Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!

Long Chapter

—-

Ethan reached the entrance of the Great Hall just in time to hear the old geezers inside still arguing. The massive doors were half open, their voices echoing out into the courtyard, and he paused just outside the threshold instead of walking in right away.

He leaned against the doorway and listened.

They were still going on and on about the Council of Elders, speaking with the kind of solemn authority that only people who had long since stopped being useful seemed to possess.

Ethan waited patiently until they reached the part where they started praising the council itself.

That was when he couldn’t hold back anymore.

In his eyes, the so-called Council of Elders was nothing more than a glorified nursing home. A useless institution put together by a group of washed-up relics who couldn’t accomplish anything meaningful even if their lives depended on it.

With that thought in mind, Ethan finally walked in.

He dragged the enormous seashell behind him as he entered, its jagged edge scraping against the polished stone floor with a harsh screech that made everyone’s teeth itch.

The sound echoed across the entire hall.

His very first sentence nearly made the elders’ beards stand on end with rage.

"You... you’re not even part of the Silverwood family! How dare you behave with such insolence!"

The Great Elder shot to his feet and pointed at Ethan, his face turning purple with fury.

Ethan tilted his head slightly and looked genuinely puzzled.

"Did I say something wrong? You just said it yourself, didn’t you? I’m not a Silverwood. So why don’t you fossils crawl back to your nursing home and preserve what little dignity you’ve got left?"

He walked forward step by step while speaking, the conch continuing to scrape across the ground with an unbearable screech.

"You... you..."

"Outrageous!"

"What arrogance!"

"Guards! Throw him out!"

"That’s right, throw him out!"

The elders of the Silverwood family began shouting all at once, their faces red with indignation as they completely ignored what Ethan had said.

Then suddenly, the scraping stopped.

THUD.

Ethan released the seashell.

It slammed onto the stone floor with a heavy impact that made the hall tremble slightly.

From the moment Donovan Silverwood had noticed what Ethan was dragging behind him, his brows had been tightly furrowed. When the it hit the ground, realization flashed across his face.

But he said nothing.

The truth was that none of the elders currently shouting had ever held real power in the family back in their prime. They had never stepped foot inside the deeper restricted areas of the Silverwood estate either. The only reason they were called elders now was because they had simply managed to live long enough to accumulate seniority.

And their seniority was terrifying.

The Great Elder alone was supposedly Lyla’s great-grandfather’s uncle or something equally distant.

No one even knew how someone with such mediocre strength had managed to live this long.

"Ahem... I seem to have a headache. Rainie, Amber, help me to the back for a moment. Council meeting, ten-minute recess."

Lyla, who had been sitting calmly in the center of the hall, suddenly clutched her forehead as the seashell struck the floor, her expression looking genuinely uncomfortable.

Her voice wasn’t loud, yet every person present heard her clearly.

Amber and Rainie, standing beside her, both had strangely stiff expressions. Their lips twitched slightly, as though they were desperately holding back laughter.

Below them, Donovan Silverwood was leaning lazily in his chair, one hand holding his purple clay teapot as he drank directly from the spout.

Pffft!

Tea sprayed everywhere.

’Again.’

The elders looked utterly baffled. Family meetings had never included breaks halfway through.

But if the Matriarch herself wasn’t feeling well, what were they supposed to say?

"Lyla, headaches can be serious! Ninth Granduncle can circulate some energy for you!"

Donovan immediately followed behind Lyla and the two girls as they left for the rear hall.

Once the four of them disappeared, the entire hall fell into an awkward silence.

Almost everyone present, except for Matriarch Whitmore, found themselves staring at Ethan.

Matriarch Whitmore still had her eyes closed as if she had heard nothing at all. However, the faint twitching of her cheek muscles suggested that her calm expression was more of an act than genuine indifference.

Ethan noticed this and smiled faintly.

Lyla was sharp.

If she had stayed here, the next part would have been rather awkward for her to deal with.

He cleared his throat lightly.

"Ahem. Which one of you just said I should be thrown out? Was it you, old man?"

Ethan looked toward one of the elders. To everyone else, he seemed almost friendly, smiling casually as if making polite conversation.

But the elder he was looking at felt the hair on his entire body stand on end.

"And you," Ethan continued as his gaze shifted to another man, "you said my words were outrageous. Right?"

The second elder stiffened as well, though he seemed to have a little more backbone than the first.

He lifted his chin stubbornly.

"Yes, that was me! Don’t think you can act so arrogantly here, or else..."

"Oh? Or else what?"

Ethan’s smile slowly faded.

"Or else... or else... without the Council of Elders’ approval, the Silverwood Matriarch cannot marry anyone!"

No one knew what short-circuited in the old man’s mind, but he somehow jumped straight to that topic.

Ethan blinked.

"Marry?"

He sounded genuinely confused.

"That’s right, marry," the elder said proudly. "Everyone already knows about your... relationship... with our Matriarch. If you want to marry into the Silverwood family, you must obtain the council’s approval."

The oppressive pressure that had been hanging over the old man suddenly disappeared while Ethan was distracted.

For some reason, the elder felt ten years younger and twice as confident.

Ethan let out a small laugh.

"Well, shit."

It was the kind of laugh that suggested someone was about to have a very bad day.

The tense atmosphere in the hall relaxed slightly.

Many of the cult leaders and family heads who had pledged allegiance to the Silverwoods couldn’t help but chuckle quietly as they looked at Ethan again.

"Tell you what," Ethan said casually. "I’m abolishing that rule right now. Council of Elders? Starting today, it’s officially the Nursing Home of Elders. And just so we’re clear, I’m the one marrying her. I’m not ’marrying into’ anything."

His smile vanished as he finished speaking.

He looked slowly at the dozen elders standing in front of him.

"You... what are you planning?" the Great Elder asked, his voice trembling slightly.

"Planning?" Ethan replied lightly. "Just helping you fossils loosen up some stiff joints."

Before the sentence even finished, his figure vanished.

When he reappeared, he was already standing directly in front of the elder who had just made him laugh.

"You—"

The man barely managed to utter a single word before instinctively stepping back.

SMACK.

The sound of a perfectly clean slap echoed throughout the Great Hall.

Everyone froze.

Even Matriarch Whitmore opened her eyes, though what appeared in them was not shock.

It was pity.

These old fools clearly had no idea what kind of temperament Ethan possessed. Lyla and Donovan had both quietly removed themselves from the situation.

And yet these elders still hadn’t realized what that meant. They were dense beyond belief.

Meanwhile, the gathered family heads and cult masters were staring in disbelief.

This kid wasn’t just arrogant, he was insane.

That slap wasn’t merely striking an old man. It was practically grinding the dignity of the entire Silverwood family into dust.

Granted, most of them didn’t respect these nursing home elders much either. But regardless of that, they were still members of the Council of Elders.

Yet Ethan wasn’t finished.

His figure flickered across the hall like a phantom, leaving afterimages as he moved between the elders.

SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK...

"You wanted me thrown out, right?"

"You called my words outrageous, didn’t you?"

"And you said I was arrogant?"

"Well then, let me show you what arrogance actually looks like."

"And you, you wanted me to marry into the family?"

"And you think my woman needs your permission to marry me?"

"And you suggested sealing the territory and hiding like turtles?"

Each sentence echoed through the hall, punctuated by another sharp slap.

Within the blink of an eye, every single one of the dozen elders had been struck at least twice, their cheeks perfectly symmetrical.

All except the Great Elder. He was still standing there, for the moment.

CRASH.

A teacup shattered somewhere in the hall.

Ethan’s body slowly solidified again as the afterimages returned to him like slow-motion shadows.

He turned his head toward the sound.

It was the Zenith cult’s leader, Sir Gideon.

Gideon had been holding a teacup, but somehow it had slipped from his fingers and smashed onto the floor.

When he noticed Ethan looking at him, along with everyone else in the hall, Gideon visibly flinched.

"I... I’m sorry!"

He immediately bent down to clean up the broken pieces.

A cult leader kneeling on the floor to pick up shattered porcelain. That was how much pressure Ethan was radiating.

No one laughed at him.

In the same situation, most of them suspected they would have done exactly the same thing.

This kid was terrifying, truly terrifying.

It didn’t matter who you were. If you got in his way, the first stop was a slap to the face.

And it wasn’t just the old elders with their pitiful strength. Even the powerful leaders sitting here doubted they could have avoided those blows.

Because not a single person in the room had actually seen Ethan move, yet he had struck more than a dozen people almost simultaneously.

Three seconds, that was all it had taken.

The sounds of the slaps had overlapped like popcorn popping. His movements were fast and his strikes were even faster.

The strangest part was that the elders who had been hit initially seemed completely fine. For a moment it almost looked as though nothing had happened, then suddenly—

"Owwww!"

All the elders cried out at the same time, their cheeks began swelling rapidly.

Within seconds their faces ballooned until each one resembled a freshly steamed pig’s head, smooth, shiny, and grotesquely round.

They looked like they might explode if someone poked them too hard.

"You... you... what do you think the Silverwood family is, behaving like this?"

The Great Elder had not yet been struck, but he was trembling with rage as he pointed at Ethan. Not because he had suddenly grown courageous, but because he genuinely believed the family had lost all face.

His words carried weight.

Several people in the hall even nodded slightly.

Ethan assaulting the elder generation of the Silverwood family, regardless of their actual competence, was something that really shouldn’t have happened.

"Heh."

Ethan chuckled softly.

SMACK SMACK.

The Great Elder, who had until now remained untouched, was finally blessed as well.

The slapping continued for a full ten seconds. A least a hundred strikes. Ethan even used what he jokingly called the spinning top technique.

The final slap sent the old man spinning before he collapsed onto the floor in a dizzy heap.

Ethan stepped back calmly.

"I’m simply carrying out family discipline," he said, pointing at the pig-faced elders. "You people spread fear during a crisis and wanted to abandon your own people. And you," he continued, gesturing toward the Great Elder, "the eldest member of the Silverwood family, weak and useless, trying to override the Matriarch’s decisions using your nursing home... sorry, your council."

His voice was steady and full of conviction.

Crash. Bang.

Several more teacups fell to the ground. Someone even dropped the weapon they had been nervously fidgeting with.

Everyone present was thinking the same thing.

’This kid wasn’t just arrogant.’

He wasn’t just fast, he could talk. He could turn black into white without missing a beat.

"Mmph... mmph mmph?"

Several swollen-faced elders attempted to speak, their eyes full of rage and confusion. But no one could understand a single word.

Their cheeks were too swollen for proper pronunciation.

Ethan simply smiled.

"On what authority?" he said calmly. "On the authority of my name. My grandfather was Caelum the First. The Caelum family stands at the head of the Nine Lineages."

As he spoke, Ethan slowly rose into the air, he flew toward the highest seat at the center of the Great Hall.

Lyla’s chair had been positioned in the middle section, but the true high seat was the massive black stone throne behind it, large enough to resemble a bed.

No one ever actually sat on it, until now.

Ethan descended from the air and sat directly on the enormous throne.

"And I," he said calmly, "am the current head of the Caelum family. Ethan Caelum."

Silence filled the hall for an entire minute, then the room exploded with whispers.

"The Ninth Lineage?"

"The Caelum family?"

"Our cult records mention something about them!"

"I thought it was a copying error!"

"Then that means..."

"This can’t be fake, right?"

"Look at Matriarch Whitmore. If it were fake, she would have spoken up already."

The revelation shook everyone present. Even the swollen-faced elders stared at Ethan with disbelief.

The Great Elder squinted at him through his swollen eyes.

"Impossible... the Caelum family already..."

"Shut up!"

Another elder had started to speak, but the Great Elder abruptly cut him off.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed slightly. That unfinished sentence hinted at something important. A secret about the Caelum family. Or perhaps the reason he had grown up an orphan.

But this was not the time to investigate, right now his priority was gathering strength to fight the Divine Sea Temple. He needed manpower, intelligence, logistics. His own group could not handle everything alone.

At that moment, Lyla returned from the back hall with Amber and Rainie. She glanced up at Ethan sitting on the throne, her eyes shining with admiration.

The other two women looked just as stunned.

The Council of Elders had always been Lyla’s greatest headache. Their seniority made them difficult to suppress openly, even though she had no respect for them.

Today’s meeting had originally been a pre-war mobilization council, yet these same elders had arrived in full force to demand that she seal the territory and hide.

Most people were still arguing quietly and had not even noticed Lyla’s return.

Then suddenly—

THUD.

A heavy sound echoed through the hall. Everyone instantly fell silent. The sound came from Matriarch Whitmore.

She had slammed the dragon-headed cane in her hand against the ground, and slowly, she stood.

Many people’s eyes lit up. They assumed she was about to confront Ethan, instead, she leaned on her cane and slowly bowed.

"Greetings to the Head of the Caelum family upon your return," she said calmly. "This old servant belongs to the Whitmore family, which among the Nine Lineages oversees discipline and enforcement. I ask the Head: does the Whitmore family need to take action? Shall we eliminate these disruptors of morale?"

"WHAT?"

Every family head and cult master in the hall was stunned once again. The words "this old servant" echoed in their minds.

If Matriarch Whitmore, someone of her status, referred to herself that way, then Ethan’s identity could hardly be questioned.

As that realization sank in, the swollen-faced Silverwood elders began trembling uncontrollably.

Matriarch Whitmore’s statement had just nailed a label firmly onto their heads.

Disruptors of morale.