On the Profound Spirit Continent, prodigies abound.
Lin Yi has an abysmal spiritual root and is timid and weak, making him the laughingstock of his entire clan.
His fiancée rejects him and calls off their engagement. The holy son publicly vows to kill him. Anyone on the street can mock him with impunity…
He lowers his head and silently swallows every bit of resentment.
Until the day of the clan tournament, watched by thousands, when the holy son pins him beneath his foot. “A good-for-nothing like you thinks you deserve to cultivate?”
His blood drips onto the ancestral shrine’s stone stele. In an instant, the heavens and earth change color, and divine thunder from the Nine Heavens clears a path for him!
Lin Yi slowly raises his head, all traces of cowardice gone from his eyes. “Today, I’ll show you what a true god is!”
The prodigies fall to their knees in terror. “We welcome… the return of the Ancient Divine Clan!”
The training grounds in front of the Lin family mansion in Qingyang Town.
The sun shines brightly, but it cannot dispel the heavy disdain and scrutiny hanging in the air, almost tangible. The platform is built from “Blackvein Stone,” harder than refined iron, yet at this moment it feels like a scorching brand, searing the back of the solitary boy standing upon it.
Lin Yi lowers his head, his gaze fixed on the toes of his cloth shoes, washed pale and still damp with morning dew around the edges. His roughspun tunic looks especially out of place beside the gleaming brocade robes worn by the other Lin family disciples. He can feel countless gazes bearing down on him from every direction, from the packed, shifting crowd below: mocking, pitying, gloating, or simply eager for a show. The gazes weave into an invisible net, trapping him in its center so he can barely move, each breath tasting as stifling as rust.
“Next, Lin Yi!” calls the official presiding over the family’s annual grand…
