During the next few days Ryu opened up the seventeen Qi channels for his teacher. Since he can’t show himself to the public, he was holed up on the second floor of the Infernal Fist School’s mansion with his grandpa.

“Grandpa, to materialize actual fire you need to combust your Qi towards a single point.” Ryu explained. Ryu was in the process of explaining low rank fire arts to his grandpa. The first step is to actually produce fire.

“I’m trying you little rascal.” Sheng replied with frustration. The things Ryu performed seemed as easy as breathing.

“Boys stop arguing and drink some of the lemonade I made.” Seo-Yon said as she entered the room.

Suddenly Ryu felt a tinge of uneasiness in his heart. He quickly looked out the window towards the north, where Frost Fire City is. Currently inside an underground dungeon within the city lord’s mansion, a messy pool of blood leaked out. There was a dark hooded figure and five decapitated people, four were guards and one was Kwong!

“Interesting, he refused to speak even after all that torture.” The dark hooded figure said with disdain, obviously he was unhappy. He was speaking towards the center of the dungeon where a mini Terra Golem held Kwong’s headless body.

“Seems like I made a big mess today, going to get an earful from boss. By my estimate it’ll be another two days before anyone important shows up though. Maybe I should’ve tortured him some more.” The dark hooded figure sighed at himself. With a wave of his hand, a ball of dark qi swallowed up all the corpses and blood in the dungeon.

“If it wasn’t for the fact that I was assigned to look for Alexis’s whereabouts, I wouldn’t have silenced this rat in time. I wonder if this has to do with Alexis’s disappearance.” He spoke as he slowly disappeared into the shadow.

If Ryu was there he would’ve been shocked, the dark hooded person looked identical to Alexis. The reason why Ryu felt Kwong’s death was because the Absolute Agreement he imposed on him had expired. Either Kwong broke Ryu’s laws or he died.

Sheng and Seo-Yon noticed the change in Ryu’s expression. After exchanging a glance with each other, Sheng spoke up.

“Ryu you have done more for us than what we could have wished for. I think… it’s time you spread your wings out and travel around the world. Maybe visit Wudang Sect, you were invited after all. Staying cooped up with this old man is no life for you.” Sheng said with a serious face. Although it pains him to send Ryu away, deep down he knew it was the right thing to do.

“I agree with Sheng, Ryu you are young and you are already so accomplished. However, there is so much the world has to offer. Your powers could also be used to help those in need.” Seo-Yon said caringly.

Seeing the pair’s serious faces, Ryu could only sigh. He knew what they said was right. In fact these days felt pretty boring to him compared to when he was training inside the Forbidden Forest as he liked. He loved spending time with his grandpa and his new grandma, Teacher Lee, but at the same time he felt so restricted. If he showed off his power, it’ll undoubtedly raised suspicions from higher powers and bring calamity to his family.

“Grandpa, grandma. Here’s two hundred thousand gold coins, don’t worry about me I have more money than I can spend at the moment. Here’s also a few fire skill manuals from rank 1 to 4. I’ve made some modifications to the Infernal Fist manual and it should be an upper rank 5 skill now. The same goes for the blacksmithing manuals the officials returned to us. By mastering the Infernal Fist, you are able to use the unique method of crafting weapons and armors with your own fist like the original founder did.” Ryu said as he slowly took out an array of treasures and placed it in front of them.

“Here’s also a pair of storage rings. These are high grade rings with tremendous storage but most importantly they are blood bound. You can lock the rings up with a single thought but it takes ten seconds. Inside one contains two set of rank 6 armors and weapons. There’s also rank 6 offense spell scrolls, just inject your Qi into them and you’ll be able to use them. In the other there’s some potions, pills and elixirs that will help with your cultivation and increase your longevity. Lastly there is a Voice Crystal. It’s from the Magic Continent and it’ll allow us to communicate anywhere in the world. It’s really miraculous. I’ve attached a knowledge crystal in there to explain everything.” Ryu stopped talking as he watched the eyes pop out of their eyes. Forget a city lord, even someone blood related to the current emperor might not be able to produce such things. Especially the crystal items, those come from the most advanced continent, the Magic Continent, that produces all sorts of magical items.

The high grade storage rings are usually blood bound, meaning one could either “open” them so anyone can use it or “lock it” so the contents are lost forever even after their death. The process requires ten seconds of Qi channeling though. That’s the reason why Alexis and Fang-Da were unable to seal their rings before their defeats.

“We are not going to war Ryu.” Seo-Yon forced out a laugh.

“Ryu since you will be travelling by yourself, you should take these!” Sheng said as he attempted to hand the rings back to him.

“I have stronger weapons and better medicines grandpa and in fact I’ve reached the Grandmaster Domain. By my estimate, it’ll take me less than a year to enter the Heaven Domain.” Ryu said plainly. Sheng and Seo-Yon looked as if they’ve been struck by lightning. Grandmaster Domain? That’s the level of a city lord! Heaven Domain? That’s something they wouldn’t even dream of achieving in their lifetime even with Ryu’s recent help.

If an experienced cultivator heard that Ryu thinks he can step from Grandmaster Domain into Heaven in less than a year, he would bet his life that Ryu can’t. That’s because the road of cultivating gets exponentially harder per level. To go from level 49 to 50 generally requires the equivalent of Qi needed from level 1 to 49! Each ten levels are bottlenecks that most cultivators will struggle greatly over. Fang-Da spent almost two hundred years and he couldn’t break through level 49!

After finally getting over the shock, Seo-Yon went off to prepare a feast for Ryu’s departure. His grandpa tried his best not to cry in front of Ryu so he offered to help make dinner. Ryu reluctant to part, meditated in a room while thinking of what else he could do to help them out.

At dinner time Ryu remembered Alexis had a ring full of aged wine and delicacies from other continents.

“Here’s a fifty thousand years old wine and here’s a ninety thousand years old one.” Ryu said as he took two random bottles out.

“You are kidding right?” Sheng said. Although he wasn’t a wine expert, he enjoyed aged wine as much as the next adult.

“No… That’s what the label said. I tried one before, it tasted really badly though.” Ryu said, as a kid how could he appreciate the bitterness in fine wine?

“Ryu! These cost more than a fortune, they are priceless. Even if the emperor himself wants to drink it, he can’t.” Sheng cried out.

Oh, I better not say I spit out a whole bottle in the forest then. I would totally prefer a cup of strawberry milk though. Ryu thought to himself. Ryu also offered to take some preserved Dragon Hawk meat and Noxious Sea Serpent eggs out but Seo-Yon quickly refused since she can’t cook such high class food.

“Ryu you just keep on surprising us…” Sheng muttered as Ryu put away the human sized eggs.

Dinner passed uneventfully and after helping clean up, Ryu was escorted out by the elderly pair.

“Ryu remember if you get tired during your journey, you can always come back here.” Seo-Yon said.

“Little rascal, just stay safe. Remember not to do anything to disappoint me.” Sheng said while fighting his tears back.

Ryu gave them both a hug. He too was tearing up, this was the place he grew up and as a twelve year old it was very hard for him to leave home yet. However he knew that he had to leave.

“Goodbye.” Ryu said one last time as he hopped into the air, a pair of beautiful wings grew out from his back and with a gust of wind he flew away.

The pair looked on long after Ryu disappeared from their view.

“Sigh who knows when we’ll see him again.” Sheng said.

“You little softie. With everything Ryu had given us, if we work hard we’ll live for another thousand years. We’ll definitely be able to see his achievements by then. Besides we have at Voice Crystal he had left us.” Seo-Yon consoled Sheng as she put her arms around him.

In an unknown place a few towns away from where Ryu is, the same black hooded figure who beheaded Kwong was speaking inside a Voice Crystal.

“So in conclusion, Alexis was definitely here three years ago. His little pet hydra was released. Rumor has it that he was kidnapping a talented boy and used the hydra to distract a pesky priest from Wudang.” The robed figure reported.

“Oh? Unless it’s a core elder, he could’ve easily finished him off himself. What about the client that’s brazenly exposing us to the public? How is he related?” The mysterious voice on the other end asked.

“It seems he employed us to assassinate a few nobodies a century ago. Alexis was the one assigned to that job. I tried various tortures but even the Thousand Burning Day poison didn’t work. He was surprisingly resilient, I couldn’t figure out why he was doing this.” The robed figure replied. The Hundred Burning Days poison is something that’ll light your Qi reservoir on fire and slowly burn you from the inside out. It’s one of the most painful tortures out there, after a hundred days you’ll die without the antidote. Even if you take the antidote near the end, your cultivation would’ve been reduced to a fraction of what it used to be.

“Find Alexis first then. I have a hunch this is related to him. It isn’t like him to not answer our calls for this long.” The mysterious voice ordered.

“Do you think something could have happened to him?” The robed figure asked.

“No, definitely not in that backwashed continent. Unless the old freaks from Shaolin or Wudang personally came out or that self-proclaimed number one swordsman, there’s no one that could have killed him. Injured maybe… definitely not killed, besides you should know his power first hand.” The mysterious voice responded.

“Yes…” The robed figure touched his left eye as he replied.

“He was definitely interested in something over there though, he spent god knows how many millenniums on that continent now… keep looking. Perhaps he’s practicing some secret arts that requires pure souls… In the meantime, check out status of the five provinces. I have a feeling the quality of the rulers must have deteriorated greatly. See if there’s opportunity to start some wars for us to profit from.

“Yes boss.” The robed figure said somberly as he put away the Voice Crystal.

Back to where Ryu was, he was currently on a flying mount he rented heading towards the south of the border towards the Yasha Province. He had flew for two weeks straight previously before renting from a random town. This was a long flight and required many layovers, a single mount couldn’t fly across a whole province without resting. During this time Ryu resumed cultivating, currently he was at level 40 for both his reservoirs. He knew he had to get stronger fast if he wanted to find his real parents.

The Invincible Stick method was interesting and he was dying to try it out. However something else occupied his mind. His current cultivation method was a fusion of seven profound methods. He used Shaolin’s method as the base since it was the most orthodox and added on Wudang’s Way of Heavens, Transcendent Knight Spirit from knights, Nature’s Harmony from shamans, The Third Eye from mages, Soul Fusion from Infernia and an unnamed one.

The unnamed manual seems to be incomplete, part of a bigger collection. Its method was uncannily similar to Ryu’s filtering cultivation method he created when he was young. The idea is to “filter” incoming Qi over and over again until every bit of the incoming Qi is yours. This is different from your usual refinement phase of cultivating where other people just refine the usable Qi and discard the impurity that couldn’t be molded. This unnamed method even encourages you to get hit by lightning, drink lava or eat high class medicine to absorb an enormous amount of raw Qi to level up quickly. Sadly the manual only teaches how to absorb raw elements such as lightning, lava, and ice. It gets cut off just before it teaches one how to absorb higher ranked spiritual medicine.

Ryu was contemplating if he use that method to level up. Even though his primary reservoir combined with unique cultivation method would level up at a skyrocketing pace, his second reservoir has an odd object inside that absorbs nearly eighty percent his incoming Qi now. That odd object has grew into a small tree after he reached level 40 with his second reservoir.

“Sir, we’ll be taking a one day break at the Golden Hammer City. It’s our last stop before we fly across the border to the Yasha Province. I should warn you though, don’t try to enter the mountain ranges near the border despite rumors of the Five-Colored Lightning Fruit. It might be a legendary rank 7 fruit but who knows if the rumors are true? But one thing is for sure, the Vanishing Bandits occupy that area. Because the mountain range is right on the border and the bandits are highly skilled, both empires chose to ignore them.” The flying mount guide warned Ryu.

“A rank 7 fruit? Tell me more” Ryu said in shock. Although Alexis himself had a few handful rank 7 and even rank 8 medicine, Ryu isn’t confident in consuming any of them. However with the unnamed manual's method of consuming lightning, Ryu is confident he could do it.

The guide was experienced and could tell that Ryu was itching to go so he sternly warned, “This fruit usually grows at the peak of various mountains. It is said that the tree that bears the fruit has to survive thousands of bolts of lightning. It’s exceedingly rare, only one fruit will be born over hundreds of millenniums in one continent. There has been a rumor for the past few years that one such fruit appeared on Mount Seya but no adventurers made it back alive. That’s mostly because the leader of the bandits is rumored to have entered the King Domain!”