His progress had slowed down with time, the Qi around the place was also thinning out as he was absorbing it at an increased rate. His cultivation was above 50% but it started stagnating. The good thing was that even without achieving a breakthrough he was getting stronger. Each percentage counted, he was a lot stronger at 50% than he was at 1% of the middle stage. Plus he had managed to get his body cultivation into the middle stage as well.
He wore a golden robe as the patriarch ceremony was uppon him, looking kind of regal as Zhang Ya was fixing him up. He was even wearing a strange ceremonial hat, which made him look like a pope or sect leader. The hat had some strange strings with small beads attached to them that just dangled around. The sleeves were very long and wide, this was certainly not a robe meant for fighting. He looked at himself in the mirror while his attendant was fixing up his clothes, he wanted to crawl into his bed and hide, due to his silly appearance.
“Patriarch, you look stunning. I bet all the prominent clans in the area will send marriage proposals as soon as they see your stunning appearance.”
The woman said in an excited fashion.
This didn’t help at all, as Matthew didn’t really feel like getting married. He also knew how things worked around here, the marriages were mostly political and were meant to bind clans together while the parents were supposed to pop out babies like crazy. Well not like he had much against the baby-making procedure, but he would rather do it with someone who actually liked him. He still remembered that one woman just running away the moment she heard his clan name.
*Well, I’m the Patriarch so they can’t force me to marry anyone. If someone tries, I’ll force them to marry a goat! That will show them! I’ll even bring some spirit grass for the goat as a wedding present.*
He was slightly nervous but quite less as his tranquil mind was in full effect. He just needed to do a couple of those breathing exercises and he was good to go. He had been living in this place for a month now, he had met some of the elders and core members for the clan. But he was quite bad at remembering names, it was even worse to attach those names to faces that kind of blurred together. So most of the time he ended up just nodding while greeting people.
Zhang Ya had explained everything to him, but he went through it once more in his head. First came the ceremony in the main building hall, everyone from the core members would be there. He would get the official title there, he would have to sit down on that big throne and get greeted by everyone which could take a while. After that, he was supposed to go to the mausoleum and pay his respects to his ancestors. A lot of this involved kowtowing and getting kowtowed back, these people sure had a thing for that, he liked handshakes more. Following that, he would have to get on a magical platform that worked like a flying sword. He would have to show himself to the citizens and either say something wise or just wave at them and nod. Then came the strange parade through the city ending it all with some kind of banquet where more people were invited to. The clan would receive gifts from other clans, which was more or less a friendly gesture to keep good relations. He wasn’t expecting much as the clan was in decline, so there weren’t many other powers trying to get on their good side just yet.
*This is going to be a long day…*
He gave out a sigh and headed out, it was time to get this over with as the day had only started. The whole thing was supposed to take quite a bit, the banquet was taking place at night so till then he would be greeting people while stoically looking at them. Zhang Jin gave a long-winded speech about the Clan’s future, that the families should come together to form bonds or something like that. Matt wasn’t really listening as he was trying not to fall asleep during it. Afterward, many people came over to pay their respects, some people he remembered some were new. He kind of waved his hand about while nodding, playing the role of a more silent lord but it was mostly due to not knowing what to say.
This took a good chunk of the day, there were many clan members as he kind of underestimated the massive size of his clan. Some looked happy, some looked dejected as the side families kind of forced their way into the whole ceremony proclaiming that if the Patriarch was from a side family as well, they had the right to be there. The raining grand elder had set this all up, these were troubling times so the clan needed unity more than tradition. Some people almost started fighting, but with one good snort they quieted down fast.
After that was done the mausoleum part was next, he was alone kneeling in front of some statues and graves. He just lit some incense sticks here and there while bowing at the ‘ancestors’. He felt kind of weird doing this as he had no relation to these people whatsoever, besides the system bestowing him with the body of the so-called Zhang Dong. He had thought a bit about that, was this a game world? Or was this just some parallel world and he now inhabited the real Zhang Dong’s body that existed in reality. Maybe the owner of this body died during the battle with the monster that slew his parents. He just got inserted into it, though that would be unlikely as he was the one that picked the name.
He was leaning into the direction of a godly being making this whole world, for some shits and giggles. Probably watching him dance like a puppet while laughing. This was kind of unsettling but he couldn’t do much about it.
Next up, was the part he wanted to do the least, his public appearance. He was radiating his senior aura at max while looking down at the people, there was a huge about of them. It looked like a sea of people crammed into a small space, just looking up at him while he focused on his tranquil mind technique and recalled what he wrote down beforehand. Even though he remembered it mostly from movies and games… Thus he started speaking with a slow steady voice.
“This day does not belong to one man, but to all! Let us together rebuild this Clan, this city, that we may share in the days of peace.”
“In order to succeed in this endeavor called life, we must come together with one heart, one mind, one love, and one determination”
“Unity is strength, division is weakness only together can we achieve greatness!”
“Individually we are but a drop of water, but together we are an ocean!”
He tried quoting some political propaganda that he remembered from some internet surfing back in the day, but he wasn’t sure if it was working as you could hear a pin drop after he was done with his speech. But soon cheers could be heard around the whole city, probably because most of the people in this world had a big individualistic mindset, gaining power for themselves to raise up in society. The whole ‘Work together’ thing was a bit new. While the people on the bottom pole were eager to share and work together, the people on the top would probably still cling to their resources.
He just waved and flew along the road as the parade started, the platform he was on had a big throne on it. So he looked like some lofty magical king just floating while getting escorted by traditionally dressed clan members. The people looked quite happy to have him there, which made him glad but he just wanted to get out of these uncomfortable clothes also he was really bored.
While he was just sitting there he decided to see how his disciples were doing, he hadn’t seen them much in the past week. The last time was just after they returned him his original manuals to the skills he gave them.
The kids had started learning his skills, the tranquil mind skill wasn’t that hard to learn so afterward they concentrated on the Dao and lightning cultivation art.His Lightning Cultivation art already transformed into the empowered one, he hoped that when he upgraded it again he could teach the kids the improved version with no problems. The Dao bit looked hard to learn though, it wasn’t even at 1% but that was the hardest thing to learn as it showed the cultivator the right way. The peculiar thing about his disciples, that after absorbing the lightning Qi, their hair started showing white strands. Guess that was the side effect of this art, silvery hair.
The girl wasn’t much behind the boy, She had the Dao understanding a bit higher at 0,7% but had more trouble with the new body tempering technique. You could say she had more talent for Qi related techniques, while the youth for body-related skills. But it just might have been a different mindset.
The last thing on the agenda was the banquet, so they all returned to their main base. He was back at sitting at his throne while people were buzzing about, some other more friendly clans came to pay a visit. They were mostly the weaker ones, just trying to be polite but there were some others gathering some info about the new guy in town. Matt was trying hard not to yawn, which might have given the wrong signals as his face quite stern-looking.
The people were happily chatting between themselves, Zhang Jin was quite fond of the lady cultivators as he seemed to be working his adult charms on them. Zhang Dong sighed as he didn’t want to get a new ‘uncle’. But the pleasantries came to an end there, because everyone could feel an overbearing aura suddenly fill the whole place. It was an unannounced visit, no one knew how the person got here as the guards didn’t notice their arrival. Matt was also surprised as he couldn’t feel the person before they released their aura, the aura felt quite strong it was at the level of a core formation expert at the great circle. But it wasn’t just one person, there were more.
Six people walked in, filling the room with their oppressive spiritual energy that pushed anyone below the core formation-level down to their knees. The five people behind the strongest person were all at the late stage, Matt had gotten stronger in the past month but he probably wouldn’t be able to handle all those experts alone.
“Well, isn’t the little Zhang clan going to pay their respects?”
One of the people in the back spoke up. All of them were wearing similar yellow robes, the person in front had the most expensive-looking one on him. The thing that stuck out was a symbol of a black hand embroidered to the back of the robe.