Death... and me

The person Rean found was an old man who was in the Core and Soul Fusion Realm. It didn't matter how one looked at him. He wasn't anything impressive at all. From his appearance, he had definitely spent most of his life already, and that's already considering a Core and Soul Fusion Realm cultivator could live for 300 years.

The guy also didn't seem to have a house or anything like that. His clothes were ragged, and from what Rean could see with his Divine Sense, the streets were his house. He kept begging for money and food, together with a few other cultivators from other humanoid races. It's just that, by far, he was in a worse situation.

That's because this was the Realm of Gods. Reaching the Nascent Soul Realm was supposed to be quite easy as long as one didn't die. The other beggars around him were much younger and were mostly at the Nascent Soul Realm.

One must remember that the Realm of Gods restricted everyone's power. The power that a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator had in the Realm of Gods could only be compared to a Core Formation Realm cultivator in the Mortal Realm. With that being said, they were plentiful, and no one thought it was worth being afraid of. Everyone could reach this level, usually.

For this old man to still be in the Core and Soul Fusion Realm, one could already imagine how bad a talent or bad a life he had so far.

Rean approached the old man and the other beggars as if he was just passing through. The beggars just sat there with their bowls exposed, waiting for some help. Just as the old man and the others thought that Rean would ignore them, like everyone else, Rean stopped and turned to the old man, telling him, "I say... you seem to be very old. Even if you're a beggar, how come you're still in the Core and Soul Fusion Realm? You definitely lived for more than 200 years already."

The old man thought that Rean was making fun of his misfortune. However, he had seen this type of people way too many times. If he played well with his words, not only wouldn't it be a bad thing, he could even get a few coins from Rean's sympathy. "Young man, not everyone in this Realm of Gods can be like you. Take some pity on this old man and leave a few coins or some food. I'm not worth being compared to anyone."

Rean nodded before he took one Rank One Divine Stone out. Let's not forget that for the common people, Divine Stones were still very hard to get. It was the same for the twins back when they first arrived in the Realm of Gods.

The old man's eyes lit up for a moment as he and all the beggars around him looked at the Divine Stone. However, none of them were idiots. Even though they were all in the Nascent Soul Realm or below, they could still use Divine Sense. Even so, they couldn't feel Rean's cultivation at all, which meant he was at a much higher level.

The old man pondered over it for a bit before saying, "Put it away, young man. There's no way you would show it to me if you didn't want something in exchange. For you to stop before me with this thing, it most likely isn't anything good."

Rean was surprised to hear that. "Oh! A lot more careful than I thought you would be." Though, Rean shook his head right after as he told him, "Don't worry. I'm not going to ask you to do anything at all. This Divine Stone will be my payment for your story. Tell me how you ended up like this, and this stone will be yours."

"What?!" The old man was taken aback. "It can't be that easy, right?"

Rean shrugged his shoulders in response. "Do you have anything better to do at the moment? Besides, would you lose anything even if you told me your story?"

The old man narrowed his eyes for a moment when he heard that. However, he obviously had nothing better to do. "Fine."

It turned out that the old man was born with a flawed foundation. As mentioned before, everyone in the Realm of Gods was already born in the Foundation Establishment Realm. Not only that, all of them were born Nine Pillar foundations... or so it should be.

However, the old man's foundation only had three pillars. If he was in the Mortal Realm, no one would find anything wrong with it. Having a low number of pillars was a very common thing when the people there entered the Foundation Establishment Realm. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case in the Realm of Gods. Such a foundation could only be considered a flaw.

That wasn't all. Just this shouldn't be a reason for the man to still be in the Middle Stage of the Core and Soul Fusion Realm. After all, Divine Energy was just too good compared to Spiritual Energy. After living most of a Core and Soul Fusion Realm's 300 years of lifespan, Divine Energy should have made it possible for him to reach the Nascent Soul Realm.

Unfortunately, his meridians were mostly blocked... because of that, his cultivation speed was also reduced by a great margin.

"And that's how it unfolded. I wasn't exactly born into a rich family. My parents could at most be considered well off. However, they couldn't possibly support the cultivation of someone like me, so I was left aside. They didn't tell me to leave, though. However, seeing how my brother, who was born later, cultivated normally, I just felt like I didn't exist. With that said, I decided to leave them behind and try my luck outside."

The old man sighed as he continued, "In the end, I wasn't very lucky in my life. I obviously had always been much weaker than those of my age, so I couldn't join any groups either. At some point, I just gave up and continued cultivating with the environment's Divine Energy. Things happened here and there, and here I am today. It's that simple."