By the time Su Yang finally returned home, the sky was beginning to darken.
The moment he entered the courtyard, he saw Su Mei hurriedly preparing to leave.
She had been about to search for him.
"Yang'er!"
Su Mei immediately rushed toward him.
However, the moment she came closer, her footsteps slowed.
Her brows furrowed.
Something was different.
As a cultivator and an experienced healer, Su Mei was extremely sensitive to subtle changes in a person's aura and temperament.
The young man standing before her was undoubtedly Su Yang.
His appearance had not changed.
His cultivation was still at the Second Level of the Spirit Realm.
His aura was familiar.
Yet, somehow…
He was not the same.
There was something different about his eyes.
The innocence was still there, but behind it now existed a depth that had never been present before.
It was as though the boy who had left home earlier that day had suddenly experienced many years of hardship and returned carrying secrets too heavy for his age.
"Su Yang, what happened?"
Su Mei approached him worriedly.
"What took you so long? Do you know how worried I was? I was just about to go looking for you."
Su Yang looked at his adoptive mother.
For a moment, countless emotions surged through his heart.
He now remembered his biological mother.
He remembered her warmth.
Her voice.
Her final embrace.
And her death.
Yet the woman standing before him had also raised him as her own son for many years.
She had fed him when he was helpless.
Protected him.
Comforted him whenever others mocked his cultivation.
And given him a family when he had none.
"Mother…"
His voice was quieter than usual.
Su Mei's concern deepened.
"What happened?"
Su Yang opened his mouth.
He wanted to tell her everything.
He wanted to tell her that his memories had returned.
That his real name was Xiao Feng.
That he remembered the Xiao Family.
That he had nearly been assassinated earlier.
That the mysterious barrier surrounding his dantian had finally reacted.
But the words refused to leave his mouth.
Too much had happened.
He needed time.
Time to understand his memories.
Time to understand the inheritance his biological parents had left behind.
And most importantly, time to decide how much he should reveal.
"I'm fine, Mother."
Su Mei clearly did not believe him.
Before she could question him further, Su Yang retrieved the storage ring Elder Yi had given him.
"Elder Yi asked me to give this to you."
Su Mei accepted it almost instinctively.
"Yang'er—"
"I'm tired, Mother. I want to rest."
Without giving her another opportunity to question him, Su Yang walked toward his room.
Su Mei remained standing in the courtyard.
She stared at his departing back, completely speechless at his strange behaviour.
Her maternal instincts told her that something significant had happened.
And Su Yang was hiding it from her.
The moment Su Yang entered his room, he closed the door.
He stood there silently for several breaths.
Then his expression became serious.
He could not afford to be careless.
Su Yang retrieved several small formation flags.
Su Lan had once taught him a simple concealment formation for fun. At the time, he had never imagined that he would actually need it.
He placed the formation flags around his room according to the positions she had taught him.
"Activate."
Buzz!
A faint spiritual fluctuation passed through the room before disappearing.
The formation was simple and certainly could not stop a powerful cultivator who deliberately attempted to break through it.
However, it was enough to conceal ordinary spiritual fluctuations and prevent casual spiritual senses from observing what he was doing.
Only after confirming that the formation was functioning did Su Yang sit cross-legged on his bed.
He took a deep breath.
Then he retrieved the spatial ring Bao Xin had given him.
More precisely—
The ring containing the possessions his biological mother had entrusted to Bao Xin.
Su Yang stared at it for a long moment.
"Mother…"
His fingers tightened around the ring.
Finally, he sent his spiritual sense inside.
His consciousness entered an enormous storage space.
Su Yang froze.
"This…"
There were far more things inside than he had expected.
Several shelves contained cultivation manuals.
Su Yang immediately examined them.
Dragon-Tiger Body Refinement Art.
Heavenly Dragon Meridian Scripture.
White Tiger Slaughtering Fist.
Dragon-Tiger Harmonization Scripture.
Every cultivation manual appeared to have been specifically prepared for someone possessing the Dragon-Tiger bloodline.
His heartbeat accelerated.
He continued searching.
There were medicinal pills stored within carefully sealed jade bottles.
Beside them were numerous alchemical recipes.
Some of the recipes were familiar from his years of helping Su Mei with medicinal herbs.
Others were completely unknown to him.
There were also formation manuals.
Combat techniques.
Ancient records.
And several miscellaneous treasures Su Yang could not immediately identify.
Then something unusual caught his attention.
A compass.
Su Yang withdrew it from the spatial ring.
Strange markings covered its surface, while a tiny needle made from an unknown material rested at its center.
Beside the compass was an old book.
World Spirit Compass.
Su Yang flipped through several pages.
His expression gradually became fascinated.
According to the book, the World Spirit Compass could detect unusual concentrations of spiritual energy and assist its wielder in locating certain natural treasures, spirit veins, hidden spiritual regions, and abnormal energy fluctuations.
"This could be useful…"
Su Yang carefully stored it away.
He returned his consciousness to the spatial ring.
Then he saw the spirit stones.
His mouth slowly opened.
"This…"
He had seen spirit stones before.
But never this many.
Heaps upon heaps of inferior-grade spirit stones were piled inside the storage space.
There were so many that Su Yang did not even bother trying to count them.
"Mother left all this for me?"
His emotions became complicated.
However, the spirit stones were not the only cultivation resources stored inside.
Nearby were several enormous heaps of strange bead-like objects.
Su Yang examined them curiously.
Each bead was translucent and emitted noticeable spiritual energy.
He picked one up.
The moment it touched his palm, he could clearly sense the concentrated energy contained within it.
"What is this?"
It was definitely not an ordinary spirit stone.
Yet there were thousands upon thousands of them.
Perhaps even more.
Su Yang searched through his recovered memories but found nothing.
"I'll have to identify these later."
He carefully returned the mysterious beads to the spatial ring.
As he continued searching, another object caught his attention.
A seal.
Su Yang retrieved it.
A Dragon and Tiger were intricately engraved upon its surface.
The Dragon coiled through the heavens while the Tiger stood proudly upon the earth.
Su Yang's hands trembled.
"This…"
Something stirred within his memories.
He had seen this symbol before.
His biological mother had once shown it to him when he was a child.
"The Xiao Family emblem…"
Memories surfaced.
His mother telling him about their ancestors.
His father proudly explaining that the Dragon represented wisdom, transformation, and the boundless heavens, while the Tiger represented courage, slaughter, and dominion over the earth.
Together, they represented the Xiao Family's ancient inheritance.
Su Yang gently ran his fingers across the emblem.
A trace of sadness entered his eyes.
The Xiao Family was gone.
But its inheritance remained.
And so did he.
Su Yang carefully returned the seal to the spatial ring.
Only then did he remember the second storage ring.
Bao Xin's personal gift.
Su Yang retrieved it.
"Senior Bao said this was compensation…"
He sent his spiritual sense inside.
BOOM!
The moment the storage space opened, an astonishing concentration of spiritual energy erupted from the ring.
Su Yang inhaled sharply.
Even through the spatial ring, he could feel the overwhelming density of the energy contained within.
More importantly—
ROAR!
A Dragon's roar suddenly echoed through his dantian.
ROARRR!
The Tiger responded.
Su Yang almost jumped.
The two martial spirits that had remained relatively dormant suddenly became restless.
They reacted like starving beasts that had caught the scent of an irresistible meal.
"You two…"
Su Yang's expression became strange.
Their reaction reminded him of Bao Xin's explanation.
His martial spirits required enormous quantities of spiritual energy.
Whatever was inside this ring clearly possessed something they desperately wanted.
Su Yang carefully searched the storage space.
His attention was immediately drawn toward a jade box.
Even though the box was sealed, terrifyingly dense spiritual fluctuations seeped from within it.
Su Yang swallowed.
He carefully brought the jade box out and placed it before him.
The moment he opened the lid—
WHOOSH!
Dense fire and earth spiritual Qi flooded the room.
The temperature immediately rose.
Fortunately, the concealment formation prevented most of the fluctuations from escaping.
Su Yang stared inside the jade box.
Resting within it was a magnificent lotus.
Its petals possessed a deep earthen-red colour, while faint golden patterns resembling flowing magma covered their surfaces.
Su Yang's eyes widened.
He recognized it.
"Millennial Earth Core Lotus…"
He had read about this treasure in Su Mei's medicinal manuals.
The Millennial Earth Core Lotus was an extremely rare spiritual treasure that grew deep beneath the earth, usually near underground magma lakes.
For a thousand years, it continuously absorbed subterranean fire and earth Qi.
The resulting spiritual energy was incredibly dense and violent.
Ordinary cultivators could not consume it recklessly. Without adequate preparation, its violent energy could severely damage their meridians or even burn them from within.
However, when refined correctly, its benefits were extraordinary.
One of its greatest uses was—
"Restructuring the body…"
Su Yang whispered.
According to the medicinal records, a sufficiently mature Earth Core Lotus could assist in tempering the flesh, bones, and meridians while laying the foundations for a powerful fire-element physique.
Su Yang stared at the lotus in disbelief.
A thousand-year-old spiritual treasure.
Even Su Mei had only mentioned such things when teaching him about rare medicinal ingredients.
He had never imagined that he would actually see one.
And Bao Xin had casually given it to him as a gift.
Su Yang's expression became increasingly strange.
"Just who exactly is Senior Bao?"
ROAR!
The Dragon inside his dantian suddenly became restless again.
ROARRR!
The Tiger followed.
Both martial spirits seemed impatient.
Su Yang's lips twitched.
"Calm down!"
The roaring continued.
"You two have swallowed my Qi for years, and now you're demanding this as well?"
ROAR!
Su Yang stared blankly ahead.
For some reason, he felt as though the two martial spirits had just shamelessly answered—
Yes.
His expression darkened.
"Gluttons."
Yet beneath his annoyance, excitement gradually appeared in his eyes.
Bao Xin's words returned to him.
Find cultivation resources containing dense and berserk spiritual energy.
Su Yang slowly looked toward the Millennial Earth Core Lotus.
Dense spiritual energy.
Violent fire Qi.
Heavy earth Qi.
A treasure capable of restructuring the body.
Everything about it seemed perfectly suited to his current situation.
Perhaps this lotus was not simply a valuable gift.
Perhaps it was exactly what he needed to finally break through the barrier that had kept him at the Second Level of the Spirit Realm for years.
Su Yang's heart began pounding.
For years, everyone had called him talentless.
Trash.
A cultivation cripple.
But now he finally understood the truth.
His cultivation had never been stagnant because he lacked talent.
His body had been preparing itself.
His foundation had been accumulating.
And the two ancient martial spirits sleeping within his dantian had simply been waiting to be fed.
Su Yang stared at the Millennial Earth Core Lotus.
A determined smile slowly appeared on his face.
"Let's see just how hungry you two really are."