Volume 1: The Way of Martial Arts, Innate Chapter 2: Demoted to a Slave

  In the Wu Bei Ge, Ye Xu raised his head. This treasure trove of the Ye family was a place he had never entered before.

  The first thing that caught my eye was a copper mirror over ten feet tall, with an elliptical shape and intricate carvings of dragons, phoenixes, and flowers around the edges, emitting a sense of ancient solemnity. This copper mirror is obviously extremely old and not just any ordinary mirror.

  Below the copper mirror is a giant toad cast in bronze, with its four limbs squatting on the ground and its large mouth holding this copper mirror.

  Ye Xue had heard other young men in the clan talk about this strange copper mirror, which was said to be called Tongxin Shenjing, a magical shamanic treasure that could reflect one's true spirit and communicate with heaven.

  An elderly man with white hair sat upright in front of the Tongxin Shenjing mirror, closed his eyes and concentrated, a black air current surged out from the top of his head, like a three-foot-square dark cloud, a black flag fluttered back and forth within the black air, its surface trembling and rustling.

  That old man's white eyebrows and eagle eyes emitted an aura that made it hard for him to breathe!

  Ye Xuheng's heart skipped a beat: "This person is the one in charge of the Wu Bei Pavilion, the sorcerer Grey Eagle Ye Lun? I've heard that he was originally a prominent figure among the Liu Zhou demonic path sorcerers, and his yuan Shen is a grey giant eagle. This person is ruthless and has many lives on his hands. Later, he was subdued by the master of the manor and entered the Ye Manor, responsible for cultivating new sorcerers for the Ye family."

  That old man, Ye Fan, sensed someone entering, opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and sucked all the black air on top of his head into his abdomen. Then he stretched out his withered hands like twigs, lightly beckoned, and the black banner gently fell into his hand. The black banner fluttered in the wind and grew to over a person's height in an instant. Its surface was pitch-black, making it look even more ominous and eerie.

  Ye Fan stood up with a black flag, saw Ye Xu's young age, and couldn't help but reveal a surprised expression. He said in a gloomy tone: "At such a young age, you've already cultivated the Xiantian Body, you're indeed a talented individual. Young one, stand before the divine mirror, don't move, let it reflect your primordial spirit."

  Ye Xun bowed and walked to the front of the huge copper mirror, looked into it, but saw that the mirror surface was dull and unreflective, a murky greenish color, and couldn't see any image at all.

  He was astonished in his heart, and suddenly the old man Ye Fan pulled out a cow ear knife and swiftly slashed it across his palm. Fresh blood gushed out instantly. Ye Xu was both shocked and furious, but before he could react, he saw Ye Fan shake the black flag, let out a stern cry, and a cluster of fresh blood flew up from his palm and surged into the black flag.

  That large banner was nourished by his blood and energy, the black fog rolled in, suddenly transforming into a skull head about a foot long, spewing out a mouthful of black smoke onto the copper mirror. Ye Fan shouted loudly, his left hand's five fingers dancing with changes, instantly striking out over a hundred giant palm prints, shouting: "Primordial spirit manifestation, communicating with all heavens, open!"

  Ye Xue only then knew that Ye Fan had no malice, but to activate the Tongxin Shenjing mirror, his fresh blood was needed as a guide, so as to display the yuan god and communicate with all heavens, he hastily looked towards the copper mirror.

  All that can be seen is the Tongxin Shenjing mirror, with a faint blue glow gradually disappearing. The surface of the mirror slowly brightens and the blurry image within it also becomes clearer.

  Ye Fan's low and mysterious voice came from the side: "Young man, after your primordial spirit appears later, you must immediately concentrate on communicating with the Heavenly Dao. If you can get the recognition of the Ten Earths Demon Dao in the Heavenly Dao, the Heavenly Dao will grant a jade building. The jade building contains all things, including the cultivation methods and witchcraft of the Wu Shi! Only by obtaining the jade building can one be considered a Demon Dao Wu Shi!"

  Ye Xu also understood Wu Shi and knew what he meant by his words.

  The necessary condition for becoming a wizard is to communicate with the origin of all things through the yuan god and obtain the recognition of the heavenly way.

  What is called the Way of Heaven is actually the law of nature, and all things in the world are within the framework of this law. From ancient times to the present, no one has been able to escape the constraints of the Way of Heaven.

  Communicating with the Heavenly Way is simply a strong martial artist using their yuan Shen to communicate with the heavens, obtaining a portion of the heavenly and earthly laws' inheritance. This inheritance is the heart method and witchcraft.

  Heart method can improve the cultivation of witches, and witchcraft is the means of attack for witches.

  The treasure bestowed by the Nine Heavenly Laws is called a pagoda, and the treasure bestowed by the Ten Earthly Laws is called a building.

  The wizard who obtained the treasure tower got the orthodox inheritance, while the wizard who obtained the jade building got the evil inheritance.

  The heavenly bestowed pagodas and jade buildings are divided into nine grades, four levels, and thirty-six ranks. Taking the pagoda as an example, the more layers of the pagoda, the higher the grade, the better the provided mental method.

  Among them, the nine-story pagoda has nine grades, with four colors: yellow, green, black and white. The golden color is the best, followed by cyan, then black, and white is the lowest grade. The nine-story crystal golden pagoda is the top-grade product, it's a priceless treasure, cultivating the central method of the tower can achieve great success and communicate with gods.

  The eight-story pagoda is divided into eight grades, and so on.

  As for the one-story treasure pagoda, it is a first-class product, with the lowest grade and the most unrefined mental method. The witch calls it the lower lower grade. A single-layer white jade pagoda or white jade building is of the lower lower grade.

  Cultivating lower-grade heart methods has no magical powers and is only slightly better than the world's martial arts.

  In an instant, the green gas on the surface of the Tongxin Shenjing mirror completely dissipated. Ye Yun nodded and said: "It has finally appeared. Young man, take a look, this is your primordial spirit!"

  Ye Xuhui was shocked, and hastily looked over, only to see a handsome blue-clad youth appear in the mirror, which was his own reflection. Suddenly, the image in the mirror exploded with a loud noise, and his body disintegrated instantly, breaking down into billions of spiritual lights that filled the entire mirror surface, twinkling like the countless stars in the night sky.

  These rays of light seemed to be drawn by an invisible force, gradually gathering together to form a majestic ancient tree with lush branches and leaves, its canopy covering the sky!

  This ancient tree has survived for countless tens of thousands of years, extremely old and weathered. Glorious light shines in all directions, auspicious aura flows in thousands of strands, pouring down from the top of the ancient tree!

  The dormant yuan Shen has finally awakened.

  In the midst of obscurity, Ye Xuan seemed to feel another self within him finally awakening from his dormant slumber. The joy in his heart was ineffable: "When the first generation master of the Ye family's primordial spirit awakened, he said that seeing one's reflection reveals one's true nature. Today, I finally understand what it means! I didn't comprehend the meaning of this phrase before, but now I finally get it. It turns out that he was saying that using the Heart-Communicating Mirror to awaken the primordial spirit is the only way to know what one's own primordial spirit truly is!"

  Suddenly, he seemed to realize that with his own Yuan Shen awakening, there was an extra thing in his Dantian.

  Ye Xue hastily looked inward at his dantian, and saw that it was filled with Cang Ming True Qi. It seemed like a sea of clouds, and in the center of the cloud sea, a white jade pagoda rose and fell, shooting out billions of rays of light, illuminating the cloud sea until it shone golden.

  This White Jade Tower has only one story, and it is unknown what material was used to cast it. It seems like gold but is not gold, seems like jade but is not jade. The four corners are pointed upwards, with dragon heads on the corners spitting out jade beads. The tower body is covered in strange patterns, as if clouds and fog are rolling, dragons and snakes are leaping.

  Ye Xuan was shocked: "I haven't even had time to communicate with the heavens, gain the recognition of the Heavenly Dao, how could a white jade palace suddenly appear in my dantian? Could it be that this white jade palace has always been inside me, but I just didn't discover it, and only revealed itself when my yuan Shen awakened..."

  Ye Fan was also shocked and bewildered. He had been in charge of the Martial Equipment Pavilion for decades, but this was the first time he had seen someone's primordial spirit that was actually a strange and ancient tree!

  "My primordial spirit is a grey giant eagle, while the primordial spirit of Ye Si Dao, the master of the manor, is an ancient rare demon beast - Mangmu Zhuo. The primordial spirits of others in the manor are also mostly demon beasts, so why is this kid's primordial spirit so strange? Now, let's see if this kid can obtain the inheritance of the Ten Lands' Devil Path and become a shaman... Alright, this kid has finally been acknowledged by Heaven!"

  Ye Fan's eyes lit up with delight, and he looked up to see a faint light descending from the sky, heading straight for him. Faintly visible within the light was a Seven-Star Glacial Jade Pavilion, which was a sign that Ye Fan had gained the recognition of the Heavenly Dao and been bestowed with the Demon Dao Jade Pavilion.

  That faint light wrapped around the Seven Star Cold Jade Tower had just landed on Ye Xu's head, and Ye Xu was shocked to discover that the White Jade Tower in his dantian suddenly became restless, as if it was extremely enraged by the arrival of the Seven Star Tower. A terrifying power burst out from the jade tower.

  Qī Xīng Hán Yù Lóu fǎng fú zāo dào wú xíng de zhòng jī, hōng de yī shēng bàozhà, qì làng héng sǎo, jī hū Wǔ Bèi Gé chè dǐ cuī huǐ!

  Translation:

  The Seven Stars Cold Jade Building seemed to have suffered an invisible heavy blow, with a loud explosion, the air waves swept across, almost completely destroying the Martial Preparation Pavilion!

  And the Seven Star Cold Jade Building was also destroyed in the explosion, gone without a trace!

  Ye Xue was at the center of the explosion. Although he had his innate Qi to protect him, this level of explosion was not something that an Innate Martial Artist could withstand. The youth was stunned without making a sound, and in his heart, he was still puzzled: "What's going on..."

  Ye Fan was also blown away by the air wave, and as soon as his foot landed, four figures flashed, and Ye Si Dao, the master of the mansion, appeared in the Wu Bei Pavilion. Seeing the Wu Bei Pavilion in disarray, even Ye Si Dao, who had a deep city, couldn't help but get really angry, and he lowered his voice to shout: "Ye Fan, what's going on here?"

  Ye Fan's face was bewildered, and he slowly shook his head: "I don't know, probably someone didn't want to see the Ye family prosper, secretly sabotaging and smashing the Tian Dao bestowed on this kid's Qing Guang Han Yu Lou. What a pity, the seven-layered, seven-starred Qing Guang Han Yu Lou was destroyed like that..."

  "Seven layers seven stars, blue light cold jade building..."

  Ye Si Dao's face showed a shocked expression. The number of floors in the Jade Building represents the qualifications and future achievements of the witch doctors, the more floors there are, the greater the future achievements will be.

  He is the number one master of demonic path in Liuzhou City, but he only got the three-layered Dragon Degree Bhavarga Qizhen Building. Ye Xu actually obtained the seven-layered Seven Star Qingguang Han Yu Building, his future prospects are boundless, truly a heaven-gifted genius!

  At this moment, the Jade Building was inexplicably destroyed. Ye Si Dao felt a pang in his heart and said to Ye Xun: "The Jade Building is gone, so let's just save him..."

  Ye Fan examined him and sighed: "It's over. His meridians are all severed, even if his injuries heal, he will be like a useless person..."

  "Is there a possibility of cure?"

  "No. Unless there's a Heaven-scented Life-extending Pill, but this kind of spiritual medicine is hard to come by. I've heard that in the past when I was roaming the jianghu, Qingzhou's Liang Wangfu had one Heaven-scented Life-extending Pill, which was treasured by Liang Wang as if it were his life."

  Ye Si's expression was wooden, and he remained silent for a moment before saying, "This time the Wu Bei Pavilion was destroyed because of Shao Bao. Considering that he is a member of the imperial family, this matter will not be pursued further. I will punish him by making him a slave, and when he wakes up, let him go to the horse farm to raise horses."

  That grey-robed old man, Ye Si Ran, couldn't help but say: "Master of the residence, this kind of treatment, I'm afraid is a bit too severe?"

  Ye Si Dao shook his head: "This test failed, but for him it's not necessarily a bad thing. If he doesn't give up and rebuilds his innate abilities, I will naturally cancel his status as a slave! If he becomes disheartened, then such a Ye family descendant is not needed!"

  His gaze gradually turned fierce, and he turned to the middle-aged man in purple robes: "Sizhe, you few immediately investigate for me, who exactly is secretly taking action against our Ye family this time! If we find out who did it, immediately exterminate his entire household! In Liu Zhou, there are still people who dare to plot against my Ye family, truly not knowing life from death!"

  With that said, he turned and left with a flick of his sleeve.

  The other high-ranking members of the Ye family exchanged a glance, sighed quietly, and left one after another.

  That mysterious person struck and shattered the Seven-Layered Seven-Star Cold Jade Building, destroying the Ye Manor's most outstanding genius. The fury in Master Ye Si Dao's heart can be imagined!

  Ye Fan sighed softly, looking at Ye Xu's eyes with a hint of sympathy: "Rebuilding the preheavenly state is not easy to talk about. Moreover, the meridians are completely severed, and the cultivation has been abandoned. Ye Xu Ye Shao Bao, I'm afraid it's thoroughly finished..."