having to foof in my zhifers every few hours and then the only way to get rid of it would be to cry for mommy to come change it. Does anyone even know how it feelsh for the greatest man ever exshisted to grovel for a shange of zhifers?".
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Inside a castle, in a distant location…
A man clothed in a butler's uniform could be seen running down an almost never-ending corridor, all the while muttering "lit…it lit…it lit" as if an impossibility had occurred.
At the end of the corridor, two guards, in full body armour, could be seen standing in front of a door while each holding a spear, almost 3 meters in length, in their right and left hand. From their posture, it could be seen that they were elites among elites with great physical strength as they had to stand without moving, almost 20 hrs. a day.
Though when they saw the butler running towards them, they positioned the spear in an angle such that both the spears formed a cross in front of the door and prevented any entry without prior notice.
"Halt!", said a soldier.
"State your name and intention", said the other.
"I bring important news to her highness." Said the butler "it's regarding the spirit lamp."
A few moments after sending the message in, the majestic, 5-meter-tall, door opened and out came a woman.
This woman was a beauty that could cause the fall of nations as they go to war for claim over her.
She wore only a blouse and a frock. The blouse exposed her midriff and just the right amount of cleavage; anymore, and it would look vulgar; any less, and it wouldn't seem right. The knee-length frock, on the other hand, seemed simple and embroidered with gems and other rare resources.
This combination went especially well with her oval faced, sharp nose, thin eyebrows, and waist-length hair. Her looks made her look divine and brought about a feeling of worship rather than lust.
However, even this goddess-like woman had rushed out, forgetting to even wear her footwear, putting all else on hold when she heard the news.
When she reached the hall in which the spirit lamp was kept and saw that the spirit lamp was lit, she went on her knees and started crying tears of joy "Oh great sage! You are finally back! Just as you expected, your reincarnation was a success!" she then suddenly remembered something that the great sage had told her to do when the spirit lamp lit. She started chanting in an archaic language; as she chanted, a map of the world, appeared before her. In the map were 5 Continents, but as the chanting continued, it became 3, then 2, then finally 1. After that the map zoomed in to show multiple smaller areas of lands, numbering in the hundreds…yes, as anyone would have guessed by now, it was a worldwide search. Search for what though, is unknown.
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Meanwhile, back in the house of the 2-month-old baby…
"Luckily my reincarnation spell worked. However, I was expecting to be born somewhere near the Isle of Gods, not in this backwater village in the continent white tiger's den" the boy continued talking to himself, his speech improving as time went on "but who could have foreseen that I'll get reincarnated into such a body! Hmph what wastrel, what blocked meridians…you are the wastrels, you are the ones with blocked brains" the baby scolded the elders and the ones who evaluated him for the next 15 minutes or so; then he looked down to his abdomen "Though it is expected to be evaluated as blocked meridians by these backwater villagers as this body is born with Heavens' favored meridians, a one in a million year occurrence, allowing only the purest and the best quality of energy to enter, thus rejecting all the impure energy sent by the elder into this body; However this body has one big weakness; the potential of the body maxes out at the age of 16, not being able to improve any further than a regular human 16 years old kid" The baby then smiled "That! Would have been the case if I had not had this!" looking at the necklace held in his hand which had a only an animal's fang on it "My family heirloom, made by the ancestor of grandmaster level after killing a beast which was threatening this village, which is supposed to bring luck. Hmph! What bullshit! This is an inheritance left by a beast of ancient times, which was at least as strong as my head disciple, with demigod cultivation stage. Heck, it might have had 10% of my power when I was at my peak a rank 3 God stage cultivation. With this, I wouldn't have to worry about improving my constitution, once I obtain the bloodline stored in this, though it'll be around 1% of the original, it should suffice for this weak human body till the sage cultivation stage. Now let's open this present"
After this long speech, the baby, feeling thirsty, started crying.
20 mins later
With a dignified look, as if nothing, no cuddling, no embarrassing moments involving the mother occurred, started unlocking the inheritance.
After around 5 minutes passed, which felt like hours to the great sage, the inheritance finally opened and the great sage sent his consciousness inside to start the inheritance.
On the inside…
"Woah this is huge…" said the great sage looking around "this is just getting me more and more excited". The size of the space inside the inheritance usually represents how strong the expert was before dying.
After looking around for a while, the great sage noticed a transparent armoured tiger sleeping at a distance. The great sage (now a middle-aged man) in his soul form, went to the tiger and shouted
"Hey, guardian spirit! Wake up!" every inheritance had a left-over consciousness of the expert, which was more like an AI which protected the inheritance from harm and guided and tested the inheritors.
However, seeing that this spirit was still asleep, the great sage neared the tiger and kicked it. Yes! Kicked it! Now the great sage was no fool; he did this since some spirits were so old and rusty that they had to be jolted awake from their hibernation which was undergone to prevent themselves from dissipating over time. Spirits were mostly harmless since it was programmed like an AI to just to do its work and nothing else.
After 5 minutes of continues kicking, the tiger drowsily opened its eyes. Seeing the great sage in front it, it opened its mouth wide as if yawning and swallowed him…yes swallowed the great sage.
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Meanwhile in the palace…
The woman was almost finished with the spell and only 3 countries were being shown on the map when suddenly…
Poof!
The spirit lamp went out.
When the spirit lamp went out, the map too disappeared. Having failed the spell, the woman faced severe backlash, vomiting blood.
Having a bad feeling, the woman looked at the now extinguished lamp and understood what exactly happened "NO! this can't be! Great sage couldn't have failed…He couldn't have died!" the woman disbelievingly looked at the lamp which was fine and burning bright just moments ago, but deep down she knew that her idol, her master, her god whom she worshipped had passed away, never to return.
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