Journey Towards Dao

Later that night.

Auslen finally pulled the last of the jade slips away from his glabella, sighing at the aching discomfort that originated from the large amount of information that was just pumped into his skull.

He closed eyes and slouched back on the cushions lining the leather couch within his bedroom, thousands of ordinary plants, Spirit Plants, and their vivid descriptions rushing about within his mind as his subconscious did its best to accurately commit the new information to memory.

Ah, so that’s why that Demon referred to them as Ancient Bloodlines…

From the knowledge he had just obtained, he understood that all Demons, animals and plants alike, awakened a hereditary phenomenon known as Ancient Bloodlines at the moment of their breakthrough to the Lesser Demon realm.

These Ancient Bloodlines originated from primeval creatures known to Auslen as Primordials, legendary ancient creatures that were rumored to have existed during the moment Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi was brought into existence. The Bloodlines were hidden within the blood and genes of every living creature. That statement did not include humans, however, which Auslen couldn’t help but find puzzling.

Once the Ancient Bloodline was triggered during a creature’s breakthrough process, they would experience a genetic transformation, causing their entire physical structure to mutate, the extent of the mutation dependent on the Grade of their Bloodline. These Grades signified the clarity and extent of the Ancient Bloodline.

Auslen now knows of four Bloodline Grades, being the Common, Rare, Elite, and Mythic Grades.

These Bloodlines gave demons several advantages that cultivators lacked, such as their universally fast cultivation speed, inherited intelligence, and access to unique innate abilities.

However, there was one significant detriment, which was the fact that Demons' cultivation potential was limited by their Ancient Bloodline.

For instance, Demons with a Common Bloodline were limited to only ever reaching the Lesser Demon realm by natural cultivation.

According to the jade slips, there were certain ways that a Demon may go about breaking their Bloodline shackle. However, they were described as both grotesque and monumentally difficult.

With such a combination of benefits and detriments, it’s hard to tell if Demons are fortunate or unfortunate creatures.

“Auslen, are you feeling alright?”

Auslen slowly opened his eyes to glance at the worried-looking Vincent, who was sitting next to him with the Dao Root text on his lap. It was clear to Auslen that the boy was still traumatized by the bloody scene that had recently occurred within this bedroom.

Speaking of night, Vincent was currently sporting a set of panda eyes, revealing to Auslen that Vincent failed to get even a wink of sleep last night. He was clearly much too excited about cultivation, to the point where that book had never left his side since Auslen had given it to him.

With an inward chuckle, Auslen nodded, “I’m fine! How are you doing with your studies? Are there any questions you have regarding Qi Refinement so far?”

Vincent’s excitement was flooding back in his expression as he answered, “Nope! Everything's very clear so far.”

Auslen smiled in satisfaction before standing from his seat.

“Good! Then follow me for a quick walk.”

…

“Your H— Auslen, why did we come to this filthy room? There’s dirt everywhere…”

Auslen rolled his eyes while explaining, “Vincent, for the last time, the dirt’s supposed to be there. I’ll be raising plants within this Chamber.”

Auslen had just turned from locking the door to his new Spirit Plant Cultivation Chamber.

He had visited this Chamber late last night, using his Identity Medallion to specially key this one room for his entry alone. This way, not even Nathaniel could access it, unless Auslen gave him prior permission.

Thankfully, the boy had not a singular interest in this room, nor Spirit Plants in general, so Auslen had no need to worry much about the event of his cousin discovering his new hobby before he was ready to reveal it.

However, Auslen still decided to only use this space once Nathaniel was fast asleep within his own bedroom.

Auslen pulled a small lever near the door, causing illumination to burst through the room from above.

Lining the tall walls and ceilings was the green limestone that seemed to be quite abundant within this Outer Sect mountain. Taking up the floors was nearly a full acre of soil, split up into six separate sections that were each lined with wide limestone paths.

After they arrived in front of the first plot of soil, Vincent frowned deeply before exclaiming, “But, you’ll get dirty! How about I do it, and you can just watch by the side?”

Auslen looked at Vincent incredulously before choosing to simply shake his head in silent refusal, turning his gaze towards the slightly wet soil in the first plot to his right.

From his prior knowledge of Spirit Botanism, he knew a few things about proper agricultural protocol. Therefore, when he came to the Spirit Plant Cultivation Chamber alone last night, he had given each plot a generous dowsing of water, which was conveniently available to this room via the various hoses that were extendable from the surrounding walls.

He kicked off his indoor slippers before stepping into the soil with his bare feet, much to Vincent’s apparent dismay.

After walking a good distance into the plot, Auslen kneeled down, grabbing a handful of dirt before raising it closer to his face. Slight bluish tones could be seen on the soil as the light from above reflected off of the moist mound.

Although he was concerned about the strange color during his previous visit, thanks to the jade slips, Auslen could now identify this peculiar looking dirt as Spirit Soil, which was artificially designed to allow for the rapid conduction of Profound Qi. Despite the fact that the Spirit Soil seemed to be of the lowest Grade, it still had to be quite expensive to fill this entire Chamber with it!

After satisfying his curiosity, Auslen retrieved a tall glass bottle from his spatial ring before pouring out a singular light brown, wrinkled seed into his palm.

Without wasting more time, Auslen dug a small hole into the Spirit Soil, dropping the seed inside before lightly covering it with a layer of more Spirit Soil.

Once he put away the remaining seeds, his spatial ring glowed once more and his silver spear shaft appeared within his grasp.

Under Vincent's confused gaze, Auslen stepped further away from the seed before extending the tip of the spear shaft forward. Then, he began to draw strange symbols onto the soil surrounding the seed in rapid motions, tiny bits of soil flying here and there as Auslen circled his way, little by little, around the buried seed.

Auslen had long known about glyphs, as Tobias had been helping him study them for a little longer than a year now.

Glyphs were abstract symbols or characters that inherently resonated with Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi. Alone, they were disappointingly useless, however, when the appropriate glyphs were arranged within specific configurations, Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi could be mobilized to perform contained, but remarkable actions.

These configurations were known as Spell Formations, and this one in particular was known as the Profound Qi Transference Spell Formation. It was the exact one that Elder Josiah had mentioned earlier in the day during the Spirit Plant lecture.

Although the practicality of Spell Formations alone did not lend itself well to combat, due to both their minimal functionalities and slow speed of construction, their uses were notably abundant within auxiliary endeavors.

After half an hour of constant drawing, Auslen finally withdrew his shaft before putting it away, stepping next to the wide-eyed Vincent, who had unknowingly walked forward into the soil at some point. Both of them silently observed Auslen’s completed project.

An extremely detailed circular formation, about 2 meters in diameter and packed with dense glyphs, surrounded the buried seed.

Directly in front of Auslen were two small circular nodes near the edge of the Spell Formation.

Auslen sat down directly in the soil, not caring about the cleanliness of his white robe as he took out a bottle of Qi Refinement Elixir. He consumed a droplet before closing his eyes to focus on absorbing the strand of Profound Qi contained within.

…

Vincent watched Auslen in confusion as he began to cultivate.

Is His Highness absorbing Profound Qi? This late at night? Well, it looks like I now have some more free time to study!

Seeing that Auslen was going to take a while with his project, Vincent backed away from the soil silently before sitting on the green limestone to eagerly read his book.

Surprisingly, he hadn’t even gotten through a few pages before Auslen suddenly lifted himself from his seat, gradually changing his position to a kneeling posture.

Has His Highness already finished absorbing the Profound Qi?? I thought it was supposed to take a lot longer than that!

Vincent was astonished before fretfully turning back the pages, growing very concerned that he had misread some important information in his sleep-deprived state.

…

The kneeling Auslen placed both of his small palms into the two nodes at the edge of the Spell Formation.

Once his hands landed into the soil, all of the glyphs of the Formation sparkled, multicolored motes of light converging straight from the surrounding atmosphere as Auslen guided his newly absorbed Profound Qi strand into his face-down right palm.

Instantly, the strand was extracted from Auslen’s palm, and he could see a dim light zipping quickly through the shimmering Spell Formation as it made its way to the center. Eventually it disappeared into the small area where Auslen buried the seed, along with the entire Spell formation that Auslen had just drawn! Each of the glyphs inscribed around the buried seed blurred amidst the scattering bits of Spirit Soil before dispersing completely, as if a gust of heavenly wind came from above to eradicate Auslen’s time-consuming work.

However, Auslen was prepared for this occurrence.

Spell Formations were inherently impermanent. If they were not inscribed within special materials during the creation of Mystic Artifacts, the Spell Formation would disappear after a singular use. Even Mystic Artifacts, like his earrings and Outer Sect robe, could not maintain a Spell Formation forever, only managing to extend its lifetime with the help of expensive materials.

The only other way that a Spell Formation could be maintained for longer than a singular use was if the cultivator had created it completely out of Profound Qi, constantly exhausting the Profound Qi to sustain its effects.

Once the thin covering of Spirit Soil began to tremble, Auslen ignored everything else, hurriedly standing before taking out another tall bottle, which was filled to the brim with light green Fertilizing Elixir.

Auslen carefully deposited a small droplet onto the Spirit Soil before putting the bottle away.

Stepping back, he watched the soil tremble even more frantically until green shoots spouted up from within, the seed successfully completing its germination process at an unnaturally fast pace.

The shoot quickly unraveled and grew upwards, the green color transitioning to brown as soft bark began covering its exterior.

This rapid growth did not cease until there was a tiny, three-inch-tall tree seedling sitting proudly within the large plot of Spirit Soil.

Auslen smiled, exceedingly satisfied at the first Pseudo Spirit Plant he germinated. He was also very glad that the process was as easy as he had been anticipating.

“Wow!”

Beside Auslen once more, Vincent was also exhilarated after seeing the magical growth of what was just a seed a few moments ago.

Once he noticed the type of plant that was growing, Vincent asked, “What kind of tree did you plant, Auslen?”

Upon hearing Vincent's question, Auslen laughed as he scratched his head.

The fact that his father specifically packed such a seed for him, out of all the ones he could have chosen, made him slightly embarrassed at his perhaps too frequent actions back at the Royal Palace.

Shaking his head, he turned his smirking face to Vincent as he answered, “Well, it’s a Peach Blossom tree!”

…

Early the next morning.

“No, Auslen! I don’t wanna practice! I’m sleepy!”

As he dragged his blaringly unwilling cousin by one of his legs through the corridor towards the Training Chamber, Auslen groaned internally with trepidation.

Am I really going to have to do this everyday? Is this my life now?

Trying his best to keep calm, he childishly replied, “You have to! You still haven’t mastered the Foundational Sword Art, and you didn’t cultivate at all yesterday!”

Thrashing in immature frustration on the floor, Nathaniel persisted, “I promise I’ll do it later!”

And you promised the exact same thing yesterday.

Sigh. This isn’t going to work…

Although Auslen could force him once again with the threat of Grandfather Tobias, there would come a day where the boy would no longer react favorably to the consistent warning. Additionally, Auslen had his own suspicions whether the old man would really travel all the way to another continent just because his cousin wasn’t listening to him properly.

After dealing with Nathaniel himself for so long, the old man had to have predicted this course of actions, which really meant that he expected for Auslen to handle the boy’s disobedience himself.

Suddenly, Auslen stopped walking, turning around towards his red-faced cousin with his leg still within his grasp. A gentle smile was adorned on his face as he gazed down at the fuming boy, his previous persona collapsing into abject calmness.

“Do you want to do whatever you wish, Nathaniel?”

Looking at his serious cousin, goosebumps spread quickly across Nathaniel’s body for reasons that he couldn’t comprehend, as he was too young to consciously grasp his cousin’s moderate change in attitude or the difference in the way he addressed him.

But once he fully perceived Auslen’s word’s, he ignored his inexplicable unease and grew much happier as he bobbed his head wildly.

“Yes!”

“I can let you do as you please, but…”

Just before Nathaniel was about to raise his arms in cheer, Auslen finished his sentence.

“... you will have to beat me at something.”

Nathaniel dropped his half-raised arms back down in confusion, asking, “Beat you? At what?”

“It can be anything related to cultivation. If you can reach a higher stage of cultivation before me, you win! If you can beat me in a spar, you win! You can choose any topic, and profession, the statement will still apply. And I won’t even tell our Grandfather about our agreement.”

Jumping up from the floor, Nathaniel excitedly said, “Okay, let's go spar! I’ll win for sure this time!”

Auslen yanked the collar of his cousin's robes before he could race towards the Training Chamber.

“There are rules, cousin.”

Nathaniel turned around, his pouty expression looking quite displeased.

“You can only challenge me once a month, otherwise I’ll never get anything done! If you lose, you’ll have to listen to me obediently for the following month. But if you best me, even once, I’ll never order you around again! So, are you sure you want to use your monthly challenge now?”

...

Nathaniel’s face revealed hints of nervousness as he reconsidered his plan.

He had never managed to beat Auslen during any of their previous spars, and he was weaker than his cousin in every way.

But, that's only because I hadn't tried my best before! I can do it if I work a little harder! Then, I can do anything I want to, without worrying about our mean, old grandpa coming to spank me...

Shaking his head quickly, he said, “No! Let’s just train today, but once I master the stupid Foundational Sword Art, I’ll beat you fair and square! Count on it!”

Without waiting for Auslen’s response, Nathaniel grabbed Auslen’s hand before racing down the corridor with renewed energy, pulling his guilefully smiling cousin behind him.