Ancestral Initiation Ceremony.
As the shortest yet the most convenient way of familiarising and branding oneself onto the elusive but omnipresent Great Ocean and thus opening the doors to the world of cultivation, it is a widely popular method.
It is a two-part process beginning with Ancestral Prayers, requesting one's forebearers for protection and a successful voyage; subsequently followed by Astral Dive.
Seated before the altar, Young Master Xu Tian and Fairy Hua Ming began their prayers with a resolute proclamation of their ancestral allegiance and surprisingly received a response almost instantly.
The feeling of an almighty being casting its gaze upon them, it was a sign of their prayers being answered which meant the uninitiated practitioner's soul would face no rejection from the Great Ocean during their Astral Dive.
On the other side, Di Tanxue watched this development with a mix of amazement and apprehension.
Usually, one would need to conduct at least one complete session of prayers before receiving a response.
With no mention of their ancestors' identities, their rank and achievements in the ancient times or even offering a tribute; Young Master Xu Tian and Fairy Hua Ming had only just begun their prayers.
And yet, here they were; beginning the ancestral prayer and concluding it almost instantly.
Next, with a practiced ease, Young Master Xu Tian moved behind Fairy Hua Ming with his right palm touching the middle of his fiance's graceful back and a red crystal held in his other hand.
They immediately began the process of Astral Dive as Fairy Hua Ming's eyes concentrated on the altar they had used for ancestral prayers.
Using the altar as the catalyst and a means of travel, Fairy Hua Ming's soul effortlessly separated from her body and entered the Great Ocean.
As a separate dimension of reality born from the resentment and the curse left behind by the ancient Heavenly Daos, it was a place unsuitable for the living.
As such, in spite of the protection received from the ancestral prayers and Di Tanxue providing her an anchor, she had only about an incense stick worth of time to roam and leave behind as many spiritual marks as possible within this dimension.
And only when these marks reach a certain quantity in numbers would her existence be branded within the Great Ocean.
The number of marks taken to brand oneself is one of the early ways of discerning a person's cultivation.
Usually, higher the number of marks is directly proportional to the limit of one's cultivation potential.
The higher one's talent, the more resistance her branding would face. This is why practitioners with higher potential usually take more than just one session to complete their branding.
The marks stay for a few months instead of disappearing immediately as such a practitioner is free to restart from where they left.
While Fairy Hua Ming was busy within the Great Ocean, back in the physical world, Young Master Xu Tian too did not remain idle.
Taking hold of the energy within the blood essence crystal in his left hand he used his own body as a refinery and guided the blood essence out of his right hand pouring it all directly into his fiance's petite body.
The next step required absolute caution and utmost precision while manipulating the blood essence to circulate within Fairy Hua Ming's body on a set path thus helping her temporarily soul-less body to grow a certain level of affinity towards this blood essence.
"Forgo the immortal and dive into the rotten waters of cursed ocean;"
Di Tanxue muttered from the sidelines witnessing another one of a pure untainted creature letting go of it's innate compatibility to the now-extinct Immortal Energy and getting tainted with the 19 cursed elemental essences of the Great Ocean.
From henceforth Fairy Hua Ming's body would develop an affinity towards these elemental essences. Blood essence in particular will most likely have higher affinity with her since it was the one being used in her initiation.
Moments passed as Young Master Xu Tian completed nearly a dozen circulations of the blood essence and with near-perfect precision, he guided the blood essence upward towards her glabella between eyebrows.
Next step, breaking open the first dantian within her body that will lay down the foundation for her chosen path of cultivation.
Lower dantian for elemental, middle for martial and the sea of consciousness in the upper dantian for wisdom path of cultivation.
The choice of first among these three dantian to be broken was a crucial first in their respective path of cultivation.
Now that Young Master Xu Tian was guiding the blood essence towards her upper dantian it meant that Fairy Hua Ming had chosen beforehand to walk the path of wisdom or the path of lightbringer as the more experienced cultivators call it.
While Young Master Xu Tian used the blood essence to gently break open her upper dantian, Fairy Hua Ming herself sped up her rate of conjuring the spiritual marks.
An incense stick worth of time passed in such a manner and Hua Ming's soul was forced to return back to her body.
"Thirty.. no twenty-eight more sessions and I'll be done!"
She smiled sweetly towards Young Master Xu Tian and they both thanked Di Tanxue once again. Next they would need to recuperate for the whole night recovering from energy exhaustion.
Giving them a glance, Di Tanxue withdrew his anchor and stood up.
"I'll be back in a moment;"
Leaving behind these words, he leisurely walked away into the surrounding forest with a clear destination in mind.
"A young scion of a noble clan with pseudo anchor despite being an essence-pond realm cultivator;"
"A little girl with ancestral allegiance related to the Transcendent Empress and a big shot ancestor considering the instantaneous response she can received;"
"An unremarkable servant yet a wisdom path cultivator with a cultivation technique related to Ancient Beasts…. and… the most conspicuous of them all, an old man of orthodox path of cultivation;"
"Aren't they interesting?"
Di Tanxue asked, looking down at his shadow as he walked. Waiting for a moment and not receiving any reply, Di Tanxue did not give up and asked another question.
"Or do you perhaps find it too much of a coincidence for me to meet such a group of people in my current state?
Should I ju-"
"Who are you talking to, young man?"
An unfamiliar voice drifted his way along with the wind making a slight frown appear on Di Tanxue's face under the hood.
"Don't interrupt me, old man!"
Di Tanxue lashed out aggressively and yet the unfamiliar voice seemed unbothered.
"Strange, is there somebody else here except the two of us?
But then why don't I feel their presence?"
The unfamiliar voice wondered out loud and continued musing in a deliberately provocative tone, seemingly intending to make Di Tanxue more displeased.
In the next few moments, it tried a few more ways to irritate Di Tanxue but unfortunately for it, except for his initial outburst, Di Tanxue remained impassive.
"Tch.. you're no fun, young man."
The owner of the unfamiliar voice clicked its tongue in resignation and watched Di Tanxue continue his leisurely pace of walking, occasionally taking one turn after another.
"Hmm.. anyways young man, what were you talking about earlier? Was it about me?"
"Yes, I was wondering whether to kill you or to spare you;"
Di Tanxue replied matter-of-factly leaving the owner of the voice in stunned silence for a good few moments.
"What did you say?"
"Exactly what you heard old man… in my eyes, your group and you especially are highly suspicious. There's even a possibility of you being detrimental to my survival so… I'm deliberating whether to get rid of all four of you;"
As his words came to an end, Di Tanxue stopped his steps and looked ahead at the owner of the voice, Old Man Wang, seated on a stone platform with a glass of wine in his hands.
That's right, it was Old Man Wang, Young Master Xu Tian's bodyguard(?) who should've been by his master's side protecting him from any danger and yet here he was, savoring the taste of a good wine so far away in the middle of this forest.
"Hahaha, young man, come here. Let's discuss how you intend to deal with me!"
Old Man Wang laughed uproariously and invited Di Tanxue for a drink while maintaining a constant sneer of mockery on his face.
From his demeanor, it was easy to see that he treated Di Tanxue's words earlier as baseless boasting of an ignorant little kid.
"Alright;"
Di Tanxue saw no reason to reject Old Man Wang's invitation, after all he held no reservations when it came to free food and drinks, especially if it involved something that smelled so fragrant.
He unhesitatingly approached Old Man Wang and conjured a blood-red sitting platform out of thin air opposite the old man's seat.
Next, in a momentary impulse, Di Tanxue took off his hood which revealed a gruesome sight capable of making the mightiest of hearts to churn with disgust. And yet it only made the old man's sneer grow more prominent.
"As I suspected, you're aware of my identity;"
"Eh, young man, is it about that?
Aren't you just a pilgrim with an intact sentience and thus by extension... a perfect vessel for Divine Spirit's resurrection?"