Awakening.

Ling Jun's left eye cracked open a sliver. It was the first time it had opened in this life.

A demonic yet charming blood red iris peaked out from behind his half opened eyelid. After the reverse ageing process his body seemed extremely healthy. He had a pale face, slightly thin lips and long curly black hair that had grown out for 15 years. His hair dangled at waist level, thin and silky as though the slightest breeze would easily lift them.

He opened his remaining eyelid, exposing both eyes to the faint light spilling in through the hollow carved window.

'Finally awake' he thought.

Even though he hadn't had a human body in countless years, he felt completely used to his new body.

He could speculate a couple of things from the situation. He theorised that his soul hadn't been completely compatible with his body, leading to a 15 year period of hibernation, with a sliver of awareness remaining in the outside world.

As for the ageing and reverse ageing, he speculated that it had something to do with what he had awakened in the spatial ring. He thought that his bodies processes were all accelerated to completely mould his flesh anew, before reverting back to a form he could use.

The only thing he couldn't was why he could feel the vague existence of something else in his mind. He was sure that the host soul had been completely destroyed so it couldn't be that. However he could only vaguely feel that sensation so he chose to ignore it for the moment.

The strangest thing was that he could see six strings of glittering golden light stretching from his dantian region, passing beyond the walls of the shack.

He stretched his body for the first time in countless years, revelling in the sense of control and freedom, unable to stop tears of joy from falling from his eyes.

He had been trapped in a form where he could only watch and not control anything, a sensation he would not want to ever go through again.

Was that what happened when one died? He resolved that he would live for a long as he could. By now he had known that he had arrived in a different world from the one he had come from. He only knew that this was a world of cultivation where the law of the jungle took precedence over all others. It was also why his parents could abandon him.

He decided to leave the shack to see where the strings of light led, yet when he got outside he could see that they stretched very far out into the distance. He decided that it wasn't practical to follow the strings at the moment.

He thought back to the tragic life he had loved before and decided he would do his best to become strong, so he could control everything in the future.

Strange. He knew that the passage of time should have wiped his memories of his past life, yet he could clearly remember everything as though no time had passed. He chalked it up to his strange memory. He couldn't be bothered to ponder such strange things. He decided to figure out his next steps.

***

At the same time that that Ling Jun awoke, far off in some distant lands there were seven different schools spread across the lands. These seven sects had different architecture yet had one thing in common. They had an enormous statue in the middle of the grounds.

The statues were different in the different schools. Two of the schools had statues depicting beautiful women and the other five had statues of handsome men. All of them looked middle aged, noble and virtuous.

At this moment all seven statues began to shake intensely. It was as though they were trying to free themselves from the ground they had been embedded in and fly towards seven different directions.

This disturbed the countless cultivators within the school who all looked over in shock. Within the statues the various elders and the sect leaders gasped in astonishment.

'The signs from the legends! It's the sign! The heavens emissaries have returned! Heaven's seven beloved. I would never have thought that I would get to see this in my lifetime!'

The various school principals all thought something amongst those lines. Unknown to them however, was that beneath the very statues they resided on were coffins. Seven coffins, one for each statue. Within those coffins were powerful people who could destroy the entire school if they so wished.

At this moment all of them had been sealed with power from the heavens and remained still for countless eras. Yet at the current moment, all of them suddenly began to struggle and roar with rage.

"HOW DARE YOU DEFILE OUR LORDS!" Seven enraged roars shot out towards the heavens. The roars were so powerful that the statues above, were almost completely uprooted.

It was then that the statues shone with a brilliant scintillating light, instantly forcing the seven coffins back into the ground before sealing them up thoroughly.

Everything slowly returned to silence. This last part came as a complete shock to the various sect leaders. They had no idea such people were sealed underneath their own schools.

***

Ling Jun knew he would have to let the clan know he had awoken. There was no getting around that. He doubted he could survive if he left on his own, he didn't even know how to cultivate at the moment!

He sighed softly. He would try to remain low key as possible. Also he would have to pretend that he did not know the language as he had just woken up. Actually, that was strange. How did he know and understand this foreign language so clearly? It was just one of the mysteries he would have to solve later.

Two hours later.

All the elders of the Ling family were gathered in the main hall along with Ling Jun and his father, the first elder of the Ling clan. They all assumed he could not understand anything and talked freely.

It seemed as though no one was able to see the golden strings, so he was lucky that he didn't have to explain it.

"Jun'er has woken up. He is three years late to start cultivation. It is a pity. However this is something to celebrate. First we must teach him how to speak. It usually takes one year to learn. After that, we will test his talent. If he has great talent it will not be too late as the golden years for cultivation are between fifteen to twenty years."

They could not test his talent right now as that required even a wisp of Qi which he did not possess. He would first have to learn the language so he could understand cultivation before producing a strand of Qi.

Children would start cultivating at age ten. They would refine their bodies using Qi for five years before truly stepping into the Qi cultivation realm. Ling Jun would only have two years to complete body refining.

Body refining was to refine the body into a vessel capable of holding Qi. The better one prepared, the better their potential.

A year passed.

Over the past year, Ling Jun had become quite fluent with the language. He had figured out how to cultivate ages ago but had not done so in order to not attract attention to himself.

He had also noted the attitude of his younger sibling. His younger brother had been tested to have mortal rank six affinity to Qi and elemental affinity to lightning. He had been handed the position of successor only for his older brother to suddenly wake up.

Naturally, he was all but happy.

Thinking that Ling Jun wouldn't understand, he had cursed him in private. Ling Jun took note and decided to act subservient to his brother in order to avoid conflict. He hoped that his talent would not attract any more hostility.

He was now fourteen and produced his first strand of Qi, in a time that was neither too fast nor too slow. It seemed like his affinity was simply average.

The whole clan had gathered to witness his talent. They were curious as to the talent of the mysterious eldest son of Ling who had awoken from a thirteen year slumber. He had been helpless regarding this situation.

Taken to a grassy outdoor space in the compound, he put his hand on the stele in front of him and inserted a strand of Qi. A light rose up from the bottom stopping beside the number four. Then a red lightning crackled around the stele before disappearing.

"Lightning affinity! He also has lightning affinity! Although his affinity to Qi is mortal rank four. Whilst above average, it doesn't quite measure up to his younger sibling and the chosen of the other two families. It's a pity."

Thoughts similar to this were being shared amongst the members of the clan. Most of them had hoped for another excellent talent to appear, giving them the edge over the other two families.

Whilst talking amongst themselves the crowds dispersed leaving Ling Jun alone with the elders and his family. Inwardly, he was elated that he had not drawn too much attention as of yet.

Ling Jun sighed with disappointment. "It seems I don't quite match up to you brother." He said with a bitter smile.

Ling Ji was shocked before promptly replying "It doesn't matter, brother, as long as you work hard I'm sure you can also get far. After rank four talent is also quite good don't forget." Ling Ji now had a better impression of his older brother after he had admitted his inferiority. His level of threat had dropped significantly.

Of course this was Ling Jun's aim. It was also why he said 'brother' and not 'younger brother'.

The elders watched on in silence before a smile appeared on their faces. At least the brothers seemed united. With the both of them supporting each other in the future, the family would be in a much stronger position.

"Jun'er, there is no need to be disappointed. You also have good talent and must utilise it well. Make sure to support your brother. With the both of you working together, the family will be brought to new heights."

"Thank you, seniors. Junior understands." He clasped his hands and bowed respectfully.

"Mhmm." The elders were pleased with his attitude.

Over to the side, Ling Ji was thoroughly elated. The elders had indirectly confirmed him to be the next family head, and he also gained a strong henchman in the form of his older brother. Hmmm, this brother of his was not bad. He understood his position well.

Now that Ling Jun could officially cultivate, he was provided with the families best cultivation technique, the Lightning incantation. Only people with lightning affinity would be able to learn this which was why few people had ever learnt it within the Ling Family. After all, other than Light and Darkness, Lightning was the rarest element, followed by earth and wind, and finally water and fire.

Each element had its own strength, and of the more common four, it was unknown which was strongest. Some people would be born without any affinity at all.

Finally given time to himself, Ling Jun decided to experiment with the space time affinities he had awakened within his soul in the spatial ring.

He had learnt from his research over the past year that space and time were not considered elemental affinities as no one had ever awoken such a thing before. He assumed that this was his goldfinger, something all transmigrators possessed.

Within the private courtyard given to him by the clan, Ling Jun sat cross legged. First, he would think of various ways time and space could be used, before experimenting.

Two hours later, he had brainstormed a bunch of ideas.

Time affinity should allow me to recover much faster than ordinary people. If that is the case, then I should prioritise body cultivation as I would be able to quickly recover and produce twice the results with half the effort.

He had experimented a bit and found that using his space time affinities externally was much harder than using it internally. With just a wisp of Qi, he was unable to manifest anything externally, yet he could draw in motes of space and time into his body to affect it from the inside.

A shallow cut on his wrist had healed within an hour. With space, he had tried moving his body through space, yet even though he drained all his energy, nothing seemed to happen. Next, using his time powers, he had regained all his energy within an hour.

With time, I can speed up Qi gathering, yet also body cultivating. With space, I can compress my muscles and even meridians to squeeze out impurities etc.

But then he had a crazy thought. What if he could use his powers of space and time to completely automate cultivation. He could turn his acupoints into dantians by manipulating space. Dantians always revolved the Qi they received which created a force that naturally drew Qi in the body towards them.

If he could copy his dantian and do such a thing, then he would never need to actively cultivate ever again!

He tried acting on his thoughts but found it to be harder than he thought. Of course it wouldn't be so easy. Hmmm. For now he should probably just widen his meridians and acupoints and enlarge his dantians capacity. Everything else could come later.

He would also compress his Qi from the gas state into a solid state to make it more powerful and refined.

However there was just one problem.

Advancing too fast would bring attention to himself and also hostility. He would need to a way to hide his progress first before attempting anything.

In this world, it was possible for one to hide his cultivation level if he did not want it known, yet other people would at the same time be aware that the person was hiding their strength, though not knowing by how much.

This was because it required active use of Qi to hide the cultivation base, which was easily detectable by others.

Ling Jun, after a few hours of experimentation, finally thought of a way to get around this problem.

First, he would reverse time in his dantian till it showed a cultivation base he was satisfied with. He would then remove time from within his dantian before locking it within space. His dantian was now without time, so it would stay in that state.

This would use the energy of space instead of Qi so was undetectable whilst also being fool proof as this was an actual lowering of cultivation. There would have to be a buffer period after unlocking his cultivation before it returned to its original level. Though this buffer period was less than a second.

Also this wasn't an active process, so once done he wouldn't need to consciously continue hiding his cultivation base.

He decided to test it out tomorrow with his parents.

Regarding his parents, Ling Jun was quite indifferent. After he had awoken, they had gushed over him, telling him how they waited for him for thirteen years without giving up on him.

He knew that was a lie. Yet he didn't care. He hadn't expected them to love him anyway, and he had only taken over the body of their child, and was not actually their son.

He wouldn't go out of his way to make them proud or anything like that.