The Protected Prince - 43

Zhou Fan ignored Cao Lin's words and spent a little bit longer speaking to the kings and queens before he sent them back to their caves.

Cao Lin, the beasts and Yipeng still stayed behind, however, Cao Lin went back to his castle, Yippeng went back to his house and the beasts went to their habitats.

With everyone gone, Zhou Fan stood in the air alone.

Since he had nothing better to do, Zhou Fan went inside his house and ate some food, even though he didn't need to.

Once again, Zhou Fan observed his cultivation.

Although he had fused his cultivation and body with his soul, it still felt as if his soul could grow, not in size but in strength. Along with his soul, his body would continue to grow stronger.

Of course, this didn't mean that he would only grow his soul and body's strength. Instead, it was better to say that along with everything else, his soul would grow stronger.

Since Zhou Fan's soul was in its initial stage, he decided to call this realm, Nascent Soul.

After a while, Zhou Fan decided to continue cultivating. He had nothing to do and absolutely no enemies.

His current options were to conquer the world, destroy all sentient life on the world, or mind his own business. At least, that was all Zhou Fan could think on the top of his head.

Without wasting time, Zhou Fan started to cultivate.

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In the mortaniel empire, a boy no older than 16 was sneaking out of a castle window. This castle seemed to be made of pure gold and was many times bigger than any castle in the boundless empire.

This castle belonged to the 2nd strongest force in the mortaniel empire, the gautama kingdom. This was the strongest kingdom under the mortaniel empire, and the boy sneaking out the window was the 3rd prince.

As for why a prince of a powerful kingdom would need to sneak out, it was because he had been locked up from the outside. Although he was able to look out his windows and hear stories and see paintings, he had never truly been outside alone.

Those few times when he went outside, he was surrounded by guards and could only stay within the castle grounds.

Finally, at the rebellious age of 16, he snuck out. As he finally climbed down to the ground, the first thing he noticed was how hot the sun was. When he came out before, he was covered by many umbrellas and other cloths.

Next, he noticed how rough the ground was. Due to the fact that he never went outside, he got used to not wearing shoes and forgot to put them on.

Nevertheless, that didn't stop him from walking out of the castle, luckily unnoticed.

When he made it out of the castle grounds, he noticed how much rougher the concrete was. For a few minutes, he could only slowly walk one step at a time.

After just 5 minutes, his unexperienced feet were bleeding.

However, instead of focusing on the pain, he was staring at the blood astonished.

'What is this?' He thought to himself. He had never seen blood before. Nor had he heard of it.

After a couple more attempts, Siddhartha was able to ignore the pain and continue walking.

As he kept walking, the clean and full streets started to get less full, less clean, and much more sullen.

After a certain point, Siddhartha stopped next to an alley, smelling a horrible smell. Walking inside, Siddhartha saw what appeared to be an unconscious man.

However, when he stepped close, he saw a hole through the man's chest. He also saw maggots crawling over his rotting flesh.

For the first time in his life, the protected prince learned of death.

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In the dragon cave, Zhou Fan stretched his body which made many cracking noises.

He had been cultivating for 3 months before he finally broke into the second level of nascent soul. As expected, his soul and everything else had gotten much stronger.

However, this slow cultivation speed was annoying. Although mature for his age, Zhou Fan was only around 11 or 12. Spending multiple 3 month time periods cultivating was hard.

Therefore, Zhou Fan decided to once again leave the dragon cave. This time however, he would not settle down and would instead wander around the world.

Unfortunately, that meant that Zhou Fan would have to leave Xiaolong and the beasts behind. After all, he needed to go out in order to experience life. Such a thing could hardly be achieved with humongous beasts following him around.

Walking outside, Zhou Fan saw Xiaolong and the rest of the beast sparring. He also saw Yipeng and Cao Ling talking while resting against a tree.

While Zhou Fan was watching the beasts fight, he couldn't help but notice that Xiaolong seemed slightly more powerful than the other beasts. However, it wasn't such a big difference that Xiaolong could easily win.

As he stood there, Cao Lin noticed his presence. He walked over and said hi.

"Its been a while." He said while looking at Zhou Fan.

Hearing Cao Lin talk, the beasts stopped their battle and looked over. When they saw Zhou Fan, they all rushed over and rubbed against him.

After playing around for a bit, Zhou Fan told them the sad announcement. As if they could understand what he said, the beast's happy faces were instantly changed.

"How long will you be gone?" Asked Yipeng.

"I'm not sure. It may be half a year or 5 years. Either way, it will be a long time." Responded Zhou Fan.

After some convincing and some sad looks from the beasts, Zhou Fan chose to stay for another week before he left on his journey.

Over the week, both the beasts and the others tried to convince Zhou Fan to stay. Both the beast's puppy eyes and Cao Lin's logic were quite convincing.

No matter, Zhou Fan's mind was made up. He needed to understand the world and nothing could stop him.