Miracle

Awakening from the depths of Nicholas's memories, Li Junshan sank into thought.

In those memories, Nicholas's parents had been good people—gentle and kind, filled with love for commoners. Their lives had been peaceful and harmonious, without scheming or intrigue, the whole family loving one another in warm contentment. But those very things had also become their fatal weakness, ultimately drawing disaster upon them.

For a noble—especially a noble with a hereditary title—such qualities were unacceptable.

Sensing that his emotions had suddenly gained a longing for Viscount Crowell and Lady Linda, as well as that faint affection, Li Junshan did not need to think to know that this was what the dead Nicholas had left behind for him.

"Ah." Li Junshan let out a long sigh.

Nicholas's parents must have been heartbroken beyond measure. Maybe, under someone's deliberate arrangements, they had already been forced to surrender even their title by now, and whether they were alive or dead was hard to say. Even if he wanted to do something for Nicholas, with his current strength, there was simply no possibility at all.

Strength decided everything, and in this world ruled by power, that truth was displayed all the more thoroughly and vividly.

"I'd better focus on cultivating the Summoning Technique first, and hatch some Xenomorph Eggs when I can control them. Then I can think about the rest. What those people owe you, once I have the strength, I'll definitely help you get it back."

Li Junshan gathered his mind and, in the same posture as before, entered meditation again.

Facts proved that Li Junshan was no genius. During the day, he busied himself in the tavern, occasionally going off to tease Sally a little, and spent the rest of his time cultivating the Summoning Technique. Yet after a month, he still had not even stepped over the threshold of a junior Summoner.

It was like a man clearly seeing a mountain of gold before him, yet having no way to find the path inside. Without powerful spiritual force, Li Junshan absolutely did not dare hatch those Xenomorph Eggs.

Li Junshan was extremely depressed. He even suspected that the Summoning Technique manual was fake. The old beggar had fallen ill and died half a month earlier, so there was no way for him to verify it. Later, he found several Summoning Technique handbooks currently in common use across the continent and compared them, only to discover that his own book described things even more precisely than the current manuals. It did not seem fake at all.

His spiritual force was too weak, and even cultivating the Summoning Technique was this slow, to say nothing of magic. After remembering his special blood, Li Junshan felt that perhaps cultivating battle qi would not be a bad choice either.

Windfire Town had all kinds of people. Li Junshan used five hundred skewers of Malatang and easily traded them for a Flame Battle Qi Manual. Though it was called a manual, it was really just an ordinary battle qi cultivation handbook.

"When you bite off too much, you can't chew it." Fate advised him earnestly, "You've only been cultivating for a little over a month. What's the rush? If you switch to battle qi, wouldn't that huge Spirit Space of yours go to waste?"

Fate had his own selfish motives in saying this. He felt that for him to achieve anything in magic in this lifetime would be far too difficult. A mage's cultivation and growth were absolutely proportional to gold coins. Relying on himself alone, he had no hope at all, but after encountering Li Junshan, Fate felt that his springtime had come.

Fate had grown up in a Summoner family. He knew very clearly what sort of achievements a Summoner with a Spirit Space as large as Li Junshan's could have in the future, to say nothing of also possessing an Innate Summoned Beast that even the Summoner himself found dangerous and terrifying. A Summoner like this absolutely had the possibility of becoming a Saint Realm powerhouse. Thinking that he might become the magical retainer of a Saint Realm powerhouse, Fate felt incomparably excited.

Naturally, Li Junshan could not guess what Fate was thinking. He said gloomily, "I'm only trying it. I never said I was giving up on cultivating the Summoning Technique."

Ignoring Fate's nagging at the side, Li Junshan began cultivating battle qi again.

Compared to training spiritual force, cultivating battle qi was much more arduous. Following what was described in the battle qi handbook, Li Junshan began the most basic physical strengthening training.

One hundred push-ups every day, three hundred squat jumps, three thousand meters of shuttle runs, and so on. Following some of the body-training methods from his previous life, Li Junshan began strengthening his body.

Fate was frantic but helpless. He could not persuade Li Junshan, so he ran off to find Anna instead. Citing classics and quoting authorities until his mouth nearly went dry, Fate received only a roll of Anna's eyes in return.

"This old lady has lived this long and has never seen a child as clever, capable, and opinionated as Xiaoshan. Whatever he does is right. As for you, look at your age—you're still a junior mage. What future do you have? Tell me, in the future you..."

Fate was choked speechless, his eyes rolling white. Before Anna could continue, he fled in disarray.

Another month or so quickly passed. Windfire Town was still the same as ever, with people constantly arriving and constantly leaving. One dusk, Fate, showing no mage's grace whatsoever, squatted at the tavern entrance with a bowl in hand, watching with great relish as a group of newly arrived adventurers and a small mercenary team from the town cursed at one another in the street. Just as Fate was secretly egging the two groups on to start fighting, he suddenly heard Li Junshan's excited voice.

"I felt it! There's a warm current in my belly. It feels so good."

Fate sighed inwardly, turned his head, and said, "That's fire-element battle qi forming. Maybe in a few days you'll break through to the junior warrior rank. Listen to me, you should go cultivate spiritual force instead. In the future, you'll definitely..."

Li Junshan was beyond excited and had no mind to listen to Fate's advice. In a flash, he ran back into his room, dug out that battle qi handbook, and following the diagrams on it, sat on the floor and tried to control the circulation of the mass of hot qi within his body.

Before he had even guided it much with his thoughts, suddenly, that stream of battle qi was like river water bursting through a dike, abruptly rushing out from his belly and instantly flowing through his limbs and bones. It circulated dozens of times in succession, and when that warm current finally returned to his lower abdomen, Li Junshan felt that the heat, originally the size of a fist, had actually grown several times thicker.

He stood up and felt his body. It was still skinny, and apart from the muscles he had gained from training these past days, there was no real change. Li Junshan wanted to test it, so his foot stamped hard on the floor and his body lifted upward, intending to see how high he could jump.

Fate would never forget that scene. Just as the two groups in the street were arguing more and more fiercely, on the verge of coming to blows, there came a thunderous boom. A huge hole suddenly burst through the roof of Anna's tavern, and a figure shot violently out from it. The speed was too fast to see his clothes or face clearly; all anyone saw was that person wrapped in purple battle qi, shooting dozens of meters into the air.

"Battle Master!"

Everyone on the street sucked in a cold breath together. Then the scene that appeared made them crane their necks, their eyeballs nearly rolling all over the ground.

The figure wrapped in purple battle qi screamed wildly, like a Golden-Eyed Eagle that had been struck, and with an ugly posture, fell back down through the broken hole in the roof, smashing up a cloud of dust.

Fate threw down his bowl and rushed into the courtyard. Anna's thunderous, roaring curses rose from the cellar where the meat and vegetables were stored. Fate looked at the large hole smashed through the floor, utterly shocked, and hurriedly ran toward the cellar.

Li Junshan stood in the cellar, bent at the waist with a fawning smile piled across his face, apologizing again and again, his face and body covered in dust.

"Aunt Anna, it was my fault. I'll definitely fix it. Yes, fix everything—the roof and the cellar. You can deduct the wages from my pay."

Anna had her hands planted on her hips, her face full of anger, her finger nearly jabbing Li Junshan in the face as she said, "Xiaoshan, how could you do this? My house is..."

"Please don't say any more." Li Junshan nodded and bowed. "I've saved up ten gold coins myself. I'll compensate you with all of them. I won't keep a single copper."

Even a pig could tell who the culprit was by now. Fate had no time to be shocked. He rushed over and shouted, "What are you doing? Do you know who you're talking to? Did you see what happened just now? Purple battle qi! He's a Battle Master now."

Smack.

Fate only felt his vision go black, and then his face took a heavy slap. Before he could recover from seeing stars, he felt a tearing pain come from his ear.

Anna twisted his ear and sneered, "When this old lady speaks, it isn't your turn to butt in. So what if he's a Battle Master? Here, he's still Xiaoshan."

"Aunt Anna, let him go. He was blind for a moment. A great person like you shouldn't stoop to a petty man's level—why bother with him?" Seeing Fate sweating from pain yet not daring to fight back, Li Junshan hurried up to plead for him.

Anna snorted, released Fate, and said, "Remember, this was caused by some outsider no one's ever seen before." Hearing the noise and shouting from above just then, she hurried upstairs.

"Savage woman. How can you stand her?" Fate rubbed the base of his ear and muttered under his breath.

"Aunt Anna is just like that. Her words are fierce, that's all. The trouble I caused—won't she still be the one to settle it?" Li Junshan said with a smile. Just now in midair, he had seen several figures swiftly rushing toward this place from all directions in town.

"What happened?" Fate looked nervously at Li Junshan and said, "How did you become a Battle Master?"

"I don't know." Li Junshan answered honestly, "I tried guiding and controlling the battle qi according to what the book said. Who knew it would suddenly turn out like this?"

Fate was so anxious he was about to go mad. "You..." For a moment, he had no idea what to say.

"Let me tell you one more thing. Steady yourself." Li Junshan spoke with an air of mystery. "I can clearly sense the Magic Beast Eggs in my Spirit Space communicating with me now. They're desperate to hatch. Maybe there's finally some progress with my Summoning Technique too."

"Ah!" Fate felt like he couldn't catch his breath. He said urgently, "They? What do you mean? Isn't there only one Magic Beast Egg?"

Li Junshan had let it slip. He had only just sensed about ten Xenomorph Eggs sending him messages that they wanted to hatch, and in his excitement, he had blurted it out.

"Well... this is... Just now, I felt like my Spirit Space expanded by another fold, and then a few more Magic Beast Eggs exactly like the original appeared."

Thud. Unable to endure any more stimulation, Fate toppled headfirst to the ground, his eyes rolling back as he fainted.

"Xiaoshan, come up here for a moment." Anna's voice came from above.