Soaring Dragon

CHAPTER ONE: Lan Hao Continent

The continent of Lan Hao was an incredibly vast expanse of land. Traversing the landmass would take hundreds of years, perhaps thousands. It was even said that nobody had successfully accomplished such a feat.

The Continent had existed for countless millennia. Many empires and powers had risen and fallen. Currently, there were three empires in existence: Great Ye, Divine Flame, and Snow Lotus. Each one controlled countless numbers of countries and kingdoms.

Cultivation and Martial Arts were a way of life on the Continent. They were as much a part of people's daily lives as breathing. However, not everyone shared an equal opportunity. If one lacked the appropriate resources and the requisite innate martial talent, then one could never hope to advance far down the Martial Path or even dream of reaching the pinnacle.

This pinnacle was the realm of Immortality. Those who had the chance to attain such heights were few and far between. Only those who belonged to powerful Martial Sects and Clans had such chances, making great use of their faction's thousands of years' worth of wealth, history, and most especially, Legacy.

These Legacies had been passed down through countless generations and only a handful of powerful martial factions possessed them. Legacies were secrets of cultivation to reach the higher realms that outsiders simply could not avail themselves to. Secrets and techniques that came into being because an Ancestor of these great factions had reached the pinnacle of the Martial Dao and became an Immortal, leaving their teachings to their descendants.

As such, these deficiencies directly restricted the progress of normal martial practitioners. Even within the powerful martial factions, restrictions existed. Only the most talented and gifted descendants and disciples, called the Chosen, earned the right to learn and train the Legacy arts and techniques left behind by their Immortal Ancestors. The same went for their resources. Only these Chosen enjoyed the full nurturing of these martial factions.

With this being the case, the lure of powerful martial factions' unfathomable resources and Legacies were the reasons many wealthy and noble families within the domain of the Three Empires did everything within their power to nurture their most talented descendants. They aspired to gain the right to send their most talented descendants to study at the Martial Schools that various great factions had established. Having a member of their younger generation become a direct disciple of these sects was a great honor to any Clan. Their status and influence would undoubtedly rise.

After all, the strong were the ones who truly ruled Lan Hao Continent. Only those who possessed the strength to topple mountains, cleave seas, and decimate empires, with a mere flip of a hand.

The road of cultivation was long and incomparably difficult, fraught with peril, failure and death looming at every twist and turn. This was simply due to the fact that embarking down the Path of Cultivation was in defiance of the will of the Nine Heavens. Nevertheless, this did not deter humans from walking down this dangerous road.

For the average citizens of Lan Hao Continent, Martial Arts and Cultivation was a means to gain the capability to protect themselves to a certain extent. Strength, even just a little, allowed them to struggle and survive.

* * *

It was mid-spring and the lands of a rather small country was verdant with every shade of green. The night sky was clear, littered with stars. The bright moon hung low, bathing the land in an ethereal silver glow. A cool, soothing breeze blew, rustling the trees of a dense forest.