As an itinerant cultivator, he had long grown to be wary of people.
Tang Qi however was quick to recompose himself. Despite everything else, he was a palace realm expert and had managed to make that leap while being an itinerant cultivator which was no easy feat.
"About 233 years ago, I got a lucky encounter that finally gave me an opportunity to step into the doors of the palace realm after being stuck in the peak of the core formation realm for 567 years.
I thought with my talent, that was where I would stop at. In fact, if I was to go by the judgments of the sect I used to belong to, reaching the early stages of qi refinement realm was the best I could hope for.." Tang Qi said with a rueful smile.
Before he decided to be an itinerant cultivator, when he was younger he belonged to a rural village that didn't know much about cultivation until one day a random cultivator belonging to a sect called the Iron Shattering palm sect passed by and out of a sense of karma decided to check the aptitudes of the children in the village to see if they had a talent for it.
Tang Qi was one of only four who were found to have a talent for it. The cultivator offered to bring him back to the sect. He was hesitant at first but the cultivator sold him on the abilities of a cultivator, how he could change his parent's lives, and so many things he could do once he was a cultivator.
Tang Qi was nine at the time and was easily tricked. By the time the cultivator was done with him, Tang Qi had already thought himself an immortal with grand techniques, and his parents, cows, chickens, pigs and the girl he happened to like would all be brought by him to such heights.
Sadly things didn't go as he imagined. He ended up being a servant for the sect and was later demoted to be a pill slave where they experimented different potions on him due to his physique that had proven to be sturdier than the other three children who came from the same village as him.
The three children from the same village as him died within three years, and only he was left. Over the next nine years, it was nothing but hellish torture. If he was not being used as an alchemy experiment, he was being used as an exercise dummy by the real disciples of the sect.
His only means of defense at the time was a white-grade body refining technique that was no different than him not knowing any cultivation art.
The beatings and the alchemy experiments ended up being a blessing in disguise as somehow he managed to form a silver body in five years which he was quick to hide.
Lucky for him it was easy to do so since the Iron Shattering sect despite its domineering name was a mediocre sect at best with the sect master being at the late stages of qi refinement.
However, despite their poor standards, they still had qi refinement cultivators who would easily kill him even with his silver body, so he decided to bide his time.
13 more years passed by before it came when the sect got slaughtered when one of the rival sects finally got someone who broke through to the foundation establishment realm, and when he did, the first thing they did was attack the Iron Shattering Palm sect.
Tang Qi was lucky to escape with his life in the midst of that chaos while looting a few techniques here and there.
With nothing but the bloody robes he had on, a body pumped with defective potions, and three low-tier red grade techniques he began his journey as a rogue cultivator.
With his experience with the Iron Shattering Palm sect, he wrote off ever joining any sect again. He would rather depend on himself and die trying than risk it with sects who saw him as nothing more than a tool to be used.
After trial and error he managed to reach the qi refinement realm in a few years after escaping from the sect, and 30 years after that he managed to retrace his steps back to his village and see his parents.
His experience with the Iron Shattering Palm sect had left him with a jaded mentality and personality. With what he had seen and experienced, he knew how terrifying the world was, and as he was going back to his village, all he could think of was the brutal state he would find the village in, and his parents dead.
His guess was proved wrong as he found the village the same way as he had left it. It was a farming village, so the villagers were usually hard at work on the farms, and as for his parents, they were alive but were well on in their years.
They were in their late eighties which was understandable since he was about sixty-four years himself by the time he came back and at the late stage of qi refinement realm at the time.
They all teared up when they saw each other, especially Tang Qi who was sure he would never see them. For the next decade till their death, he stayed with them living the life of a simple farmer's son.
Despite not actively cultivating, in that decade he managed to reach the peak of qi refinement and was just a tiny step away from breaking through to the foundation establishment realm.
Those 10 years had helped him greatly, especially when it came to calming his heart and adjusting his mental state. The tranquility and the improvement in his state of mind became a blessing for him.
After his parents died, he left and in less than a year he broke through to the foundation establishment realm.
Tang Qi couldn't help but feel emotional when he thought of his parents, and the blissful smile they had to their death. He ended up toiling for close to a thousand years before he finally reached the peak of the core formation realm, and those years were far from easy and he had so many brushes with death that were too many to count.
But his parents' smile and that decade he had with them was like the tether that kept him afloat and pushed him forward till finally here he was, a palace realm expert that would look below millions.
There were days he felt all this was an illusion and he would wake up to find himself tied down and being pumped with potions that were not qualified to be called that.
"Senior..Senior..."
Tang Qi's eyes regained focus when he regained he heard Yang Qing's voice.
"Sorry about that judge..." he said with an apologetic smile.
"Maybe after this is done, I can go settle there permanently.."
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