Daily life of a cultivation judge

Chapter 886 Change in trajectories

Wu Mingli sighed as clarity resumed in his eyes. Back then he didn't understand what his father meant or why he seemed sorrowful, frustrated, and relieved at the same time as he said those words.

His father's words were incomprehensible to him back then, but after experiencing the harshness of the world only then did those words reveal the wisdom that lay within.

Even though he long discarded any desire to be a hero, those words still served and guided him to who he is today, especially when it came to tempering the heart and the will. Those words were what helped him reach heights he never thought possible, and now he was just a stone's throw away from the palace realm because of it.

"Don't worry father, I will make sure to wield my sword for you, just like you did for me.." Wu Mingli thought with staunch conviction.

With an austere and somber look to him, Wu Mingli continued.

"All this while as my father was running away from the riverstone serpent, all he could imagine was how it would tear through the entire village.

No matter how much he screamed at his legs to stop, they would not listen to him. With every ground he gained, the more fearful he became of what fate awaited him.

Whichever way it went, he knew his end would not be a good one.

Because of its highly weakened state, my father was able to cover half the distance it took to get back to the village from the creek in the mountains.

If it wasn't for its apparent weakness, even without doing anything, its aura alone would have been capable of suppressing and incapacitating my qi refinement stage father. With the enormous disparity in their strength, he would not have been able to move let alone make enough ground from it as he did.

As he was making ground, inching ever so closer to the village, my father's prayers shifted from getting away from the serpent to hoping it devoured him before he made it back to the village, sparing him the fate of becoming the greatest sinner of all, for leading that thing there.

By luck, his prayers were answered, twice at that. The first one was when the serpent finally moved, and when it did, it was like an avalanche had struck the mountain, and the second was when a blue lightning streak that looked like it had descended from the heavens struck that mountain with an even fiercer momentum than the riverstone serpent had when it moved.

A thunderous explosion hit the mountain which caused my father to tumble, roll over, and fall, and as he did he managed to catch sight of the fearsome destructive power of that lightning. Half the mountain got shattered by that lightning and the area where that behemoth of terror had become a massive webbed crater and a beast that was charred beyond recognition to the point it looked no different than a large pumice rock. The only thing that made one not think it was not a rock was the river of blood that poured out of it.

My father was spared the fate he greatly feared by some wandering cultivator who had been secluding himself in one of the hills that neighbored that mountain and was alerted to the serpent when it made an appearance.

Maybe out of pity for the state my father had been in, that cultivator dug out the riverstone serpent's wisdom pearl and handed it to my father, along with a few words of encouragement.

The words were lost on him. Because of shock, all his senses did not function as they were meant to. His hearing was bad, his vision was blurry, and for a few minutes there he had even forgotten who he was and where he was, and when he finally came to, the wandering cultivator was nowhere in sight.

All he had as proof that everything that happened wasn't some nightmare or illusion was the half-destroyed mountain, and the wisdom pearl in his hands.

As for his benefactor, even later after he had calmed down, no matter how much he tried to recall their face or even their voice, his memory of them was always blurry.

Though, regardless of his blurry memory, those events became an indelible part of him and shaped the person he became later.

After the events, he left the village, maybe out of guilt for what he almost damned the village too. Even though that reality never happened, I don't think he ever forgot it or forgave himself for it.

Maybe because of how intense that guilt was, my father, someone who had intended and was more than content to spend the rest of his life in that village, left at the tender age of nineteen and went to start over somewhere else, already having an idea of what he wanted to do.

Shaped by that experience, specifically the wandering cultivator who intervened and saved his life in more ways than one, my father had in him to do something close to it. This path led him to become a garrison guard of the Red Maple Empire.

A post where he could protect others just like he was protected.."

Wu Mingli paused as he smiled sorrowfully.

"Because of how impassioned he was at his duty, eventually he rose through the ranks and was promoted from a garrison guard watching over one of the frontier towns, to a city guard protecting one of the cities that fell under the jurisdiction of the royal family.

I wasn't born then, but I can imagine how proud he must have been to be given the post, even as just a footman..." Wu Mingli said with a smile that was mirrored by his mother, who softly muttered,

"He bragged for a whole year.."

"Throughout his life, he never rose past being a footman. Even though he was assiduous in his duties and well-liked by his superiors and the citizens of the city he watched over, he could never make it past becoming a footman because of his strength.

Because of how lacking his village had been in matters related to cultivation, even if they had qi refinement cultivators and some low-grade cultivation arts to help one reach a breakthrough to the qi refinement realm, their means, and methods were not the best, they could not be considered average, and it left all of them with glaring flaws in their foundations notwithstanding my father.

Those flaws severely hindered my father's cultivation path, so no matter how much effort he put in, he could never touch the core formation realm.

He reached the seventh stage of the foundation establishment realm at his peak. With such strength, he could only ever be a footman, but even then, he was still one of the best city guards in Spring Plum City.."