Pathway

Chapter 26: A Delightful Day [1]

Since returning from the valley of the gods, Zhang Xiu Ying had changed drastically. The power of her newly acquired divine aura[energy released from the body], could become overpowering to any lower level cultivators if not masked. That showcased the increase in her level of power. It was an heavenly advancement of her demigod aura.

The demigod could now generate divine force from her aura before releasing it through the divine body blasts. It could cause a great deal of damage.

A glimpse of full godhood

And her bloodline's divine evasion? Zhang Xiu Ying no longer had a need to switch to her divine avatar to use minor teleportation. She could directly use her human body to teleport over an area the size of the Ankhora continent, without leaving a trace behind. Unless the one tracing her, was another divine demigod, a nascent soul of equal power, or a daemon king and above.

But the best part of her universal gift was the newly acquired glimpse of divine sight. She could see the presence of all spirit beings, and sense their actions in the area of nineteen million square miles around her. That was half the size of Ankhora continent.

Ju Feng looked at her mother in full delight.

His mother had become a legendary figure just like his newly acquired uncle. Now, he wouldn't need to worry about things that much. The only thing on his mind now was about making himself better, starting with making friends. Not that he didn't have friends due to him being weird or strange, not at all. Actually, he exchanged pleasantries with kids like himself whenever he went to the village market.

It was his mother and grandparents that had prevented him from having any close friends. And since they too didn't associate with anybody in the village apart from the village headman and lord Gaius on village duty, he hadn't worry about it much. Ju Feng believed they must have had their reasons for that, and had removed his mind from that thoughts to concentrate more on his cultivation.

But after the attack on them at the lunar plain, they had told him the reasons for them keeping to themselves. And why they had asked him to do the same.

His family was from the White fountain village on the Xuanpu continent. It was a relatively large village, but the people lived peacefully and harmoniously. The clans were hardly differentiable since they had interwoven through the family ties of marriages. But one day, the peaceful village was thrown into utter chaos. They were attacked by an army of demon fiends who had entered their village through an open portal at the centre of the village.

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Those demons were manifesting a shimmering dark energy. The energy they now knew as atrament.

Majority of the villagers had died or vanished from the ensued battle, including his father. The last they had seen of him was his fights with the demons amidst the envelope of the black mass. After that, they hadn't seen him again. They couldn't find any traces of him or his corpse. Even Zhang Xiu Ying could no longer connect to him.

They knew of deadly attacks that could disintegrate a body into vapour or ashes. Maybe, the shimmering dark energy was one of them, but they didn't want to accept that. They thought, maybe, there was a chance to find him. They had searched everywhere for him to no avail. That made them concluded that he was killed too.

After a long wait, ruminating on what happened and what next, their village chieftain, two nascent soul elders and the village's Xue-Wu, appeared at their residence. The Xue-Wu had consulted the oracle bones. And one of the elders had a divine beast, an Abyssinian cat, one of the extremely rare divine beasts that had innate divination. The cat had also made it known to the elder, the very cause of the attack.

The Zhang family of the Zhang clan.

The fiend demons had attacked their village because of them, with the name of their daughter, Zhang Xiu Ying, the only one on the demons' death list. The village council had made their decision. Based on the divination of the oracle bones, the family couldn't be allowed to remain in the village. If they were to stay, they would bring death and ruin to the whole village.

Hence, they would have to leave the village. The Zhang clan were not banished, but the Zhang family responsible for the attack was no longer allowed to stay.

The Zhangs, upon hearing these words, decided to leave the village and its continent behind, and they moved to another continent. The continent of Ankhora. After searching different villages for a time, they found this quiet place to live and farm. They had shunned all association with the people of the village due to the fear of the demon's finding out their where-about. They even had to use their ancestral defensive arrays to mask their location.

And they had been successful, until recently, when they were attacked by the daemon kings at the lunar plains.

How the demons found out where they were, and when to get them, baffled them to no end. Since a quiet life provided no assurance to a secured life, they had told Ju Feng of the whole situation. They no longer needed to live a quite life, now that they had the protection of more powerful entities. And it came with an assurance of safety from further attacks from the nether-plane. Hence, they had encouraged Ju Feng to make friends since it no longer mattered how they lived.

When Ju Feng was receiving all the information, he was having a faint insight too. He couldn't totally lay his hand on it, but the feeling was there. It made him took the information in strides, without experiencing the tragic emotion of an abject loss. He was actually having an inner peace that came with the feelings of things sorting themselves out. He needed to trust his childling instinct, whatever that was. Thus, he pushed the thought about his father and his birth place, to the back of his mind.

Looking at how his young life had panned out so far, he really felt gratified. He had spent his past years, ten good years, cultivating and practicing martial arts. He had everything he needed growing up. His loving family, the blue crystalline, the delicious magical beasts, he simply had them all. How could he not appreciate them?

So for now, he wanted to make friends or learn how to make friends.

FRIENDS!

This was quite a task, but when he would eventually make friends, he would become a legend of his own. Ah, stuff of legends. Ju Feng's face lit up in smile as he decided it was time for him to take a walk though the village. Seeing her son approaching, Zhang Xiu Ying waved him over.

"Can you hold this for me, son?"

She handed him a large empty granite jar as she prepared to milk one of the goats.

"Yes, ma."

"By the way, what brings you here at this time? And don't tell me it's nothing."

"Ma, I was thinking, maybe I can take the milk to the market today. I know the procedures, mother. You know I've been following you before. So, maybe, I should try today by myself?"

"Hm. I think that will be very good of you. Then, let's quickly finish milking the goats so you can be on your way."

Lost in their different thoughts, they continued milking the goats. Zhang Xiu Ying knew her son just wanted to take a walk in the village, but she was still a bit nervous about it. But due to the new developments, she understood there was no need for her to be worried about him going alone to the market. She could monitor his movement anywhere in the village with her divine sight, and if there was any problem, she could be there in a second.

They quickly finished with the goats, making two large jars filled with milk. They packed the two jars into the back basket, and Ju Feng carrying the basket on his back, left for the market.

He was a very strong boy by the standard of a young cultivator, but much stronger than they could even imagine. How could they even believe his nature as a young mortal cultivator, if they could see his full strength. He comfortably carried the large basket of jars of milk on his back as he smilingly hummed to himself, enjoying the scenery of the landscape beauty.

It was quite a walk to the market since their cave house was at the extreme end of village outskirt. And due to the location of the market in the village, he had to walk a bit longer with more road turns, heading towards the market.

Ju Feng was turning to the road that entered the village when he noticed a boy of his own age staring at something on the floor.