At this moment, in front of the palace gates there were countless exorbitant carriages and numerous exotic beast drawn carts. They were all waiting in a neat line just abiding their time before they entered the palace. Inside the palace, there was a grand courtyard that had many rare spirit herbs and countless spirit trees baring ripe fruit for the taking. This scene in fact was nothing out of the ordinary for many of the larger and more powerful factions. Further in this courtyard sat a pavilion. This pavilion was a feast for the eyes. It was carved completely out of rare material called Aurora Ice. This ice got its name from the azure waves of light that are constantly flowing throughout it. Inside this pavilion sat all of the top geniuses of the younger generation. They were all within the age range of about twenty to fifty years old. Yes fifty. In a world where people can live for thousands of years, many people considered anything under the age of one hundred to be quite young. There were many eye catching people in the pavilion, but currently all eyes were on one younger man, the previously mentioned second prince. Most of these geniuses grew up around each other or have at least seen each other so when they finally saw a new face they were all curious. Someone finally asked, "Who are you exactly?" The second prince responded cooly, "The second prince of Nanlong." Hearing this, the crowd muttered for just a moment before settling down. A handsome young man came forward and chatted with the second prince for a while. This young man was a genius from the Amethyst Ice Sect and not from one of the Human's Seven Greats so the second prince couldn't even recognize who he was talking to and didnt bother asking either. Its not that the Amethyst Ice Sect was a pushover, its just that the second prince was far too arrogant. The genius from the Amethyst Ice Sect, seeing how he was being given the cold shoulder by the second prince, said with a little bit of scorn "Is the first prince of Nanlong here? How come we haven't seen him?" The crowd went completely silent and immediately turned to stare at the second prince. The matter of the first prince leaving the Nanlong family was a secret but it wasnt a secret at the same time. How could such big news such as a successor leaving of one of the Human's Seven Greats not be leaked? The news was just too great to keep under control. The prince's face turned red because he knew that he kicked himself in the shins by mistreating the young man in front of him. The prince also knew that he couldn't publicly say anything about the first prince as well because it would only be a laughing matter to the other families if they knew why such a talented descendant was kicked out of the clan. If the first prince was just a bastard, then so be it, nobody would care if he was kicked out or killed, but the bastard in this case had supreme talent, and most factions regardless of face would do all they could to hold onto such a talent. But in the Nanlong family, he was aggressively chased out. How could members of the Nanlong family explain it while keeping face? Not knowing how to answer, the second prince kept his demeanor of arrogance and quietly retreated, acting as if he never heard the question in the first place. A few people in the crowd chuckled but the majority of them really wanted to know why the first prince left the Nanlong family, so they were a bit disappointed not getting an answer. However, what they wanted to know more about was mostly where the first prince of Nanlong was. They wanted to desperately recruit such an individual. If he could be pulled over to their side or enter their ranks through marriage, how beneficial would it be?
Back at the cabin, Vain successfully identified all six of the materials that Uncle Ale had set up, it was no problem for him. Uncle Ale was extremely satisfied with these results as well. Uncle Ale gave him a thumbs up saying, "Good job little fella, it looks like you passed this test quite easily. Just remember, never ever be complacent. Complacency leads to death." Uncle Ale said the ladder half in all seriousness and then thought to himself, "I can never let others know how talented he is. It would definitely be the death of him. Being able to know all of this by the age of four, being at the human realm at the age of four... how terrifying." Vain asked, "Uncle, didnt you say you would reward me?" "Greedy brat... here take it." Uncle Ale reached behind himself and grabbed a huge book off of the bookshelf, holding it in front of Vain. Vain now had twenty four years of combined experience with his two lives yet seeing a mere book almost made him break into tears on the spot, Vain shouted with red eyes "Injustice!" "Stinky brat, wait for me to explain. This is a book of weapons, ok? You can go through it, pick out a weapon you like and tell me why you like it. If its reasonable, I'll try my best to get the weapon for you by the time you become five or six years old. In this time I won't give you anything else to do. However, you must study your inborn powers yourself during this time. You have no relatives or ancestry to go through, so it will be quite difficult for you to figure out how your powers work. Keep in mind that if your weapon doesn't match your style and power it will severely hinder your overall strength." Vain's sour mood immediately turned into joy. He eagerly took the book from Uncle Ale, grabbed a seat, and started going through it. It turned out to be a book filled with paintings of weapons and a small description of the weapon beneath each painting, so all in all it didnt take Vain too long to go through the entire book, just a few hours. Now for the hard part, Vain needed to do a deep dive into himself to figure out just how his powers work. To be honest, he's never really even tried to use his powers besides to absorb the blood of creatures, but this didnt mean that Vain didn't know where to start. His powers obviously had something to do with his blood, so he started experimenting.
Vain started with the most basic thing he could think of on the spot. Which was poking a hole on his tiny pointer finger and dripping it onto a wooden plate. After doing this, Vain stared at his blood fixedly for at least two hours and immediately noticed something strange - his blood didnt dry. Vain jotted this point down on a piece of paper and set it aside He pushed the plate to the side of the desk to see how long it would take to dry. Vain pulled out another wooden plate and dripped more blood on it. A few more hours passed, Vain didnt notice anything different with his blood this time and it was getting late so he decided to go to bed. When Vain woke up, he decided to check on his blood that he left on the wooden plates. Vain discovered that the blood still didnt dry. He jotted this fact down on his paper, ate some breakfast and then went back to constantly observing his blood. Days passed. Weeks passed. Months passed. A full year had passed and Vain was now five years old. During this time, Uncle Ale consistently brought Vain dead creatures so he could absorb their blood causing his Rank to reach Human four. Vain also figured out two things about his blood powers besides his blood never drying. The first being, the baby made of blood that he saw when he was almost suffocated by the White Rabbit is probably himself. After such a long time, he finally managed to enter that strange space where the blood baby was again, but this time the blood baby was a little boy and Vain didn't know why, but his instincts were telling him that they were one and the same. The second thing Vain figured out about his powers also relates to this strange space. At the same time he entered the strange space again and saw the blood boy, Vain saw two creatures in the periphery of the strange space. A bloody figure that had the appearance of a stag and a bloody figure that had the appearance of a rabbit. Of course he recognized these two creatures but as to why they're in the strange space, he didnt know. Vain could only remember hearing the words "blood essence" after absorbing the Mutated Three Eyed Stag's blood. As to What those words meant, Vain didnt know for the time being. He still needed more time to explore himself. Uncle Ale seeing Vain rigorously trying to figure out his power himself, just let him be. If Vain couldn't make any progress or he made a breakthrough in understanding, then he would naturally tell him. Another six months passed in the blink of an eye. Vain was five and a half years old now and Human Rank five. On this day, in the early morning, Uncle Ale and Vain were basking in the sunlight that broke through the clearing in the woods, enjoying a sumptuous breakfast when suddenly, they both heard an odd, constant faint sound coming from deeper within the woods. The sound was barely audible so they couldnt make it out just yet, but they both turned their heads and gazed in the direction they heard the sound coming from and saw nothing. Vain said with some doubt, "Do you know what is making that sound Uncle?" "No" Uncle Ale said. Not seeming to care, Uncle Ale just went back to focusing on his meal. A few minutes passed, the noise kept getting louder and louder each moment when out of nowhere Uncle Ale snapped, "What the f*ck!?? Is it those damn bugs again?" Vain was shocked, he couldn't remember a time when he'd ever seen Uncle Ale so mad. Furthermore, as if to answer Uncle Ale's question, a giant cloud appeared over their heads in an instant. The cloud was so large that the morning rays of light immediately dimmed so much that it appeared to be night in the surroundings. This scared Vain, he had never seen anything like this before. After all, he was just too new to this strange strange world. However scary it may be, Vain noticed that Uncle Ale wasnt worried at all, so Vain soon calm downed. "Uncle, is everything alright?" "Yes, its just going to make a mess. This happened once before and it took me weeks to clean up all of the bugs." "Weeks? Bugs?" Vain was astonished. "Just how many bugs is that?" Uncle Ale - "Hundreds of thousands, if not millions. They're all Human Rank Blood Mosquitoes." Vain - "How horrifying." Uncle Ale - "Yes it can be. This many Blood Mosquitoes could even kill a peak Bone Conditioning realm, maybe even a lower Organ Conditioning realm if they had a weaker defense." Vain - "Bone Conditioning realm? Organ Conditioning realm?" Uncle Ale - "Yes. They are the next two stages after the Human realm. Nothing for you to worry about for now." Vain nodded and said nothing else. Uncle Ale said one last thing "Watch." Vain naturally obeyed and did just that.
A few moments later, a terrifying aura briefly flashed out of Uncle Ale's body instantly enveloping the sky.
*Tut tut tut tut tut* The large swath of bugs that took up the entire sky started bursting one by one, making a loud popping noise that was so loud it sent reverberations throughout all of the surroundings, making the trees sway and the wild fauna get blown away. Soon after, the sky was clear of bugs revealing the bright rays of sunlight that belonged to the early morning. However, as bright as the sun was, it started to downpour. It was the blood from all of the Blood Mosquitoes. There was so much of it that all of Vain's body was instantly soaked from head to toe. It wasn't just him either. All of the surroundings, the cabin, the shed, the trees, the grass, the river, everything was completely covered in the bugs' blood. The blood emitted a sour, pungent smell that made ones nose flinch and stomach convulse. Seeing this sight for a second time, Uncle Ale was so mad that he wanted to vomit blood and add onto the bloodied surroundings. But Uncle Ale swallowed his anger and immediately turned to check on Vain's condition. To his surprise, Vain was sitting cross legged with his eyes closed, not paying attention to any of his surroundings at all. Moreover, Vain was actually spotless. Uncle Ale then saw the blood in the surroundings slowly moving towards Vain, It was incredibly slow. In fact, a normal person probably wouldn't be able to notice it at first.