Ning left Ely early in the morning to go check out the secret realm behind the palace of the Blackspire royal family.
Ning was still not sure if the secret realm was Origin or not. After all, he had to ask the system to list out all the secret realms and weed out the ones that didn't have enough Qi capacity or were of not much importance.
He was worried this one would be in the sea as well, but after learning that the people around this area had the highest cultivation base, Ning decided to check upon this place.
It was this or the other one that was the origin and having stayed here overnight, he was starting to believe that this was the Origin.
After all, the Qi in this place was vastly superior to any out there.
Ning walked through the streets and approached the royal palace in the distance.
"My god, so lavish," he thought as he looked at the massive palace. As if a god lived there, the castle was built upon the clouds themselves.
The palace floated in the air, nearly 50 meters into the sky, and was large enough to be considered a city of its own. There was some sort of formation being used here that made the palace invisible for the most part and one needed to come this close before seeing it with their own eyes.
Each pillar seemed to be made up of gold, and each wall was made up of jade. The white marble laid everywhere else from the floor to the ceiling, giving the palace a truly celestial feeling.
Ning looked at the ground beneath the palace. The garden down below was full of the rarest and most beautiful flowers one could find in the entire world. The gardener that was working on the flowers himself was an Immortal King, making the Immortal Emperor that rules the continent that much more legitimate in Ning's eyes.
He walked into the garden and looked through the flower. 'Not bad,' he thought as he touched them. Suddenly, the gardener next to him cut off some of the flowers and stored them away.
'Huh? Why did he cut them? I didn't see anything wrong with the flowers,' Ning thought. That was a little weird to his eyes, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Not like he could lift his concealment to ask the gardener about it.
He left the garden, going underneath the cloud that held the palace, and arrived at what would normally be the backyard.
"Hmm… that's quite a strong Qi output from in there," he thought as he felt the air around him. "If not the Origin, there must be a massive cluster of spirit veins in there."
Ning was about to enter when he felt the space fluctuate around him and he stepped back.
A woman appeared from inside the folded space, one that seemed to be so beautiful that she dwarfed everything around her. There was a natural halo of light around her, following her every step, and the people that were behind her were barely maintaining their composure.
If they let go of their composure, they would fall to the ground and start praying to the woman in front of them.
Ning felt the aura around her and was a little surprised. 'Immortal Emperor 8th realm? Who is she exactly?' he wondered.
He used Qi analysis for a moment and was given the exact answer he needed.
"Tina Blackspire… Empress of the Blackspire Dynasty, I see. The Empress, huh?" Ning thought. "I wonder what the Emperor's name is."
Ning hadn't bothered learning about him till now, so he finally checked it. When he did, he was a little surprised at the piece of information he got.
"Dawn Blackspire, Emperor of the Blackspire Dynasty… dead. Then, I suppose I just witnessed the Ruler of the domain I'm at," he thought.
He looked back at the majestic woman that was flying overhead to her palace and turned around to walk into the secret realm.
However, before he could walk in, another group of people walked out. This time, there were 3 of them. 2 of them were young men, and 1 a young female.
They all shared similar facial features, so Ning guessed they were a family. He quickly checked their names to realize that they were indeed the youths from the Blackspire family.
'These must be the prince and princesses,' Ning thought as he watched them leave. He wanted to see how strong these 3 were and checked their cultivation base.
One of the young men was in the Immortal King realm, and the girl was in the Immortal Saint realm. However, the last man was surprisingly lacking a cultivation base.
"Is he a cripple?" Ning wondered. But, he quickly ignored thinking about the Blackspire youths and thought of his own situation.
He was finally free to enter. He turned around to go into the secret realm when once again he felt the space twist around him as someone else appeared out from the secret realm.
"Goddammit! Can't they all come out at once? Why do they have to come out one at a time?" Ning thought to himself angrily.
He looked at the newcomer and saw that he was a man wearing a simple robe and had a blank look on his face. He had a very handsome face, and as for the cultivation base…
Ning froze. "The hell?" he thought when he saw the man's cultivation base.
This… was an Immortal God.
"So there is one like that," Ning thought to himself.
"How may I help you, friend?" the man suddenly spoke as his head turned towards Ning and he looked him directly in the eye.
Ning was shocked that someone saw through his concealment. Even if he was an Immortal God, he should not have been able to.
Ning slowly let go of his concealment and looked at the man in front of him. "You are not of the Blackspire family," he said. "Who are you exactly?"
