The Mystical universe

A hidden mountain in the middle of an unknown sea.

A giant purple coccon covered the entire mountain, as it bathed in a purple light, and even the sky miles above it was tinged with the same hue.

A serene-looking old man dressed in a purple Daoist robe stood at the peak of the mountain, surrounded by an endless sea that appeared incredibly lonely as it stretched beneath him.

The old man gazed down the mountain, his eyes piercing through the trees and rocks, finally settling on a huge cave, where a figure sat, meditating.

He stood at the peak, watching over the boy from a distance. Indeed, it was Kaelen who sat cross-legged inside the massive cave, currently immersed in cultivating the True Heart Sutra.

A bronze aura occasionally flashed in his chest as he neared the initial mastery of the True Heart Sutra, forming his true heart in the shape of a heart spirit. Today, he decided to break through in his cultivation method before attempting to reach the Xiantian Realm.

As time passed, the flashing bronze light became more frequent. After an unknown duration, a hazy bronze orb finally condensed in front of his heart. The bronze orb flickered violently as it began to take a shape. Its oval shape turned cylindrical, then a pole-like form. Finally, it settled into a bronze spear, roughly the size of a finger.

The small bronze spear then pierced into the boy's heart. Naturally, it was more of a spiritual object; therefore, Kaelen barely felt anything. As the bronze spear pierced into his heart, it didn't immediately settle as it traveled through his body. Kaelen's entire body suddenly glowed with a bronze hue as the spear circulated through his blood vessels and 720 primordial meridians for nine revolutions, after which, it went into his brain.

If anyone could see inside the boy's brain, they would observe his innumerable neuronal pathways glowing with a bronze color. The glow even traveled through the pathways that led to his eyes, making his normally amber irises turn slightly darker.

He suddenly stood up from his cross-legged position as a silver spear appeared on his right arm. He began to wave it around, going through the thirteen moves of the foundational true spear technique. Swing, thrust, block, sweep, parry, overhead strike… from the most basic moves all the way to the more advanced moves; whirlwind sweep, Piercing the Mist, Dragon tail Swipe, Heavenly Descent, Pinning technique, Divine Guard Dance.

He executed all the moves in quick succession one time, then two times… three times. As he danced with the spear in hand, the bronze spear spirit glowed brightly in his brain. Kaelen felt his mastery improve at a horrifying speed.

The long spear in his hand seemed to turn into a silver dragon as he waved it around. Finally, the spear started emitting buzzing noises as it spun like an electric drill while he unleashed a powerful thrust. "Swoosh." The spinning spear thrust seemed to pierce through space as a dragon-like spear light shot from the tip, flying through the air as it collided with a giant rock outside the cave. It pierced through the rock all the way to its other end, leaving but a fist-sized hole.

Kaelen then stopped, looking at the spear in his hand. "That feeling… It felt like the spear was an extension of my arm, which is the first mastery stage." Deep shock surged in Kaelen's heart. Originally, he thought it would take him a month at least to reach the first stage of spear mastery with his talent, and even that would have been considered monstrous, yet he reached it in a bit more than a week. "So, it was true." Thinking back to the True Heart Sutra, he couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

After reaching the initial mastery of the True Heart Sutra, one's comprehension ability would increase depending on the form and origin of the heart spirit. If it was a sword, then one would gain a genius-level sword cultivation talent. If it was a plant, one would gain a greater affinity with the wood element, furthermore, it allowing one to increase their elemental talent with an element attained through cultivation, by strenghtening the heart spirit. Generally, one's elemental talent cannot be changed, but certain heaven-defying cultivation methods can allow one to nurture an otherwise nonexistent talent for their secondary elements. However, Kaelen's true heart was not an element but a weapon, increasing his spear talent instead.

Besides the talent increase, forming a true heart allowed one to enter a zone whenever it was activated, increasing learning speed through a form of lesser enlightenment. The cultivator of the True Heart Sutra could also increase the strength of his attack by activating his heart spirit.

"Huuuu." Exhaling softly, Kaelen sat back in a lotus position on the ground. "Now, it's time to breakthrough Xiantian."

He circulated his Qi for nine revolutions before starting the breakthrough. His originally light crimson qi had an additional bronze color to it, giving it a metallic crimson gold glow.

After the bronze heart spirit circled his entire body, his Qi now had an additional piercing quality inherent to spears. By activating the heart spirit, this quality would become even stronger, giving him a substantial boost in attack power. For now, though, he needed to refine his heart and awaken his bloodline and divine might.

After nine revolutions, the crimson gold Qi approached his heart. "Alright, it's now or never." With a determined thought, his mind entered his heart along with the crimson gold Qi.

Inside, he saw in the middle of his heart- two beads, one golden amber and one crimson red. In another corner, there was a powerful yellow orb that seemed like it would explode at any moment. "Those two sealed beads… that red one gives me a familiar feeling, like when I tried to lift Teacher Long's weapon and slightly activated my bloodline, so it must contain it. As for the golden amber bead, I don't know what it is, but it gives me a similar feeling as the red one. It must also be a bloodline seal, then? Wait… does that mean I have two bloodlines? No wonder Old Dai had a complicated emotion when I asked him about it, so it's the bloodlines I inherited from my parents. I don't know which one is from who though. Wait, where is the divine might? Could it be that yellow orb? No, that must be the pill energy from last time. It's still so powerful despite losing parts of it. Alright, let's do this."

He willed the Crimson Gold Qi towards the yellow orb of energy, merging them together and forming a tri-color orb. Then he began expanding the tri-color orb until it was big enough to cover his entire heart.

Tremendous pain emerged from his heart as it was gradually covered by the tri-color orb. "According to the True Heart Sutra's Xiantian passage, you refine the heart by covering it in destruction energy and use Qi to accelerate the recovery process. I will use the yellow energy and the piercing quality of my heart spirit to slowly destroy it while my Qi helps my heart to recover faster. After which, I guess one of those sealed beads will pop, merging into my heart and awakening one of my bloodlines." Withstanding the pain, Kaelen recalled the method of refining the heart from the True Heart Sutra.

Beginning the refining process, Kaelen compressed his heart with the tri-color energy as it disintegrated and reintegrated slowly. If you were to look inside, you wouldn't notice anything, as the scale was very minute. He would destroy three millimeters every hour or so, and the recovery process would happen at the same time. The average heart being 130 millimeters long, 85 millimeters large, and 65 millimeters deep, that's a total of slightly less than 300 millimeters, meaning at this rate, it would take Kaelen five days to completely refine his heart, given nothing unexpected happens.

Two days later, inside the cave, Kaelen willed through the pain as he refined a little under forty percent of his heart. In a few more days, he would have completed his breakthrough.

Inside his heart, two sealed bloodline beads hovered in the dead center. Unbeknownst to Kaelen, the crimson red bead began glowing, the characters around it slowly dissipated as the seal lifted itself.

The moment the seal was lifted, the sky above the mountain turned crimson, and red auspicious clouds gathered. Clouds began to move in a circular motion, forming a red cyclone in the sky. Red strings of lightning would flash occasionally within the cyclone. In its center, a golden gate appeared. On the doors of the gate, countless divine beasts were engraved. It looked like a gate to a divine beast domain.

"Roarrrrr!!!" Inside the eye of the cyclone, a heaven-shaking roar shook the mountain as a nine clawed red dragon made of heaven and earth energy appeared. It flew towards Kaelen, circling around his body.

When the last character disappeared, the bead suddenly erupted as infinite strands of blood spurted out of the bead. Many strands merged with Kaelen's heart, mixing with the blood inside it, while most merged with Kaelen's veins, blood marrow, blood vessels, arteries, and muscles, bringing dramatic changes to his body.

As his body became saturated with new blood, thousands of strands pierced through his skin as they formed an egg-shaped shell that covered Kaelen's entire body. The heaven and earth dragon that was hovering around him merged with the shell. Silence overtook the cave as earth-shaking changes happened inside Kaelen's body.

High up the mountain, an aged figure was watching the entire process, pain reflected in his eyes, as he looked lovingly at the red cocoon.

"Finally, the Crimson Emperor Dragon's bloodline reappears in the world. Elara, I wish you were here to witness your son's transformation. His talent surpasses even yours and Old Crimsonsky's, your grandfather. He may become the most powerful Crimsonsky to ever have been born; the new generation will overtake the old. Sight…" Looking up at the endless stars in the sky, the old man mumbled.

A day later, inside the cave,

"Crack, ca-cha," rays of sunlight pierced into the silent cave as cracking noises broke the silence. The shell covering Kaelen broke apart gradually, revealing a naked figure among the red fragments of the shell.

The cracked shell fragments floated off the ground and covered the figure's body with crimson red scales, quickly painting him red. Slowly, the crimson red scales disappeared into the figure's skin, changing it back into a glistening light amber color kissed by the sun.

Kaelen opened his eyes, his amber irises flashed with a crimson light as he stood up from the ground. "Hm? This feeling…" Suddenly noticing something, he rushed outside the cave and ran until he reached a small lake. Looking at his reflection, he was taken by surprise at the changes in his body.

He, who was originally 1.73m tall, grew seven centimeters taller, now standing at 1.80m, which was considered the normal height of a grown man. However, he was still only thirteen years old and had ample time to grow much taller. His height wasn't the only change. His brown hair was now a mix of red and brown—an auburn color that tilted towards the red. His body was a bit more muscular.

All the changes made him look a few years older than his actual age, giving him a more mature look.

Suddenly, the boy saw something hanging between his legs through the reflection.

 "Shit, I'm completely naked. Thank God there's no one here," he said.

 "Snort… who said there was no one. Get dressed, you monkey." A voice appeared from behind, as Old Dai landed not far from him. He threw clothes to the boy, similar to the ones he gave him and Rai before.

"Old Dai, it's you," exclaimed Kaelen as he quickly covered his lower area.

"Tsk, who else could it be. There's no need to hide that thing; I'm not interested in looking at it." He lifted his head to look at the sky, giving the boy time to change.

"Aahah." Lightly laughing, Kaelen caught the clothes, but before putting them on, he jumped into the lake.

"Might as well clean myself now." He shouted, diving into the water.