Chapter 93: The Origin of the Ring

Su Han raised his hand and pointed to the ring on his finger.

“Mother, this Storage Ring you gave me… is it very important?”

That guy, Liu Ming, had died from a backlash that made his body explode while he was appraising this very ring. At first, Su Han’s own Eye of Truth hadn’t detected anything unusual about it, so he had assumed it was just an ordinary Storage Ring.

But now, from the way his mother was talking, it seemed the ring held some other secret.

‘Could it be… this ring holds a secret so profound that even my True Sight Magic can’t fathom it?’

A nostalgic look appeared in the Princess Consort’s eyes. “Of course it’s important. This Storage Ring was a gift to me from my master.”

“Oh?”

‘So it’s an heirloom,’ he thought. ‘In that case, the odds of it holding a major secret are even higher.’

“In that case, Mother, did your master ever say anything about the ring having a secret?”

“A secret?”

The Princess Consort looked taken aback. “What secret?”

Su Han looked at her. “Didn’t you say the ring was important?”

The Princess Consort nodded. “Yes! It is very important!”

“Then what important secret does it have?”

As he spoke, he glanced at Prince Jing, giving his father a look. ‘Take a hint, will you? Can’t you see Mother doesn’t want to reveal the ring’s secret? It must be because an ‘outsider’ like you is here. It concerns her sect’s secrets, so she can’t speak freely.’

The Princess Consort shook her head. “There are no secrets!”

Su Han was speechless. “…There are no secrets, yet you say the ring is important?”

The Princess Consort looked at Su Han and retorted, “This ring was a gift to me from my master. You tell me, is that important or not?”

Su Han: “…”

“This ring was a gift from my master’s master to my master. You tell me, is that important or not?”

Su Han: “…”

“This ring was a gift from my master’s master’s master to my master’s master. You tell me, is that important or not?”

Su Han: “…” 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

“This ring…”

“Stop!”

“Alright!”

“That’s enough!”

“That’s enough, Mother. If you keep tracing it back like that, it’ll just sound like you’re padding for word count.”

The Princess Consort: “…”

She gave him a suspicious look, not understanding what he meant by “padding for word count.”

“This ring is the symbol of my sect, and it carries the sect’s fortune.

Each generation’s successor passes the ring down to their junior when they are young to protect them as they grow.

I gave the ring to you when you were one year old. With the entire sect’s fortune now yours, you will be invincible, able to turn any misfortune into a blessing and find good luck in every disaster.”

Su Han: “…”

‘It’s that amazing? But… why didn’t my Eye of Truth see any of that?’

‘The ring does carry fortune, but it only developed that halo of luck after being imbued with my own. That proves the fortune the ring originally carried… is even weaker than mine!’

‘Could it be… the fortune is too immense for me to see? Or maybe it requires some kind of ritual to be activated?’

As he thought about it, seeing the serious look on his mother’s face, Su Han hesitated for a moment before asking.

“So… Mother, in all these years, I’ve never asked… which sect are you from?”

‘The fortune of an entire sect, making one invincible, turning misfortune into blessings…’

‘To possess that much fortune, it would have to be a top-tier Major Sect, right?’

‘I always felt that Mother didn’t seem like someone from a minor background.’

‘So… which sect is she really from?’

‘The Celestial Demon Sect? Impossible!’

‘The Sumeru Sect? They’re all monks and nuns!’

‘The Supreme Dao? Unlikely!’

‘So… could it be some hidden sect? An existence even more formidable than those top-tier sects?’

Lost in his wild fantasies, Su Han selectively ignored one crucial detail—the Foundation Establishment technique his mother practiced was inferior even to the one passed down by their own Royal Family’s ancestor.

“My sect…”

The Princess Consort’s voice trailed off, her face full of reminiscence. “Speaking of my sect, even back in Ancient Times, it was among the most preeminent powers.

Although the sect remained hidden from the world, any successor who emerged was an invincible figure, capable of suppressing the geniuses of their generation so thoroughly they couldn’t even raise their heads.”

“I knew it!”

Su Han thought to himself, ‘I knew it! It really is a hidden sect!’

‘With this connection, if I go and find that Major Sect and max out their… I mean, *my* sect’s Skill Tree… imagine the gains!’

“Then… Mother, where is your sect? What’s its name?”

“Where is it…”

A shadow of sorrow crossed the Princess Consort’s face. “It was destroyed back in Ancient Times.”

Su Han: “…De… Destroyed?”

“Yes… From the Sect Leader and Supreme Elders down to the ordinary Inner and Outer Disciples, everyone was wiped out in a single night.”

“Wiped out?”

Su Han nearly leaped off the stone stool.

The Princess Consort nodded. “Yes, that’s what my master told me at the time.

But they weren’t completely wiped out. The youngest junior brother managed to escape with his life.

However, because he was so young, the sect elders all doted on him.

As a result, he was lazy with his studies and learned the sect’s teachings haphazardly. After hundreds of thousands of years of things being lost to time, in the end…”

At this point, the Princess Consort seemed a little embarrassed on behalf of her sect’s ancestors.

Su Han: “…”

He looked at the Princess Consort, then back at the ring in his hand.

“So… Mother, you think a sect that was completely wiped out back in Ancient Times…”

“Not completely! There was still the youngest junior brother.”

“Fine. A sect that was reduced to a single, poorly-trained disciple back in Ancient Times… what kind of fortune could it possibly bestow upon me to make me invincible for the rest of my life?”

‘Turn misfortune into blessings and find good luck in disaster, my foot.’

He was even starting to wonder if the sect had brought him good fortune or a curse.

‘It might even be this ring’s bad luck that caused my Skill Tree ability to not awaken until I was sixteen.’

‘If it weren’t for this ring… maybe I would have awakened long ago and would have a ton of amazing skills by now… Oh, well, even though I awakened a bit late, I still have a ton of amazing skills now.’

Hearing Su Han’s words and seeing the speechless look on his face, the Princess Consort froze for a moment.

Then, as if just realizing it, she added, “You’re right! It seems none of the past patriarchs who wore this ring lived past the age of nine hundred…”

Su Han: “…”

Nine hundred years old…

‘Well, compared to a normal human lifespan, living to be nine hundred isn’t actually that bad.’

‘The lifespan of a Divine Sea Realm cultivator is only three hundred years. In the thirteen hundred-plus years since the founding of the Jing Country, besides the old ancestor, no one has lived past three hundred.’

‘When you put it that way, a nine-hundred-year lifespan is so long that most people wouldn’t instinctively think of the fact that “no one who wore this ring lived past nine hundred” as a bad thing.’

But…

‘Why has no one who wore the ring ever lived past nine hundred?’

‘Is it a curse?’

‘But my Eye of Truth only detected that the ring was imbued with my own fortune. It didn’t identify any curse.’

“Oh, you’re asking why the past patriarchs never lived past nine hundred? It’s because none of them ever broke through to the Immortal Platform Realm!”

The Princess Consort stated this as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, in response to Su Han’s confusion.

Su Han: “…”

‘You know… that makes perfect sense!’

Those at the Immortal Platform Realm do not live beyond a thousand years.

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