Chapter 38 - 36

"What is he doing?" The monitoring team was observing the young man as he cultivated again.

The monitoring team was a separate team from the palace guards as they gathered intelligence or reliable informations and usually were ȧssigned to break someone up, in short, they were specialized at questioning criminals, even you're not a culprit or denying to be one, you would easily confessed to it if you were handled by the team.

"He's cultivating again."

Bai Zhou, the team leader was seated on the opposite of the monitoring room which could surveil the young man. He stared with boredom as he sighed once again.

"Why are you sighing, team leader?" A member of his asked.

The team leader looked at him with dull eyes and replied, "For the first day of the young man being confined here, I knew already that he wasn't a culprit to the death of the third princess' personal maid."

"Eh? Team leader, why didn't you say so?"

"His highness, the crown prince, personally asked me to imprisoned him here for a week so that the third princess would forget him." And it was now day three of the young man here.

The member who asked, widened his eyes in shock while looking at the cultivating young man.

"Oh, he was that infamous young master Zero?"

At first, the members of the monitoring team were confused as they didn't used their 'methods' to crack this young man up due to their team leader's command to just ignore him there.

But now they were able to confirm that this young man was truly innocent, he was just a poor soul suffering from the crown prince' wrath.

As people of Xiu Changming, they knew that the crown prince had a hatred for this young man because during the young man woke up from coma, the crown prince returned from his expedition to the south that lasted for five years and he suddenly got a news that his younger sister had a lover that he doesn't know of.

He was angry to this because he wasn't able to protect Xiu Ying from the claws of a wolf.

A young member of the monitoring team and was also a newbie, said, "Sir, I am curious of something."

"You're Meiwa right, the newbie. What are you curious about? Please do tell me."

The blushing newbie peeked a bit at the handsome young man as she asked, "What is the identity of that young master Zero?"

Knowing that this newbie was enthralled by the charm of the young man, he helplessly sighed. Beauty was truly a blessing and a curse.

"The identity of that person is more dangerous than his charm so you don't need to poke your nose on it," the laughing team leader stood up from his chair as he patted the head of the newbie.

"Sir, but my name is Lihua not Meiwa."

The team leader awkwardly withdrew his hand and coughed, "Right, Lihua."

Even though, he had a retentive memory, he was bad at memorizing names.

---

Zero was immersed in his cultivation as he slowly gathered the world energy and converted them into his qi energy. His spiritual core was improving as well due to his daily absorption of energies.

The spiritual core within the young man's body was something odd because it doesn't function as a medium that connected his life force to his cultivation but it was reversed. His cultivation was supplying his life force, it meant that even though he couldn't reach the Immortal realm, he could still live a very long life if he continued cultivating and absorbing the vast world energy.

It was a wonder for him about his strange spiritual core.

Zero opened his eyes and neared the one-way mirror where he knew that the monitoring team was observing him as he used his qi perception in order to detect the heat energy of their bodies, and there were three red colored body stature was present on the other side.

He knocked on it and mouthed while pointing at the intercom at the side of the one-way mirror.

The three people who were just here as a substitute in order to monitor him was simply flustered by the young man's act, they didn't know anything what the team leader talked about earlier as it wasn't their shift to watchover so they were clueless to this. They just knew that this individual that they were monitoring was a suspect who killed a royal family member's personal maid.

"W-what is it?" A hint of nervousness could be heard on his tone.

Unaffected to the situation, Zero asked, "Can you bring me a book about martial practitioners, cultivations and others that are related to the two that I just mentioned?"

Confusion was formed on their faces while hearing that. Is he seriously reading on this monitoring room? Is he not scared being tortured by their team leader until he confessed?

Another team member elbowed the one who answered the young man, asking him what would they say about this.

"Just call team leader."

"Okay."

The young man with his patience went back to his seat, he knew that they would give him the books that he wanted because it wasn't anything related to committing a crime.

Books were innocent.

A member who called the team leader went back inside, he had a surprise look as he look dumbfoundedly at his communicator.

"What did team leader said?"

"He said that we just follow whatever command that this young man would say aside from freeing him here."

"What? Are you sure about that?! If he wanted food then what's the used about starving him as our torture. Did you heard it right?"

They thought that Bai Zhou was starving the young man as a form of torture but in truth, the team leader was truly a forgetful person as he forgot to give food to Zero and the members didn't ask about this because usually the individual that were ȧssigned under their monitoring would be starved as a customary torture method.

"Yes."

Flashback.

The team member who called Bai Zhou.

"Team leader, suspect 220 was requesting a book about cultivations. Should we give it to him?"

("220… Zero?")

"Team leader, it's two-two-zero. It only had one zero."

("Yes, we only had one Zero in the suspect.")

"What are you talking about, team leader?"

("Just follow whatever that suspect with one zero wanted to ask you of except for letting him out. Are we clear?")

"Yes, team leader."

End of flashback.

The member who clicked the buŧŧon sighed and answered Zero while pressing it again, "Alright."

Zero nodded at their line of sight, making them shivered, unknowingly the young man knew where they were located on this observation room.

---

After hours of reading the ten books about cultivations and such, he finally accumulated a series of informations about the spiritual core. The book that he recently put down, the writer on it stated about the origin of the spiritual core.

It started when martial practitioners weren't still known to the old era, an era of non-cultivators. It was hundreds and thousands years ago that a deity went to the land of non-cultivators and disguised himself as a human. He fell in love with a human female and they got together.

The human female didn't know that he was a deity so when the female wasn't able to give birth, she hated herself as she couldn't give a child to her husband. Everyday she would cry for her hopeless situation. Worried for his wife, he prayed to the Creator to allow him to go back to the Qi Mountain as to seek help from the World Tree who could make his wife give birth.

It was written on the divine rules, that once a deity fell in love with a human, he/she couldn't return to their home which was the Qi Mountain. It was a divine rule that prohibited the deities to involve themselves on human lives.

But the Creator unexpectedly granted his wish and allowed him to go back. Knowing this, he seized the opportunity to ask a fruit from the World Tree, and because the World Tree favored all of its children, it permitted him to pick one fruit in exchange for his divine powers.

The fruit that he picked suddenly disappeared and was immediately sent to his wife's location in which their home.

The deity knew that he was successful as his human wife would be happy to know that she would be able to give birth.

In a joyful manner, the deity went home but he tragically witnessed a horrible scene, his human wife died after giving birth with their child. It was unknown what truly happened but the child with a blood of a half deity and a half human was born, the first individual who had a spiritual core, a cultivator.

After that, cultivators of every part of the world appeared.