[A/N: A small change was made to the last chapter. Lady Ren's daughter has married 5000* years ago.]
Lady Ren sighed as she remembered the incident with the Central Continent.
"Stuff happened there, making it start gathering Qi from all over the realm, and destroyed everything there as before," Lady Ren said.
"It used to be a continent with barely any Qi in it, so the only ones that lived there were common beasts and mortals. Due to that, no one wanted anything to do with the continent, and most of it was barren."
"Later on, everyone got tired of using way too many resources to teleport between continents, and so the four rulers of the other 4 continents got together to establish teleportation formations on the Central Continent itself. They used resources from the continents to make it a transition point during teleportations," Lady Ren said.
"But one day, it suddenly started showing unusual behavior. When people couldn't access the teleportation formation, all 4 of the rulers went to check, but… sigh, forget about it. It's not a memory I would like to remember," she said.
"Oh, the other continents have rulers too?" Alex asked with surprise. He didn't remember anything about them in the myriad of information that was floating on the internet.
"Of course they do," Lady Ren said. "Only the Central Continent didn't have one, and that was for obvious reasons."
"Oh, is any one of the humans?" Alex asked.
"No, little human. The rulers are chosen from the 4 Great Families. No human would ever have a chance of obtaining that honor," Lady Ren said.
"The 4 great families? I don't think I have ever heard of something like that," Alex said.
"I would be rather surprised if you knew who they were," Lady Ren said. "Can I ask my questions now?"
Alex nodded. '4 Great Family huh? I will have to ask my sister and see if she knows something about it tomorrow morning. If not, I hope the internet has some answers,' he thought.
"Can you tell me truthfully how you came to acquire the bloodline of one of the 4 Great Families?" Lady Ren asked.
"Huh? I have something like that?" Alex asked with surprise. But then when he thought about it, the ruler of this continent was from the 4 great families, and Lady Ren did say that he had the blood of the ruler.
"You very clearly do. In fact… you have just as much as this child does from what I am sensing," Lady Ren said.
"Uhh… I think I know the reason for that," Alex said. "Wait a second. Pearl, can you go back inside?"
"Meow!" he said and agreed. He would rather go back to his beast space than stay out here amongst these unfamiliar faces, flying so fast in the sky.
"Why'd you send him inside?" Lady Ren asked.
"It has to do with his mother's death, so I would rather not talk about it in front of him," Alex said.
"Go on then," Lady Ren asked.
Alex nodded and explained it all as much as he could and told them how he acquired a blood essence from her. He didn't go into detail about how the blood essence came to be and just said that she handed it to him.
"And then?" she asked.
"Then one day when I was just messing around, I brought out the bead that was the blood essence. It was so strong that I was nearly choked to death, but Pearl ate it up like it was nothing," Alex said.
"After that, he absorbed it, but not all. After a few minutes, he spit out some blood that he couldn't absorb, and… somehow, my body attracted it. I don't know what happened afterward, but when I woke up, I had absorbed it too," he said.
Suddenly, the jaguar stopped flying, and so did the puma. Lady Ren stopped too, but the shock in her face made it look like she wasn't paying attention to anything.
"You absorbed the blood essence?" the jaguar asked.
"That's not possible. Even we can't do that," the puma said.
"When you say your body attracted it, what do you mean?" Lady Ren asked.
"The blood, it was floating in the air and my body craved it and took it in directly through my forehead," Alex said. "I fainted afterward, and since then my Metal roots have significantly improved."
"Your metal roots? My god, you really did absorb it. You not only absorbed blood blessed by the gods, but you absorbed the blood essence itself. That's… that's not something I have ever heard of happening," the White Cat said with a face full of confusion.
"Does the library not have anything on it, lady Ren?" the jaguar asked.
"No, we might have to go back to the lord's ancestral home if we want to learn anything about it at all," Lady Ren said.
"Is it that unusual?" Alex asked. 'My body is divine grade, so there should be a few bodies above mine that can do that as well, right?' he wondered.
"I admittedly don't have all the knowledge as I am but a lowly concubine to the lord, but… I have never in all of my life heard of a human absorbing the bloodline of any of the 4 Great Families. The bloodline blessed by the gods is not so easily acquired by just about anyone."
"Most of them can't even reproduce in all of their lifetimes. It's one of the downsides of having just a godly bloodline," Lady Ren said. "Even when they do manage to reproduce, the child may not fully acquire the bloodline and only part of it."
"It's similar to what is happening to your right now. You are part of whatever your parent's bloodline was and part the bloodline of blood essence you absorbed," Lady Ren said with an amused face. "Suddenly, you have started to become more interesting than I would have previously imagined."
Alex couldn't understand the benefits of having such a bloodline, but he has already experienced some of it. Just having his metal roots be improved was beneficial enough.
"Are there any more benefits of having this bloodline than just improved Metal roots?" Alex asked.
"Um… there are, but I am not sure if they will manifest on a human. Your physiology doesn't exactly match that of those that usually have this bloodline," Lady Ren said.
"I see," Alex said. "Then, can I ask what this bloodline is called?"
"You'll learn soon enough," Lady Ren said. "Let's hurry back."
"Yes, lady Ren," the jaguar and puma said.
They immediately flew through the night sky once more at blisteringly fast speed.
'Dammit,' Alex thought as he was carried away. 'They gave so many answers, but not a single concrete one. I can't even demand that they answer more clearly.'
Alex once again looked around at the incredible speed they were flying at and wondered just how far he was. The surroundings all looked the same to him and he had no map of anything outside of the Crimson empire to even make an educated guess.
Finally, after an hour, the there of them came to stop. It seemed they had reached their destination.
