Chapter 44: Chapter 44: Bloodlines and Victories

CHAPTER

44

Bloodlines and Victories

I

“It’s a bit hard to explain,” Lan Yue said. She didn’t seem as hesitant as before, but there was a certain uncertainty to her. “I’ve never really…” She trailed off, frowning. “I guess you can say that I can… connect with plants, in a way?”

“Right.” Hao Zhen stared at her. He refrained from commenting any further. She seemed to be struggling to put her thoughts into words, so he figured it’d be better to let her figure this out on her own.

Tian Jin was looking at Lan Yue thoughtfully, though he also appeared rather confused, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of what he had just heard.

“I can tell what they’re feeling, in a way” Lan Yue continued. “What they’re experiencing.” The more Lan Yue spoke, the more certain she appeared. “I can also feel their presence. It’s not like Spiritual Sense. It’s more intuitive. When I concentrate, I can feel the presence of all nearby plants, and then connect with them.” She paused. “There are other things I can do, too. I can always tell the properties and characteristics of a magical plant—what it does, its effects, how I can use it in alchemy, how I can cultivate them. This knowledge just… comes to me.” Lan Yue shrugged, then looked at them expectantly.

Hao Zhen didn’t say anything at first, mulling over Lan Yue’s words. As far as he was aware, however, there were only two types of magical abilities a cultivator could have: spiritual techniques and spiritual skills. Whatever Lan Yue’s magical ability was, it couldn’t be a spiritual skill. As a redsoul, she could only have one, and hers had nothing to do with sensing plants. It didn’t seem like it was a spiritual technique, either. Spiritual techniques boiled down to manipulating spiritual power, and none of the things Lan Yue mentioned could be achieved through spiritual power manipulation.  

“I’m assuming you don’t know what this magical ability of yours is?” Hao Zhen asked, though it wasn’t really a question. Sure enough, Lan Yue shook her head. “And your family doesn’t…” Hao Zhen trailed off. At the mention of family, Lan Yue’s expression suddenly darkened. “I take it that’s another one of the oddities nobody ever noticed?” he asked instead.

After a moment’s hesitation, Lan Yue said, “Yes.” There was still something rather off about her expression. A certain tension.

“I see. Tian Jin?” Hao Zhen said, turning to the other boy. “Any ideas?”

“No.” Tian Jin said. “It can’t be a spiritual skill, and it doesn’t seem to be a spiritual technique—”

“It isn’t,” Lan Yue said. “I’d know if it were.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I’ve been able to do it for as long as I can remember, and my memory stretches rather far back, so it’s not an ability I gained after becoming a redsoul.”

“So it isn’t something that involves spiritual power,” Hao Zhen said, thinking out loud. “Well, that complicates things.” Both spiritual skills and spiritual techniques were reliant on spiritual powers, so this seemed to be a different type of power entirely. “Earlier, in the cave, you mentioned spiritual bloodlines, right?” he asked Tian Jin, who nodded. “Then maybe this is something related to that? A bloodline ability of some sort?”

“That’s a possibility,” Tian Jin said. “All Master told me about spiritual bloodline I already told you—that you can inherit innate skill seeds through one, and that you need to be a greensoul to originate one. Perhaps other things can also be passed down.”

“Who’s this master of yours, anyway?” Lan Yue asked, and Tian Jin tensed. “You’ve mentioned him a couple of times now.”

Right. She still didn’t know about Tian Jin’s past. “Not the point right now,” Hao Zhen said. “We can talk about that—”

“Tonight,” Tian Jin said. Hao Zhen shot the boy a questioning look, and Tian Jin simply nodded.

He couldn’t quite tell what the other boy was thinking, but he wasn’t too surprised Tian Jin was willing to share his past with Lan Yue. Although he usually found Tian Jin too trusting for his own good, he was of the opinion that was a good thing in this case. Knowing Lan Yue, he didn’t think she’d take kindly to them keeping secrets from her.

“Tonight,” Lan Yue repeated, seemingly satisfied. “So. A spiritual bloodline. Could my innate skills also come from one?”

“Good question,” Hao Zhen said. “Assuming these plant-related abilities of yours are related to a spiritual bloodline?” He shrugged. “Maybe.” He paused, then continued, “However… if Tian Jin’s innate skill seeds are really of the randomly occurring variety, then chances are that yours are too, considering how similar your cases are.”

“That’s true,” Lan Yue said.

“Still, I think that the spiritual bloodline theory has some merit—at least as far as your plant-related abilities are concerned,” Hao Zhen said. “Do any of your family members have similar abilities? I know you said that’s one of the things the Weave stopped people from noticing, so that probably isn’t the case, but—”

“My mother,” Lan Yue said.

“Your mother?”

“Yes,” Lan Yue said. She looked up, past him, gazing off into the distance. “I never thought of it this way before, but she was a very talented alchemist. The best one in the sect. I don’t remember her ever mentioning having some kind of special ability related to plants, but if what I have is indeed something I inherited, then it was definitely from her. My father has zero interest in alchemy.”

“Hmmm. You might be onto something,” Hao Zhen said. Was. Lan Yue’s mother was a talented alchemist—not is, he noted. “What about your brother? You have one, right? Does he—”

“Different mother.”

“Oh.” Hao Zhen had already known that Lan Yue had a rather complicated family situation. She seemed to have some kind of issue with her father, and she didn’t share any blood with her grandfather. Until now, one of the theories he had was that she was adopted, but now it seemed like she was blood-related to both her parents. “Your mother… I noticed you used the past tense when referring to her. Is she…”

“Dead?” Lan Yue snapped her gaze to him. She regarded him silently for a few moments, then looked away. “Probably.” Her jaw was tight.

Hao Zhen hesitated. He didn’t like prying, and if it was an option, he’d be more than happy to respect Lan Yue’s privacy. Unfortunately, because of the Weave, a mother that was probably dead wasn’t something that he could ignore because of the patterns that could be associated with that—even if that meant he would end up coming across as insensitive.

“Probably?” he asked, slowly.

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Lan Yue didn’t say anything, keeping her head down. She seemed to grow tenser, a shadow flitting across her face. “It’s a long story,” she finally said. “It’s…” She took in a deep breath, then breathed out slowly, before looking up. “It’s not something I want to talk about, but… it’s probably something that you two should know. But not right now. I need some time.” She looked at Tian Jin. “You said you’d tell me about your master tonight, right? I’ll tell you two about my mother afterward.”

“All right,” Tian Jin promptly said.

“And you,” Lan Yue said, shifting her attention to Hao Zhen. “Since we’re all sharing something, I also want to know a little about your past life. About the other world you used to live in.”

“I…” Hao Zhen said, caught off-guard. Then again, he should have expected something like this. In fact, it was rather surprising that Tian Jin and Lan Yue had taken so long to ask him about that.

He glanced at Tian Jin and saw that the other boy was also looking at him intensely. Most likely, if Lan Yue hadn’t asked that question, Tian Jin would have done so sooner than later. Well, he didn’t mind it. From the moment he told the two about his transmigration, he had already known he’d have to have this talk eventually. It wasn’t like he had anything to hide, either.

“Tonight,” he finally said. “After you two.”

It seemed like the coming night would be a rather eventful one.

II

Silence filled the air as they walked around the forest. As usual, Lan Yue was leading the way, Hao Zhen and Tian Jin a step behind her.

“It’s near,” Lan Yue said, gesturing ahead.

They were pursuing the second-level monster Lan Yue had sensed before.

A little more slowly, they walked forward, and before long they found what they were looking for. Lying on the ground, lying directly beneath the sun, was a massive serpent—easily over fifty feet long—with dark red scales.

A shimmering sunset serpent. It was one of the monsters recorded in Lan Yue’s jade slip, and like the glistening horn rhinoceros, it was considered one of the strongest monsters in the Glistening Stone Forest.

As a second-level monster, it didn’t pose much of a threat to their group, but the sheer size of it… Hao Zhen shook his head. The appearance of a monster didn’t really mean much in this world—and he was hardly a helpless human anymore.

The serpent didn’t seem to have noticed them yet. Its head was facing the other way, so whether it was sleeping or simply resting was up in the air. He glanced at Lan Yue and Tian Jin and saw that both of them had already taken out their weapons. His two teammates had already grown so used to hunting second-level monsters that they usually only took a couple of minutes to dispatch one now.

Seeing that the two were about to make their way over to the monster, Hao Zhen took a step forward. “I want to try something first.”

Tian Jin and Lan Yue came to a stop. The two then glanced at each other, before Tian Jin turned to Hao Zhen and gave him a nod. Seeing that, Lan Yue shrugged, stepping to the side.

Hao Zhen took in a deep breath before channeling spiritual power into the skill seed inside his crux. Feeling a connection form between him and Ethereal String Puppetry, he willed an Ethereal String into existence, then connected it to the shimmering sunset serpent. Through the Ethereal String, the state of the monster was transmitted to him, and Hao Zhen confirmed that it was asleep.

He considered his options. Against a target at the same level, there was quite a lot he could do using Ethereal String Puppetry. Even if he were to use the skill conventionally, he could probably keep it immobilized, but that’d also make him unable to move. Still, that’d be plenty of time for Tian Jin and Lan Yue to slay the monster, as they now had fourth-order weapons, which could easily pierce through a second-level monster’s body.

But that wasn’t what he had in mind. If he were to use the skill unconventionally, especially since the shimmering sunset serpent was asleep… Hao Zhen seized the monster’s external sensory nerves and deactivated them. The moment he did so, his spiritual stamina started being drained, in order to maintain the skill, while his willpower was consumed to overwhelm the monster’s unconscious resistance.

Hao Zhen slowly exhaled. Although he did need to concentrate to exert his influence on the monster, it wasn’t to the point he was left unable to move. He then gathered his strength, before pushing himself off the ground, running over to the monster’s side. By his estimate, he only had two minutes until he ran out of willpower and spiritual power, so he had to be quick about this.

Reaching the side of the monster’s head, he crouched down, gathering his strength, before jumping forward, landing on top of the monster’s head. Completely cut off from its senses, the shimmering sunset serpent remained asleep.

Tapping into the Ethereal String again, Hao Zhen further disabled the monster’s nerves responsible for its perception of pain. He then raised his sword over the monster’s neck, placed his other hand over the pommel, stabbed down, plunging the blade through the monster’s skull. As a fourth-order sword, it met no resistance, effortlessly penetrating scale and bone. Hao Zhen put his weight into the stab, crouching down, and the blade disappeared into the monster’s head, leaving only the hilt exposed.

The shimmering sunset serpent had no reaction whatsoever. Still crouched on top of the monster’s head, holding onto the sword, Hao Zhen kept Ethereal String Puppetry activated. Only once he determined that the monster was dead based on the feedback from the Ethereal String did he deactivate the spiritual skill. With that, he stood back up, pulling back his sword as he did so. He then jumped off the monster’s body, landing on the ground beneath the now-dead monster’s massive head.

For a moment, Hao Zhen simply stared at the massive corpse before him. A second-level red-grade monster was supposed to take multiple second-level redsouls to kill. And he had just killed it on his own—almost effortlessly. Granted, it had been asleep, but that usually didn’t matter when facing monsters, as they would normally wake up the moment someone approached them.

Hao Zhen inhaled sharply, there and then realizing just how powerful Ethereal String Puppetry actually was. Even if he were to use it conventionally, only seizing the target’s control over voluntary movement, it was an extremely useful skill if you had a helper to deal with the target while it was immobilized.  But if he factored in the ability to seize all nerves, instead of just the ones that controlled voluntary movement…

It was ridiculously powerful. And that was just considering the uses he had found for it so far. He wasn’t quite done experimenting with it yet.

“Huh.”

Hao Zhen turned around. Lan Yue and Tian Jin were standing behind him, having walked over at some point.

Tian Jin had a smile on his face, whereas Lan Yue was looking at him contemplatively. She then gave him a firm nod. 

A nod of acknowledgement. 

Hao Zhen grinned.