"Call for a meeting with all the family elders… immediately," the elderly man ordered.

"Y... Yes, Master," the young man named Yuan replied, bowing slightly before hurrying out of the room.

"So, the time has finally come, huh!" The old man muttered under his breath.

Within half an hour, inside a large chamber, five middle-aged individuals sat around a long table, four men and one woman. The seat at the head of the table remained vacant.

"What's this sudden meeting about?" the middle-aged woman asked, frowning slightly.

"No idea," one of the men replied. "Yuan just said the family head wants to speak with all the elders."

"None of you..." the woman began to speak again, but the door to the room suddenly swung open. Yuan entered hastily. "The Master has arrived!" he announced.

All five elders immediately rose from their seats.

The elderly man from earlier, the one in his seventies, stepped into the room. The moment he entered, the elders bowed respectfully and greeted in unison, "Greetings, Master."

"Greetings," he responded curtly before taking the vacant seat at the head of the table.

The old man gestured for everyone to sit, and the five elders followed his order without hesitation.

A few seconds passed, but nobody said a word. Then, after turning his gaze around the room and looking at each of them once, the old man finally began to speak.

"The time we had been waiting for has finally arrived," he said slowly. "Someone with the capability to inherit the Dragon's Heritage has appeared."

"What?!" His words fell like a thunderclap.

"Which Spirit Family is he from?" one of the elders asked.

The old man's eyes narrowed. "I don't know," he said. "The Dragon Lamp suddenly started glowing, and that means only one thing, you know what."

Silence settled again. The elders exchanged quick glances.

"What should we do now?" another elder asked. "If the person is from any of the five Spirit Families, there will be no problem. We can approach him, and with his help, we can drive away any calamity. But if he belongs to one of the three evil Spirit Families, then he himself will become a calamity."

A low murmur followed those words. No one contradicted him.

There were eight families that lived within Spirit Mountain. It was an isolated area, hidden behind a layered array. Long ago, when dungeons first appeared and the world outside chose the quick power of magic over the slow path of cultivation, the ancestors of these families sealed themselves away. Cultivators vanished from common memory. Breathing techniques were lost. Outside, people learned to call mages kings. But inside Spirit Mountain, the eight families lived as before, where cultivation was the only path to power.

It remained that way due to the array formations. The outer world could not feel Spirit Mountain's spiritual energy, nor stumble upon its borders. The arrays folded space and sound, veiled qi, and turned every path in the foothills into a circle. Only those with a token or the blood of the eight could enter.

The old man folded his hands on the table. "We have no idea which family the person is from. So, we will do what we can. We will use spies. We will gather information first."

One elder spoke carefully. "And what if we find that he is from one of the evil three?"

"Then we, the five spirit families, have to unite and defend against that person," the old man said. "But first, we confirm, then act. Until then, don't make a mistake. The other families will feel the Lamp as we did. They will be moving already."

He was right.

At that same hour, in four other family halls, elders were already gathered. They also had the same question but none had the answer. They decided the same thing.

And far from them, the three evil Spirit Families moved as well.

_________

Almost one hour ago at the Smith Villa.

The golden aura thickened around Logan like sunlight poured into the air. It did not blaze. It hummed.

His right palm found the floor. His left followed.

He began to rise.

Rowan's eyes widened. Daliah's lips parted. Lilith felt the gravity field wobble against something she could not name. It was like trying to press a boulder deeper into the earth that had turned to iron beneath it.

"How can he still move under that much pressure?! Has he no limits?!" Rowan said in a baffled tone and then turned to Lilith. "Do you think you can increase the gravity anymore?"

"I'm at the limit," Lilith whispered. Sweat ran down her temple. "This is the maximum."

Meanwhile, Logan kept trying. He pushed to a knee.

The bands started trembling in his wrist and ankles. The stone under his knee cracked like thin ice. He kept trying and finally lifted his head again. The golden aura did not flare. It remained faint.

He then set his foot and stood up.

The gravity was still pressing on him. But it simply did not matter anymore.

Seeing this Rowan moved first. A wall of fire roared forward, not a single blast but a rolling surge meant to swallow space. Logan stepped in, not back, and the fire curled around him like wind caught on a mountain face. He then threw a punch, which touched nothing, but a pressure-like shockwave shot forward as if it were an invisible punch.

Thud!

It landed on Rowan's chest and sent him sliding six steps before he could stop himself.

Daliah tore up the floor. Stone spears shot from three angles at once. Logan shifted his shoulder an inch, and the first missed. He turned a wrist, and the second shattered. A punch and the third one shattered as well.

Lilith threw multiple blades of air. Lightning knifed down.

Logan threw another invisible air punch, and all of them neutralized.

Rowan grit his teeth and clenched his fist as flames engulfed it. He dashed and punched.

Logan raised his hand. Knuckles met palm. The sound was not a crack. It was a low thud, like a hammer into clay. The flame flickered and went out. Rowan's shoulder jolted back. Logan's left hand tapped his chest. It was barely a touch. But Rowan flew back.

Daliah braced and layered shields, stone, then stone over stone, three, then four. Logan did not punch. He drew his hand to his waist and pushed the air with his palm. The first shield shattered. The second one followed. The third one split. The fourth held for a breath and caved, and the pressure slid her backward until her heel hit the raised edge of the training arena.

Lilith's jaw tensed. She cut the gravity field and pulled power into the wind instead. The strain vanished from her arms. The training yard heaved under the sudden release. Wind roared in a tight spiral and dove. Logan stopped. He pivoted lightly on the ball of his foot and then turned, the spiral missing by a hair. He then moved, shot forward like a blur, and appeared in front of her.

Lilith could see his eyes in that short moment. Calm, composed.

He drew a punch and was almost about to throw it but suddenly he stopped.

"I think it's enough for today," he said softly. "I clearly won the sparring session, no?"

Her spell faded. She let out a breath she had not known she held. Rowan climbed to a knee, eyes sharp despite the ache in his arm. Daliah pushed herself up on shaking hands and stared as if she had just seen a mountain walk.

Logan moved slowly to turn back, but just then....

The golden aura held one more heartbeat.

Then it vanished. Not dimmed. Vanished. Like a candle pinched out between two fingers.

And the moment it did, Logan became unconscious and thudded to the ground.

"Logan!" Lilith dropped beside him at once.

"Take the bands off," Rowan said, already reaching. "Quick."

Daliah also rushed forward with a panicked expression. "What happened to him?"

They worked fast. Lilith released the pressure of the bands and quickly unwrapped them. She then pressed her palm near his ribs and closed her eyes. "No internal bleeding. He seems fine."

"But we should still call a healer," Daliah said. "I mean someone more experienced and with a higher tier in healing magic." She knew Lilith also had healing affinity, but didn't want to take any risk.

"I will use the communication scroll to call my mother," Lilith said. "I hope she can arrive soon."

They picked up Logan's body carefully to take him inside and turned. But right then, they found Alice was standing at the edge of the training ground, both hands clenched, face pale. She had run at the first sound when a servant told her there was a fight. She saw Logan on the ground, and the color drained from her lips.

"L.... Logan, honey. What happened to you." She spoke those words with difficulty as she tried to stop the tears that were about to fall.

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