"Good." The Reed family elders quickly set up a formation array.
Julian glances at you in the corner. "Watch closely. Watch how I replace you and take everything you have."
He presses the supreme bone against his own chest.
Meanwhile, in the corner, you sit with your eyes closed, studying the nine-fold foundation pill inside your system space in your mind's eye. A useless bone, a divine pill. Julian, let's see if you're still smiling in a moment.
Julian sits cross-legged at the centre of the formation, pressing the treasured bone, still warm with your body heat, into his own chest. He lets out a muffled grunt, veins bulging on his forehead.
The next instant, a blinding golden light erupts from his chest, soaring skyward. Dragon roars and phoenix cries echo. A magnificent natural omen.
"Master Julian truly is a son of the true dragon. Our Reed family is about to rise."
Laughter erupts. The Reed elders flush red with excitement. Chloe's eyes shine with wonder as she instinctively glances toward the figure in the corner, her look full of contempt and satisfaction. See, this is the power the supreme bone should have.
Splat.
At the centre of the formation, blood suddenly trickles from the corner of Julian's mouth. The golden light dims with it.
"Something's wrong. Master Julian's body can't withstand the divine bone, the divine power." Grand Elder Marcus shouts urgently. "Quick, channel spiritual energy to him. Give Master Julian a hand."
The elders don't dare hesitate and rush to assist. With everyone's help, Julian's aura climbs steadily, breaking through bottleneck after bottleneck, finally settling stably at Earth Realm, first level.
"He did it!"
Cheers erupt through the hall. Julian slowly opens his eyes, savouring the powerful force flowing through him. Ecstatic, he rises to his feet, looking down at the corner from a lofty height, his presence overwhelming.
"Ethan, do you see this? This is the gap between you and me. You will always be nothing but a stepping stone beneath my feet."
And yet, through it all, you never once open your eyes. The chaos of the outside world has nothing to do with you. You are undergoing a transformation billions of times more magnificent than his.
In your consciousness space, without a shred of hesitation, you swallow the nine-fold foundation pill.
It dissolves the moment it touches your lips, turning into warm streams of light that wash through your entire body. There's no gut-wrenching pain, only an ascension rooted in the very core of life itself.
A thunderous boom erupts from within you like the universe splitting apart. Your mortal body is being wildly reshaped by chaos energy. Your meridians widen a billionfold. Your bones take on the colour of chaos itself. Your blood turns gold.
This is the chaos body, the very first divine physique born when the universe first came into being. Once it forms, no technique can breach it, and it resonates with every law of the cosmos. Compared to a physique this mythic, a mere supreme bone is nothing but a piece of rubble on the ground.
On a level no one in the hall can perceive, the laws of heaven and earth themselves seem to cheer for you. Three thousand grand laws manifest across the sky, forming golden lotuses, divine dragons and celestial figures that circle the Reed estate.
But just before these signs become visible, the primordial eyes deep within you turn ever so slightly. Every omen is instantly hidden.
Not now.
Heaven and earth return to calm. The tallest tree in the forest draws the wind's wrath first. Until you hold absolute power, you have no intention of exposing yourself.
At the head seat, family head Damian Reed, silent until now, suddenly furrows his brow. Just a moment ago, his heart inexplicably shuddered, as if some supreme being had just descended. An urge to kneel in reverence, despite being a Heaven-Piercing Realm powerhouse himself. He whips his head around, his gaze landing on the corner.
You remain perfectly still, your aura completely hidden, as unremarkable as a piece of stone.
Was that just my imagination? He shakes his head and pushes the thought aside.
By now you have completed the initial stage of the chaos body. You slowly open your eyes.
The world looks completely different through them now. You can see spiritual energy flowing through the air. Hear a mosquito's wings beating a hundred metres away. And even see straight through Julian's body to the severe rejection between the supreme bone and his flesh. Gilded on the outside, rotten within.
This is the power of the primordial eyes combined with the chaos body.
The corner of your mouth lifts slightly. You rise slowly, dust yourself off, ignoring the mockery from Julian and the crowd, and walk straight toward the exit.
"Stop right there." Chloe blocks your path, her face twisted with disgust. "From today on, you're cast out of the Reed family's core lineage, demoted to a side branch. Move into a guest room in the west wing. This is a decision made by me, the elders and Julian together."
She announces your sentence like a verdict, looking down at you from her perceived height.
You feel nothing, as if listening to news about a total stranger. You step around her and keep walking outward.
That indifferent attitude completely enrages Chloe.
"Ethan!" She shrieks. "Do you have no shame left at all? Right now, you're a man without even a bone. What right do you have to stay in the Reed family?"
Your footsteps pause. You don't turn around. You simply leave behind a single sentence that drains the colour from her face.
"Soon enough, you'll be the one begging me."
Without another word, you walk on, your figure vanishing into the sunlight at the hall's entrance.