novelraw Chapter 4 : Chapter 4
Chapter 4 : Chapter 4
Chapter 4: Planning for the Future
When Lin Bai pushed open the door to the meditation chamber, he saw his parents and sister gathered in the courtyard, their faces full of anxiety and expectation.
The scene rather resembled those childbirth scenes from the television dramas of his previous life: the family waiting anxiously outside, while Lin Bai was the doctor, and the spirituality and talent he had awakened were the baby.
He had originally wanted to joke around a little, but the moment his gaze swept over the uneasy expressions on his family’s faces, he instantly put away that thought.
A person ought to know what kind of behavior suited what kind of occasion.
With a turn of thought, Lin Bai swiftly changed his expression into that of a young prodigy flushed with success and high spirits, even adding a trace of deliberate arrogance.
He cleared his throat and loudly declared,
“Father! Mother! Big Sister! Rejoice—rejoice and welcome the future King of our Lin family, your greatest pride from this day forward, the possessor of super-grade spirituality—Lin Bai!”
As Lin Ye hurried over, he saw Lin Bai’s swaggering pose and heard the opening of that proclamation. He had originally been prepared to teach Lin Bai a lesson, and had already half-raised his hand.
But the moment he heard the latter half of it, his expression changed at once. Wang Xiu and Lin Su, standing behind him, were no different.
Lin Ye took one great stride to Lin Bai’s side, his voice trembling ever so slightly with excitement.
“You little brat, what did you just say? Super-grade spirituality? You’d better not be making a fool of your old man. This is no joke. If you’re lying, you’re in for it today!”
Mother Wang Xiu and Lin Su were equally serious. It was no wonder they reacted this way.
Super-grade spirituality was fundamentally different from mid-grade or high-grade spirituality.
High-grade spirituality was already one in ten thousand. In a place like Anning County, with a population of five or six hundred thousand, there should theoretically be a few dozen people of high-grade spirituality in each generation. Lin Su was one of them.
But super-grade spirituality could be called a heaven-and-earth spiritual treasure. It was not something that could be piled up through population alone. Zero multiplied by any number was still zero.
In the past hundred years, only three people with recorded super-grade spirituality had appeared in Anning County.
If what Lin Bai said was true, then he would be the fourth.
If it were the commandery city or the prefecture, then perhaps there might be pills even more precious than a Spirit-Enhancing Pill, something that could help the descendants of great families cross the boundary between high-grade and super-grade.
But in a little place like Anning County, with Lin Bai’s family background, obtaining a Spirit-Nurturing Pill had already been the absolute limit. That pill, however, had no power to help someone break into the super-grade category.
“Hmph. You don’t believe me? Then take a look around me.”
All three of them had cultivation at their disposal, so the moment they heard that, they immediately focused their senses.
And the instant they did, their hearts churned like storm-tossed seas.
The spiritual energy of heaven and earth around Lin Bai’s body was actually being drawn toward him of its own accord, slowly gathering into him under some invisible attraction.
Even though they had already prepared themselves when Lin Bai first spoke, actually witnessing that scene still filled them with boundless excitement.
“Good, good! As expected of my son. You really are impressive!”
“Xiaobai, your awakening took so long. Are you hungry? Your mother already had someone prepare food. Go eat first.”
Compared with them, Lin Su was somewhat calmer and immediately grasped the key point.
“Little Brother, exactly how many spiritual stars did you awaken? And what direction does your talent lean toward?”
Lin Bai immediately caught the important part of her question.
“Let’s eat first. We can talk after dinner.”
In this world, nothing is more important than eating. Besides, his sister and parents also needed time to calm themselves.
His awakening had taken quite a while. He had gone in around noon, and now it was nearly evening by the time he came out.
.................
After the meal, candlelight flickered in the hall as the family of four sat together.
Only after seeing that their expressions had calmed considerably did Lin Bai begin to speak.
“I awakened a little over four thousand spiritual stars in total. My talent is related to beast taming and the martial path.”
“Each time I contract a life-bound spirit beast, my physique will improve to a certain extent. If the spirit beast grows stronger afterward, I’ll gain even more benefits from it.”
Lin Su carefully digested her brother’s words. Given her current status and experience, much of Lin Bai’s future path would need her guidance and recommendations.
In truth, the Lin family’s connections were not weak at all. They resembled the scholar-gentry of the ancient world from Lin Bai’s previous life. They might not have been unimaginably rich, but their connections were certainly solid.
So long as a genius emerged from such a family, someone would step forward to guide him. He would avoid many needless detours, and the major interest groups would not reject him. That was an advantage ordinary people simply could not match.
Lin Bai’s father, Lin Ye, had no great clan behind him. He had been an orphan. When he was young, he had gritted his teeth and enlisted in the army. With his fierce, battle-ready temperament and his clean background, he eventually became a personal guard to a general.
That general later rose in status and became a commander of one division of the Yunzhou Army, a fifth-rank official. The Commandant of Yunmeng Commandery belonged to that general’s faction.
Moreover, many official channels involved Lin Ye’s former brothers-in-arms. Otherwise, how would Father Lin have managed to obtain something as state-controlled as a Spirit-Awakening Stone?
Of course, this did not mean that Father Lin personally had much friendship with that general. What mattered was his bond with his former comrades, and, even more importantly, the faction and backing that outsiders believed he had.
That was what truly mattered.
Wang Xiu’s side was even more formidable.
She came from the Yunmeng Wang Family, which itself was a branch of the Shenxiu Wang Family in the prefecture. In other words, she truly had roots. It was the kind of power one only saw in novels: if you beat the young, the elders came; if you beat the elders, there was still an even older generation behind them.
If Wang Xiu’s line had not been a collateral branch among collateral branches, if she had not been a concubine-born daughter whose talent was not especially high, and if she had not insisted on marrying Lin Ye herself, then a mere common soldier like Lin Ye would never have dreamed of reaching for a swan beyond his station.
Even Lin Su’s initial entry into Benevolent Heart Hall in the commandery as an apprentice had been made possible through the connections of Mother Wang Xiu’s family.
Otherwise, let alone Benevolent Heart Hall in the commandery, even the one in Anning County would have been fiercely competitive.
After all, this was the golden age. Even the clerks in the Lin family’s shop counted as awakeners of a sort.
And as for Lin Su, surely no one could really think that the disciple of an alchemist capable of refining Spirit-Enhancing Pills was an ordinary person.
So if one had to speak of status, Lin Su actually held the highest standing in the family now.
After all, Father Lin and Mother Lin both had a certain element of trading on borrowed prestige.
That was why, when it came to reference and judgment, Lin Bai would naturally take his sister’s opinion as the main one.
It was not only because Lin Su now held the highest status, but also because much of the information that had changed over time was simply beyond the knowledge of Father Lin and Mother Lin, who had both been away from Yunmeng City for nearly twenty years.
After a short while, Lin Su finally raised her head and looked at Lin Bai.
“Little Brother, first of all, there’s no need to hide the fact that you have super-grade spirituality. You just mustn’t act too ostentatiously in front of outsiders.”
Lin Bai understood at once.
What his sister meant was that he had to show his value to those future backers and factions he would need to rely on, but toward his peers, subordinates, and potential rivals, he had to keep his edge concealed.
In short: conceal it from those below, but not from those above.
Lin Bai also felt that it was better to show that he possessed super-grade talent, because he was certain he would inevitably end up fighting others in the future, and not only over resources.
If he presented himself as merely high-grade spirituality, yet repeatedly defeated people with super-grade spirituality, then once or twice might be overlooked, but after enough times even a fool would realize he had some hidden secret.
But if two people with super-grade spirituality fought each other, that would be perfectly normal.
Having secrets was normal.
But Lin Bai’s secret was just a little too big.
So from now on, he had to start laying out his plans and concealing things in advance. At the very least, the secret he revealed could not be more valuable than the price others would be willing to pay to act against him.
Seeing Lin Bai nod, Lin Su felt a wave of comfort.
After all, what boy of barely more than ten years of age did not love to show off?
That was not something everyone could restrain. Displaying one’s brilliance in front of others was practically hard-coded into human nature.
At that moment, Lin Su turned to Lin Ye.
“Father, didn’t you once learn the army’s Aura Concealment Art? Can you teach it to Xiaobai?”
Lin Ye had been sitting there quietly all along, listening as his daughter analyzed things for his son.
He was happy, because seeing that both his children had promise and that they were close to one another was the kind of thing countless parents dreamed of.
The best he could do was avoid dragging them down or offering foolish advice. But even so, the thought that, as a father, he could not directly help his son still left him feeling somewhat dejected.
Now, hearing his daughter’s question and seeing that he could still be of use, he immediately thumped his chest and assured them, “That thing is common as dirt in the army. It’s no rare treasure, and there’s no rule against passing it on. I can teach it to him in a little while.”
Then Lin Su turned back to her younger brother.
“Little Brother, have you given any thought to what faction you might join in the future?”
“Your talent isn’t well suited to high-status, respectable factions like Benevolent Heart Hall, Heavenly Craft Hall, or the Talisman Masters’ Association. Your talent is more suited to a demon-hunting martial cultivator roaming the mountains with a hawk than to a pure Beast Tamer. For you, demonic beasts are only one means of strengthening yourself.”
“But if you join a faction that relies entirely on bloody struggle in exchange for resources right now, it would still be too early for you. The risks would be too high, and it wouldn’t be good for steadily converting your potential into real strength.”
Joining a faction was absolutely necessary.
Otherwise, where would resources come from? Where would backing come from? How was he supposed to learn the auxiliary arts? By fighting alone?
That would be courting death.
At the same time, Lin Bai also understood that choosing a different faction at the early stage would lead to a different future.
If he joined forces like the Demon-Slaying Directorate or the Demon-Suppressing Guard, both of which required constant fighting and killing, then his potential would not be converted in the best possible way.
A pity he could not reveal his Metamorphosis talent. Otherwise, would not a place like Hall of Myriad Beasts be open for him to enter as he pleased?
The main issue was still his current strength.
If Lin Bai were already at the Ascendant rank, then he would definitely choose those factions, and might even join the military.
But unfortunately, he was not.
“When the time comes, we can go through the Wang Family’s connections. With super-grade spirituality, they won’t refuse you. And if that doesn’t work, we can go through my master’s connections instead.”
Lin Su looked toward Wang Xiu. Wang Xiu nodded and said,
“I’ll write a letter to my mother. When the time comes, she’ll make arrangements for you.”
Then Lin Su continued,
“The most important thing is your 【Dao Path】. You don’t need to worry about that. I’ll personally go and ask my master.”
【Dao Paths】 were not bestowed by heaven the way talents were. They were forged through the accumulated experience of the human race across countless generations.
That was why a path with few practitioners was not necessarily weak, but a path with many practitioners was certainly strong, because the pitfalls that needed stepping into had already been stepped into by those who came before.
Nowadays, there were as many 【Dao Paths】 in the transcendent world as the sands of the Ganges, and the branches derived from them were even more countless, almost like endless combinations and permutations.
The more practitioners a path had, the more complete its corresponding cultivation methods, secret arts, resources, and advancement routes naturally became.
Take the 【Martial Artist】 path, for example.
It was one of the most populous paths of all, and beneath it stood countless branches: the ordinary martial artists who tempered flesh and blood in the orthodox manner; the “Demon Martial Artists” who transplanted the organs of demonic beasts into themselves; the “Body-Weapon Martial Artists” who tempered their own bodies as though forging divine weapons...
As Lin Bai listened to his sister’s orderly analysis, many of the principles she spoke of were things he had already considered himself.
And yet, hearing them spoken aloud by Lin Su, with such clarity and certainty, gradually calmed the restlessness in his heart that his awakening had stirred up.
The road ahead was long, but at least he was not walking it alone.