“Forget it.” Seeing A’Dai’s silly expression, Yun Qingxue couldn’t help but laugh. Knowing she wouldn’t get any answers, she decided not to dwell on how the incomprehensible text she’d stared at all afternoon had transformed into words she could understand.
That question no longer mattered. What mattered was that she could now read the words on the page—she could finally start reading the book!
Though she had held it all afternoon, gripping it now filled her with an inexplicable excitement.
These books were so treasured by her cheap master—they must be extraordinary!
Yun Qingxue sat at the only desk in the room, cradling the book like a precious treasure, and began flipping through its pages.
After reading a couple of pages, she realized this wasn’t a cultivation manual but a simple introduction to the various types of spirits in the Xuanling Continent.
Her understanding of spirits had always been straightforward: just some birds, beasts, plants, or trees that, by some twist of fate, gained sentience, absorbed the essence of the sun and moon, and after a few hundred years, became spirits.
But after reading a few pages, she suddenly realized how simplistic her view had been.
What’s more, this book even had illustrations! The opening page depicted the highest symbols of the eight major spirit clans of the Xuanling Continent—eight tokens representing the rulers of each race, each imbued with boundless power.
The book clearly stated that the eight tokens were ranked by the strength of their innate cosmic power. The one ranked first was none other than the Divine King’s Token!
Following the Divine King’s Token wasn’t the Demon King’s Token, the counterpart of light, as she might have expected. Instead, the Demon King’s Token ranked third. Sandwiched between the Divine King’s and Demon King’s Tokens was the Flower King’s Token—long lost with the disappearance of the previous Flower King of the Flora Clan.
Further down the list were the Nether King’s Token (fourth), Dragon King’s Token (fifth), Feather King’s Token (sixth), Beast King’s Token (seventh), and, at the very bottom, the Human Emperor’s Token.
Her slender, pale fingers turned the pages slowly. The more she read, the deeper her understanding of the world she lived in became.
The world of spirits wasn’t so simple after all! Their hierarchy was strict, and their cultivation levels were clearly defined.
The same was true for human cultivators in the Xuanling Continent.
Humans were divided into nine major cultivation stages, each further split into early, middle, and late phases: Qi Refining, Fasting, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, Divine Transformation, Unity, Tribulation Crossing, and finally, the Great Ascension—the stage of transcending mortality to become an immortal.
Due to the differences between spirits and humans, spirit cultivation was divided into seven major stages, each also split into three minor phases.
First, gaining sentience and independent thought from the chaos—this was the Awakening Stage.
Next, the ability to take human form—the Illusion Stage.
Then, maintaining human form long-term and using low-level spells—the Spirit Gathering Stage.
Once a spirit formed its own demon core, it entered the Perception Stage.
After the demon core underwent three transformations, the spirit reached the Great Demon Stage—already a formidable force.
Beyond that was the Longevity Stage. As the name suggested, spirits at this stage, due to their immense power, could live for hundreds of thousands of years. During this time, heavenly tribulations would descend at random. Those who survived would ascend to immortality.
However, unlike humans, who all started from the Qi Refining Stage, the starting point for other races was far from equal.
The Divine Clan was the most privileged. If you were lucky enough to be born into it, regardless of talent, you were a god from birth, bypassing all the tedious cultivation steps. You only needed to focus on increasing your power. Some, with even greater fortune, were born with boundless divine power.
In the Xuanling Continent, not all gods resided in the heavenly palace. Aside from the Demon King and the Human Emperor, the rulers of the other clans were born as true gods!
Beyond the rulers, there were also the high-ranking ministers who served them. Though not born as gods, their starting point in cultivation was leagues above that of ordinary spirits. Thanks to the accumulated legacy of their families, they were at least at the Spirit Gathering Stage from birth.
Yun Qingxue turned the pages one by one, and before she knew it, she had reached the last page.
This page no longer discussed cultivation levels but simply stated a few lines:
*The Eight Clan Kings are born by the will of Heaven, ruling their respective races, with the Divine King, representing light, revered as supreme!*
*The descendants of kings, passed down through a single bloodline, inherit the great power of their ancestors, gaining supreme power from the moment their spiritual form is conceived!*
The meaning of these words…
The Divine King was the supreme ruler of all clans because he embodied the purest positive energy in the world. The children of the clan kings were all born from a single bloodline—meaning each king would only ever have one heir. From the moment of conception, this child would inherit their parents’ boundless power, making them a natural-born powerhouse!
Yun Qingxue frowned slightly. If that was the case, then what about her? She possessed the noblest royal bloodline of the Flora Clan—
Was she the daughter of the previous Flower King, Lan Xuechen?
Lan Xuechen did have a daughter with the Demon King, Yun Ye, but that girl was raised in the Demon Clan, named Yun Sisi—the apple of Yun Ye’s eye, his treasured pearl!
Could she be another lost daughter of Yun Ye?
“Pfft!”
The moment the thought of a “lost daughter” crossed her mind, Yun Qingxue burst out laughing. She actually had such a melodramatic imagination to come up with such a clichéd story!
But if she had no connection to Lan Xuechen, how could she explain the royal blood of the Star Blue Peony in her veins?
And if she *was* related to Lan Xuechen, then the whole “single bloodline descendant” thing would be nonsense…
Nonsense, nonsense—who was spouting nonsense here?
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