Charles Bennett withdrew the whip. Seeing that the boy could actually endure the pain, he frowned slightly. “Servants in the monastery, lowly commoners—perhaps after staying in such an isolated place for so long, you’ve forgotten the rules and recklessly rushed out.”

A sound of disgusted sigh came from inside the carriage, then silence. Charles Bennett glared at the boy with open eyes. “Do you know the rules?” He raised the whip, threatening to strike again. The boy prostrated himself, burying his head between his knees, and crawled aside on his knees to let the convoy pass. Intense anger and humiliation burned through the boy’s sensitive and fragile nerves, making his hands and feet tremble uncontrollably.

William Harper put the xun back into the brocade pouch and walked forward from behind. Seeing the boy with his head buried in his knees, his back torn and bleeding from a single lash, he said to Charles Bennett, “What happened?”

“Nearly let this lowly commoner collide with the lord.”

William Harper sighed softly and waved his hand, signaling the convoy to move on. Only after the convoy had entered deep into the canyon, and even the sound of the wheels had faded away, did the boy finally lift his head. He bit his lower lip so hard that a crimson line of blood appeared, struggling not to let out the grief and anger in his heart.

This monastery was likely the westernmost Maha Monastery in the Central Lands, located in the belly of the Yan Yun Mountains at the western edge of the Yan Yun Wasteland. The boy was a servant in the monastery and had lived there for fifteen years.

The ascetic Gregory Clark had wandered to Yan Yun, and while passing by this Maha Monastery, picked up the boy—then only three years old—under the monastery’s porch. The year Gregory Clark carried the abandoned child into the monastery, in the cold autumn, the three-hundred-year-old Yingyan flowers bloomed countless pale blue blossoms for the first time. Gregory Clark thus named the abandoned child Eric.

Abandoned children at the monastery gates had no surnames. Like slaves, menial laborers, and vagrants, they were the lowest class of commoners on this continent.

Eric was intelligent and eager to learn, with extraordinary talent in martial arts, but could only serve as a menial servant, responsible for clearing the monastery’s sewage channels every day.

The ascetic Gregory Clark was like a broad-minded and kind father. After each day’s labor, he would teach him scriptures and martial skills, giving him fatherly care.

However, the ascetic Gregory Clark’s care for Eric bred jealousy like a poisonous weed among the other servants. Not only the servants, but even those of slightly higher status harbored resentment. Eric had lived in the monastery for fifteen years, yet never truly belonged.

At twelve, Eric left the monastery for the first time with Gregory Clark, reaching the edge of the Yan Yun Wasteland. On the road into the city, the bells of noble carriages rang out. The barefoot commoners retreated to the roadside, prostrating themselves with their heads buried deep between their knees, lest they sully the eyes of the noble. Gregory Clark, however, used his wide white robe to shield Eric beneath him.

Eric often asked Gregory Clark, “What can I do in this life?”

Gregory Clark had never seen anyone with such talent in martial arts as Eric. He recalled how old he was when he first formed a qi shield—sixteen. At sixteen, Gregory Clark used his core energy to form the intermediate skill of the Miluo warrior: the Azure Luo Qi Shield. His father ran to tell the clan: the Sumin family finally had someone to bring them honor.

Eric could condense qi into substance and form a qi shield at fourteen.

Since the awakening of divine-blooded talents usually occurred after sixteen, Gregory Clark almost suspected that starlight from the gods flowed in Eric’s veins.

At this point, Eric had already mastered the third-tier skill of the Miluo warrior: Condensed Qi Armor—a technique that transformed the qi shield into countless dense scales to protect the whole body.

Faced with the ascetic Gregory Clark’s silence, a fiery scar seemed to burn across Eric’s heart.

The young Eric forced himself to calm his turbulent emotions. Ignoring the burning pain on his back, he climbed up the mountain wall, taking a shortcut back to the monastery.

It was late autumn. In the monastery, a kind of tall, bluish grass began to grow, and the vines of the Yingyan flowers covered the Guanlan Hall. Standing atop the rounded dome and looking around, the surrounding flower forests stretched like a sea. The ruined Guanlan Hall revealed only a white dome, like the massive, time-worn back of a star whale.

In front of the Guanlan Hall grew a giant Kunlun bramble. Eric sat atop its crown, watching the distant, winding bronze convoy. There was a kind of trampled, yet exhilarating pain in his heart. Gazing out over the vast world, his ambition grew as vigorously as the tall blue grass in the monastery. Eric silently vowed, “One day, I will make you all kneel at my feet…”

Under the moonlight, the Wu clan’s carriages were passing through the canyon, heading toward the monastery. Eighteen massive bronze carriages, cast from pure copper and drawn by silver-horned wind horses, shone with dazzling halos, like the shimmering water of the turbid Buleichu River.

Eric had only seen such splendid bronze carriages and extraordinary silver-horned wind horses in the illustrated scriptures.

Yan Yun was already the westernmost land of the Qinglan Empire. Beyond it, over the towering Yan Yun Mountains, lay the God-defying land of the Black Gravel Plain. The Black Gravel Plain was even more desolate and dangerous than the Yan Yun Wasteland, inhabited by even more savage and powerful wild beasts, and was also the nomadic land of the divine-blooded Xi people.