Chapter 1: Prologue
In a small city called Ambrose within the Northern Continent, the Matriarch of the Lynx clan was pondering deeply, staring out into the rest of the city from the window in her room in a mansion.
This mansion was the headquarters where most of the important members and resources of the Lynx clan resided and was located in the eastern part of the city.
The recent events regarding the offspring for the next generation of the Lynx clan had not bode well for the future at all.
That was because the recent births only produced two males!
Males were an important resource as they were the main method for gaining abilities and cultivation. Without them, females were limited to just training their innate abilities which would put them in a great disadvantage against other females that had multiple abilities.
With so many girls in the clan and barely any boys at all, this put the Matriarch in a very difficult situation. The chances of conceiving males were one in every six children and it was not rare for the thirty so children in the clan to consist so little boys.
This meant that the clan had to spend a greater amount of money to acquire enough young boys for the girls to cultivate with.
"Knock! Knock!"
Matriarch Lynx was startled momentarily. "Come in."
The door opened and her personal attendant came in. "I have discovered news regarding the other great clans from our eyes and ears within the city. It looks like our clan is really unlucky this time. Both the Kouga and Leo clans have produced six boys each."
Matriarch Lynx's face darkened. It was certainly the last thing she wanted to hear.
"However, I have some good news too. There seems to be a surplus of boys from the commoners. We should be able to secure a sufficient number of boys for this generation."
"Hmm… Let's just hope that our luck during the awakening ceremony for this generation will be better. Negotiate with the other great clans and try to get better terms." Matriarch Lynx commanded.
The attendant bowed and left the room with a sigh.
This generation was especially important for the Matriarch as she had given birth to two girls in the last five years. If she wanted her children to succeed her as head of the clan, they had to be the strongest not only within their own generation but also other generations too.
As combat prowess and cultivation level were heavily reliant on the quality of males. It was no wonder that the Matriarch would be more worried than usual.
After internally wishing her master good luck and promising herself to do a good job, the attendant hurriedly strode off to make preparations.
…
A few weeks later.
Six boys of different ages from new-born up to five years old were sent to the nurseries of the Lynx clan. There were three large nurseries where trained nannies from the commoners were hired to take care of the children until they were due for the awakening ceremony.
Even though the awakening ceremony was only for the boys, the girls were arranged to live together and interact with the boys on a daily basis in the hopes of bonding and growing up to be cultivation partners.
The nursery where the current generation of children was allocated was known as the Wonderland.
"Waaaaaahhhh!!"
At this moment, a nanny of the Wonderland was carrying a crying baby. All her efforts in trying to calm the baby down had been for naught. This was the youngest child out of the six boys, just a few months old.
She had overseen the Wonderland for several years and had never been in such a predicament before. Swift glances around showed her that all the other nannies were preoccupied with other happenings around the nursery.
As she was feeling a bit lost, she suddenly felt a tug on her dress and turned around to spot a little girl holding onto the hem.
This little girl had milky white skin, blue hair tied in a ponytail and large curious brown eyes, along with the pretty pink dress that was donned which made her look both innocent and adorable.
"Ohh… It's just you Clara, what do you want? Are you not with your younger sister?" The nanny was already frustrated with trying to console the crying baby in her arms and did not want to deal with other children.
Clara did not respond but her eyes were fixated on the loud wailing baby. As if the baby noticed the new set of eyes on him, the baby turned to look back at Clara. By some miraculous reason, the baby's loud bawling was reduced to small whimpers and sobs, and eventually he was just staring back at Clara.
The nanny's mouth opened in amazement as she watched all this unfolded before her. She had been trying to calm the crying baby down for the past hour and yet he suddenly stopped crying because of Clara. This made the nanny felt a bit annoyed but she was still thankful nonetheless as the baby stopped crying.
After a long gaze, Clara finally responded. "He has some beautiful black eyes…"
"He's caused us a great deal of trouble so far. His crying in the middle of the night rouses the other babies. His name is Joe Rowlet." The nanny sighed as she recalled how all the nannies had to wake up to attend to all the crying babies. It had been a while since she had a good night's sleep.
"Why don't I help you watch him? He stopped crying when I came." Clara innocently said.
And this was the first time Clara and Joe met.
…
Seven-year-old Joe was playing by himself on a swing outside the nursery. Days spent living in the nursery was routine with set meal and bedtimes without much to do, especially for a male like him and the focus on cultivation was after the awakening. Even if he wanted to, he could not cultivate his innate ability like most of the other children.
He did not know why the males had half as many classes than the girls and he was always lonely during this period. All the other boys were older than him and he was not close with any of them, as he got along with the girls better especially during playtimes.
"Hey Fucktard!! What are you doing by yourself?" A shrill voice resounded through the playground.
Joe had heard this nickname one too many times and was not surprised to see the boy around the same age as himself approaching into view.
"Oh?? Playing on the swing by yourself again? Where's all your girlfriends now?" Bob moved menacingly towards Joe, who had just got off the swing and was now trembling with evident fear in his eyes.
This was not the first time that such a scene had occurred. Even though Bob was just a year older than him, Joe had a relatively small frame and someone bigger like Bob could easily overpower him. As for the reason as to why Bob would do such a thing to him and quite frequently too during the recent months, Joe was baffled.
At the start, Bob would just insult and called him names, but that soon turned into physical bullying where Bob would pinch and hit him. He had tried running away from Bob and telling the nannies, but Bob could easily catch him within a few seconds due to his innate ability [Vines], which allowed Bob to create vines from the ground to trip or catch his legs. There was no way Joe could stay indoors for the entire day for the sake of preventing Bob from bullying him and the nannies seemed to dismiss it as a small matter as there was no visible harm that could be seen from his body.
"Not running away anymore?" Bob taunted triumphantly. "Why don't you just try to blink away again? Maybe you could blink far enough that I can't reach you."
"What do you want from me? … Wh-Why are you doing this to me?" Joe was panicking at the moment, he quickly glanced around but did not see anyone else nearby.
"Hm… I don't know. Maybe you should stop being such a loser?" Bob was now right in front of Joe.
"Slaappp!" The sound of Bob's hand as it landed on Joe's face reverberated through the playground.
Joe staggered and dropped to the ground, a visible red handprint now on his cheek, he could not control the tears that welled in his eyes from trickling down his face. Emotions of sadness and anger were flooding his mind.
What did he do to deserve this!
Though he and Bob could not really be considered friends, he had never done anything that offended Bob and they barely ever interacted directly too, at least to his memory. Bob had also not given a reason for his actions which made Joe extremely frustrated, he wanted to settle any misunderstandings.
Bob grabbed his shirt and just as he was about to land another hit, a loud barking resounded as a dog appeared and bounded towards the ongoing fight.
The dog was transparent in colour, as if it were an ice sculpture. Its entire body was glistening under the evening sunlight but does not seem to melt.
Bob immediately let go of Joe and ran off. He had clearly recognised what the appearance of this dog meant and did not hesitate to escape.
Loud footsteps were followed by the arrival of an eleven-year-old girl who was panting to catch her breath. The blue-haired girl was tall for her age, with her trademark ponytail.
She had a concerned look on her face when she saw Joe and the fleeing Bob. Knowing that Bob had been targeting Joe while she was having lessons, she had decided to excuse herself and check on Joe with her summoned dog. When she realised what was going on, she had rushed to the playground to ensure that everything was alright.
"Are you okay Joe?" Clara helped the tearful boy up and comforted him in her embrace. "I am going to reprimand him for doing this to you again. He had ignored my past warnings to stop this kind of behaviour. If only I could get my dog to stay by your side, this wouldn't be an issue anymore."
She felt the area around her abdomen became wet. Looking down at the weeping child, her heart ached, if only she was strong enough to protect him...
She steeled herself and resolved to train harder, only then would she gain the respect of others and her words would also carry more weight.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone