As the purple light continuously poured into Jack Carter’s glabella, a vortex appeared between his eyebrows, as if an eye had opened there. Gradually, as the purple light kept streaming in, a cluster of radiance lit up within the vortex. That radiance turned out to be an ancient, inverted cauldron, exuding an aura of antiquity and the vicissitudes of endless years. The cauldron was carved with many mysterious and ancient pictographic runes.

An hour later, at seven o’clock, Jack Carter slowly opened his eyes, then stood up and gazed eastward from the window. His hand habitually touched the ancient cauldron on his forehead, which was gradually fading away, while his thoughts drifted to this very day eleven years ago, when he was nine years old.

Jack Carter was born in a village of the Xia family in Shangyang County, Jiangzhou City, Jiangnan Province. The elders in the village said that their ancestors were none other than Yu the Great, the first emperor of the Xia Dynasty.

According to legend, the ancient Wu tribe was formed from the flesh and blood of the Great Emperor Pangu and the primordial energy of heaven and earth, possessing the power to reach the heavens and control all things. Another legend says that Yu the Great, who controlled the floods, divided the nine provinces, cast the nine cauldrons, and founded the Xia Dynasty, was a great Wu King of ancient times.

Before the age of nine, Jack Carter had always regarded these legends as mythological stories, and he enjoyed listening to them. It wasn’t until one day at the age of nine, when he was gravely ill and near death, that he met his master—a skinny, bony old shaman. Only then did he realize that those legends might not be entirely accurate, but they were not pure myth either.

Because now he himself was a shaman, and one who had truly inherited the bloodline of Yu the Great. It was after that serious illness that a faint, almost unnoticeable cauldron-shaped mark appeared on his glabella. Whenever he cultivated, the ancient cauldron would emit light. His master said this was the mark of his awakened bloodline of Yu the Great.

The hierarchy of shamans is simple, divided into four major realms: Earth Shaman, Heaven Shaman, Profound Shaman, and Great Shaman.

A shaman stands with the heavens above and the earth below, possessing the power to reach the heavens and the earth. As the name suggests, the Earth Shaman stands on the earth but has not yet gained the ability to ascend directly to the heavens. Only upon reaching the Heaven Shaman realm can one break through the void and attain the power to reach the heavens and the earth. Profound Shaman and Great Shaman are even higher levels of existence. Each major realm of a shaman is further divided into nine cauldrons, from one to nine. If subdivided further, each can be split into early, middle, and late stages. As the name implies, the Wu King is the king of the Wu tribe and the most powerful Great Shaman.

Legend has it that Yu the Great, who controlled the floods, divided the nine provinces, and cast the nine cauldrons, was a Wu King of ancient times with great magical powers, and the Wu tribe reached its peak during his era. After Yu the Great, the Wu tribe declined, while the Daoist and Buddhist sects flourished after absorbing some of the Wu tribe’s techniques. Of course, as the spiritual energy of the earth gradually faded, these techniques were lost, and now both Daoism and Buddhism have declined to a miserable state, with almost no one truly understanding the path of cultivation. So, from a certain perspective, the Wu tribe is also one of the origins of Daoism and Buddhism.

Jack Carter’s master’s surname was Wu, with the given name Ze. According to him, his ancestors were the ancient Great Shaman Wu Xian, who was most skilled in divination and physiognomy, and also versed in shamanic medicine, geomancy, exorcism, dispelling evil, and pest control. After saving Jack Carter’s life and taking him as a disciple, Zachary Woods, knowing his own lifespan was near its end, imparted all his lifelong skills to Jack Carter. Bearing the bloodline of the ancient Wu King Yu the Great, Jack Carter lived up to expectations. By the time Zachary Woods passed away, Jack Carter had already far surpassed him in cultivation, and even in divination and physiognomy—Zachary Woods’s greatest strengths—Jack Carter had outshone his master.

Precisely because of this, Zachary Woods worried that Jack Carter, being young and impetuous—especially since legend had it that the Wu tribe was formed from the flesh and blood of the Great Emperor Pangu and was naturally hot-blooded—might, at a young age, use shamanic arts to directly gain wealth and power. Over time, he might become addicted to power and riches, grow arrogant, disregard the lives of others, and at worst, cause social chaos or even mass slaughter and devastation. Therefore, before his death, Zachary Woods repeatedly exhorted Jack Carter to live honestly like an ordinary person and earn a living through work for three years after his passing, in order to temper his character.

Thinking of his master, Jack Carter subconsciously turned the simple, ancient silver ring on his left pinky. The ring was engraved with a mountain shrouded in immortal aura.

Just as Daoism has sects like Quanzhen and Zhengyi, the Wu tribe also has branches such as Wu Xian, Wu Zhen, and Wu Gu. However, the history of the Wu tribe is so ancient that after Yu the Great, it fell into decline, and now hardly anyone knows whether the Wu tribe still exists. The ring that Zachary Woods passed on to Jack Carter was the token of the head of the Wu Xian branch, known to very few. Unfortunately, by modern times, the Wu Xian branch had already dwindled, and after years of war and the later Cultural Revolution, its members were either dead or scattered. So, although Zachary Woods was nominally the head of a sect, it was really just a “commander without troops.” When passing the position of sect leader to Jack Carter, Zachary Woods even used the unique divination techniques of the Wu Xian branch to predict the future, but the hexagram was very vague. He could only deduce that besides Jack Carter, there should be other surviving members of the Wu Xian branch, but exactly how many and where they were remained unknown.