Illegitimate Child

They had clearly managed to resolve the crisis, yet at the critical moment, it had been ruined by some brat who popped up out of nowhere.

For the Luo Clan, Yan Huishan currently had no solutions, so he had no choice but to vent all his anger on Sanbao.

"What are you looking at? Get lost, and close the gate!" Following Yan Huishan's loud shout, the sparse crowd still lingering at the entrance of the Yan Mansion scattered like birds and beasts, terrified that the Yan Clan would vent their frustration on them.

The Yan Clan was, after all, a hegemon in Lushan Town; the Luo Clan could afford to offend them, but for others, they could only look up in awe.

"Luo Clan, just you wait. Wuji, the future of our Yan Clan is pinned on you!" Yan Huishan was in a foul mood; he didn't even want to look at his son's injuries, and he retreated into the inner mansion, feeling exceptionally desolate.

Sanbao and the others returned to the Luo Mansion laughing and chatting, but as soon as they reached the main gate, the guards hurried over to them.

"The three young masters, please head to the ancestral hall immediately. The family head is waiting for you."

The smiles on the faces of Luo Caiyang and his brother vanished instantly. They exchanged a glance and offered bitter smiles, knowing they had played too hard today and that some form of punishment was inevitable.

Sure enough, upon entering the ancestral hall, the family head, Luo Dingyi, was sitting in the middle hall with a dark, grim expression. In the hall, the two brothers, Kaifeng and Kaiyu, were also frowning, their heads bowed in silence.

"Grandfather, Father, Second Uncle."

"Uncle, Big Brother, Second Brother."

"Hmph, you bunch of uncles and nephews really showed off today, didn't you?" Old Luo asked in a strange, mocking tone.

"Grandfather, the Yan Clan bullied us too much; how could we just..." Luo Caiguang argued.

"The Yan Clan bullied you, so you decide to lead over a thousand people to cause trouble for them? What grand prestige you have!" Old Luo didn't wait for his grandson to finish before cutting him off with sarcasm.

"This... Grandfather, we didn't want to, but those busybodies..." Caiyang tried to explain.

"Enough, say no more. Our Luo Clan ancestral teachings are clear. Your actions today clearly violated them. The punishment: Kaiyu is to be confined in the ancestral hall's secret chamber for one year, Caiyang is to be stationed at the Copper Mine for one year, and Caiguang is not allowed to leave the mansion for one year. Sanbao was also involved, so he is forbidden from leaving the mansion for half a year."

After Old Luo finished speaking, he walked straight out of the ancestral hall. The remaining people looked at each other in dismay, though the eldest, Luo Kaifeng, and Sanbao exchanged a look, seemingly having realized something.

"How unlucky. Not being able to go out for a year—isn't that just killing me?"

"You have it better than me; I have to stay at the Copper Mine for a year," the brothers Caiguang and Caiyang shook their heads one after another and left.

Luo Kaiyu didn't show much reaction; he shrugged at Sanbao and the other, then drifted away as well.

"Second Brother, wait! The technique you used earlier was a Heaven-grade Spirit Skill, wasn't it? It was so powerful!" Sanbao finally couldn't suppress the doubt in his heart and asked.

"Silly boy, haha, haha..."

Luo Kaiyu didn't answer; he only looked at his eldest brother, Luo Kaifeng, then laughed and walked away. This left Sanbao feeling very strange, so he had to turn his questioning gaze toward his eldest brother, Luo Kaifeng.

"Alright, Sanbao, let me tell you," Luo Kaifeng said with a chuckle.

"Sanbao, you say that our gifted family's strength is far above that of ordinary Spirit Cultivators. Aside from the reason of our innate talents and our physical bodies being far superior to others, what other major advantage do we have?"

"Innate divine abilities? Could it be that what Second Brother just used was our Luo Clan's innate divine ability?" Sanbao caught on instantly and realized with a start.

"You're both right and wrong. What your second brother used doesn't count as an innate divine ability, but it is derived from one. Aside from our most basic innate divine ability, the 'Folded Space Claw', our Luo Clan has another innate divine ability called the 'Illusionary Space Golden Body'. When the Golden Body is perfected, one can transform into the body of a Kunpeng, soaring through the sky and rising ninety thousand miles."

"Folded Space Claw? Illusionary Space Golden Body."

Sanbao immediately recalled his long, late-night conversation with Old Luo some time ago.

As descendants of the Purple-Eyed Golden Peng, the Luo Clan possessed several extremely powerful innate divine abilities, but activating these abilities was no easy task.

Take the Luo Clan's most basic innate divine ability, the "Folded Space Claw," for example; it required at least the cultivation of a Spirit General or higher. That was for those with high-grade Luo Clan bloodlines; if one only had a low-grade bloodline, it required at least the cultivation of a Spirit King.

The requirements for the "Illusionary Space Golden Body" were even higher. Even for those with mid-grade bloodlines, it required at least the cultivation of a Spirit Emperor. For those with low-grade bloodlines, it was impossible to activate such an ability. Of course, if one had a true-grade bloodline, it would be much easier, requiring only the cultivation of a Spirit Commander.

Of course, these were only the minimum requirements; whether one could truly activate them depended on individual talent and opportunity. Take the members of the Luo Clan, for instance: only two people had mastered the "Folded Space Claw," and as for the "Illusionary Space Golden Body," even the family head, Luo Dingyi, had failed to activate it.

What Luo Kaiyu had displayed today was merely the prerequisite spirit skill for the "Illusionary Space Golden Body," the "Nine-Turn Golden Body."

But even so, its power far exceeded that of ordinary spirit skills.

If a member of the Luo Clan wanted to master the Illusionary Space Golden Body, they first had to cultivate the "Nine-Turn Golden Body" to perfection to trigger the innate divine ability.

"Big Brother, can I cultivate the Nine-Turn Golden Body?" Sanbao asked sheepishly, looking as if he were drooling with anticipation.

"Of course you can. This is a mandatory spirit skill for our Luo Clan members. Combined with the prerequisite skill for the Folded Space Claw—the 'Nine-Fold Claw'—these two spirit skills are useful for both offense and defense. Regardless of whether you can activate your innate divine ability in the future, they will be important assets in battle."

"Father had already instructed me to wait until you reached the one-star Spirit Scholar level. Since you asked today, I'll give them to you a few days early."

After Luo Kaifeng finished speaking, he led Sanbao out of the ancestral hall. Along the way, he naturally gave Sanbao some pointers on cultivating these two spirit skills.

"Third Brother, although these two spirit skills are only prerequisites for our innate divine abilities, for our gifted family, their grade is no lower than an ordinary Earth-grade spirit skill. Therefore, wanting to cultivate them to perfection is no easy task..."

After some earnest instruction, Luo Kaifeng carefully handed the cultivation manuals for the two great spirit skills to Sanbao, urging him to memorize the contents as quickly as possible and then return the manuals.

Sanbao nodded at each point and then rose to leave.

No wonder Second Brother Luo Kaiyu's performance today was so astonishing; it turned out that the Nine-Turn Golden Body he used was a top-tier body-refining spirit skill.

Spirit skills are categorized by grade into Low, Mid, High, Earth, and Heaven grades, and by function into offensive or defensive types.

So-called body-refining spirit skills are, in a sense, a type of defensive spirit skill. However, unlike ordinary defensive spirit skills, their primary function is to temper the physical body. When the body is strong, executing any spirit skill naturally becomes effortless.

Unlike the countless ordinary offensive and defensive spirit skills, any body-refining spirit skill is extremely precious. Furthermore, a top-tier body-refining spirit skill like the Nine-Turn Golden Body is something ordinary Spirit Cultivators couldn't even dream of; only a family with such deep foundations as the Luo Clan could possess one.

Of course, another reason for the Nine-Turn Golden Body's immense power was that it was tailor-made by the Luo Clan's ancestors for the Luo Clan's bloodline. If an ordinary Spirit Cultivator tried to cultivate it, they wouldn't be able to succeed.

After all, the physical talent of the Luo Clan's bloodline was far beyond what an ordinary Spirit Cultivator could compare to.

After obtaining the cultivation manuals for the spirit skills from Luo Kaifeng, Sanbao couldn't wait to return to his training room, where he quickly entered a state of cultivation.

What he needed to do now was reach the minimum requirement for practicing Spirit Skills at the fastest possible speed—a one-star Spirit Scholar.

As for the "no leaving the mansion for half a year" punishment handed down by the clan head Luo Dingyi, Sanbao didn't take it to heart at all; in fact, in the nearly two years he had been at the Luo Clan, the number of times he had gone out could be counted on one hand.

These days, almost everyone in Lushan Town was talking about the super collision between the Luo and Yan Clans over tea and meals. Due to the stunning strike from Luo Kaiyu, the Luo Clan's influence and status in Lushan Town had reached an unprecedented height.

However, the direct descendants within the Luo Mansion showed no signs of arrogance at this moment. In the eyes of the guards and servants, these masters were actually even more low-key than usual.

In fact, ever since the brothers Caiyang and Caiguang were punished, the Luo Mansion had become much quieter. After all, there were only a few young people in the Luo Mansion, and apart from the naive and inexperienced Luo Caiyue, there was only that Third Young Master who often stayed indoors.

"Big Brother, don't you think the masters of our Luo Clan are very strange? They are clearly incredibly powerful, yet they keep hiding at the foot of this Lushan Mountain. I think with our Luo Clan's strength, we could even have a place in the capital, Lijing."

"What do you know? This is called biding one's time."

"I think the strangest one isn't anyone else, but the Third Young Master. You say a kid in his teens used to spend every day carving in the back mountain, and now he locks himself in his room all day—it doesn't look like he's practicing, and it doesn't look like he's playing."

"Right, this Third Young Master is truly very strange. I heard he almost died of illness last year; look at him now, he's still as thin as a monkey."

"Keep your voice down. If the masters hear you, be careful they don't peel your skin off~"

During their leisure time, a few guards in the backyard of the Luo Mansion chatted away. None of them noticed that a guard who had arrived not long ago took all their words to heart and quickly passed them on to the ears of the Yan Clan.

It turned out that this skinny monkey was no ordinary person; he was actually the nephew of the Luo Clan head, Luo Dingyi.

"What nephew? I think he must be Luo Dingyi's illegitimate son!"

Inside the meeting hall of the Yan Mansion, apart from Yan Gaojin, whose legs had been severed, the core members of the Yan Clan were all present. After learning the basic situation of Sanbao, one of them spoke up.