209. Ancestral Grounds

Alistair bowed before the burgeoning presence.

Of course, it was familiar. How could he ever forget the presence of a dragon?

The dragon materialized fully before Alistair, its form no longer a mere shimmer but a majestic spectral entity.

Its scales gleamed like polished rubies, each one pulsing with inner fire that sent waves of heat through the air. The creature’s serpentine body coiled protectively around the grave marker, crowned with golden horns that framed eyes burning with the intensity of twin suns.

Translucent flames licked along its spine, casting the Ancestral Grounds in an ethereal red-orange light. Despite its ghostly nature, the dragon’s presence commanded the space with undeniable authority.

There was no doubt that despite its ghost only being the size of a house, this red dragon in its prime was a true Visionary with a wingspan that stretched for dozens of miles.

“I am Alistair Tan, great one,” he said.

“Rise,” the dragon commanded, and Alistair was forced to obey. “I am a dragon, dead may I be. My majesty cannot be denied. I have no need for human gestures of inferiority so that I may be honored. I am the honor.”

“Very well,” Alistair said. “What may I call you, then?”

Alistair didn’t understand dragon expressions, but he had a feeling that his quick acceptance of the red dragon rules was appreciated.

“I am Ashendar, the Eternal Flame. For 47 million years, I have defended this grave.”

47 million years. An impossibly long period of time that Alistair could not hope to comprehend. He could only imagine.

For 47 million years, this august creature had been toiling away in almost complete solitude.

47 million years also happened to mark an event that Alistair vividly remembered reading about.

“Your master,” he said, “was his name Gideon the Golemmaker, the founder of the Clear Water Sect?”

“It is good to see that disciples still know their history,” Ashendar said. “Gideon was the finest cultivator this universe has ever seen and will ever see. The LAKETORS—”

In that moment, Alistair truly feared for his life.

The bloodlust and malevolence within the dead dragon’s voice as it declared the name of the imperial clan was only matched by Red Harmonia’s violence.

There was a hatred that ran deeper than blood within Ashendar.

“—may their bloodline burn in Avīci Hell for all eternity—ambushed Gideon. Thirteen against one. I razed their planets by the thousands.”

“And you died for it,” Alistair realized out loud.

“Aye. And I died for it. Now I wait here for the master’s return.”

There was a loneliness to Ashendar’s voice. He spoke not the ghost of a legendary red dragon, but of an old lizard missing his friend.

Alistair said nothing for a while, letting the silence build up. The dragon showed no signs of talking either, and the two of them shared in Ashendar’s sorrow.

“I want friends that loyal,” Alistair said after a time. “To wait here for 47 million years for him. Not knowing if he’s alive or dead.”

“He’s alive,” Ashendar said. There was no anger in his voice, only certainty. “I do not know why he has not returned, but I know he has his reasons. Until then, I wait.”

A lightbulb lit up in Alistair’s brain. The Perfect’s full power after unleashing her Domain. Kyraxadon’s full power compared to Dev'rox’s power after being dead for 50 thousand years.

“You’ve almost faded,” Alistair said. “Even though being a ghost limits your impact on causality, it’s still weaker than it should be.”

Still, it’s awesome in the original definition. Dev'rox held on for 50 thousand years out of desire for revenge, which was the length of his life at the time he died. Through sheer willpower, this dragon has endured fading away for dozens of times longer than his original lifespan.

Ashendar snorted. “Your gaze is insightful for an Adept. I have a million years left. If I try to hold on beyond that, my soul will disintegrate, never to enter Samsara’s embrace. It is hard to say if that is a blessing or a curse.”

Alistair thought back to the Devil Kings and Devil Princes who died. Alexandra, who was with some well-connected demonic cultists.

“I know some who died a permanent death,” Alistair said. “I think they would have given anything for another shot at things.”

“That may be.” There was another period of silence. “You carry the bloodline of my kin, do you not? It stirs within you in response to me, even as you try to suppress it.”

“I didn’t want to disturb you,” Alistair said. “I’ve always had this problem. My bloodline can’t stand the presence of other dragons. All it wants is their blood.”

Ashendar stared at Alistair for a few moments. “May I,” he said, stretching a claw. Alistair didn’t have a chance to accept or refuse. A dragon did not ask for permission in earnestness, it seemed.

“Blood dragon…” Ashendar said. “…immature, yet the pedigree is undeniable. Child, what do you know of blood dragons?”

“I know they were hunted,” Alistair replied. “The celestial and world dragons genocided their kind because they needed to absorb blood essence to grow, unlike normal dragons.”

“That is an interesting idea,” Ashendar replied. “But missing the core truth. Blood dragons were hunted because they are an abomination under Heaven. A product of unorthodox blood magic, in which a hybrid of the previous elemental beast of blood and a cadre of dragons, mostly red dragons to my eternal dismay, was created. The sacrifice of multiple Truthseekers was needed, since the previous name of the blood elemental beast has been ejected from the Akashic Records. From that day forth, all new blood beasts have been blood dragons.”

Straight-up changing what type of beast was formed out of the conglomeration of a Mana affinity was something that didn’t even register in Alistair’s mind. It was like changing what happened when water froze. How in the name of the Jade Emperor could you alter that? What kind of absurd power could do such a thing?

Even Dev'rox was awed by that, staying silent, though it might also have been because he was cowed by the red dragon’s ghost.

“Wait, does that mean—”

“Human, have you ever seen a celestial dragon before? If your enemy was the Earthly Parisā, you would have more cause for concern. The Draconic Coalition is no more, and the rogue blood dragons that form from the spiritual ether are hunted down once they mature. You would have to reach Ascendant to attract their attention, in my estimation.”

“I see. So you’re not going to kill me, either?”

This caused Ashendar to burst into a full-throated laugh. “Boy, I was already forsaken by my kind for following a human man. I care not for their squabbles. Besides, this sect still belongs to the girl. I do not dare.”

“That’s good, I didn’t want to die just yet. I have a lot of things to do.”

“That is what I admire most about your kind,” the red dragon sighed. “Interminable busyness.”

The dragon stared directly into Alistair’s eyes. “You commune with the dead, and your bloodline mirrors my own. You are almost worthy. I shall give you a small portion of my power. Become an inner disciple for a year and come back for more. Become a core disciple within ten years after that, and I shall grant you my full power.”

“But the grave?” Alistair asked. “Will it not be undefended?”

“I’ll know,” Ashendar said mysteriously. Alistair did not know what he referred to. “Before I fade into nothingness or reincarnate, I would like to see some new things. If Gideon is off gallivanting in the involved or core, it is only fair.”

The great red dragon touched his claw to Alistair’s forehead. A great surge of energy washed through his body, and a new ghostly presence unlike anything he had ever felt entered his soul. The spectral apparition of Ashendar vanished, the graveyard losing its red glow.

Dev'rox immediately had something to say.

“We’re sharing this space now,” the imp informed the dragon. “Let’s give each other our personal space, and everything should work out fine.”

The dragon snorted. “I have nothing to give except my fires,” he said, and went silent. Almost like a dormant volcano, Alistair knew that he would not talk unless he had very grave reason to.

A notification popped up.

Bloodline Evolution:

[Peon] -> [Peasant]

Max Attributes 15,000->17,500, Dao energy 10% more efficient, +10% Max Health, +10% Max Mana

Characteristic - Emperor Will: A dragon cannot be cowed. 100% increased resistance to mind control.

{Bloodline Evolution} (Ghost) Blood Dragon [Peon] — Dragon’s Blood Mastery, Emperor Will, Endless Mana, (Draconic Mana), (Lord of Reptiles), LOCKED, LOCKED. (Upgradeable 0/1,500 - Only accepts blood essence).

Skill Upgraded: [Ghost Whispers] (Tier 5 Journeyman Passive Skill): Grants communication with ghosts and other spectral entities. Creates a two-way mental link that allows for seamless communication. Your ghosts’ minds/mental abilities can be substituted in place of your mind. Upgradeable (0/500).

The act of accepting even a small portion of Ashendar’s ghost into his Domain forced his bloodline to evolve to [Peasant]. The stat bonuses he got were nice, and there was an unstated bonus to his overall life force, now balanced with his raw stats—it was just a shame that Emperor Will wasn’t that impactful to him.

Well, “Heroism” only works on stuff subverting my heroic nature. If someone tries to control my mind without doing that, I guess this will help.

Interestingly, despite unlocking the names of the next two characteristics available to him, he didn’t add any new LOCKED to the end of the list. Alistair suspected that the ghost blood dragon was only able to give him a lesser version of the bloodline, and that he would have to find draconic treasures to go much beyond [Peasant].

The Tier 5 [Ghost Whispers] was an upgrade but also a change. No longer did he get stronger from the presence of ghosts. To be honest, it wasn’t an ability that he got mileage out of. He hadn’t been fighting wars on ancient battlefields very often.

What had started before with the passive Skill had been completed now. He had complete mental control. He could 100% block out any thought, but also completely substitute Dev'rox’s mind. His perception of time could slow by 3x by using Dev'rox’s brainpower.

If a situation ever arose where some cosmic horror was frying his brain but Dev'rox or Ashendar were somehow resistant or immune, he could swap his consciousness and let his ghosts take the blow.

The implications of that would have to settle in his mind, but he was most interested in Ashendar’s capabilities. While the dragon was silent, his power was not.

A burning heat found only in the pits of a dragon’s maw blossomed from his palm. A beautiful red-orange flame—one of the utmost representations of fire affinity in the multiverse.

While none of his meridians were qualified to transfer this type, like Dev'rox’s space affinity, his soul channeled the ghosts directly. Ashendar was now coiled up at the underside of his Domain.

“Your Domain will be temporarily weaker until the First Law,” Dev'rox warned. “You still haven’t made enough space for me, and you bring on another ghost.”

“I know,” Alistair said. Despite being only a small percentage of the red dragon’s power, he still had nearly twice as much Mana as the imp. A Peak Visionary to Early Profound, as Dev'rox was when he was alive, was an enormous gap. “We’re going to need a lot of merit points for Cultivation Chambers. What do you say we do our two missions?”

-------------

From the moment that Red is born, everything is dull.

His memories go back to the womb. He remembers the warm sensation. If he tries, he thinks he can even remember what it was like to not exist.

The greatest moment of his life is feeling his own light from within the womb.

Later teachers and books will tell him that most people are reincarnated. Very few are souls created from whole cloth. Red is sure that he is one of those new souls.

The idea that he experienced such dullness in the past is a path he does not wish to comprehend.

When he takes seven steps and declares that above or under Heaven, he alone is the honored one, it is because he sees the dullness of the world he is born into, a world where he is the only shining star.

When he learns to read at one month and defeats a grown man in combat at six months, it is dull.

Books cannot hope to capture the beauty of the world he seeks. Men fail to step where they should step, fail to strike where they should know to strike. Women who are known as peerless beauties look like plain rocks.

Everything is dull.

No one else sees what he sees. When he is six, he travels the world alone, searching for a greater origin. This cannot be all there is.

For if it is, even at six years old, Red wants to die.

The boy sees many things. He sees war. He sees life. He sees death. He sees handsome men of great strength. He sees beautiful women, many also of great strength. He sees darkness and he sees light.

It is dull. Some people do shine brighter than others. There is a man from a tiny valley who has a small spark to him. A woman from a great empire who gleans a bit in the light.

It is comparing dirt to a slightly polished rock. When one shines as the rising sun, this is much too dull.

Red does not give up. His younger self was naive to wish to die, he thinks. After his five-year journey, he knows that this world is not the end.

He learns there are other stars and other planets. Some say the gods of this world live there. Red has never seen a god. He hopes they exist, but he is scared.

What if even a god is dull?

When Red is fourteen, he unveils his true powers, or the limits of his brilliance that the dull world can accept. He saves millions of lives from the perils of the Wasted Realm. He becomes the great star of history.

Yet there is still nothing bright besides himself.

He often wonders why he was born into the world. If there are gods who created him, why did they punish him so? Why did they make his stride perfection and others full of flaws?

When he is twenty years old, he has not practiced martial arts in six years. He has not trained his body in six years. He lets his muscles waste away, and his mind grow delirious from a week without sleep. He has his ministers gather the ten strongest warriors of the world, and he fights them one after another.

He does not suffer a single scratch.

When he is twenty-one, he sleeps in his ornamented bed in his lofty palace for the entire day, only waking for a few hours during the dead of night.

It is because he can no longer bear to outshine the sun. At night, it is more fitting that his star should be brightest.

He is content to sleep his days away, dreaming of a world of stars and light.

It is during this year that a god descends. She appears outside his bedside window, a tiny woman in a tattered cloak.

She grabs him by the arm, and he cannot resist. She is stronger than him and faster than him.

The waif soars into the night sky with him in tow and flies to the moon. With a single slap of her palm, she creates an earthquake larger than a country.

This woman is a god.

Yet, she is duller than the man and woman he met on his journey.

Still, he is happy. She is only one god. She tells him of a multiverse of others, many others far greater than herself.

Red spends six months with the waif, traveling the stars. It is magnificent.

It is only now that he realizes that his light was far brighter than even he ever realized. The filth and dirt of his home planet were so thick that they even took away his luster.

Unburdened by his world, he shines brighter than a thousand suns.

The woman tests him many times with many people and many things. She tells him how to cultivate. She explains the Dao. Red listens and learns. Many things she tells him, he already knows, he just could not put a word to it.

She tells him that he is the greatest talent in the history of her organization. It is nothing that he does not expect. He only asks a simple question.

How large and old is her organization?

When she tells him it is but a weak conglomeration of an average part of the multiverse that has been around for only a billion years, the smile on his face is the widest it has ever been since his moment of self-realization in the womb.

Still, there is fear within his heart. A deep fear that cannot be fully contained. A fear that even the true gods of the multiverse, the greatest talents of the multiversal core, that these men and women will still be dull.

It is fine, he tells himself. Red plans to live a long life. He is in no hurry. He has never been in a hurry, not one moment in his life. When the world is dull, he can take all the time he wants.

The waif’s group tests him, thinking he may be the lineal descendant of a god belonging to the rulers of the age. He is not. He could have told them that. His brilliance comes from no secret bloodline.

They do say that his planet is still special. That much is true. While they were dull, he noticed that even though they were far weaker, many of them were still less dull than many of the waif’s godly friends.

He helps her. She is the first person that he can call a friend. She seeks the key to unlock his world, and he goes with her.

He meets a young man of his age and defeats him soundly, like all the others. This man is a dull rock.

A year later, Red waits for his friend. He meets the young man again.

This time, he shines brighter.

In the grand scheme of things, he is dull. If he is a stone, he is a stone that has been polished until it reflects like a mirror. It still barely shines on its own.

Red, in his twenty-two years of life, has never seen such a thing. He has met many people. He has journeyed far and wide, on his planet and with the woman.

People are born with their dullness. It can change, but ever so slightly. This man has gone from a dirty rock to an unblemished granite.

Compared to the ten thousand suns of himself, it is nothing. But maybe it will be something one day. Even a full moon would be satisfying. After all, there can be only one sun.

Yet, Red also thinks deep within his heart of hearts, in whispered words to not make it real, another sun wouldn't be too bad either.

He was expecting his time at the Clear Water Sect to be boring. Yet now he has found a new friend, he hopes. One that won't be left behind.

That would be good enough. Contrary to his talent, he is not greedy. To be born with even a tenth of his potential, he would be satisfied.

So when he sees the onyx radiance walk out of the dining hall, he is confused.

Why is the brightest person he has ever seen besides himself so muted? It is as if she were a blazing fire inside a thick tent. You can feel the heat and light, but it cannot demonstrate its full glory.

For the first time in his life, Red’s heart beats faster. Thankfully, he notices that Alistair has no desire for her. A woman coming between two friends is the last thing he wants.

This moment makes him feel like a greedy pig, because his treasures are not yet complete.

The moment he arrived at his new home, he sensed something funny.

Now, he explores his intuition. It takes him to the graveyard. He makes out Alistair leaving. He smiles. Alistair has missed their training for two days. After Red exits, perhaps they will have a session.

Did Alistair realize something was off, too? No, Red shakes his head. He has to remember that his friend is still dull. One day he might shine like the moon, but today is not that day.

No one else can stride like he can. So whatever Alistair was doing, it is unrelated. Red sees that he has a second ghost buddy now, so that explains things.

Red walks deep into the graveyard, his masterful stride taking him to the end with thirteen steps. The creator of the graveyard hid this trick deep within the Dao. He wonders if anyone has ever found it before.

The ghost of a Visionary dragon bears down upon him, full of hope and love.

“Gideon?” the dragon asks.

“I am not Gideon,” Red replies sorrowfully. He does not like that he has disappointed this beast.

“How did you walk these Ancestral Grounds so?”

“It felt right,” Red answers honestly. “I have walked with the Dao since before I was born.”

“This new generation,” the dragon says. “It cannot be fortuitous that all this talent is gathering. Gideon always said that when that happens, it is because the world itself knows that dark times are coming and gathers strength as a defense mechanism.”

“If that is the case,” Red wonders, “what great evil did my birth precede?”

“Do not repeat those words. Words have power.”

“I know,” Red says. He shifts his stance ever so slightly. “As you can see, I find little tricks like so to be entertaining. Your master clearly left something behind for his students, yet they have not found it. Perhaps it means they're not worthy. I propose a deal. You help me solve the riddle, and I fulfill Gideon’s legacy.”

“That seems to be a very one-sided deal.”

“That you will accept.”

“That I will.”

Red shakes hands with this ghost that was once capable of razing planets.

“I would appreciate it if you don't tell anyone about this. It will not last forever, but if I can solve this riddle while under the radar, that would be best.”

“Very well. I shall help you, young one, because I am reminded so much of Gideon when I look into your dull eyes. I have always wondered why shallow eyes are more profound than deep ones.”

Red says nothing, but he knows the answer.

Of course, his eyes are shallow. They reflect the world.

The dragon’s comments aside, he rejoices.

A friend. A lover. A secret mission.

The Clear Water Sect is wonderful.