The Attack of the Wastrel

“You said… you’re just a spirit… does it mean that you’re…”

“Yes, my physical body no longer exists. What you see now is the manifestation of the thoughts that I’ve had before I passed away. I’ve been waiting to meet someone from the later generations that belongs to the Spirit Tribe so that I could ask how things were going with the Tribe. Tell me, child, how is our Tribe doing now?”

Gu Lingzhi opened her mouth to speak, but she did not know how to answer. Before she was reborn, the Spirit Tribe was only a legend to her. Even after she had reborn, her knowledge of the Spirit Tribe was only based on what people had told her. How could she answer the man’s question?

Gu Lingzhi’s silence made the man heave a long sigh, “Never mind, I already knew that the extinction of our Tribe would occur sooner or later, a small part of me was hoping for a different outcome. It is extremely fortunate to be able to still see a descendant of the Spirit Tribe today, I shall not ask for more.”

Gu Lingzhi could not bear to look at the man’s desolate expression, she explained, “Ancestor, please don’t jump to conclusions yet, I’m not entirely sure how the Spirit Tribe is doing right now.”

She continued to tell the man certain legends that have been circulating around in the Tianyuan Continent in recent years.

“…If that’s the case, then the Spirit Tribe is still trapped in the Forbidden Land. You must keep your identity a secret. I also see that you have your own Inheritance Space, that is a treasure that has been passed down through generations in the Spirit Tribe. One can only awaken it if he has the blood of the Spirit Tribe.”

“…You can see my Inheritance Space?” Gu Lingzhi gasped, retreating a few steps and got into a defensive stance.

The Inheritance Space was her greatest secret, she had decided that she would never talk about it to anyone in her life. Yet, this man who called himself as the Spirit Tribe’s ancestor could actually read her mind and see her Inheritance Space. It made her wary.

“Do not be alarmed, we are of the same blood, why would I harm you? I only want you to be more careful. Pan Luo has eyes and ears everywhere, if anyone knows that you have an Inheritance Space, the news would surely reach him. When that happens, it will surely be the end of our Tribe.”

“Pan Luo? Isn’t that the Deity King?”

Though there had been very few True Gods in the Tianyuan Continent these few years, there was much speculation about them. The most well-known one was Pan Luo, who had defeated every other True God more than ten thousand years ago, becoming the Deity King. He enacted a set of rules in the Realm of the Gods, which caused the number of True Gods in the Tianyuan Continent to diminish, and eventually disappear.

“The Deity King?” the man could not help but laugh at how Gu Lingzhi had regarded Pan Luo as the Deity King. He laughed so hard that he cried.

“Haha, the Deity King. He must have waited very long for this day. How does he sit so comfortably on the throne that’s covered in the blood of my tribespeople?”

Could it be that the extinction of the Spirit Tribe was related to the Deity King? Gu Lingzhi was completely bewildered by the man’s words.

The man wiped away the tears that formed at the corner of his eyes, he looked at Gu Lingzhi, his eyes filled with hatred.

“Child, do you want to hear a story?”

“…Yes.” Gu Lingzhi had a gut feeling that she had to know the man’s story. However, before that, she decided to push her luck and tell the man what she had been worrying about before she arrived at this place.

“Ancestor, before you begin your story, could you send my friends to this place too? There has been a Spiritual Energy Surge, I’m afraid they will be in danger…”

“Do not worry, child. Before I brought you here, I have expelled everyone from the Spiritual Sword. Hopefully, no one is too unlucky to have fallen in some powerful demon beast’s nest. Otherwise, everyone should be safe.”

Gu Lingzhi sighed in relief, feeling as if a stone had been lifted from her heart. She smiled at the man, “Ancestor, you can go ahead with your story, I’m all ears.”

The man brought her into the house. He told Gu Lingzhi the story of what had happened in the past.

Betrayals, killings, genocides…

The Spirit Tribe had control over almost half the Continent went extinct all because they mistrusted one man.

Many years ago, the Spirit Tribe carried the burden of leading all Martial Artists. They shared a countless number of cultivation techniques and secrets that they had researched about with other tribes. The leader of the Tribe at the time wanted to find an opportunity to become a True God, so he wandered around the Shangyuan Continent frequently to get some inspiration. Unexpectedly, he had taken a boy from the Human Tribe to become his last disciple.

The Tribe Leader then put all his energy into teaching his disciples everything that he knew. That boy from the Human Tribe was exceptionally smart – not only did he manage to learn everything that he had been taught, he even knew how to come up with his own techniques. In less than a thousand years, both the Tribe Leader and the boy became True Gods and entered the Realm of the Gods.

Logically, after entering the Realm of the Gods, one would not have much interaction with the Lower Realms anymore.

However, the Tribe Leader could not put down his worries regarding the Spirit Tribe, so he occasionally went down to the Lower Realms. At the same time, his cultivation had exponentially increased. It was not long before he came even more powerful than all the True Gods before him.

People started becoming suspicious of how fast the Spirit Tribe’s Leader was advancing. In the Realm of the Gods, rumors started spreading that the Spirit Tribe was placed above the Human Tribe because they had a precious treasure that allowed them to increase their level of cultivation. As long as one could get a hold of that treasure, he could become a king amongst the gods.

This rumor caused people to start plotting against the Spirit Tribe. The Tribe Leader’s disciple also turned against him. Not only did he not show an ounce of gratefulness towards the Tribe Leader, he also blamed the Tribe Leader for not sharing precious items with him. Together with the other gods, this disciple set the Tribe Leader up. They organized a ceremony under the excuse of expressing gratitude for their masters and invited all the True Gods from the Spirit Tribe. During the ceremony, they drugged all their wine cups with a special potion that could disable their spiritual powers temporarily.

Then, the massacre began.

They tried to extort information about where the precious treasure was located from the gods of the Spirit Tribe. However, the Spirit Tribe did not even have such a treasure to begin with. Their greatest treasure was their wisdom and natural talents, and the Tribe Leader was exceptionally perceptive, which allowed him to advance so quickly.

The other True gods ended up not getting any information that they wanted, but how could they stop there after going through the trouble of organizing such a big ceremony?

They were enraged and killed all the True Gods of the Spirit Tribe. To prevent the rest of the Spirit Tribe from taking revenge, they started a mass genocide of the entire Spirit Tribe. The disappearance of the Spirit Tribe remained a mystery in the whole of the Tianyuan Continent for the next few decades.

That disciple that was taken in by the Leader of the Spirit Tribe was none other than Pan Luo.

“What happened to the Spirit Tribe afterwards?”

“Afterwards…our tribe was forced into the Forbidden Land. We had no choice but to make a difficult decision to sacrifice a big proportion of the tribe to save a few. The remaining True Gods that were still alive led the tribesmen who were willing to sacrifice themselves to lure the enemy away, leaving behind the youths who could continue the bloodline. We sealed them up in another small realm and cut off all possible connections to that realm, and even the connection to the Tianyuan Continent. When one of them can finally cultivate to become a True God, he or she can re-enter the world and take back everything that belongs to us!” The man looked intently at Gu Lingzhi, as if trying to re-imagine what it had been like during the days when the Spirit Tribe flourished.

“Thinking back, our tribespeople used to be spread out all over the Tianyuan Continent. Anywhere you went, you could find traces of us. Now, it took me almost five hundred thousand years to find a single descendant of the Spirit Tribe. When I found you, I thought that our tribe would have a change in luck and survive this entire ordeal to regain control of the Tianyuan Continent again, but I guess not.”

Gu Lingzhi had no idea how to comfort the man. Her mind was also in a mess.

Originally, she had concealed her identity as being part of the Spirit Tribe due to her own intuition, but now she knows that she was right, and that there was a much bigger reason why she could never let anybody know her true identity.

The pressure was on her to avenge the extermination of her tribe, it made her realize that from today on, she had to take things a little more seriously than she used to. The moment she had opened her Inheritance Space, she had gained full access to the Spirit Tribe’s centuries of knowledge. From today onwards, her main goal was to eventually become a true god so that she could strip Pan Luo of his power and dethrone him. While she was doing that, she would ask him whether he had ever regretted betraying his master and killing all those innocent people.

“Alright, that’s the end of the story. You can leave now. Remember to pick up those Enlightenment Fragments on the outside, they will help you advance quicker.”

“Yes, Ancestor.” Gu Lingzhi would not reject the man’s good intentions. Based on what he had described, she could infer that the man had been a True God when he was alive. The Heavenly Law Fragments were her ancestor’s enlightenment that had dissociated into many fragments. There was no guarantee that anyone who picked up those Enlightenment Fragments could instantly become a True God, but it could expand one’s horizons and allow one to advance even quicker.

As long as Gu Lingzhi had cultivated enough spiritual energy, she could advance as quickly as she wanted, until she became a True God!

With the help of the man, Gu Lingzhi did not experience any pain when she absorbed the Enlightenment Fragments. It allowed her cultivation to soar rapidly and within half an hour, she advanced to become a Peak Level Martial Practitioner.

“Do not try to breakthrough yet because you just did not long ago, your energy is still unstable. If you advance too quickly, your foundation will be unstable.” The man then casted some spells on Gu Lingzhi to reduce her urge to breakthrough. “I’ve cast three different seals on you, when you feel that your energy is stable, you can open one of them. When you are close to becoming a Martial Lord, then you can open the other two.”

“I understand,” Gu Lingzhi nodded, concentrating on absorbing the remaining Fragments. This time, she no longer felt that the Fragments were consuming her.

As the Fragments flowed in her direction, she could feel them being easily absorbed, almost as if she possessed three black holes in her body. In actual fact, it was due to the three seals that had been placed on her by her ancestor.