The instant Zhao Hai fainted, a memory that wasn’t his suddenly intruded in his mind, as if a program that didn’t belong to your computer was suddenly installed, the suddenness almost making Zhao Hai’s brain crash. Even if he didn’t crash, it at least made his brain freeze up, as he bit by bit digested the information in his mind.
He didn’t know how long it was before Zhao Hai woke up. He felt as if there was a batch of memories that absolutely didn’t belong to him in his brain.
In this collection of memories, his name was Adam Buda, born to the family of a general in the Aksu Empire on the Ark continent. With the position of Marquis in Aksu Empire for three generations, the family had finally waned in Adam’s lifetime. Adam was a hedonistic young master, and along with his mother dying early and his father away leading troops for years on end, he grew an extreme disregard for legal and natural morality, oppressing the people and not shirking from any crime. But his father always covered for him, wielding a massive military force, nobody could touch him.
But his father had made a mistake. In the Aksu Empire’s struggle for succession, he had stood on the wrong side.
Aksu Empire’s old king was the forty seventh monarch. He had altogether fifteen royal sons, five of whom could become king: the grand prince, the third prince, the fourth prince, the seventh prince, and the thirteenth prince.
Stipulated in the laws of Aksu Empire, only the children of king’s queen and consorts were entitled to become king. Of course, not every child of the queen and consorts could become king, only those children bestowed with title of grand duke or higher.
People born to the imperial family would hold the title of count, and if they didn’t establish some achievements in the imperial capital, they would only stay counts for the rest of their lives, and unlanded counts at that. Only by establishing achievements would they advance, at most up to Prince of the Blood.
Of course, children of the queen and consorts couldn’t only be counts. They would ordinarily be titled dukes, and as long as they then made some minor contributions or perhaps found a pretext, they could rise to grand duke, and finally to Prince of the Blood, making them eligible to become king.
And the five children of the forty seventh Aksu king able to inherit the title were all Princes of the Blood. Among them, the grand prince and fourth prince were born by the queen, while the third prince and seventh prince were children of imperial consort Karin, and the thirteenth prince was born by imperial consort Avril, and was also the weakest one, never thought highly of. People always thought that the grand prince was the queen’s child, making him the orthodox choice, and the third prince had always been with the grand prince through thick and thin, so a lot of people supported the grand prince’s succession. And the fourth prince and seventh prince were partners, the seventh prince had the fourth prince’s support, and also the support of the Karin family, whose voices were very loud in the court. Only the thirteenth prince was the youngest, the weakest, always the least conspicuous, that’s why nobody was optimistic about him.
And Adam’s father was in the grand prince’s camp. This was also quite normal, the grand prince’s voice was the loudest at the time, and the Buda family wasn’t any influential noble clan, they had only step by step advanced to the position of marquis through military accomplishments in the generation of grandfather Buda. They wanted to rise into the ranks of the old nobility a bit quicker, therefore he chose to support the candidate most likely to become king, the grand prince. As long as the grand prince became king, the Buda family might rise into the core of the Aksu Empire’s power, becoming truly recognized nobles in the empire.
On the continent, any king’s nobles were split into two kinds, one the old nobility, the other the new nobility. The gap between new and old nobility was very clear, new nobles would usually be thought of as upstarts, never regarded well by the old nobility, and also never able to enter the power center of the empire.
The continent had passed many years of development, and the influence of the nobles in a kingdom was immense. There were some times when they could even influence the rise and fall of a state, especially those old school nobles that had developed for a thousand years over dozens of generations held power that even the imperial authority had to fear. Those old school nobles could be called the center of power for the entire empire, and any new nobility had to gain their approval.
In order to obtain the approval of those old nobles, they naturally had to have the appropriate strength, and the Buda family rose too quickly. This was the means several generations of Aksu clan kings had figured out to govern those old nobles, but after the death of the forty sixth king, the Buda clan’s days weren’t easy. The new king wanted to promote them, but those old nobles wanted to suppress them. Therefore they could only staunchly support the new king, so that the clan could continue developing.
But Adam’s father stood on the wrong side. The loudest grand prince he supported finally didn’t become king, on the contrary it was the least conspicuous, the seemingly weakest, thirteenth prince who took the throne. The grand prince was ordered to commit suicide, but the grand prince’s followers didn’t get away lightly. Adam’s father was imprisoned on a pretext and died mysteriously in prison, and Adam’s previous misdeeds were brought out. But because the empire feared Green and the other eight level powers would cause trouble, plus the newly succeeded monarch, they still showed a bit of magnanimity and dealt leniently with Adam. The marquis fief Adam was originally to inherit was taken away, demoting him to viscount, they took away the original very fertile fief, exchanging it for the Black Waste, and Adam was forced to drink the Water of Nothingness, completely crippling him.
If ordinary nobles had fiefs, they would leave it to their housekeepers or comparatively trusted people to manage. Even though the fief was their foundation, they stayed in the capital to pay attention to anything that happened in the empire, what was beneficial for the clan, and what was not.
But Adam and the others weren’t. After the king changed their fief, they were ordered to leave the imperial capital within three days, and were moreover forbidden from leaving the fief for three years, something that had never happened to any clan before.
And the reason why the incumbent Aksu king, the former thirteenth prince Aboyo Aksu, would treat the Buda family so was, first, because the Buda family was in the grand prince’s camp, and second, because of the pressure from those old nobles. He had just ascended to the throne and would naturally forcefully suppress the grand prince and seventh prince, but he didn’t dare touch those grand nobles, and those old nobles also thought the Buda family was an eyesore and naturally pressured Aboyo from the side, that’s why he would make such a decision.
The reason he had Adam drink the Water of Nothingness was because of the Buda clan’s inherited battle qi training methods, Wild Dragon battle qi, which was extremely famous on the continent. It was accidentally obtained by Adam’s grandfather, making his training speed triple that of ordinary battle qi systems, it also had extremely fierce attack power, and was always a battle qi training method that all the great clans in the empire drooled over. If Adam was allowed to study battle qi, if he really learned Wild Dragon battle qi, and also remembered his hatred, he could be a threat to those grand nobles and the imperial clan, so Aboyo had Adam drink the Water of Nothingness.
As for why Aboyo didn’t have Adam killed, besides those previous reason, there was still one more: Green gave him this set of battle qi training methods, and also swore a cruel vow that the Buda family would hereafter no longer practice Wild Dragon battle qi, therefore Aboyo let Adam off alive.
Of course, Green didn’t openly hand this method to Aboyo. He snuck into the imperial palace at night and found Aboyo to give him the method, partly to plead for leniency for Adam, and partly to let Aboyo see his strength, and have him dispel any thoughts of killing Adam.
Aboyo really did fear an expert like Green causing trouble, therefore he agreed to the request, only demoting his order of nobility and taking away the fief, leaving Adam with his life.
Green also agreed. He understood extremely clearly that, even though he wasn’t weak, the imperial family was very powerful. The reason he could secretly sneak into the imperial palace was partly because he was intimately familiar with the circumstances there, and partly because the new emperor had just ascended the throne, and the imperial palace had undergone a major rearrangement and was still a bit weak. This plus is rather special methods, allowed him to go undiscovered.
The reason why Green didn’t go save Adam’s father earlier was because he believed Aboyo wouldn’t kill him. No matter what, Adam’s father was still a pawn the imperial family used to deal with those old nobles, and the imperial family wouldn’t easily discard him.
But they hadn’t expected that the reason Aboyo could take the throne was just due to the backing of those old nobles, and therefore he would naturally curry favor with those old nobles by killing Adam’s father after taking the throne. Once Green learned about it, Adam’s father was already dead, and Green could only think of a way to protect Adam, the last blood of the Buda family.
And the reason he would hand over the Wild Dragon battle qi training method was also because of the Water of Nothingness. The reason the Water of Nothingness became a supreme magic treasure on the continent wasn’t only because it could make people unable to practice magic or battle qi, even more overbearing was that such circumstances would continue with their offspring.
In other words, as long as you drank the Water of Nothingness, your children and grandchildren would also be unable to practice magic and battle qi, only after ten generations would it end.
But that was a full ten generations, ten generations unable to practice magic or battle qi, what would they become by that time? Whether this family could still exist then, whether they could last to the tenth generation, these were all unknown quantities. This was why the Water of Nothingness was so dreadful, and also why Green would hand over the Wild Dragon battle qi.
Adam and ten generations of Adam’s descendants would all be unable to learn Wild Dragon battle qi, so what was the use of hanging on to it? It would be better to trade it for Adam’s life, and so Green didn’t hesitate in handing it over.
And facts proved that his actions were completely correct. If he hadn’t handed over the Wild Dragon battle qi, it might have been impossible for Adam to leave the capital.
But he also didn’t know if someone sabotaged the Water of Nothingness, or if Adam had a physical reaction to the potion, in any case, Adam had fallen unconscious after drinking the Water of Nothingness, and had remained that way until they reached the fief. When he did wake up, he had changed from the hedonistic son Adam, into the Earthly nerd Zhao Hai.
