I Am an Ancestor in the Modern Age

Chen Mo is twenty years old, with blocked spiritual meridians and a reputation as a good-for-nothing in cultivation. His father is in the late Golden Core stage, his mother in the middle Golden Core stage, and the strongest cultivator in the world has only reached Nascent Soul. He is the only mortal in the family, getting by under his parents’ protection. That is, until he finds a battered bronze mirror in the storage room. Inside the mirror is another world of cultivation. The Zhou family, on the verge of extinction, has placed the mirror on an altar and worships it as their ancestor. He reaches through the mirror and takes a fruit. Then he bites into it. The spiritual meridians that have been blocked for twenty years begin to stir. From then on, whenever the Zhou family goes to war, he intervenes through the mirror. When they lack cultivation manuals, he bestows the “junk” his father casually tossed aside. The Zhou family treats him like a god, kowtowing and calling him Ancestor. But on his side, he is still a good-for-nothing who cannot even reach Foundation Establishment. Only no one knows that the bronze mirror has rules of its own. The more the Zhou family believes in it, the brighter it shines. The more sincere their faith, the greater its power. Every time he intervenes, it is not his spiritual energy that gets burned, but every kowtow the Zhou family has made, every stick of incense they have burned, and every cry of “Ancestor” they have shouted before the altar over the years. Three Golden Core cultivators arrive from the Zhang family. The Zhou clan leader kneels before the altar, his voice trembling. Chen Mo looks down at the mirror. Its surface shines so brightly it hurts his eyes: this is the faith the entire Zhou clan has gathered over twenty years. He raises his hand and presses it against the mirror. “That’ll do.” On the other side, a beam of light cleaves out of the mirror. Of the three Golden Core cultivators, one dies and two are wounded. The light on the mirror’s surface dims by half. Zhou Yan kneels on the ground and looks up at the mirror, tears streaming down his face. He has no idea what the Ancestor has spent. He only knows that the Ancestor is still there.