1 A Whole New World
RD: This scripture has been collecting dust in this old monster's spatial ring (over a year), although this isn't much to speak of, I do hope that this will open the path of cultivation to the innumerable juniors out there.
Translation: As of now, I have no interest in continuing this. However, I do hope that this will inspire people to write more Invincible Conqueror stories on the platform.
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"Today's the day, isn't it?" a seven-year-old boy mumbled after waking up to the sound of people's footsteps and voices outside his house.
He got up from his bed, went downstairs, and completed his morning routine, excluding rigorous morning exercise as he went a little overboard with his training before he slept. Moreover, he didn't want to be late for today's event; his house is rather far from the venue.
He changed clothes, put on cologne, and sprinted towards the venue. The closer he got to the venue, the more people he saw, and after five minutes, he was there.
The martial hall of the Huang Clan, the faction that he is under.
The part of the universe he was reborn in is known as the Mortal Realm¹, and the particular planet he's at right now is the Martial Spirit World.
Whilst staring at the martial hall, Yu Tao couldn't help but remember the events that brought him to where he was now.
In his home universe, there was an ongoing war that threatened the lives of innumerable creatures.
A war greater than the war of the primordials.
This war was between two factions. One is most of the known universe's factions while the other is a monstrous existence.
That existence was Icarus Estrella, The Anarchist, the Known Universe's most wanted criminal.
The first half of the war was going great for most of the known universe's factions as Icarus Estrella was cornered and was forced to flee multiple times. In the second half, however, it was a complete and utter disaster, as Icarus Estrella discovered and integrated with the remnants of a once-great primordial, and thus, became stronger than ever before.
Yu Tao wasn't sure what transpired after that, as the last thing that he saw was a burst of blinding white light from a great distance, and then himself under a collapsed house and multiple corpses around.
He was discovered after the battle ended and since he didn't have relatives, he was sent to the clan's orphanage.
In his time in the orphanage, he learned that the Band of the Old Mountain, a group of criminals, launched a surprise attack against the Huang Clan and managed to kill a couple dozen people before being killed themselves.
Yu Tao, at the age of five, got out of the orphanage after a minor clan elder deemed him capable enough of living alone.
The Huang Clan management brought him to his parents' rebuilt house and gave him ownership of his parents' remaining belongings. From there up to this point in time, he trained and studied for the foreseeable events in the future.
Yu Tao maneuvered through the crowd and soon found himself at the front and staring at a group of three near the martial hall's center.
A man and woman, who seemed to be in their 30s², and a boy around his age.
Yu Tao knew who those three were.
They are members of the Huang Family, the founding and ruling family of the Huang Clan.
The man was Huang Ming, the first son of the manor lord and the Huang Clan Internal Affairs Hall's³ chief elder; he is better known as Grand Elder Golden Tiger. He was a Late Mid-2nd⁴ Order Xiantian Realm expert with a Mid Grade 10 Winged Golden Tiger Martial Spirit.
The woman was Han Mei, the wife of Huang Ming and is the Huang Clan Resource Management Hall's chief elder; she is better known as Grand Elder Wailing Demon. She was a Peak Late-2nd Order Xiantian Realm expert with a Top Grade 10 Mind-Piercing Zither Martial Spirit.
The boy is Huang Wei, the second son of Huang Ming and Han Mei.
Similar to Yu Tao, Huang Wei was here for today's event, the annual Martial Spirit Awakening Ceremony.
The Martial Spirit Awakening Ceremony, as the name implies, is a ceremony for awakening a person's martial spirit.
In this world, most humans possess an existence termed as martial spirits within their bodies. Martial Spirits are the spiritual extension of most humans' potential, therefore most human cultivators' aptitude and potential are closely related to their martial spirits.
Martial spirits are split into three grades: common/ordinary, superb/extraordinary, and fabled/legendary.
Martial spirits are further split into four sub-grades: low, mid, high, and top.
Martial spirits can grow stronger and even evolve to higher grade martial spirits through various ways. But the stronger one's martial spirit is, the less likely it's going to evolve.
In the Luo Tong Kingdom⁵, the kingdom that the Huang Clan is located in, there were a total of seventy-two active experts with superb grade martial spirits. The greatest of whom has a Top Grade 13 Martial Spirit, among the highest recorded in this region since the founding of the Broken Blade Empire⁶, the divine empire that the Luo Tong Kingdom is under.
'I wonder how strong the rest of this world is,' Yu Tao mused in wonder.
As someone who wanted to spend most of his wealth to explore the vast universe in his previous life, his sole ambition, as of now, was to be strong enough to explore the entire Martial Spirit World.
However, even though he was born with a great
aptitude and potential in his previous life, that might not be the case in this universe. He hopes to at least awaken a Grade 10 Martial Spirit so it won't take too long for him to attain enough strength and start exploring.
While he pondered, he noticed three strong presences approaching the martial hall. Soon, a family of three entered the martial hall and went to the center.
Similar to earlier, Yu Tao instantly knew that these three are also members of the Huang Family.
The man that bore a resemblance to Huang Ming is Huang Peng, the second son of the manor lord and the Huang Clan External Affairs Hall's chief elder; he is better known as Grand Elder Black Blade. He was a Peak Early-2nd Order Xiantian Realm expert with a Mid Grade 10 Variant Barbed Black Serpent Martial Spirit.
The similarly-aged woman with Huang Peng is Su Yan, the leader of a special operations unit of the Huang Clan; she is better known as Grand Elder Silent Night. She was an Early 2nd Order Xiantian Realm expert with a Mid Grade 10 Twin Ghouls Martial Spirit.
The boy, who was slightly younger than Yu Tao and Huang Wei, was Huang Xiaolong. He was the eldest child of Huang Peng and Su Yan.
Not long after the three's arrival, a hearty laughter resounded from outside the hall.
Yu Tao turned to the source of the laughter and saw a dignified man entering the hall with an entourage of elders following him.
This man was none other than Huang Qide, the founder and the clan head of the Huang Clan for the past four decades, and a grand duke of the Luo Tong Kingdom.
Huang Qide was a Peak Late-3rd Order Xiantian Realm expert with a Mid Grade 10 Six-Winged Golden Ape Martial Spirit.
"Manor Lord!"
"Dad!"
"Grandpa!"
Upon Huang Qide's arrival, everyone in the Martial Hall quickly rushed over to pay their respect.
Huang Qide smiled, then nodded his head at his sons' group before turning to face the rest of Huang Clan people, he smiled and said, "Do not stand on ceremony. Today, I came over just to have a look."
Normally, Huang Qide would not make an appearance during the Martial Spirit Awakening Ceremony at the Martial Hall. However, this year was special because of Huang Wei and Huang Xiaolong.
Huang Qide walked to the front of the main hall, his eyes swept over the crowd in the hall before finally stopping in front of a similarly aged man in a gray robe standing next to him.
Laughing amiably, Huang Qide said, "Since everyone is already here, let's begin."
"Yes, Manor Lord," the gray-robed man answered respectfully, and then he walked to the center of the hall.
The gray-robed man was Chen Ying, one of Huang Qide's oldest followers and the Huang Clan chief steward. He was an Early-3rd Order Xiantian Realm expert with a Low Grade 10 Purple Light Martial Spirit.
Chen Ying stood at the center of the hall, a light glowed in his hands, spreading an overwhelming force around the martial hall. Suddenly, at the center of the hall, a bright hexagonal pattern shone, forming a beam of light.
This beam of light is a type of Martial Spirit Awakening Formation, one of the most common techniques used to awaken a person's martial spirit.
"Huang Wei, you first." Huang Qide looked at Huang Wei.
"Yes, Grandfather," Huang Wei answered and stepped forward into the hexagonal-patterned light beam.
As the beam of light fell on Huang Wei, everyone in the hall focused on Huang Wei who was now standing within the beam of light. Huang Ming and Han Mei's normally unreadable faces showed a trace of tension as they watched their son.
The beam of light wrapped around Huang Wei for a brief moment before a black light took over, enveloping Huang Wei. Then, the black silhouette of a tiger gradually emerged from behind Huang Wei. It was a black tiger with three eyes. As the shape of the black tiger condensed and became more corporeal, a ferocious tiger's roar echoed in the main hall.
Yu Tao looked in slight awe while everyone else was stunned into silence.
Huang Qide stared at the faint black shadow behind his grandson Huang Wei, his eyes shone brightly as he let out a big laugh; he was tremendously pleased.
"This is a Low Grade 11 Three-Eyed Black Tiger!" Chen Ying cried out in a trembling voice.
The average Three-Eyed Black Tiger Martial Spirit was a Grade 10 Martial Spirit, a half-step Superb Grade Martial Spirit!
However, Huang Wei's Martial Spirit is not a Grade 10 Three-Eyed Black Tiger, but instead it was a Grade 11 Three-Eyed Black Tiger!
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*1 - Mortal Realm, Mortal World, Mortal Plane, etc.
*2 - Cultivators age slowly, but their appearances vary depending on the circumstances. Even though Huang Ming is chronologically a middle-age man, I can't physically describe everyone like him as middle-aged.
Fei Hou was chronologically in his 70s but he was physically described as middle-aged. The King of Grandmist and a lot of old-looking characters from the upper realms are at least billions of years old and yet are described similar to how a 50-70-year-old person would be described.
However, writing/reading 'who/that looked to be in [insert pronoun] [insert age]' is rather handful/mouthful, so I'll try with 'young-looking person' or 'middle-aged-looking person' or stuff like that if it fits. Or you know, just assume what they look like based on their cultivation and the information I'll give out.
*3 - Discipline and Punishment Hall -> Internal Affairs Hall
*4 - According to the fandom, the sub-stages of the Yellow Dragon World's cultivation levels are divided into three: Early, Mid, Late, Peak Late-. These four divisions are then divided into four more divisions of the same, thus creating even more sub-stages such as Early Mid-, Mid Late-, Peak Early-, etc.
The system is kind of wack, to be honest. Instead of just simply saying "not everyone is equal in the same sub-realm", Shen Jian really made things difficult by creating this kind of miniscule power division. Heck, 'Peak Late-' division alone just doesn't make sense since the 'Peak' part is just part of the 'Late' division. If it weren't for the fact that this is part of the novel's charm, then I would've gotten rid of it.
So here's how it's going to go:
Early: Early Early- or Early (the most early), Mid Early-, Late Early-, Peak Early-.
Mid: Early Mid, Mid Mid- or Mid (the most mid), Late Mid-, Peak Mid-.
Late: Early Late-, Mid Late-, Late Late- or Late (the most late), Peak Late- (the most peak)
At the Peak Late- sub-stage, cultivators would begin their foundation to reach a higher sub-realm or major realm, so there are differences in Peak Late- sub-stage cultivators.
The Half Step- sub-stages are similar to the Peak Late- sub-stage.
*5 & 6 - The name of Luo Tong Kingdom, according to the fluent Chinese speakers that I've spoken to, is a name of a person, so it's going to remain as is.
The Duanren Empire translates to Broken Blade Empire so I'm going to use Broken Blade Empire.
On that note, I'm going to translate the names of non-translated words as long as the translation fits, and I'll even change the names of certain things as long as I see it fitting.
