When the general's guards arrived at the temple, the people there rushed to catch a glimpse of their newborn child. It was already big news that just after the day she was born, the Emperor had chosen to marry her into the imperial bloodline. When Xendar got out of the cart and helped his wife down, people were excitedly trying to look over each other's shoulders to take a peek, only for a brief moment.

  "It seems like the people very much so love Father… or is it, Mother? Or am I just that interesting, thanks to Airpuss?" Ren thought to herself, "Well, Mother is an exotic beauty. Now that I look closely, I don't see anyone having the same hair and eye color anywhere. Probably, she is not a native to this region..." With that in mind, she scanned the crowd from her mother's embrace, but even amongst the hundreds of others, only Anya had silvery-colored hair. Then, finally, Ren's eyes were drawn to the giant temple, built entirely from white marble, reflecting the morning sunlight like a sparkling gem. "Eh... The whole building is barely smaller than the pace… Still, I can't see anyone walking up those giant stairs. What a waste of space and resources... Hm... Wait," she squinted, trying to look at it better. "It's old. Yes... This design doesn't follow the rest of the city. This had to be built way back in the past... But when? What were you all up to after I was gone...?"

  When Anya and Xendar started walking up the stairs, no soldier followed them, and the people were made to wait at the bottom just the same. Inside the temple, the air was cool, and a light breeze carried the aroma of fresh incense as they walked toward a statue at the end of the wide hallway. The walls were decorated with carvings of female silhouettes, all without faces, wearing long, green, and white gowns. At their feet, each had a pque with only a name, and incense was lit in their supposed memory.

  "Weird..." Ren whispered in her mind, "She never bothered too much with faith. This was… never her style." Before Ren could examine the pce further, her parents knelt before the giant statue, carved from a massive piece of jade, standing almost ten meters tall.

  It looked like it was wearing a simir gown to the others, but for Ren, it was a familiar look. It was the green-robed God... The one Ren knew the best in the past. The statue's face was obscured from view, and even if people tried to focus on it, they couldn't make it out, no matter how hard they tried. While kneeling, Anya started praying for her daughter's well-being and safety; at the same time, Xendar kept his head down, kneeling beside her... and it was clear that this whole thing was Anya's idea. Getting bored with the concept of praying to Nilier, Ren soon lost interest in the entire pce and decided to close her eyes and go back to sleep. She almost drifted off to her dreamnd when a feeling struck her.

  "Something's not right… There is an energy flow here." She realized, opening her eyes once again, "But… I had never felt something like this. It's different from even the energy from beyond the Sky." Following it to its source, she looked up again at the statue, trying to see through its face, but she could not. Soon, she felt her eyes stinging, pushing too hard, so she closed them again, trying to ease the sudden pain that had come over her. "What did you do…?" The question rang in her mind as her parents left the temple, but she knew the answer was still far from her reach... But the four had to do something while she was lost in the Reincarnation Cycle.

  "Let's go home, my love..." Xendar whispered, nudging her praying wife, "Look at little Ren... She has tears in her eyes, my poor girl! This was too much of a hassle for her to take in right in the morning." He continued.

  "Yes, yes, let's go!" Anya flinched at once, looking at Ren, and gave her hundreds of kisses. "Sssh, my love, everything is going to be okay!" she whispered.

  "It's not like I'm crying. It's just I'm too weak." Ren grunted, which came off the prelude for a baby's first tantrum, "I lost everything, only keeping the core of my soul. Hmf… if not for that..."

  However, her mother perceived her thoughts as her mood becoming increasingly irritable. She thought she was unhappy to have been put through everything since morning, and that her daughter had reached her limits... With a snap of a finger, it suddenly made Anya angry about everything, to have this many procedures to go through just because she had a daughter, even if part of it was her idea.

  When they arrived home, she stormed up to their bedroom, ordering her husband to cancel everything in the upcoming months as she would not appear even if the Emperor summoned her. She was going to focus only on taking care of her daughter, and that was all. If someone had a problem with it, they could stuff it where it never shines.

  "And she's worried our daughter will learn the wrong things from me." Xendar sighed with a slight smile on his face after Anya had disappeared from view. "Anyway, make some changes, Hal; if it's not about being invaded, I don't want to hear about it! It's time for other officers to step up and not just wait until I wipe their asses!"

  "Yes, my Lord. Consider it done."

  …

  ..Years ter..

  …..

  It was a calm and clear autumn morning, and Hal had just finished organizing the books in the mansion's main library when he heard a quick, swishing sound. But when he tried to turn, he only saw a faint silhouette whizzing by him. It didn't take long until Xendar pushed open the door, looking like he was out of breath, scanning the half-circle-shaped room with the bookshelves, but he only saw Hal standing there.

  "Is it her again, my Lord?"

  "Where is she?" Xendar grunted, "Just let me catch her! I'll spank her so hard that she won't be able to sit on the toilet for the day..."

  "I think I saw her by the stables when I looked out the window."

  "Good! The little twerp won't be able to escape again!" Xendar groaned, almost blowing smoke out of his nose while storming out of the library.

  "Thanks, Uncle Hal!" A soft, angelic voice whispered after her dad left the room, and she poked her head out behind the curtain.

  "You stole it again?" Hal asked as he turned towards the voice, seeing the tiny, pudgy face sticking out from behind it. Her silver-colored hair was worn in bunches, and her violet eyes sparkled with a beautiful, vivid hue.

  "Teehee, yup!" She giggled, holding up a small jade coin that radiated power, and if you looked closely, there were tiny sparks arching over it sometimes.

  "Lady Ren, your Father just fears that it would affect you negatively. You are still just five, and pying with something like this is dangerous."

  "Booo, it won't be!" she pouted, "I know how to handle it! Anyway, I'll give it back to him at lunch; it's just fun stealing it from under his nose. Ehehehe..."

  Hal didn't know what to say and just let out a small sigh, shaking his head... But, he was also smiling nonetheless as he was used to Ren's usual pranks by now. By the time she was a year old, she had already started speaking, surprising her parents. And it wasn't the st time that her intellect amazed the household of the General. Of course, her mother forbade everyone who witnessed it from ever talking about it to others... if they wanted to keep their heads on their necks.

  Soon, this list of what Anya considered forbidden to outsiders started to grow. By the age of two, Ren could read, write, and calcute... and then she began to memorize most of the books she had access to. By the age of three, she asked her parents how cultivation worked.

  At first, they hesitated but thought it wouldn't do any harm to learn the stories and surface-level theories behind it. However, they did not expect that by the age of five, their daughter would take her first steps on the path of cultivation... Because there was no other expnation for how a five-year-old could move so fast. Not even a grown adult could catch her!

  "How did you take it now? Your Father pced it in a box, protected by a seal."

  "It was hard, Uncle!" Ren expined with a puffed-out, proud chest, "It took me four days to figure out the trick, though. However, thanks to that, I learned a great deal about how formation locks work and that they have an energy bypass sequence. I hope that next time, Dad pces a stronger one on it!"

  "You…" Hal gawked, pinching the ridge of his nose, "My Lady, I'm just worried about that one time when this will backfire on you."

  "Mmm, if it will, there will be you, Dad, and Mom to help me, no?" she asked, her eyes blinking like an abandoned puppy's, looking up at Hal.

  She was wearing her little white dress, which had bck smudges around it, just like her face, evidence of how she had been scurrying around the mansion while Xendar was chasing her. Listening to her words, Hal couldn't help himself and smiled warmly while patting her little head, taking the coin from her, and pocketing it.

  "Go, find your Mother; I'll take this back to the Lord."

  "Yeeeees~" Ren giggled while running out from the library, humming a small song along the way.

  "She is halfway to refining her legs." Xendar appeared like a specter next to Hal, watching the spot where Ren stood only a second ago.

  "Yes, and it seems she is already solidifying her fundamentals to get ready to cultivate her arms next."

  "No wonder her sticky fingers are stealing everything not nailed down in my office," Xendar muttered, pursing his lips the same way Ren did.

  "My Lord, you and the Lady bore a genius. Congratutions."

  "Heh, more like a devil if you ask me!" the General ughed softly before turning serious. "But I'm a little worried. I don't want my daughter to be deformed... There are no records of what happens to the body if someone infuses it with energy at her age. The youngest cultivator ever, being Aerthus himself... He was also twelve when he started... Not five! If it does something to her... I would never forgive myself for that."

  "She would do it anyway," Hal commented after a brief silence. "If you can't stop her, you need to guide her."

  "I could still seal her spirit and forbid her to train until she aged up a bit more," the lord of the mansion crossed his arms, but both of them knew the answer to that.

  "You wouldn't, my Lord," Hal told him, looking into Xendar's eyes. "She is doing what others who are called geniuses do at double her age… and she does it at a speed that never fails to amaze me."

  "You are right... I couldn't bring myself to put a seal on her. It's just…."

  "It's just being a parent, My Lord. You would worry for her even when she has already been married off."

  "Don't even bring that up!" Xendar moaned loudly as a longer-than-ever sigh came out of his mouth. "Soon, the prince will turn eight… and now that she is almost six, I can't turn down the invitation to the prince's birthday party anymore. I'm out of excuses. We will have to attend this time around."

  "I'm more worried about the prince, to be frank, my Lord." Hal smiled as he gave back the little coin to Xendar.

  "Maybe!" he said as he shook his head, then clicked his tongue, "This little devil! She absorbed a small amount of energy from it again!"

  "It seems she has the same element of affinity as you, my Lord."

  "Maybe. We are still far away from knowing... But..." He considered for a moment, "She needs to go through the coming-of-age ceremony in a few years anyway to understand what her element will be."

  "Maybe we should do it in advance."

  "Then the whole world will know about it."

  "Not if we do it in secret," Hal suggested.

  "Then what? How are we going to pretend to find out when we have to do it again officially? It only works once... You can't awaken what is already up."

  "We just fake it. Pin and simple, My Lord."

  "Fake it, but how-" he then looked down at the coin itself and had a new idea. "Mmm, I see. You are a crafty old man, are you not?" He chuckled, patting Hal's shoulder, "I'll speak about it with Anya."

  "That would be the best, My Lord."

  …

  ….

  …..

  "Sit still, Ren; you look like a little monkey that crawled through the bushes to steal some fruit."

  "Moooom, I'm not a monkey, and even if I were, I would be the God of Monkeys! Hmph! Huh. Maybe in the future, I will have some monkey followers... and I will conquer the jungle, nyahahaha!"

  "Well, you are halfway there, that's for sure! You do act like a little monkey!" Anya ughed while she bathed her daughter in her room, watching her with eyes filled with deep and never-ending love. "Which level are you at?"

  "Still just at the beginning of the first."

  "Ren."

  "Ooookay, almost at the second. Maybe in a month or two, I'll be able to break through and finish the fundamental strengthening of my legs. I just didn't want to rush it."

  "Rush it, she says..." Anya grunted, amazed by the situation. But... knowing her daughter, there was nothing she could do. Only to ensure she was indeed not rushing it. "Tell me the basic levels. Let me see if you didn't skip any steps, or you can forget to cultivate even for a minute until you have your coming-of-age ceremony!"

  "Haaah… oookaaaay~" She moaned, blowing a soap bubble, "The first realm is the Body Strengthening Realm. The cultivator must draw in energy, circuting it through her body, letting it wash through and through and strengthen it," she expined, telling back the exact words her mother had taught her.

  "Good. What about the limbs?" Anya asked.

  "The cultivator chooses the order, but everyone has to do the same. Legs. Arms. Torso. Head." She counted them off one by one, "After all four are washed clean with energy, the body has been strengthened, and it also becomes capable of storing energy inside." She took a deep breath before continuing without letting her mother ask a new question, " After that, you can step into the Harmony Realm. You need to synchronize your spirit with your own body and withstand the Trial from the Heavens. After you survive, your spirit will sync with your new body, and you can start practicing the good stuff and store more and more energy within you!"

  "So your aim is to be in the Harmony realm before you come of age, hm?" Anya asked, ying a trap that her daughter didn't fall for.

  "Yes, but also no!" Ren answered immediately and firmly, looking her mother straight in the eyes. "Both you and Father told me those who wish to step into the Harmony Realm after only one refinement are suicidal idiots! Father washed his body nine times, and you also washed your body eight times! I'll do that too. Go to the limit and only then attempt crossing into Harmony! If I can do it before that ceremony… teehee~ That would be cool, but..."

  "You little imp!" Anya ughed, pyfully smacking her daughter on the head, then kissed her on the cheek. "Dream on, do you think it's that easy? You're still young and naive. Every subsequent washing is exponentially harder than the one before it. Come, come, you are sparkling now. Let's dry you up and head down to eat. Your Father probably calmed down by now!"

  "Teehee, okaaaay! I want chicken for breakfast!"

  "Mmm, that sounds good~!" Anya giggled, and mother and daughter walked out of the room, dressed in the same type of clothes, moving in the same way as if little Ren were her mother's own small reflection.