10 Helping the Family

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

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(Jing's POV > Three days after the attack)

As I sat there cross-legged in my room, only the glow of candlelight could be seen illuminating my room.

During the past three days, I had spent a lot of my time meditating, trying to break through as fast as possible so I wouldn't be helpless if another such attack were to happen. And my efforts had been rewarded as I was currently at the cusp of breaking through.

As I re-doubled my focus on my cultivation, a bright golden glow began coming off my body, brightening the room. Anticipation and excitement welled up inside me as I continued to focus on my cultivation. I knew that breaking through to a 1-star bronze rank was within reach.

As I continued to concentrate, I could feel my connection to the Bohdi Path growing stronger with each passing moment, and as my connection grew I could feel the shackles binding me to my mortality loosen.

As the surge of Soul Force erupted from within me, I could sense an incredible power building up, like a dormant volcano finally awakening after centuries of slumber. The ground trembled beneath me, and my room seemed to be consumed by a brilliant golden blaze, casting shadows all over my room. I had finally done it– this was the moment I had been tirelessly working towards.

In fact, a common saying around Glory City was that you couldn't call yourself a cultivator until you hit Bronze-rank. With this, my true cultivation journey began.

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(Two hours later)

As I sat down with my parents and Lin to eat breakfast, I couldn't help but expect everything around me with renewed vigor. After reaching Bronze-rank it was like my eyesight had become a hundred times better; if before I could hear a fly buzzing, I could now see every little movement its wing made.

As we ate our food, my Dad seemed to be watching me intently for a few moments before he finally addressed me. "Did you reach bronze rank already?" he asked incredulously, trying - and failing might I add - to mask his surprise.

At his question I allowed a smug smirk to come over my face as I replied, "Yeah, it wasn't that hard to do." I knew I was bragging, but I had the right to– in the history of Glory City no one had reached Bronze rank at the age of six. Simply put, I'm just him.

"Wh-what?! How?! You just started cultivating– that's not fair!" Lin yelled as he pointed an accusatory finger at me, whilst shouting about how unfair the world is.

Muffling my laughter at his exaggeration I turned toward my parents who were looking at me with the same look that Lin was.

After continuing his spiel for a couple more moments, Lin sighed. "I guess people with Cyan Soul Realms are just different from us ordinary people."

"No," my dad rebuked, "Ye Mo, the strongest expert in the city, also has a Cyan Soul Realm but even he didn't reach Bronze rank until he was nine."

"Jing, please tell me you didn't take any dangerous elixirs. You know how dangerous that is." Mom asked staring intently at me, probing my body with her Soul Force.

"Calm down Mom, I didn't do anything like that; you and Dad made sure of that," I replied as I steeled myself to pull off the greatest lie in the history of this world.

"I just happened to meet a Legend-rank expert when I was out in the city by myself," I clarified as I took out an inscription from my space ring. I had completed this an hour after I reached Bronze rank.

"Let me see it, and didn't I tell you not to trust strangers? Did he do anything to you?" she fired off her question in quick succession as she snatched the scroll from me. Inside it was nothing but a singular inscription inside a small circle.

"You have to use your Soul force to read the message," I said as she and Dad just did that. The message I put inside was: "I have decided to take your student as my disciple after noticing his Soul Form."

The message was brief and short, but it had an ancient aura that mimicked the feel of a Legend rank.

[A/N: Don't worry about how he did all this btw. Still deciding on that myself.]

My dad stuttered, trying to form a coherent sentence but failing. It took him a few moments before he digested everything enough to speak. "This is incredible! Do you know what this means for Glory Cit-" he began, but I cut him off as I knew he was gonna say.

"Don't get your hopes up, Master doesn't like interfering in affairs that are below him, and he considers Glory City to be quite a bit below him. But on the bright side, he did say I can do whatever I want with the knowledge and power I gain from him," I added, ruthlessly quashing any hopes my father had of strengthening Glory City.

"Well. I suppose that's better than nothing," he sighed, his voice carrying a hint of bitterness. "I suppose your master's also the reason your aura feels different from the family's cultivation technique?" he questioned, to which I gave a nod.

'Seems like I can finally strengthen my family,' I thought with excitement. I took out three unused soul crystals from my ring and gave one to each of them to their confusion.

"Oh speaking of techniques, that reminds me, my master told me the color of your soul realm doesn't really matter. Instead, what you should focus on is your soul form and soul attributes– by the way, my soul form is a Buddha, and my soul attributes are Gold and Holy." I explained, much to their shock.

"Mom, Dad, just pour a tiny portion of your soul force into the crystal, I don't want them cracking. Lin, it doesn't matter for you," I told him as he visibly deflated.

Since my parents were Black-Gold experts the crystal would be destroyed if they put their full soul force in.

[A/N: Of course, I had to say unused soul crystal for that one reader.]

"I find it hard to believe the founding five members of Glory City would be wrong in their assessments, but I'm willing to give it a try." Mom said before pouring her soul force into the crystal.

Inside her crystal were about 30 green orbs of light which then proceeded to morph into a pitch-black ocean. 'Not bad, it's an uncommon soul form: the Abyss ocean.' I thought to myself approvingly. The abyss ocean would mean that Mom had a Dark soul attribute.

Now to check Dad's. 'Woah, that's pretty good.' I mused as I stared at Dad's crystal which was a Salamander emerging from a pool of lava. Molten rocks swirled together shaping a magnificent body of liquid flame.

Dad's soul form was a rare one, that being the Frenzied Flame, which meant his soul attribute was the Sacred Flame.

[A/N: Hope you guys got the Frenzied Flame reference lol.]

The last one was Lin's which caught me by surprise since I expected him to have a common soul form, uncommon at best, certainly not a rare one. Inside his Soul Crystal was a beautiful, black, and blue bird that cackled with black lightning every time it flapped its wings.

'A thunder beats? That's not bad at all. It also means his soul attributes are Dark Lightning– two soul attributes weren't common at all so Lin definitely had a lot of untapped potential, actually the whole family did.

Considering that our family's cultivation technique was that of the Gold attribute, everyone's cultivation speed had been stunted, and not by a small margin either. However, now that I knew their soul forms and attributes I could give them techniques that would help them cultivate faster.

"Once master contacts me again, I can ask him to gift me techniques that are suitable for all of you. If you want to see just how effective my master's techniques are just look at Ziyun and Ning'er, or even myself," I smirked as their shock grew.

"Don't cultivate your current technique for now, it'll only be a few days, but afterward I can guarantee it won't be too long until you two hit legend."

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Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this chapter. I just got off work when we started working on this chapter. So yeah sorry if it's shorter than usual.

Btw shoutout to SupremeGacha for the Demon beast idea that'll be implemented in the future.

Anyway, have a great rest of your day, and drop your powerstones.