Tianyi released his spiritual sense and enveloped the whole restaurant. The owner or shopkeeper was only a Foundation Establishment cultivator, yet none of the people lining up were impolite in any way. But that wasn’t what caught Tianyi off guard.
What caught Tianyi off guard was that seller was someone who looked to be in his fifties. He didn’t think that the appearance of coke was a coincidence. The first thought that came to Tianyi’s mind was that it was a reincarnator from Earth.
But how could a reincarnator from Earth look to be in his fifties? And his cultivation was barely at the Foundation Establishment Realm. Compared to the image of reincarnators within Tianyi’s mind, the difference was like heaven and earth. Also, with himself at the base, reincarnators should have only come to around twenty years ago. Jiang Chunye’s age supported this point.
Still, Tianyi was interested in discovering why. So along with Su Bojing, Tianyi waited in line for his turn. Or that was the plan.
Su Bojing unleashed the pressure of a Nascent Soul Grandmaster and caused those in line to move aside as if their life depended on it. With a pleased expression, he made a “please” gesture to Tianyi.
Desperately holding back the urge to facepalm, Tianyi walked towards the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper’s face, in response, paled as Tianyi came closer.
“There’s no need to be afraid.”
Great, that sounds like a cliche villain line.
“My companion was slightly impatient to try out the famous coke,” Tianyi said as gently as possible. Su Bojing didn’t say anything, but his dubious eyes said all.
“Y-yes! O-of course! What option would you l-like?” The shopkeeper said, not quite managing to keep his calm.
Tianyi looked at the menu hanging on the walls. He raised an eyebrow.
There were three options, rank one to three. Rank one apparently was suitable for Qi Gathering Pupils, while rank three was suitable for Core Formation Masters.
“You’re an immortal chef?” Tianyi asked.
Immortal chefs wasn’t a very popular occupation compared to the alternatives. Immortal chefs were able to create incredible delicacies but compared to using the same ingredient in a pill, the efficiency was far worse.
In essence, immortal chefs were employed by those with great power and enough wealth to waste it on food. At the same time, the immortal chef would be their follower and be protected. This was because, on average, those who chose to become immortal chefs had no other option, and their own potential was lacking.
The number of True Immortals who were immortal chefs could be counted on one hand.
“N-no, my s-son is.” As the old man said that, contentment and pride shone on his face.
“Your son must be very talented,” Tianyi said. “We’ll take ten portions of the rank three coke.” At the same time, Tianyi became curious about the man’s son. Surely he was someone like Tianyi, a reincarnator.
The old man showed an elated expression, and he immediately went to procure Tianyi’s order.
“Father, have you forgotten? We don’t serve people who disregard the rules here.”
Tianyi turned around to see a youth who appeared to be in his late teens. Despite his apparent young age, his Peak Core Formation cultivation base was revealed to all. Tianyi probed a bit and calculated that the cultivator’s age should not be larger than thirty years old.
“Chifan, I-” The old man wanted to speak but was cut off.
“Please come back after becoming true customers. We only serve those who follow the rules here.” Dong Chifan said with neither arrogance nor meekness, but his body language left no alternative.
Su Bojing frowned and wanted to rebuke, but Tianyi stopped him with a hand. Then from out of nowhere, Tianyi tapped the tip of his folded fan onto the palm of his other hand.
“Aren’t you a bit too stubborn?” Tianyi acknowledged that they were a bit overbearing (he blamed Su Bojing), but refusing to sell to them based on that? That wasn’t very smart in his view.
“Senior, the clan has clan laws, the sect has sect laws. Although our little shop cannot compare, we have our own rules. If we bend these rules, what is the difference between having them and not having them?” Dong Chifan said, his eyes resolute and clear.
Tianyi appraised him. Although his face was ordinary, the aura he had should make him quite attractive to females. “What if I offered to pay a hundredfold?”
This time not only was Dong Chifan and his father shocked, but Su Bojing as well.
But after calming down, Dong Chifan said. “Sorry, but rules are rules.”
Tianyi nodded and fanned himself with his unfolded fan. “Not bad, sticking to your principles. I’ll come back tomorrow to purchase some.”
Saying so, Tianyi walked away with his group leaving a slightly bewildered Dong Chifan. He expected Tianyi to be unruly and argue on. Although Dong Chifan wasn’t confident of defeating Tianyi, he was confident in protecting himself.
“Junior brother, do you want me to send someone to teach the punk a lesson?” Su Bojing asked.
Tianyi rolled his eyes. “Do we need to go so far? It’s just a minor matter in the end. Although… I’m quite curious about him. His father doesn’t appear to be too outstanding, but that Chifan was able to reach Peak Core Formation Realm at such a young age. Are we able to investigate him?”
“Naturally,” Su Bojing said. But he stopped in his step for a second as he gave Tianyi a weird look. Based on age, Tianyi was practically a baby to cultivators, yet now he said someone who was even younger than him had a young age. But Su Bojing quickly forgot about that. What did age matter? Strength was what truly mattered in the end.
Take that shop for example. Would Dong Chifan still say the same words if it was a True Immortal or even just Unity Realm Venerable?
Naturally, Tianyi wasn’t interested in Dong Chifan just because of his young age and talent. He was interested if Dong Chifan showed more evidence of being a reincarnator like Tianyi.
Although, if the Xiyi Talisman were to be fully completed, would others suspect me of being a reincarnator? Would they suspect me, Daoyi or cousin Ri, or maybe all three of us since all three of us would be the creators.? Whatever happens, I’ll have to make sure there are no negative consequences.
Tianyi suddenly stopped in his footsteps, and his eyes grew unfocused as a sudden thought struck him.
That’s right. The Xiyi Talisman is way too much like a cellphone. And I planned to make a network similar to the internet.
Tianyi recalled that it was originally Xi Ri’s pet project. Could it be that Xi Ri was also a reincarnator?
“Young master?” Tianyi was broke out of his thoughts by Elder Meng’s voice.
“It’s nothing. I just had a sudden thought. Let’s return to our lodging.” With such a thought, Tianyi was no longer in the mood to tour Ocean Lake City.
Returning to his room, Tianyi sat in a lotus position as his thoughts drifted off.
He thought of many things. For example, the time Xi Ri wanted to call the Xiyi Talisman the Wireless Talisman.
Tianyi remembered that Xi Ri was talented in the Spring Autumn Scripture, just like how he was. Was it possible that all reincarnators were talented in the Spring Autumn Scripture? Or were reincarnators talented in the Ten Heavenly Scriptures?
If so, then why?
Although the thought was ludicrous, how would being a reincarnator allow one to cultivate the Heavenly Scriptures? But it didn’t hurt to confirm. The hard part was how to let Xi Ri gain access to a Heavenly Scripture without tipping or breaking any rules.
Tianyi was allowed to access the Heavenly Scriptures because of his status as a Grand Elder’s child.
It was a thought for another time.
Suppose cousin Ri is a reincarnator from Earth, like me. What do I do about this? Should I reveal myself to him? No, it is too soon to conclude if revealing myself would be of any use. All this will have to wait until I return to the sect. And I don’t know how the Elders would react to this.
The more pressing matter for Tianyi at this moment was assessing Dong Chifan.
Tianyi was fifty percent sure that Dong Chifan was a reincarnator. The other fifty percent was because he hadn’t tasted the store’s beverage and wasn’t sure if only the name were similar. But he was convinced that it wasn’t such a coincidence.
The young Nascent Soul Grandmaster wanted nothing more than to grab hold of Dong Chifan and question him. He wanted to discover why they were reincarnated into the Huang Realm and the lower realms.
If Tianyi discovered the reason, then it would not be impossible to return to Earth. Although twenty years have passed, Tianyi still had hope. Time flowed differently from different realms, after all. Or perhaps, Earth’s time flow was actually faster, but Tianyi tried not to ponder that.
As a general rule, the higher the realm, the slower the flow of time was. Of course, there were exceptions.
If Tianyi was a True Immortal, he wouldn’t mind descending onto the lower realms to search for Earth. But this brought up another question in Tianyi’s mind.
Earth had many myths and legends concerning different pantheons. The Huang Realm didn’t have any myths concerning other pantheons, and the same should be said of the realms lower than it. Then how did Earth have such a wide variety of myths and legends?
Was Earth actually unique?
Tianyi shook his head. He should focus on matters at hand for now. The first priority was to talk to Dong Chifan, but Tianyi obviously couldn’t use his true self to converse matters about Earth.
Tianyi was afraid. He was deftly afraid of Mengfei learning that he wasn’t truly a child and a reincarnator. He didn’t want his mother to scorn his existence.
“I should create a clone.”
Tianyi always had the thought of creating a clone. Now that his cultivation had stabilized, there was no longer any fear of self-destructing. In addition, Tianyi had also conceived a way to minimize the backlash from splitting his soul.
The only question was how he should create his clone. Since he wanted to move without connected to him, the clone should not have any way to link itself to his true body.
As such, it would be best to create a clone with as little connection to himself as possible. The cultivation technique would naturally also need to be different. Having made his mind, Tianyi began to take action and prepare the necessary procedures and materials to create his clone.
That said, it wasn’t like it was something that could be done in a day or two.
The next day, to Tianyi’s disappointment, Dong Chifan was not present at the store. But after taking a sip of the drink, Tianyi was able to confirm his hypothesis. He was now ninety percent sure that Dong Chifan was a reincarnator from Earth.
Not long after, Su Bojing delivered the report concerning Dong Chifan.