Ashes Of Heaven Book 1 : Solar Calamity

But hardly had he gotten the time to contemplate what was happening when the old man suddenly pulled out a black pipe from a pocket of his robes and blew on it, all the while keeping a cautious stare fixed on him.

A shrill sound emanated from the wooden confines of the pipe, alarming all of those present. Far away, from outside the tent, many more looked in their direction as a commotion rose up among the crowds. The front of the tent was instantly crowded by the families and companions of the competitors.

"Mother, look! The old man is just like that crazy fellow from our village who walks around naked and whistles!"

A very young girl shrieked at her mother, who panicked and tried to stop her child from making further comments.

Her son, probably their examination candidate, staggered and hid his face inside the crowd. However, the over-enthusiastic girl kept shouting.

"Is he going to take his clothes off too, now? Mother, look! You can see his tummy already! Ew, it's so hairy!

The old man, still busy blowing air into the pipe choked and almost bit off the portion of the pipe that was inside his mouth. Yet after glaring at the little girl, he resumed whistling as if his dignity wasn't worth enough compared to what he was doing. Imperceptibly, however, he dragged over a part of his ruined robe to cover his exposed stomach.

Han Xuhan was still somewhat stunned as he watched the commotion and felt alarm bells ringing inside his head.

No way in hell was this unrelated to his bloodline test results! Something must be terribly wrong.

Had any of his ancestors had huge enmity with this sect? After all, every sect had a huge amount of adversaries. Neighboring sects, rivalry between sect leaders, and demonic sects that were hated by everyone. If that was the case...

Han Xuhan somberly looked at the sky and muttered,

"Ah, ancestors. Little Xuhan is coming to you very soon. Start the preparations for a welcoming ceremony. I'm sorry that I couldn't leave a few children to continue our bloodline.

My 'could've been' wife, please don't blame me. Your husband was a heroic man..."

The few kids around him who heard his mutterings had very strange expressions on their faces as they suddenly moved away, as if afraid of catching diseases from him.

While he gazed at the sky and continued to think about how painful his death would be, a sudden powerful gust of air appeared out of nowhere, blowing dust and gravel into the tent from outside. Everyone looked toward the source of the wind and gasped.

"I-is that an actual cultivator who can fly?"

"I didn't even see how fast he was!"

"So cool!"

"Why is he posing like that?"

"Who said that? Who said I'm posing?" A sharp, irritated voice cut the strings of exclamations and made the hubbub die down. The crowd parted, and a man walked into the tent with a swagger.

Han Xuhan looked this newcomer up and down and realized that the whistle must have been used as a form of emergency summoning of an influential figure of the sect.

The guy strutting toward the old man like a proud peacock certainly looked quite impressive with his voluminous colorful robe that seemed to work as a cape as well to add in a dazzling effect, alongside the unsheathed sword in his hand that shimmered despite the day being a gloomy one.

Seeing him, the old man's face turned sour for some reason. But he finally stopped whistling and bowed very formally.

"Elder Mu, greetings!"

The guy waved him off impatiently and looked around at the crowd of onlookers.

"What is it? Hurry up!"

Not flustered in the slightest, the old man rushed forward and whispered something to the elder's ear.

Hearing the old man out, elder Mu became visibly tense and whipped his head around to focus on Han Xuhan.

Extremely tense, Han Xuhan focused on the gleaming sword in his hand, gulping down the urge to sincerely apologize for whatever reasons his bloodline ancestors had a feud with this sect.

However, things became even more confusing and alarming with what followed next.

The titular elder Mu suddenly rushed toward Han Xuhan and caught him by his collars, following which, Han Xuhan experienced the sensation of flying freely like a predatory bird in the sky for the first time in his life. As poetic as that sounds, it was an experience he would probably remember in his nightmares in the following days.

With his stomach heaving, by the time he had finished painting the elder's expensive-looking robes with his half-digested breakfast, he had found himself back to the ground, although not on his feet, but on his face, which was still leaking the last traces of a slimy pudding.

"My robes!" Elder Mu moaned in a high-pitched and not-so-manly voice.

Disoriented, Xuhan slowly got back to a sitting position and wiped off the liquid from his chin while the elder nearly tore off his robe and patted himself all over to see if any other part of his body had come into contact with the vomit.

"You got what you deserved. Why would you drag a poor mortal through the air like that ?" A woman's voice from behind made the two of them turn around.

An impressive-looking building greeted Han Xuhan's sight, with all sorts of cool-looking pictures on the walls depicting cultivators meditating till their butts became a part of the ground. It instantly killed off half of his enthusiasm for cultivation, which wasn't much considering his current situation.

In front of the building stood the speaker who had drawn their attention with her chastising words to elder Mu. The elder looked quite guilty of his actions, although Han Xuhan didn't really believe that his internal feelings were the same.

"Ah, Elder Cai, I got carried away because the pleasures of riding a sword and flying in the sky were too great. I've only recently been able to master the technique, and it's too addictive! I'm sure he loved the feeling of flying too, right? The blue sky is every man's dream!"

While passionately blabbering, the elder surreptitiously winked at Xuhan to make him comply with his words.

His actions convinced Han Xuhan that he wasn't feeling guilty in the slightest and would jump at a chance to repeat his crime. But this wasn't the proper time to file a complaint against him. So Han Xuhan nodded repeatedly and tried to stand straight on his shaking feet.

A couple of seconds later after standing up steadily, he threw up a bigger load right at elder Mu's feet.

"Haha, I'm sure he's just too excited. I threw up a lot too when teacher demonstrated flying techniques to me for the first time. I can sympathize with him !" Elder Mu said with a nervous laugh.

"Clean up now, come on, young man!" He emphatically signaled at Xuhan's wet face.

"...Are you sure you haven't become a sadistic demon who gets off on destroying children's dreams of flying on a sword ?" The woman asked skeptically.

"That sounds oddly specific. My lady, you're projecting right now! Of course I haven't become addicted to seeing these cute juniors swear off mastering the art of flying swords!"

Thumping his chest to express his honesty, elder Mu turned towards Han Xuhan, only to find him calmly wiping off the traces of vomit from his face with elder Mu's discarded, expensive robe.

"...."

Silently, he grabbed Han Xuhan's hand and dragged him toward the building behind her, avoiding the lady's narrowed gaze.

Personally, Han Xuhan felt that these cultivators were a bit off from what he imagined them to be.