CHAPTER 85: CHAPTER 85: THE ANCESTOR’S BLOODLINE (SEEKING RECOMMENDATIONS)

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Two days later.

Before dawn.

Wang Shouzhe opened his eyes on the bed, naturally sensing the slow progress of his cultivation. After reaching the seventh layer of the Qi Refining Realm, the difficulty of cultivation increased significantly.

If not for his current abundance of spiritual food, occasional consumption of Minor Primordial Cultivation Pills, and the aid of Spirit Stones in cultivation, he might not even perceive any progress.

However, the path of cultivation and advancement is inherently about perseverance. It is a long process of grinding, as persistent as dripping water that wears down stone.

If one could advance casually just by taking pills, the world would long be overflowing with unparalleled experts. Noble families wouldn’t have to exhaust all efforts to cultivate a Spirit Platform Ancestor.

The Black Tortoise Clan, despite its family wealth and ancestral inheritance, finds cultivation so difficult, let alone those wandering cultivators.

Recently, Wang Shouzhe also read several small pamphlets circulating within the family.

One such pamphlet was specifically about loose cultivators, where the loose cultivator had endless fortuitous encounters, even picking up an ancient sacred beast cub while walking on the road, or inheriting an upper-grade cultivation technique by accidentally falling off a cliff. Then they went around massively face-slapping legitimate sons of various noble families, with countless direct lineage young ladies swooning over them, refusing to marry anyone but them.

It was indeed too absurd, likely written by a loose cultivator for self-indulgent fantasies.

The path of the loose cultivator is often ten times more difficult than that of the noble family descendants.

Even if some loose cultivators occasionally achieve great results and have excellent conditions, end up marrying into a noble family, they can mostly only marry a relatively outstanding woman from a collateral line, with only a rare few managing to marry someone from the direct lineage.

A direct lineage noble girl? That’s something not even worth dreaming about.

It’s not that there aren’t loose cultivators with extremely good luck, experiencing a bloodline mutation, possessing tremendous inherent talent, or advancing to the peak of life due to fortuitous encounters, but those are always rare events in the realm of probabilities. All else being equal, noble family descendants are bound to go higher and farther.

Moreover, if a loose cultivator truly reaches the pinnacle of life, the next step is inevitably to establish a family, ensuring that their descendants do not have to retrace the path of a loose cultivator.

As Wang Shouzhe’s past life on Earth put it, the class status of this world is essentially solidified, and moving upward even one step is extremely difficult.

Let’s set aside these distracting thoughts for now.

With the servant Wang Gui attending to him, Wang Shouzhe washed and had breakfast.

Nowadays, his breakfast has essentially become a standard of White Jade Spirit Rice porridge and some Spirit Fish cured meat.

Breakfast is the foundation of the day, and eating these delicious spiritual foods invigorates one’s mind. Soon enough, one can feel the blood and qi, depleted from cultivation, begin to gradually recover.

After a brief rest and digestion, Wang Shouzhe proceeds with his daily Black Tortoise cultivation.

As a Black Tortoise Practitioner determined to walk the path of the Spirit Platform, practicing Black Tortoise Combat Technique is essential; otherwise, exhausting resources to arduously cultivate to an ancestral level would result in being merely a hollow shell, and would that not be a laughing stock?

The practice of Black Tortoise Combat Technique, too, has no shortcuts. Daily diligence is required, following the path of steady improvement. This is another advantage that noble family descendants have over loose cultivators—they do not have to constantly roam and endure the elements, allowing them to cultivate steadfastly.

After finishing cultivation, he washes up before visiting Ancestor Longyan.

At this time, Longyan Residence is much livelier than usual. Not only has Ancestor Mang come to visit early, but even the Liua brothers and sisters are here.

Everyone greets each other formally.

"Grand-aunt," Ancestor Mang said respectfully, "Thanks to your guidance two days ago, the bottleneck that troubled me for years seems to have loosened. It probably won’t be long before I can break through to the third layer."

His heart was filled with emotion. He, Gongsun Mang, was naturally considered a person of decent talent, achieving the Spirit Platform Realm in his forties. At that time, full of youthful exuberance, he aspired to reach the Celestial Human Realm within his lifetime.

However, thirty or forty years have passed, and his cultivation has been stuck at the peak of the second layer of the Spirit Platform Realm for eight years. At such a slow rate of advancement, not to mention reaching the Celestial Human Realm, even reaching the late stage of the Spirit Platform depends on luck.

"Mang’er, you needn’t be so modest. Your talents are not poor; with a few more years of diligent effort, you can probably break through smoothly," Ancestor Longyan replied calmly, "For us lower-tier noble families, reaching the Spirit Platform Realm is most difficult due to two points: scarcity of resources and lack of guidance from predecessors, making every step particularly tough."

"Grand-aunt speaks truly. I once thought that once reaching the Spirit Platform Realm, the path would be smooth. Yet, the path to the Celestial Human Realm feels as insurmountable as a heavenly chasm. If I were to consume resources freely for cultivation, the Gongsun family’s half of the resources would probably have to be dedicated to me alone. If it truly comes to that, what would happen to the children and grandchildren?" Ancestor Mang lamented, "But upon careful thought, it’s only natural. Becoming a Celestial Human Family is not achieved so easily. Among the dozen or so families of our Changning Guard, there are only two Celestial Human Families."

The younger generation like Wang Shouzhe listened to the elders’ chat naturally without interrupting.

However, Wang Shouzhe began to calculate in his mind. The Ancestor mentioned that the Path of Celestial Human is difficult, one of the difficulties being the lack of cultivation resources.

Indeed, raising one Ancestor at home is already difficult enough, let alone saving money to raise the next generation of Ancestors.

The most important thing is that even maintaining the status of a Spirit Platform Ancestor is a huge expenditure of resources. And if the Ancestor wants to take the Path of Celestial Human, well, that would require a massive amount of resources being poured in.

Just raising one Ancestor is strenuous, what kind of enormous expenditure would it be to raise two Ancestors or even host an entire family with three Spirit Platforms?

Therefore, with each additional Spirit Platform Realm in the family, it constitutes a greater expense. It’s necessary to expand the family estate, increase the scale of industries, and seize more resources.

This is what they call being able to charge into the Spirit Platform but unable to sustain it. Thus, most families cultivating Spirit Platform Realm do so at a measured tempo, as they cannot afford to have more family Patriarchs in the Spirit Platform Realm, nor can they sever the inheritance of the Spirit Platform Realm.

Such is the reality for most lower-tier noble families.

However, when it comes to resources.

For Wang Shouzhe, it is actually a relatively easy problem to solve. If the entire Ping’an Town is brought under his command, even three Spirit Platform Ancestors could be easily sustained.

"Shouzhe." After Ancestor Mang sighed, he turned his attention to Wang Shouzhe, "Regarding the matter of that girl you asked about a few days ago..." As he spoke, he hesitated and glanced at the Liua Brothers and Sisters.

"Ancestor Mang, please feel free to speak." Wang Shouzhe smiled and said, "Both Yuan Rui and Ruolei are one of our own, there are no secrets here that cannot be shared."

This was, of course, a gesture of goodwill from Wang Shouzhe; if it were truly about the Wang Family’s most core secrets, how could they be casually let known? However, in the future, Liua Ruolan is to become the Lady of the Wang Family, so the establishment of some intimate ally relationships between the two families in advance is only natural.

With just a casual word, both Liua Yuanrui and Liua Ruolei found Wang Shouzhe even more pleasing, each assuring that whatever secret they heard would never be leaked.

Especially Liua Ruolei, before she came, she kept saying that she wanted to teach her future brother-in-law on behalf of her sister. Yet unexpectedly, she had already defected upon arrival. These days, she has been treated so well by the Wang Family with good food and fun, she doesn’t even want to go home anymore.

"If what I say is incorrect, I ask the young lady to correct me." Ancestor Mang said, organizing his thoughts, "Since I tread the path of Horizontal Refinement and Tempering Body, I have a considerable understanding of war body type bloodlines. However, regardless of the bloodline, they all ultimately trace back to the Ancestors. I refer to Ancestors not as the Spirit Platform Ancestors of each family, but to the true founding Ancestors, those who once stood at the pinnacle of humanity."

"It is said that in ancient times, those human Ancestors possessed various miraculous and powerful war body bloodlines, some with immense strength, others with indestructible vajra bodies, immortal and undying, or even the ability to incinerate lakes and boil seas with a wave of a hand. These progenitors passed down their bloodlines through generations, creating an intricate mixture, leading to the emergence of more bloodlines. Over countless years, the bloodlines of our progenitors have almost completely disappeared. Only a fortunate few, due to luck or opportunity, can awaken a portion of the ancestral bloodline."

"Of course, upon reaching the Spirit Platform Realm and further enhancing bodily functions, part of the ancestral bloodline will inevitably awaken." Ancestor Mang continued, "Like myself, after reaching the Spirit Platform, a faint Geng Metal Bloodline emerged. But your young lady is different. She was born with Middle Grade Talent. What is Middle Grade? Naturally, it’s having already developed a bloodline, thereby being called Middle Grade. I remember Ancestor Longyan awakened the Primordial Water Bloodline."

"Yes, in my youth, it was the Primordial Water Bloodline, which evolved into the Profound Ice Bloodline upon reaching the Spirit Platform Realm, much thicker compared to when it was the Primordial Water Bloodline." Ancestor Longyan added nonchalantly, "The Primordial Water Bloodline should be the main bloodline of the Liua Family. Cultivating the ’Primordial Water Heart Technique’ makes it easier to awaken the Primordial Water Bloodline upon breaking through the Spirit Platform. My mother was the Liua Family’s direct daughter, so it’s normal for me to awaken a trace of the Primordial Water Bloodline."

After speaking, Ancestor Longyan turned her gaze towards Liua Ruolei, with a slight smile and satisfaction in her eyes.

Wang Shouzhe’s mind was stirred, and he too looked towards Liua Ruolei. This future sister-in-law must be concealing some sort of thin bloodline awakening with some essence-suppressing artifact, most likely a trace of Primordial Water Bloodline.

The conversation between the Ancestors gave Wang Shouzhe a greater understanding of the bloodline awakening in the Black Tortoise Clan.

It’s just a pity he, Wang Shouzhe, has not yet awakened any ancestral bloodline. Must he wait until ascending to the Spirit Platform to rely on body function metamorphosis and randomly trigger some ancient bloodline?

Reluctant as he was, just as he was about to inquire further.

Knock knock.

The voice of household general Wang Wu came from outside: "Patriarch, I dare to disturb you."

"Whenever, feel free to say." Wang Shouzhe had already a guessed few things in mind. If it wasn’t the occurrence of what he’d anticipated, Wang Wu wouldn’t have dared to disturb him at Longyan Residence.

"There’s intelligence from the front lines." Wang Wu reported from outside, "Liu Family and Zhao Family’s elites have all moved out, surrounding two Ancestors, and are coming grandly towards our Wang Family."

As expected!

Wang Shouzhe’s eyes narrowed. His series of strategies, especially the relief work in exchange for labor, had already dug into the survival foundation of the Liu and Zhao Races.

Those two old things couldn’t sit still any longer.

Meanwhile, Liua Yuanrui and Liua Ruolei’s faces turned pale, suddenly becoming extremely tense.

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