Chi Qide looked at the black shadow floating behind his son one last time; his cheeks were slightly red as he tried to contain his excitement and regain his composure, but he ultimately failed and started laughing crazily.
"Haha, haha, haha!"
"Good, good!"
"Very good!" Chi Qide said with a faint smile tugging at his lips. He then inhaled deeply and gathered himself, suppressing his excitement.
His thoughts were filled with what benefits his son's talent would bring him in the future, the sects he could join and even if he didn't join a famous sect with enough support and resources from the sect, Chi Wei, with such talent, would soon surpass him and take up the role of sect leader, possibly taking the sect into a new era.
At this moment, everyone clapped their hands and shouted.
"Congratulations, Sect Leader, for producing a prodigy!"
Chi Qide, now with an indifferent face, waved his hand to indicate for them to stop, but he was full of a sense of pride on the inside. He then said,
"That's enough."
"Others are yet to awaken their bloodline; you never know, there may be a next Earth-grade bloodline," said Chi Qide, his gaze landing on Long Huang for a split second.
Chen Ying nodded in agreement, smiling amicably. However, everyone who heard this thought Chi Qide had said these words to comfort the others who had yet to awaken their bloodline, so they wouldn't lose their confidence.
While Huang Peng, on the other hand, gritted his teeth as he knew this was clearly a trap to shame and humiliate Long Huang, but he could only watch.
"Right, let's continue with the awakening ceremony."
"Next up, Long Huang!"
Hearing this name, the elders, citizens, and disciples could not help but turn to look at Long Huang.
As the other twin star of the Azure Lotus Sect, Long Huang was seen as the better of the two. But Chi Wei had an Earth-grade bloodline, true qualifications to be called a prodigy, so what about him?
With the assembled sect members watching, Long Huang calmly stepped into the light beam.
Ba-dum! Ba-dum! Ba-dum!
With every step he took, his heartbeat quickened.
Long Huang didn't stay in the light beam area for long, and unlike Chi Wei, a faint green light appeared around Long Huang's body.
Seeing this scene, the crowd stared blankly. Subsequently, a Gray light suddenly appeared with the green light; the two different lights flashed intermittently, giving a slight, ancient, and calm feeling.
Then, the lights mixed above Long Huang's head, combining into one. And behind him, a snake, a mixture of green and gray, sporting two tiny, barely visible bumps on its head, appeared.
The people around exchanged glances with each other, clearly puzzled.
"A snake bloodline?"
Within their knowledge of beast-type martial spirits, a snake was either black, brown, green, yellow, red, or blue, but this snake appeared green and grey.
And as for a serpent, this was too small to be a serpent bloodline.
Chi Qide looked at the bloodline shadow above Long Huang and started to probe it with his spiritual sense, and after a moment, his puzzled eyes were tinted with a trace of triumph.
In his opinion, this bloodline was nothing but a mutated version of the snake bloodline, not even a serpent.
Some other sect disciples also possess mutated-type bloodlines. Therefore, compared to Chi Wei's Winged Black Tiger, the difference was like heaven and earth.
"Sect Leader, what do you think?"
Chief Elder Chen Ying couldn't help but refer to Chi Qide.
"A mutated snake bloodline, a high-level Ordinary grade bloodline at best." Chi Qide declared.
All elders and everyone present in the Martial Hall nodded their heads, apparently agreeing with the Chi Qide's judgment.
"A mutated snake, High-level Ordinary grade bloodline, huh?"
"So what!"
Long Huang thought as he stepped out from the beam, but his face was calm because if it truly was such a level, he was as good as dead. But he felt his bloodline wasn't as simple as a high-level Ordinary grade bloodline.
Seeing Long Huang's bloodline being only a High-grade ordinary bloodline, Chi Wei's lips curved into a mocking sneer, his eyes filled with arrogance as he looked at Long Huang.
Long Huang naturally saw Chi Wei's mocking smile, but he paid him no mind, for he was too lazy to play a staring game with a little kid.
One by one, more than a thousand disciples stepped into the light beam and had their bloodlines awakened, followed by the children of Blossom City.
Most of them possessed low-grade ordinary bloodlines, some high, and even a few variant bloodlines.
There were several waste bloodlines and some without any bloodline.
In this year's bloodline awakening ceremony, Long Huang's bloodline came in eighth place out of the thousands of 14-year-olds in the whole of Blossom City, but this didn't matter as he and the rest of the children were just a sideshow, overshadowed by Chi Wei's bloodline.
After the awakening ceremony ended, Chi Qide smiled and said to Huang Peng and the rest of the elders,
"I will personally be advising Chi Wei's practice from now on."
Personally advise? Hearing this, no one was surprised. After all, Chi Wei was his son and was talented to boot. And with that, Chi Qide turned and left with Chi Wei.
After bowing to the direction of the sect leader, all the elders and the disciples they had chosen left, including Huang Peng and Long Huang.
As the two turned to return to the manor. Huang Peng called out.
"Long Huang,'
"Though your talent isn't remarkable, it is still somewhat decent; you just have to put more effort into your practice, and achieving the Blood Tempering Realm will not be difficult for you," he said, trying to comfort him.
For he knew the grade of Long Huang's bloodline affected his chances of survival.
"I understand, fifth elder," said Long Huang as he nodded.
Long Huang then opened his mouth, wanting to tell Huang Peng that he felt his bloodline wasn't just an ordinary grade bloodline, but in the end, he didn't say anything, for it was only just a feeling, and he wasn't sure.
Soon after the two arrived at the manor, they sat and talked for a while about Long Huang's cultivation plan for the future.
Huang Peng first gave him a cultivation technique for training qi and explained the important points that Long Huang should focus on during practice. Long Huang listened attentively and memorized them in his heart.
Huang Peng even wanted to personally guide Long Huang as he first cultivated, but Long Huang declined, stating that 'You won't always be there with me, so it's best I figure it out on my own.' Before saying goodbye and leaving.
After leaving the courtyard's main hall, Long Huang rushed to his house to begin cultivating with the cultivation technique the fifth elder had taught him.
He sat down cross-legged on the bed and started absorbing the world's spiritual energy according to the Xuan Qi Breathing technique.
To operate the cultivation technique to refine the spiritual energy along the meridians, he copied the flow that Huang Peng taught him and directed the flow of energy for one complete cycle without obstacles or difficulties.
As Long Huang ran the cultivation technique, a shadow of a green and gray snake emerged behind Long Huang.
The so-called high-grade ordinary bloodline in Chi Qide's and the others' eyes suddenly stretched its jaw wide and devoured the surrounding energy in terrifying amounts, attracting the energy around Long Huang's body.
The energy devoured by the snake suddenly disappeared before entering Long Huang's body. Long Huang panicked,
"WTF! Where did the spiritual energy go?"
He continued trying to absorb the spiritual energy 10 more times, but it kept disappearing.
"Fuck! Am I destined to die an early death again?" Long Huang lamented.
"I won't bow to this stupid fate of mine, I refuse!" he roared and continued.
Boom!
And on the thirteenth try, an explosion wrung out, and Long Huang's bloodline shadow transformed.
Transforming into a beast with four legs and changing from basic green and grey to an evergreen and dark grey color with larger horns and shiny scales.
"Haha, haha! What Ordinary grade bloodline....hahaha!" Long Huang laughed crazily this change, confirming his suspicions.
At the same time, unknown to Long Huang, he himself also transformed.
The sudden transformation of his bloodline shocked and excited Long Huang; he never expected such a change. It made him so happy that he began to dance, and while dancing, he noticed a change in his hair color and rushed to his mirror.
Looking in the mirror, his previously raven black hair turned a silver-like grey, and his eyes were now a pure emerald green, becoming even more handsome, and his body more refined.
He also grew in height from 1.8 meters to 2 meters.
"My, my, well, hello, handsome."
Long Huang smirked, very satisfied with this transformation (by no means was Long Huang ugly before, but now he was on a different level).
Then, thinking with such an appearance, he could easily live a long, good life being a boy toy for rich and powerful women, but then he remembered that he only had 2 years to live.
"What a mood killer,"
Long Huang mumbled as he rolled his eyes at that thought. He then returned to his bed to continue cultivating.
As he sat cross-legged, his new bloodline shadow emerged and started to engulf the spiritual energy, but this time, the energy entered Long Huang's body, traveling along the meridians, and gradually transformed into Qi.
After a few hours, once again night approached, and stars hung across the night sky.
A short while later, Long Huang opened his eyes. His face wore a weird expression.
Earlier, he had followed the instructions from the cultivation technique the fifth elder gave him, using the Xuan Qi breathing technique's first layer, to refine the spiritual energy of the world into his own Qi.
It took others usually a while to under the concept of qi and how to change spiritual energy into the qi of their cultivation technique, but he did it in a day.
"How...how is this possible!"