Chapter 85: Chapter 85: The Bloodline of the Old Ancestor (Seeking Recommendations)!
Translator: 549690339
Two days later.
Before dawn.
Wang Shouzhe opened his eyes from his bed, naturally feeling the slow progression of his cultivation. After reaching the seventh level of the Qi Refining Realm, the difficulty of cultivation had notably increased.
If he hadn’t had an abundance of spirit food and the occasional Little Pei Yuan Dan to consume, along with the assistance of spirit stones for cultivation, he probably would not have sense any progress in his cultivation.
However, the process of cultivating and advancing was all about perseverance. It was a lengthy process of perseverance, like water wearing away stone.
If everyone could gain levels simply by taking a couple of pills, then the world would already be filled with unparalleled masters. Likewise, the prominent families wouldn’t need to exhaust all their effort and resources just to raise a Spirit Platform Old Ancestor.
Even the Profound Martial family, with its heritage and resources, found cultivation incredibly difficult. Not to mention the independent cultivators who wandered aimlessly.
Recently, Wang Shouzhe had read through a few manuscripts circulating within his family.
One of them was specifically about independent cultivators, where the main character experienced all sorts of miraculous encounters continously, even stumbling upon a young sacred beast while walking down the street. They also inherited top-grade cultivation techniques from accidentally falling off cliffs, and went on to defeat numerous young masters of major families. There were even numerous mainline daughters from those families who fell for him and desired to marry him.
It was honestly absurd, most likely written by an independent cultivator solely for self-entertainment.
The path of an independent cultivator was often ten times more difficult, or even more so, than that of a prominent family descendant.
Even the occasional independent cultivators who managed to marry into a prominent family due to their exceptional conditions and opportunities would usually only marry into the side branches. Rarely would they marry a woman from the mainline family.
Marrying the daughter of a mainline family? That was something they shouldn’t even dream of.
It wasn’t that there weren’t any independent cultivators who were lucky or had undergone miraculous transformations of their bloodline and talents, managing to reach the peak of their lives. But those were rare events statistically. Under identical conditions, descendants of prominent families would always be able to go further and higher.
Moreover, should an independent cultivator ever reach the peak of their potential, their inevitable next move would be to establish their own family. That way, their descendants wouldn’t have to walk the difficult path of an independent cultivator.
In the words of Wang Shouzhe’s past incarnation from Earth, the social hierarchy in this world was essentially stratified and it would be extremely difficult to climb up a single step.
Putting aside those miscellaneous thoughts for now.
With the attendance of the little servant Wang Gui, Wang Shouzhe washed and had his breakfast.
His usual breakfast had essentially become White Jade Spiritual Rice Porridge and some pickled Spirit Fish, the standard set meal.
Breakfast was the foundation of the day. After consuming these delicious spirit foods, one would feel invigorated. Not long after, he could sense that his depleted Qi and blood from cultivating had started to slowly recover.
After taking a brief rest for digestion, he proceeded with his daily Profound Martial Cultivation.
As a Profound Martial cultivator who clearly intended on traversing the Spirit Platform Realm, it is necessary to practice Martial Arts. Otherwise, depleting resources to painstakingly cultivate to the stage of an Old Ancestor, only to end up an empty shell, would surely be laughable?
The practice of Profound Martial Fighting Technique also didn’t have any shortcuts. Daily diligence was required. It was indeed a process of constant effort. This was another advantage that the descendants of prominent families held over independent cultivator. They did not have to constantly move around and live uncomfortably, and could more truthfully cultivate.
After he finished practicing, he cleaned himself and went to visit the Old Ancestor of Long Yan.
At this time, Long Yan Residence was much more bustling than usual. Not only had Old Ancestor Meng arrived early for a visit, even the Liu siblings were here. Everyone paid their respects in turn.
“Grand Aunt.” Old Ancestor Meng respectfully said, “I was greatly enlightened by your guidance the other day. I could feel my bottleneck, which had troubled me for years, start to loosen up. I suspect it won’t be long before I could break through to level three.”
He couldn’t help but feel emotional. His own natural talents weren’t bad. He had achieved Spirit Platform Realm in his forties. He was young and lively then, with aspirations of reaching the Heavenly Human Realm within his lifetime.
However, three or four decades had passed, and his cultivation had been stuck at Peak Level Two for eight years. The progress was so slow, that reaching the Heavenly Human Realm felt like a distant dream, let alone reaching the advanced stage of the Spirit Platform Realm.
“Meng, you are too polite, your talents are good. With a few more years of hard work, I believe you will naturally break through,” Old Ancestor Long Yan said calmly, “The Spirit Platform cultivators in our minor prominent families face two major difficulties. First, there is a shortage of resources. Second, there is a lack of guidance from the elders; every step they take is extremely difficult.” “Grand Aunt, you are absolutely right. I originally thought that after reaching the Spirit Platform, everything would be smooth sailing. I didn’t expect the road to becoming a Heavenly Human to be insurmountable. If I were to exhaust my resources for cultivation, I’m afraid that more than half of the Gongsun Clan’s resources would be consumed by myself. If that were the case, what would happen to my descendants?” Old Ancestor Meng sighed, “However, upon reflection, I realize that this is normal. How easy would it be to form a Heavenly Human family? Among the dozens of prominent families in our Changning, only two are Heavenly Human families.”
For the younger figures such as Wang Shouzhe, they listened to the idle chat of their elders, without interjecting.
However, much to Wang Shouzhe’s dismay, he found himself calculating that the path to becoming a Celestial Being was indeed tough, mainly due to the lack of resources for cultivation.
Consider the fact that nurturing one Old Ancestor was already a huge burden, let alone saving resources to cultivate the next generation of Old Ancestors.
Crucially, even if an Old Ancestor of the Spirit Platform Realm merely wanted to maintain their state, an immense amount of resources were required. Suppose an Old Ancestor wanted to travel the path of the Celestial Being, in that case, a massive quantity of resources would have to be constantly topped up.
Nurturing one Old Ancestor was already a strenuous endeavor. Just imagine the immense expenditure if two Old Ancestors had to be fostered, or even three from the Spirit Platform realm?
So, for every additional family member reaching the Spirit Platform Realm, there would be…a larger budget to foot. You had to expand the clan’s estate, increase the scale of production, and seize more resources.
This was the basis of the saying, “Scaling the Spirit Platform is easy, but keeping it is difficult.” Most families hence would cultivate beings of the Spirit Platform Realm at a controlled pace, both limits set to prevent an excess of Family Heads reaching the Spirit Platform realm from developing and to ensure that there were no breaks in the succession of achieving this realm.
This was the reality for most low-ranking prominent families.
However, concerning the resources…
For Wang Shouzhe, this seemed to be a challenge he could handle rather easily. If he could assimilate the whole of Ping’an Town under his command, he could even afford to nurture three Old Ancestors in the Spirit Platform Realm.
“Shouzhe,” began Old Ancestor Meng after letting out a sigh, turning his attention to Wang Shouzhe. “About the young lady you asked about the other day…” he continued, stopping short, casting a glance at the siblings Liu Yuanrui.
“Old Ancestor Meng, please speak freely,” Wang Shouzhe responded with a smile. “Yuanrui and little sister Ruolei are part of our family. There are no secrets we can’t share.”
Of course, this was just Wang Shouzhe being polite. He wouldn’t let them know of the most important secrets of the Wang family so easily. However, since Liu Ruolan would become the future matron of the Wang family, it was indeed normal for both sides to establish a close alliance.
With just a casual remark, the fondness of Liu Yuanrui and Liu Ruolei towards Wang Shouzhe increased greatly. Both promised that they wouldn’t disclose any news they had heard externally.
This was especially true for Liu Ruolei. Before she came, she had claimed time and again that she would teach her future brother-in-law a lesson for her sister. Unexpectedly, she switched sides as soon as she arrived. After spending several luxurious days in Wang’s family, she didn’t feel like going home anymore.
“If I misspeak, please correct me, Grand Aunt,” Old Ancestor Meng began diplomatically. “As I also follow the Way of horizontal refining and tempering, I have conducted substantial research on bloodlines related to War Bodies. But regardless of the bloodline, it all boils down to our Old Ancestors’ bloodlines. By Old Ancestors, I do not refer to the Old Ancestors of each clan or family who have reached the Spirit Platform Realm, but the real Old Ancestors, those who once stood at the peak of humankind.”
“It is rumored that in ancient times, those human Old Ancestor possessed all kinds of magical and powerful War Body bloodlines. Some had infinite strength, some were indestructible, some were immortal, and some could evaporate a lake or boil the sea with a wave of their hand. These human ancestors passed down their bloodlines from one generation to another, with various bloodlines mixing and consequently spawning even more bloodlines. Over the years, these bloodlines have become increasingly diluted amongst subsequent generations. After countless years, the bloodlines of our ancestors have almost entirely disappeared. Only a small number of fortunate ones could awaken some parts of their Old Ancestor’s bloodline, either through luck or opportunity.”
“Of course if one cultivates to the Spirit Platform Realm and their physical abilities are further strengthened, they will inevitably awaken some part of their Old Ancestor’s bloodline,” Old Ancestor Meng added. “Just like myself, after reaching the Spirit Platform Realm, I manifested a trace of Gengjin Bloodline. However, your Grand Aunt was different. She was born with middlegrade qualifications. What does middle-grade represent? It naturally implies that a bloodline has already formed and can be termed middle-grade. I remember that Grand Aunt Long Yan awakened the Water Element Bloodline.” “Indeed, I awakened the Water Element Bloodline in my youth. When I reached the Spirit Platform Realm, it evolved into Mysterious Ice Bloodline, which was much more substantial compared to the Water Element Bloodline,” added Old Ancestor Longyan casually. “The Water Element Bloodline should be the main bloodline of the Liu family, and they cultivate the ‘Heart Tactics of the Water Element’, which makes it easier to awaken the Water Element Bloodline during breakthrough to the Spirit Platform realm. Since my mother was a direct daughter of the Liu family, it was natural for me to awaken a thin Water Element Bloodline.”
After speaking, Old Ancestor Longyan cast a glance at Liu Ruolei, her eyes filled with a slight hint of amusement and gratification.
Wang Shouzhe, seized by a sudden thought, also turned to look at Liu Ruolei. His future little aunt had used some kind of hiding object. It was likely that she had awakened some thin bloodline, most likely the thin Water Element Bloodline.
The Old Ancestors’ conversation had given Wang Shouzhe a deeper understanding of the awakening of bloodlines in the Profound Martial world. Unfortunately, he, Wang Shouzhe, had yet awakened any bloodline from his Old Ancestors. Could it be that he would have to wait till he was promoted to the Spirit Platform Realm, and could only rely on the transformation of his physical abilities to stimulate some ancient bloodline randomly?
He couldn’t accept that. Just when he was preparing to ask some more questions.
Unexpectedly.
The voice of the head of the household, Wang Wu, came from outside, “Pardon my intrusion, Family Head.”
“What is it? Please go ahead.” Wang Shouzhe had a hunch, if it wasn’t the matter he anticipated coming about, Wang Wu would not have dared to disturb them at the Long Yan Residence.
“A scout report just came in from the front,” said Wang Wu from outside. “Both the Liu Clan and the Zhao Clan have dispatched their elite forces. Accompanied by their two Old Ancestors, they are coming towards us in a formidable manner.”
As expected!
Wang Shouzhe narrowed his eyes. His series of strategies, especially his trick of substituting construction for relief, had already impacted the foundation of both the Liu and Zhao clans.
Those two old guys finally couldn’t stay seated anymore.
Liu Yuanrui and Liu Ruolei, on the other hand, turned pale with apprehension as they processed the news.