Alex stepped into the hall and the door closed behind him. "The previous king was a white tiger?" Alex asked. "I don't think I've seen his kind anywhere in the forest before."
"Pfft!" Lady Ren laughed. "You won't see one of the 4 great families randomly in the jungle."
"Oh, right," Alex said. He thought for a bit and asked, "So I have the blood of the white tiger?"
"The Blood Essence, yes. Basically, you have the bloodline of the White Tiger," Lady Ren said. "Don't go out saying that though. As much as people respect the 4 Great families, there are ones out there that are jealous of their bloodline and would do anything to get it, and you would be a very good target."
Lady Ren then started to take a deep breath and shook her entire body. "Ah, finally," she said as a very strong aura appeared from inside of her.
Immediately, the entire hall became deathly still as not a single one inside could make even a peep.
The aura wasn't suffocating, or suppressing at all. In fact, Alex could do everything perfectly as he wanted. However, it was so strong that a fear popped up inside of him on an instinctive level.
"Lady Ren, you are scaring the child," the jaguar said.
"Oh," Lady Ren said as she immediately stopped letting her aura run free. "I'm sorry, little one. I am not used to having such weak— doesn't matter. I will try to stop from now on.
"Meow!" Pearl said.
Lady Ren was about to say something when she noticed something. She walked towards Alex and brought her face right next to his face.
"Are you… a clone?" she asked.
Alex's heart skipped a beat when he heard it. "What makes you say that?" Alex asked, concentrating so as to not miss a single of her words.
"It's because…" she stopped. "No, that can't be right. Am I seeing it wrong?"
Lady Ren seemed to be as confused as Alex was curious.
"I'm sorry," she said in the end. "I seemed to have made a mistake. I thought you were a clone because your soul and body didn't absolutely mesh together. But, they aren't so far apart that I can guarantee that your body is a clone."
"The only other idea would be that you are a saint realm cultivator who died and housed another person's body, but that sounds completely wrong, to be honest," Lady Ren said.
"I see," Alex said. "Well, it's fine. I'm sure there is a reason for all of this."
"I'm sure there is," Lady Ren said. "Although, I must ask. Are you really not a high-level cultivator that is somehow housing the body of a young person?"
"Uhh… no," Alex said. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, that's because you have something that most people in True realm or Saint realm wouldn't even recognize here," Lady Ren said.
"I have— sorry, what do I have?" Alex asked.
"That ring," Lady Ren said. "Can I see it?"
"Ring?" Alex wondered and looked down at his own finger. On his ring finger on the right hand, he had a golden ring with a large red ruby on it. This was the ring he found in the Forbidden Fields.
"Oh, right. I forgot I was wearing this. Is this ring of some significance?" Alex asked.
Lady Ren looked at him with a weird face. "You are joking, right?" she asked.
"Umm… no," Alex said. "Should I know what this ring is?"
"Lady Ren, this is most certainly weird," the jaguar said. "I don't think anyone on this continent has ever seen these rings, let alone own one."
"Is it that rare?" Lady Ren asked. "We should have some right?"
"No, Lady Ren. Her Majesty took everything of value with her when she left, so we don't have anything," the jaguar said.
"Sigh, right," she said. "Young human, you said you can use spiritual sense right?"
"Yes, I can," Alex said.
"Right, try using your spiritual sense on the ring. Especially the ruby," Lady Ren said.
"My spiritual sense? I'm sure I've done that before, but okay," Alex said and tried using his spiritual sense on the ring. However, like every other time, he didn't get anything from it.
It was just a normal ring.
"Nothing," Alex said as he shrugged off.
"No way, let me see," Lady Ren said and used her own spiritual sense on the ring and immediately frowned.
"See, it's just a normal ring, right?" Alex said.
"No," Lady Ren said. "It's a storage ring. Similar to storage bags, you can put items in this ring, only the size of the ring is incomparably large to those of storage bags."
"Oh, is it?" Alex asked with a surprised face. "I'm learning many new things today. But then why can't I access the storage if it has one?"
"Because it's not yours," Lady Ren said.
"Not… mine?" Alex asked. He thought for a moment and his eyes shined with understanding. "Oh, you mean it belongs to someone else? Like someone has refined it."
"Exactly," Lady Ren said. "Unless you can get rid of their ownership, you won't be able to use it."
"Umm… how do I do that?" Alex asked.
"Just refine it yourself. The ownership will be transferred over to you," Lady Ren said. "Although, I'm not sure if that is possible given how weak you are."
"Will it take me a long time?" Alex asked.
"It will take at least a decade for even me to erase the previous owner's ownership of this ring. For you, I'm afraid you will be an old man by the time you get to see the contents of this ring," Lady Ren said.
"I see," Alex said. "Well, I will keep trying then."
Lady Ren nodded and turned around to keep moving forward. Alex also slowly walked behind her and looked around at the walls where the murals were.
The mural to his left had 5 beasts on it, with their arms spread forward, nearly touching each other.
Alex recognized the White Tiger, but the other 4 beasts were a little too vague to exactly tell what they were.
"What's this mural about?" Alex asked.
"Hmm?" Lady Ren talked around. "Oh, this. My husband didn't like reading so he needed to stuff read out to him or drawn for him. To remind himself of what had taken place in the past, my husband decided to have this drawn in here."
"It is called the Pact of the 4 Heavenly Beasts. It was when the 4 Great Families decided to send candidates to look after places that needed looking after. My husband was such a candidate as well," Lady Ren said.
"Four beasts?" Alex asked with a confused expression. "But I count five."
"Haha, I can see where you are mistaken," she said.
"You have one of the heavenly beast, the White Tiger. The second one is this aerial beast known as the Vermillion Bird. The third one is the Azure Dragon.
"And finally, the fourth one is the Black Tortoise. However, the black tortoise is actually two beasts entwined together through fate. The tortoise and snake are fated to live and die together, and they always stay together. So, they are considered as one beast and are together called the black tortoise."
A fog seemed to have lifted from Alex's mind as he finally learned the names of the four Great families.
"So, the four rulers are these beasts?" Alex asked.
"Yes, these are them," Lady Ren said.
"I see," Alex said and turned to the other mural on the opposite wall.
This one had more drawings on it, almost a bit too many. Alex looked at the thing, but he couldn't understand what exactly was going on in this mural.
Going from the left, Alex could see the five beasts that made up the four Heavenly beasts once more. Only this time, they were extremely tiny.
After that, the mural represented a humanoid figure that he couldn't assign a gender to. The figure had something circular behind his head and had his palm facing the 5 beasts.
After that, there were hundreds of different pieces of something randomly drawn in clusters.
After that was a giant circle that seemed to have cracks all over it. After that giant circle was another humanoid figure. From the looks of the circle behind his head, it seemed to be the same figure from before.
He didn't seem to be doing anything at the moment. After the man was finally another circle, but this one didn't have any cracks in it.
The entire sequence of drawings was very confusing to Alex since he didn't have the slightest idea of what it was all about.
"Lady Ren, can you explain this mural to me?" he asked.
Lady Ren shook her head. "I'm afraid not, little human. I myself do not know what that mural is about. Only my husband knew what it was. Even amongst the family, I assume not many know what it is about. My senior sister might have known a little about it, but unfortunately, she left over 4 thousand years ago."
"Oh, it's okay if you don't know about it. I will be okay without knowing a thing or two," he said.
He then stopped looking at either side of the walls and stared straight in the front.
"That golden seat, is that the throne?" he asked.
"Yes," Lady Ren said. "That is where my husband used to sit, and that is where this child, my descendant will now sit. He will have to go through a bit of a test before that, however. I hope he doesn't fail."
