Ruining the Name

Discord Link: https://discord.gg/NMmtDbwHVQ

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(Jing's POV)

(Location: Glory City)

"Hey, Ziyun! How've you been?" Lin said as he waved to the duo, while I stood beside him and waved as well.

"I've been okay. It's good to see you again as well, Jing," Ziyun replied as she skipped along to where Lin and I were whilst I just smiled at her.

"Yeah, it's good to see you as well. It's been quite some time since we last saw each other."

I interacted with her a few more times after Zong invited us since our fathers are pretty close. I wouldn't quite call her a close friend, but we were still closer than just acquaintances considering I'm the only one she can truly interact with aside from Ning'er, and I suppose the same applied to me.

Also, Lin didn't really count since he only had like three interactions with her. Unlike him, I'm allowed to visit the Snow Wind Family anytime I wish because I'm friends with Ziyun, and our statuses are similar.

I had become friends with her after visiting her house a couple of times. Though it was mainly to see if I could meet with Ye Mo or to read their books.

Surprisingly their study had a lot of books from different genres so it helped pass the time when I was bored.

"And who's fault is that? You said you would visit me and Ning'er, but you didn't even come by once in the past three months!" she pouted as she pointed an accusatory finger at me, while Lin just laughed like the traitor he was.

"Sorry, sorry, I've just been so busy over the last few months, with cultivation preparation and actually beginning to cultivate. Here, tell you what, you should have started cultivating right?" I asked while Ziyun nodded as she adopted a confused look. "I'll help you and Ning'er out the next time we meet. How does that sound?"

The truth was, I had completely forgotten about making such a promise, and I had probably only done so to get rid of her nagging, but I did feel a bit bad as she just wanted someone to interact with so helping her and Ning'er out with their cultivation wasn't that big of a deal.

Although Ziyun is the daughter of the City Lord, Zong currently has all his attention on his adoptive son: Ye Han. Due to that, she didn't really receive much attention aside from her aunt, and my family, and because of that, I felt a bit bad for going back on my word.

"Hmph, I'll let you know when Ning'er next visits, you better come then," she replied before she stomped away much to my amusement.

Since I planned to change some things before Nie Lie was born having strong allies and connections would only come in handy so meeting with her, and by extension, her family would only benefit me in the long run.

Once the aunt and niece duo had left I turned to Lin. "You have anything else to do?" I asked, I had already gotten everything I had wanted and because of that I felt like going home; my social meter could only handle so many interactions.

"Nah, I'm good. Let's go home."

( Scene Change > Night Time)

"Bye Mom, Dad. Have a good night." Once I had bid them farewell I made my way to my room after dinner.

Hopefully, no one will disrupt me as I have some important things to do. I would probably be best off placing an array that would allow me to decide who can and can't enter my room, but for now, I just threw up a sign that said: "Do not Disturb".

I hoped everyone in the family would adhere to my D.I.Y D.N.D sign because if my family saw what I was doing right now my plans for the near future would all be spoiled.

[A/N: Quick note, when you enter a room make sure to close the door when you leave.]

Once all my preparations were complete, I pulled out a Soul Crystal from the interspatial ring my mom had given me and poured my Soul Force into it focusing on manifesting my power within it.

After I had done so, a bunch of small cyan orbs of light began to form in the crystal. These represented my current Soul Force which currently stood at 24.

'Not bad, 76 more, and I'll be a 1-star Bronze-ranked Demon Spiritualist,' I mused to myself as I looked down at the vibrant crystal.

Now that all that is done, I need to figure out a way to fake having a master, a powerful one as well. My father is already Black-Gold ranked, so my master has to be Legend ranked for my family to take note and for my plans to proceed as smoothly as I want them to.

Although my plan wasn't completely full-proof it wasn't too bad. I was going to use the Black-Gold blank scroll that I had found - it really did appear at the perfect time - and write down an inscription that would either mimic the aura of a Legend-ranked expert or make it so complex that only a Legend would have been able to do it.

For most people, this would have been an impossible task, but luckily for me, I had all of Nie Lie's previous experience and he had done things far more complex than this countless times so luckily I wasn't in too over my head.

After that, I planned to leave a message in the scroll which would say something along the likes of: "Whoever opens this scroll shall gain all of my knowledge," or some other bs like that. I would also have to sign it with some cool made-up name to make it seem more authentic.

Who would have thought that faking a master would have been so much work?

Completing this project would probably take me a few months, considering I needed to collect the blood of some high-ranked demon beasts. But the end product would be well worth it… I hope.

'Now that's settled I can move on to my next plan: fucking with the sacred family,' I thought as a wild grin made its way onto my face.

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After I had finished my planning I began my nightly routine of cultivating until the sun rose. Every time I cultivated the Bohdi Path of the Golden Buddha, I would feel refreshed so there wasn't any real need to sleep.

Of course, I still did so here and there, nothing beat knocking out for a few hours on your pillow, but considering that I only had sevenish years until cannon began I would have to work extra hard.

'Huh, the sun's already up? Then I guess I can begin working on destroying the Sacred… after breakfast.'

( One Hour Later)

After I had eaten my fill I decided to head off to the family library, even though I had spent a lot of time reading, I still hadn't gotten through all the material. In fact, because our Family had such a high status we even carried books with some of the minor cultivation techniques from the other clans including the Sacred Family.

Considering how much they bragged about their family's contribution to the current state of Glory City, it wasn't too hard to find information on practically everything about their family including their cultivation techniques, inscription patterns, and history.

After around twenty minutes of scouring for something of note, I came across a book of inscriptions given to given to Glory City for 'free' by the Scared Family.

Knowing their history, I doubted it was actually theirs and it was most likely something they stole from some previous era and called it their own. From what I could tell based on Nie Lie's memories, at least 50% of the inscriptions their family prided themselves on were fabricated.

I quickly flipped through the pages, and only stopped when I came across a page that had a fire inscription called the 'Scarlet Hellblazer'; it was supposedly created by the founder of the Sacred Family when they joined Glory City.

The inscription wasn't bad, but I could tell that it had an incomplete feel. I'm sure this wasn't something that was commonly felt, but rather something that was unique to me because I had spent so much time going through Nie Lie's memories.

Anyway, the inscription seemed like it was a bastardized version of another inscription, which it most certainly was, so now all I had to do was find the original.

Instead of wasting my time going through each fire inscription that was in the library, I instead just went through all the Black-Gold and Gold-ranked fire inscriptions in Nie Lie's memories.

'And voilà, there it is,' I grinned as I began looking for the original book in our library.

The original inscription's name was Ravaging Hellblazer: a Gold-ranked fire inscription from the Snow-Wind Empire era. The original was found in the third volume of the Burning Empyrean Arts which was a book on a variety of different fire inscriptions.

Since it's in the Snow-Wind Empire's language, no one had the ability to read it, and because of that, I'm guessing they never went ahead and double-checked anything further in the book.

If you can't read the first volume why read the second, third, and so on? I quickly flipped to the third volume located the exact page that had the inscription, and compared the two to ensure I wasn't making a mistake.

'Oh they're so fucked,' I thought with a predatory glint in my eyes.

(Scene Change)

"Hey, Dad, I found something I think you should check out," I shouted as I entered my Dad's office.

He didn't respond right away and instead continued to sign the last few remaining papers on his desk before he looked up. "What's the matter, Jing? It's not like you to come to my room shouting," he asked with a small frown.

"Look at this, isn't this just copying?" I spoke as I handed my father the book containing the fire inscription "Ravaging Hellblazer" from the Snow-Wind Empire and the page that had the one the Sacred Family claimed as their own, the "Scarlet Hellblazer."

My father took the book and the page and examined them carefully. He furrowed his brows as he studied the two side by side, comparing the intricate patterns and formations.

"What is this?" he asked, confused as he stared at the two images.

"The first inscription is from the Scared Family, whilst the second is an inscription from the Snow-Wind Empire era. You should know what that means right dad?" I asked as I laughed in my head, imagining the faces of all the elders in the Sacred Family once this information became known to the public.

"Yeah, I do. In fact, every cultivator in the city does," he responded with a slight smile before it turned serious as he addressed me. "What I'm more worried about is how you managed to recognize this," he sighed as a look of worry etched itself on his face.

"Dad, you already know that for so long I've stuffed myself in the library trying to understand everything that was written in there. Of course, I went over books from the previous era, and though I don't know everything, I did manage to pick up on some words and inscriptions."

His eyes bore into mine for a couple of seconds before they softened as he laughed. "Well, that's cause for celebration! I don't expect anything else from you," he congratulated as he stood up.

"Now, stay in the estate and cultivate. I've got to go deliver this to the Code of Conduct administration. As the patriarch of the Divine Family, an offense of this magnitude isn't something I can overlook," he told me as his face straightened and fell into a mask of stoicism.

'Now all I have to do is wait for the chaos to unfold.'

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Hey guys, hopefully, you enjoyed this chapter. Ruining the name of the Sacred Family is definitely happening earlier than I was planning, but it's honestly better this way. At least I think so, let me know if you agree or not.

Also, I know I asked this in like every chapter, and so far it looks like everyone wants the FML to be Ning'er, but to be honest, I was personally planning to go with Yu Yan, so let me know who you prefer. Would appreciate it if someone could post an image of Yu Yan for reference lmao. And I most likely won't go down the harem route as I don't enjoy writing it, so just comment the one you like the best.

Saw some interesting comments about whether to kill Nie Lie off or not, and to be completely honest the whole idea of it being the original timeline instead of the one where Nie Lie goes back in time is definitely an option that I've been considering. LMK which timeline you would like to see as nothing's really finalized as of yet lol.

Another 2k word chapter btw, and when the next chapter drops we'll be on the ranking so that's pretty cool. Anyway, peace out, and thanks for reading, and have a good day/night. And drop them power stones, lol.