Threats

Nie Li looked at Shen Xiu, who was hopping mad, and smiled faintly. "Instructor Shen Xiu really is well-read. If you haven't seen a book, you say it doesn't exist. Have you read every book in the world?" In his previous life, Shen Xiu had been just as unreasonable.

"The Thunder Fire Sacred Codex? I remember now! I think I borrowed that book from the academy library!" a commoner student suddenly exclaimed. He had borrowed three books, and the Thunder Fire Sacred Codex was one of them. But much of its content was too profound for him to understand, and he'd simply forgotten to return it.

The commoner student's words made Shen Xiu's face darken instantly.

The student opened the Thunder Fire Sacred Codex. This was a copied version, not the original. It had been written in the script of the Snowy Wind Empire era. The first volume had a translation, but the rest had none at all. The script of the Snowy Wind Empire era was extremely obscure, and ordinary people couldn't read it.

They hadn't expected the book to actually exist. Even Vice Principal Ye Sheng and Lu Ye exchanged surprised glances. Though they were vice principal and professor at Sacred Lan Academy, its library held hundreds of thousands of books, over ninety percent of them ancient volumes left behind from antiquity. Even they couldn't claim to know the title of every book. There were many books they couldn't translate, either.

In his previous life, Nie Li had traveled across the continent and mastered seven languages. Once he'd reached the Legendary rank, he could skim through all kinds of books in a flash and never forget what he read. Moreover, he'd once spent over a hundred years in the still time of the Book of the Temporal Demonic Spirit, reading more than a million books.

The script of the Snowy Wind Empire posed no difficulty whatsoever for Nie Li.

The gray-robed elder beside Ye Sheng and Lu Ye also looked surprised. Even he hadn't read the Thunder Fire Sacred Codex from cover to cover.

"Ye Sheng, send someone to the library to fetch a copy of the Thunder Fire Sacred Codex!" the gray-robed elder said.

"Yes!" Ye Sheng glanced at Lu Ye beside him. Lu Ye didn't dare delay and dashed off.

The students' eyes all focused on the Thunder Fire Sacred Codex in the commoner student's hands. Ye Ziyun and Shen Yue were both astonished. As children of Peak Families, they'd read widely, too, but they'd never heard of a book like the Thunder Fire Sacred Codex. It was far too obscure, and few people ever studied it.

The City of Brilliance had three most complete systems of engravings: Snowflake, Sacred Fire, and Battlefront. Nearly everyone studied and practiced these three systems. Most of the Thunder Fire Engravings had been lost during the Dark Era. The few remaining texts, such as the Thunder Fire Sacred Codex, had never been translated, so they'd been left to gather dust on the shelves. Occasionally a student would borrow one, realize they couldn't understand it, and promptly return it.

"Let me see, volume seven of the Thunder Fire Sacred Codex." The commoner student quickly flipped through the pages. The book was hundreds of pages long, filled with illustrations and dense text depicting all kinds of Thunder Fire Engravings. There were no translations after the first volume, and the ancient, densely packed script was enough to give anyone a headache. He turned to volume seven, which alone contained over a hundred engravings. One by one, the student compared them, searching for one resembling the Crimson Flame Explosion.

Everyone was growing impatient. How long would it take to find it?

Shen Xiu's expression turned icy. "I'm guessing you just found this book in some corner of the library. You have no idea what it says, yet you claim the Crimson Flame Explosion came from it! You arrogant fool. How could you sully the name of the ancestors of my Sacred Family? If you can't find that engraving, I'll go to the Temple of Sacred Judgment and accuse you of slandering our ancestors!"

Nie Li gave Shen Xiu an amused look and sneered. "Instructor Shen Xiu, isn't it a little too early to say all that? This book is an ancient text from the Snowy Wind Empire era, dating back several thousand years. That's much earlier than the time of the Sacred Family's first patriarch, isn't it?"

"Correct!" Shen Xiu nodded. That was an ironclad fact she couldn't deny.

"Then this is simple." Nie Li glanced at the commoner student. "Starting from volume seven, turn ahead thirty pages. Compare the sixth illustration on page thirty with the Crimson Flame Explosion engraving."

When Shen Xiu saw Nie Li's confidence, her heart sank. If he really found the source of the Crimson Flame Explosion, it would stain the Sacred Family's reputation. The Sacred Family had always claimed that the Crimson Flame Explosion and fifteen other engravings were created by its successive patriarchs. This had earned the family great prestige. If the outside world learned that the Sacred Family had copied these engravings from ancient texts, its reputation would surely suffer.

Seeing a trace of fear in Shen Xiu's eyes, Nie Li sneered. The Sacred Family traded on its reputation, always presenting itself as the inheritor of the Sacred Fire Engravings. It had embellished the stories of every patriarch, claiming they'd created their own engravings and possessed extraordinary talent that had saved the City of Brilliance from disaster. In truth, the Sacred Family was a family of hypocrites!

Before the City of Brilliance fell in his previous life, all the families had fought to defend it. The Sacred Family was responsible for guarding its western gate. But when the battle began, the Sacred Family hid all its strongest members in the Sacred Ancestor Mountain Range to preserve its strength, allowing the western gate to fall. Snowy Wind Demonic Beasts poured through, and Nie Li still clearly remembered the grim slaughter of the City of Brilliance's residents.

Nie Li and the others had been forced to retreat, driven from their homes and made to leave the City of Brilliance!

After being reborn, Nie Li had no goodwill toward the Sacred Family at all.

In this life, I'll erase this hypocritical family from the City of Brilliance!

If he wanted everyone in the City of Brilliance to despise the Sacred Family, he first had to tear away the mask of this hypocritical clan!

"The sixth illustration on page thirty?" the commoner student murmured. With those precise directions, he quickly found the Thunder Fire Engraving.

"Ah!" the watching students cried out in surprise. The Thunder Fire Engraving consisted of two parts, and one of them was identical to the Crimson Flame Explosion engraving. The Crimson Flame Explosion engraving was indeed much simpler than the Thunder Fire Engraving, as if half of it had been sliced off.

Nie Li had been right!

Shen Xiu clenched her fists so tightly that her fingertips turned white. Among the students, Shen Yue looked at Nie Li with open hostility. Nie Li was slandering the Sacred Family!

Nie Li naturally noticed the hostility in Shen Xiu and Shen Yue's expressions. He snorted inwardly. The people of the Sacred Family really were all cut from the same cloth. They never looked for the cause within themselves. Whenever anything went wrong, they blamed someone else. If they hadn't falsified the record, why would they fear being exposed?

"Even if the first patriarch of my Sacred Family took inspiration from this Thunder Fire Engraving, so what?" Shen Xiu snorted.

Nie Li laughed aloud. "Instructor Shen Xiu, it seems you're not very familiar with the Demon Spirit Master Code. Would you like me to explain it to you? The Demon Spirit Master Code has been passed down for over three thousand years, and nearly every Demon Spirit Master abides by it. Article 161 of the Demon Spirit Master Code states that if an engraving is extracted or copied from another Demon Spirit Master's engraving, its source must be credited, and it must not be claimed as an original creation. That's the moral code of Demon Spirit Masters!"

"You... you..." Shen Xiu trembled with rage. Nie Li's words struck at the heart of the matter, directly accusing the Sacred Family of violating the moral code of Demon Spirit Masters. Yet she couldn't refute him.

"If it had been a matter of learning from the strengths of the Thunder Fire Engraving and creating an original engraving, that would be one thing. But the first patriarch of the Sacred Family simply cut off half of it and claimed it as his own. That's rather... criticizing one's ancestors is a sin, a sin. Could the first patriarch of the Sacred Family have had some unavoidable reason?" Nie Li blinked, looking completely innocent.

Nie Li's words were sharp, striking right at the Sacred Family's sore spot. Yet he still pretended to look innocent, making Shen Xiu and Shen Yue so furious they wanted to kill him.

The students murmured among themselves:

"So that's what the first patriarch of the Sacred Family was like."

"I heard that the first patriarch of the Sacred Family was only a Gold Demon Spirit Master, but he was a grandmaster in the study of engravings and created several fire-type engravings. The Sacred Family has always been the inheritor of the Sacred Fire Engravings, hasn't it?"

"I can't believe the Crimson Flame Explosion engraving was copied from an ancient book."

"I've looked through the Record of Snowflake Engravings, and there are plenty of engravings in it copied or extracted from ancient texts. But those Rune Masters credited their sources. They never claimed they were original creations."

"That's the moral code of Demon Spirit Masters. Every honorable Demon Spirit Master would do the same!" The students were baffled. Could the grandmaster who'd supposedly created those engravings actually be nothing but a fraud seeking fame?

Hearing their discussion, Shen Yue grew even more displeased. He already regarded Nie Li as an enemy. His face turned livid as he abruptly stood up and said coldly, "Nie Li, my Sacred Family has been passed down for over three hundred years. We're one of the three Peak Families of the City of Brilliance. How could an ordinary family's son like you presume to criticize us? The Crimson Flame Explosion engraving was written in the first patriarch's notes and was never made public. When our descendants compiled his notes, it was only natural for them to think he'd created it."

Nie Li glanced at Shen Yue. As expected of a son of the Sacred Family, he spoke with barbs and veiled threats, and with one excuse he'd completely shifted the blame elsewhere!

When Shen Yue said the words "Peak Family," he'd put special emphasis on them. He'd also pointed out that Nie Li was the son of an ordinary family. The threat in his words was crystal clear: if Nie Li kept pursuing this, the Sacred Family, as one of the Peak Families, would make sure he suffered for it.

Nie Li despised Shen Yue, too. In his previous life, Shen Yue had been about to become engaged to Ye Ziyun, but when disaster struck, he'd fled first. Hearing Shen Yue speak only irritated Nie Li further.

"Classmate Shen Yue is rather overbearing. Fortunately, the City of Brilliance has strict laws. Otherwise, I'd really be worried the Sacred Family might..." Nie Li acted like a dead pig that didn't fear boiling water and blinked. "I'm sure a Peak Family as great as the Sacred Family will protect my safety. Otherwise, if anything really happened to me, it would become an indelible stain on the Sacred Family's reputation."