Aimless Ascension

Gale didn't think he would meet anyone coincidentally today in the jungle, but he seemed to be mistaken as his eyes followed a figure moving through the jungle, from one branch to another, moving at a rapid pace.

The figure disregarded his presence at first, moved without discovering him, but came back after covering some distance.

Sun Ziang dropped from the branch of the tree, facing Gale. "I knew I wasn't mistaken."

"Well, congratulations," Gale greeted.

"Woof!" Vale too.

The handsome scion of the Sun Clan was too exhausted to respond to Gale's jab of sarcasm. It seemed Sun Ziang was in the wilderness for a few days. His striking silver hair wasn't glued to his scalp anymore, swaying along the wind. His clothes weren't clean either, stained with blood, sweat, and dirt.

"You're in the mountains since the last time I saw you?"

Sun Ziang shook his head. "I had been in the town for a while after you left," he said. "As for the mountains, I have been here for five days counting today."

"Must be something in particular you're looking for here?"

Sun Ziang nodded, though didn't get into the topic. "I heard you were looking for me?"

"That was over a week ago." Gale said, and paused. "Now that you're asking, I still have some use of you. Are you going back?"

Sun Ziang nodded.

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"Good. Come with me. I have something to deliver to you."

They left in sprints from there, exchanging little of what's going on with their life these past few days. Gale told him about the bandits and the spy he captured, to which the noble son reassured he would take care of his duty of being an enforcer.

As for the reason Sun Ziang was in the mountains, it was a little more complicated than he led on. Supposedly, Sun Ziang was looking for a particular mountain for some reason. Perhaps some hidden inheritance ground, though, how something here in this backwater town could tempt the noble scion of the Sun clan—Gale wasn't sure.

"It's not that I don't want to tell you," Sun Ziang told him. "I simply don't know the complete picture."

"No worries."

"All I know is that some ancestors of our family were stationed here."

"Ancestors, that should have been a long time ago."

Sun Ziang nodded. "Five thousand years at least."

"Jesus, mate. Five thousand years, was there anything other than these mountains at that time?"

"Of course," Sun Ziang added. "The cataclysm occurred ten thousands years ago which reset the world, but not everything destroyed at that point. Apparently, there was supposed to be a lost civilization that survived the catastrophe and left us with the legacy of spirit arts. Because of them, we're still able to flourish."

"People don't seem to learn much from history, do they? Anyway, what happened to that civilization? If they were that great, how they were lost?"

"We aren't sure, though the belief was that they left our world and ascended to the divine realm."

Gale clicked his tongue. "Are you looking for them in the mountains?"

"I don't know," Sun Ziang said. "This is supposed to be my punishment. At first, I thought it would only waste some of my time, but after venturing into the mountains, only then I learned how big of trouble I was in."

"You encountered something fishy?"

"You won't believe me if I say this, but I got lost multiple times in this jungle."

Gale halted and turned to Vale, who tilted his head as a silent communication transferred between them.

"For real?"

Sun Ziang sighed. "I made no progress, which led me to wonder why Mother forced me here. All of this should be in her calculation."

Gale frowned. "Wait, is your mother the matriarch? Sovereign White Spring?"

"I thought you didn't know much about the eastern domain."

"Dude, I'm new to this place, but wasn't living under a rock before. Everyone knows all the big shots like the Sovereigns and Sages."

"My bad," Sun Ziang said. "And yes, I'm her son, the youngest."

Gale wasn't very knowledgeable about the families of sovereignty, but as far as he was concerned, Sovereign White Spring had several offspring over the years. Sun Ziang was the only child she had in recent times, as it takes several decades for a sovereign to bear a child the way she wanted.

Well, from the look of Sun Ziang, all the wait should be worth it.

Anyway, some of her children were hundreds of years old, and have children of their own who're already as big as this dude here or even older.

Every one of Sun Ziang's age would hail him uncle or great uncle in relation. Sun Ziang must have had a terrible time in his clan.

Gale chuckled, thinking that.

"I can probably guess what you're thinking," the white harried fellow said with a snort.

"Yeah, it's a great tragedy you don't have a sister close to your age."

Sun Ziang glared at him.

"I'm merely joking," Gale said in defeat. "Who do you think I am to court a sovereign's daughter?"

Sun Ziang snorted. "You seem exactly like a person who disregards a person's identity and does anything you like."

"What gives such a poor impression?"

"Take this moment for instance, how you're talking to me causally even after knowing my mother is one of the strongest individuals in this world."

'Well, you're not wrong, though most of it is because your mother isn't here. Still, it's a great tragedy, you don't have a sister of a similar age.'

Well, even if there were, it's not like they would fall for him with how he was now. Perhaps Vale could help, but it was a pipe dream in the end.

"It's not so easy to court the women of our clan," Sun Ziang said, piercing directly into his intentions. "They will beat the crap out of people first and ask questions later. Advance with caution if you like."

Gale coughed. "Sounds feisty."

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