The sudden appearance of Grant made the two cultivators wary, especially the aura which emanated from him, infinitely close to the 6th level.

  Even this little brat didn't dare act so arrogantly in front of such a master.

  The young master's face however, changed back quickly to its previous arrogance when he saw that the man's actual level was merely the golden core.

  The servant's expression became particularly grim however, because he was able to sense the avenue the cultivator before him.

  The law of creation.

  Cultivators often restrain their aura, for some it was to hide their avenue of practitioner, and for the higher levels, it was to avoid influencing the world around them.

  Only when they were prepared to fight o to intimidate others would they so blatantly exude their laws.

  A creation type cultivator who had managed to reach the third level!

  When had such a strong man appeared!?

  The young master next to him didn't understand, his view of the way of the world too shallow, but he knew history well, and he knew of the self destructive tendencies of creation type cultivators.

  "Hah, a mere jindan level cultivator dares stop me?!" The boy said arrogantly, showing his nascent soul level power off, which merely caused Grant to look on playfully.

  The servant stepped in quickly, interrupting the young master.

  "Young master, please quiet down." The servant quickly hushed the young man, before facing Grant. "I apologize for his behaviour. He is but a child."

  "Indeed. Only 200 years old. He is very much just a child." Grant agreed easily, much to the joy of the servant.

  That joyful look was squashed with his next words.

  "But children need discipline."

  The dragonic spirit snickered when it heard these words. Grant had dealt with older kids before. WIth such kids, his hand was often, less delicate than with other kids.

  The nascent soul child soon lost his overbearing look as he was forcefully pulled over by Grant using the earth itself which trapped him.

  Before the young man could react, his pants quickly flew off and he was turned onto his front.

  Grant raised his hand and

  SMACK!

  Gave him a strong slap on the ass. It didn't stop there as Grant rained blows on his ass, each of them conferring a different element.

  Boiling water

  blazing fires

  sharp winds

  solid stone.

  Feeling unsatisfied, Grant brought out a whip and started lashing him.

  The servant recognized the whip, which merely made him quietly more terrified of this mysterious master who could steal from the Heavens.

  The servant looked embarrassed, yet did not dare say a word, for fear of angering this senior. At worst, the boy would suffer some humiliation.

  Besides... he wasn't interested in being hit by the god conferring whip. That thing had a long history of beating the gods themselves.

  As Grant's lashes went on, the aura around the boy diminished significantly, as it soon fell below the nascent soul and into the jindan stage again, barely maintaining that as well.

  "I was feeling generous today, so I didn't kill the brat. I merely dropped him back to the jindan stage. His foundation wasn't damaged or nothing, after all, this is merely a spanking.

  The seal on his level will wear off a century from now. Of course, he can speed that up if he's willing to do a few acts of kindness.

  Do you have any problems with the way I handled this?" Grant asked politely, yet he felt terrified by the polite tone. It wasn't really a question but a statement. Any attempt to contradict him may result in the same punishment as the boy, and that was if he was lucky.

  This was a child spanking afterall. Who knows what kind of punishment adults receive!

  Hearing no complaints, Grant nodded. "Good, I'll take my students away from here. I recommend you wait for the boy's father if you want to explore this ruin?" He said, after carefully scanning it. "This ruin contains traces of the Donghuang Bell. That's a little beyond a mere nascent soul's ability to keep. Well, jindan now I suppose" Grant said playfully as his group disappeared, leaving a shocked servant and a pale, unconscious young master.

  Grant teleported the group back into the york outpost, to avoid any further confrontation with cultivators.

  WIth a sweep of his hand, any injuries they had were quickly dealt with.

  "How did you guys get swept up in such a dangerous situation?" Grant asked and Dane bowed, apologizing immediately.

  "It was my fault! I wanted to hone my abilities so I began to travel across the border of the empire, where lawlessness is more common.

  We happened to come across a map describing a great treasure. I didn't expect that it would cause such trouble." he said, feeling guilty he had caused everyone such trouble.

  Grant waived his hand. "It's fine. Young men should be bold and daring. That was hardly your fault anyway. And you" he said, turning to Natalie.

  "You should work harder to restrain him at times. You know he's a little dim." She gave him an apologetic look in return, causing him to roll his eyes.

  Despite how smart she was, she was a little dumb when it came to her boyfriend.

  Natalie actually chose to ask something as soon as she could.

  "Why were they so scared of you? According to their levels, you should be far below them?" she asked curiously, and even Dain couldn't help but be curious, looking at the mysterious master.

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  They had witnessed the confrontation after all. By all accounts, and the level they could barely sense, the master should be a level lower than the young master. Yet their master had a holy, mysterious aura that far passed the likes of the young man, and the fear on the servants face couldn't be faked.

  Grant paused for a minute before sighing, choosing to clear up the subject.

  He wasn't embarrassed, so much as reluctant to reveal the weakness of the law off creation.

  It was hardly the best thing to go around.

  In the east, it was a well known fact but in the west? Not so much.

  But that could change if he wasn't careful.

  Still, there was no point lying.

  Now that it was exposed that a creation type cultivator was residing in the west, something was likely to come of it.

  "Well, creation type cultivators happen to be very powerful, due to their unique abilities. Their ability to absorb any cultivation resource, as well as waste, and their easy ability to understand laws and concepts already make them quite dangerous.

  In addition, they are capable of quickly raising their cultivation,with some even jumping from the 3rd to 4th level in months."

  He paused, before finally responding. "This comes with its obvious negatives of course, otherwise everyone would take this path.

  Creation type cultivators are prone to bouts of insanity" He paused, observing their reactions.

  Dain did not react, but Natalie eyed him more suspiciously, as her mind raced before Grant's very eyes.

  He wasn't surprised. As the more thoughtful of the two, she must've noticed his eccentricities and his occasional outbursts.

  After all, no matter how restrained creation was, it was still creation. And insanity, even when presented in the form of eccentricity, was still insanity.

  "You seem fine." Dain deadpanned, and Grant laughed "Fine is relative. I seem stable now, but honestly? I can flip on a dime. I'm just feeling a bit detached right now, so you haven't seen much of that."

  The taxpaying spirit nodded in agreement. "Yeah, his sore spot is "family" and "children." Long as you don't touch those, Grant remains more stable than others. Of course, touching those spots inversely tends to make him more insane compared to other creation cultivators."

  "How insane?" Natalie asked and the spirit winced at the unpleasant memories. " Like Prometheus styled punishment insane. Death is often the kindest thing that'll happen if they're lucky."

  Dain nodded, before moving on. He didn't care much about the drawbacks of the creation ability. He'd never seen Grant actually act too insane, nor lash out at them.

  He trusted what he saw. Grant was reliable.

  He was more curious about the conversation Grant had earlier.

  "So what is this Donghuang bell? The old man earlier seemed excited upon hearing it. Is it a strong weapon?".

  Grant snorted. "It certainly likes to fashion itself that way. that bell is a cunning old fox for sure.

  "From the way you're putting it master, it sounds like it's not a weapon at all?" Natalie asked and Grant nodded

  "Indeed. That bell has been playing the long game. It's actually a chaos attributed spirit from the prehistoric times. Around 20 million years ago if I recall. It was born from a meteorite that crashed on Earth and developed spirituality." seeing their confusion, he sighed and explained.

  "Meteorite. Big rock that falls from the sky and cmes from the stars." He briefly explained. They nodded, with Dain wondering what the need was to call the falling boulder a meteorite. Just call it a falling boulder from the sky.

  Natalie was left to consider the greater implications.

  "The chaos spirit was cunning, but also lazy. Unwilling to cultivate itself, it has relied on the hands of other strongmen to make itself strong, absorbing their mana or qi under the premise of activating ones own magic weapon.

  In this regard, it does act like a magic weapon most of the time. You must be wondering why I bring this up then?"

  The two of them nodded.

  "Magic weapons, although they have spirituality, or even souls, tend to be just that. Magic weapons. They exert their greatest effect in their master's hands, and have the major weakness of relying completely on their master. Should the master go down, it is not uncommon for the master to self destruct their weapon to save themselves, or even to deny their opponent." He paused for a moment.

  "The chaos bell is an exception. Because it's basically an elemental spirit parading as a weapon. It's done a good job hiding it, but some do know. And those who do, laugh at the misfortune of others.

  The bell does not care who its master is. Only that its master can grant it enough qi, mana, whatever form of energy you can provide in large doses. Because of this, it doesn't stop the robbery of itself. On the contrary, if it sees a better master come along, it'll hinder its own master in the hopes of gaining a new master.

  Or should its own master be to weak or seriously injured, the bell take the opportunity to kill its master and absorb their energy. It's done this before.

  The great cultivator Pangu once wielded it as an axe. However, when he was seriously injured after creating a secret realm, the bell tried to kill him, but had to flee in the end.

  In fact, its current bell form was the result of it trying to hide from Pangu. At least until it was on equal level with him. It hasn't changed back since.

  The only thing worst than an enemy, is a treacherous minister, and the bell is no exception. That bell has had hundreds of owners for a reason."

  Hearing this, the two of them felt thankful they hadn't bothered to pursue such a weapon. It sounded like a powerful weapon, but if they always had to keep an eye out for such a thing which was ready to betray them at a moments notice, it wasn't worth having. They were hardly in need of a great weapon ever since Grant had bestowed upon them their current weapons.

  Seeing the relieved look in their eyes, Grant laughed. "Don't worry about it now. It's no longer your problem. Now that you're here, why don't you stay a while? We can review how far you've gone on the techniques before I send you off again. I've also accepted a young boy. You may as well go meet him first. He is your junior apprentice after all." Hearing that, the two of them went into the secret realm earnestly, to meet this junior brother Grant had accepted.

  Naturally, during this conversation, there had been one thing that Grant had chosen to leave out.

  Not to harm them, but because if they knew what happens next, their feelings may grow complicated.

  Creation type cultivators often have a horrid ending of being hunted down.

  Few people who choose to practice the law of creation are sane, much like those who practice the inverse law of destruction.

  Often they are completely off their rocker, arrogant beyond belief, or in desperate need of revenge.

  Everything taken from them, and a heart filled with hatred, with no desire except for punishing those who had wronged them.

  And most of the creation type practitioners tended to be of this type, Grant included.

  As a result, they tended to be explosive. Suicidal. Unstable.

  So cultivators tended to hunt them down. Even though they were known for exploding and taking as much possible, many still chose to hunt them down, specifically the old and dying ones.

  Why?

  Because they were so unstable. You never knew when one would go off and choose to take a city with them.

  No one wants that hanging over their head.

  But choosing to fight one was practically doing a suicide mission, so naturally, only the old and dying who already had nothing left to lose except the people around them would take up this task.

  There was the other issue, or rather, the reward.

  Depending on who they were fighting, the battlefield would take on that aspect after their death.

  This was true for all cultivators, because their death resulted in the explosion of their own laws, more often than not.

  ANd creation? That's a strong law. Once contaminated with the law of the hunter, the ecosystem that would blossom after their mutual destruction would be a strong, resource rich environment of their law.

  For major forces, it was a huge benefit, or even the small forces. All forces had a tacit understanding that whoever hunted the creation practitioner, their family would get a piece of the pie.

  It was also believed killing them was a merit for the world, which would ensure their next life would be a better life, since their death would result in more life and a "better" world.

  Grant wasn't scared of them. He wasn't scared of 6th realmers, much less puny 5th realm beings. And even though he was their master on paper, he wasn't close enough with Dain and Natalie to the point where they'd despair over exposing their master.

  No, this was extremely important to the empire. They may not act for the next month, year, decade, or even century, but they would act.

  Eventually, they would act. WOuld it be in official fashion? Quiet raids to catch him? Outright war?

  No matter how it played out, it would not be Grant who suffered. It would be the people.

  IN the grand scheme of things, it wasn't an altogether bad thing. Empires, and civilization in general, cannot grow alone. They need competition, enemies on the other side, something to make them wary, to strive for greater power.

  THe greatest threat to an empire is a competing empire.

  And given that the two have previously had strife, it would not be bad for the two to match blades once more and see how they have grown.

  His little gift to the empire, Grant thought shamelessly.