Volume 1, Chapter 449 – Spirit Root

But for Tianbai, whether Shi Lan played well or not was not important.

Seeing Tianbai’s slightly bewildered expression, Shi Lan could not help laughing as she reached out and pinched her cheek.

“You really don’t look like a Demon King at all.”

Li Canglan walked into the courtyard. When he saw the scene before him, he could not help being momentarily dazed.

The woman beneath the tree was dressed in snow-white robes, her skirt trailing more than three chi across the ground, flowing like moonlight. Her dark red hair hung down like blazing fire. The peerlessly beautiful figure outlined by her robes showed not the slightest trace of softness on her body. One fair wrist resting on the qin table was like warm white jade, giving off a delicate sheen.

“Greetings, Sect Master.”

Lowering his eyes, Li Canglan stepped forward and bowed respectfully.

“How has the sect been recently?”

Shi Lan lowered her hand and lifted her eyes to Li Canglan.

“There has not been much difference from before. Twenty-seven Golden Core Realm disciples underwent tribulation; four fell, and the remaining twenty-three all entered the Spirit Infant Realm,” Li Canglan replied respectfully.

“Because so many disciples have been undergoing tribulation, the power of the lightning tribulations has only deepened the suspicions some families already had about your strength, Sect Master.”

As for which families those were, Li Canglan did not say, but Shi Lan could guess easily enough. They were nothing more than the major royal clans backed by King Realm experts.

“Besides that, there is another strange matter.”

When Shi Lan did not speak, Li Canglan continued,

“Among the descendants of the sect’s disciples, anomalies have appeared within their bodies.”

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“What kind of anomaly?”

At those words, Shi Lan’s brows knit slightly.

“Among the disciples in the Yuanji World, some formed unions and produced offspring. In some of those children, the rudiments of a Dao foundation have been born innately…”

As Shi Lan listened to Li Canglan’s explanation, her frown deepened.

The flow of time in the Yuanji World was vastly different from that of the Lingyang Realm, around sixty times faster. The Tianyan Sect had already developed there for several decades, so it was perfectly normal for disciples to form unions and produce descendants.

Among these newly born lives, a considerable portion had developed Dao foundations within their bodies—or rather, the foundation for cultivating immortal arts. And that foundation seemed to bear some connection to the cultivation methods practiced by their parents.

Aside from cultivating the Tiancang Xuanling Scripture, most Tianyan Sect disciples also learned several other arts, and those arts naturally carried various attributes of the five elements, yin and yang, and so on.

Li Canglan had compiled statistics on the newborns one by one and discovered many patterns.

If two disciples who became Dao companions both cultivated fire-aspect arts, then the Dao foundation within their child would inevitably lean toward fire.

When children of this type cultivated immortal arts and then supplemented them with fire-aspect arts, their rate of progress in the Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment Realms could even surpass that of their parents.

Moreover, the Dao foundations that arose within these children subtly followed the principles of mutual generation and mutual restraint among the five elements.

If the parents cultivated arts of differing attributes that were mutually restraining under the five elements—for example, water-aspect and fire-aspect arts—then the newborn would be highly likely to have no innate Dao foundation at all, or only possess the foundation of either water or fire.

But if the five elements were mutually generating, such as water and wood or wood and fire, then the child born in such circumstances had a very high probability of possessing two Dao foundations at once.

With that kind of constitution, the speed of cultivation would be far faster than that of a single-aspect Dao foundation.

As for children simultaneously possessing three attributes, Li Canglan had not discovered any so far.

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For the development of the Tianyan Sect, this anomaly was actually a good thing. The stronger the new generation born, the more beneficial it would undoubtedly be for the sect’s future.

But for some reason, Shi Lan felt a faint unease. She had never heard of any cultivation method that could affect the next generation.

For now, that influence seemed beneficial—but what about later? Could it produce some other, more unusual effects?

“Can this kind of Dao foundation be forcibly removed?”

After pondering for a long while, Shi Lan suddenly spoke.

“This… I truly hadn’t considered it.”

Li Canglan froze for a moment. The very idea of removing a Dao foundation sounded extremely dangerous.

What was more, whether now or in the future, an inborn Dao foundation was a good thing for the Tianyan Sect.

“Bring me a child. I want to take a look.”

Shi Lan waved a hand. She had to find out exactly what was going on, otherwise the unease in her heart would never go away.

“Yes.”

Li Canglan did not ask further and left at once.

…

Li Canglan returned quickly, with a middle-aged man beside him. It was Lin Lang. Lin Lang’s rate of cultivation progress had clearly far surpassed Li Canglan’s; he was already on the verge of stepping into the late Spirit Infant Realm.

“Greetings, Sect Master.”

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Lin Lang bowed respectfully and brought the infant he was carrying over to Shi Lan.

The baby was sleeping soundly, his complexion rosy, his skin fine and tender.

Shi Lan rose and sent out a thread of divine sense through the air, entering his body and examining it inch by inch from bottom to top. Before long, she arrived at the baby’s spiritual platform.

The spiritual platform of a newborn infant was far too fragile, and the sea of consciousness had not yet opened, but within his body Shi Lan did indeed see the faint outlines of two Dao foundations, one metal and one earth. Though fine as hairs, they were undeniably Dao foundations.

After examining him carefully for a long while, Shi Lan withdrew her hand and shook her head.

“Sect Master, is something wrong?”

Seeing Shi Lan’s expression, Lin Lang’s heart jolted, and he could not help asking.

“It’s nothing serious. The Dao foundations are connected to the child’s life force and cannot be tampered with recklessly. I have helped smooth his meridians, so his future cultivation should go more smoothly.”

Noticing the anxiety between Lin Lang’s brows, Shi Lan’s gaze shifted slightly.

“This child is…?”

“My son.”

Lin Lang let out a breath of relief, joy overflowing between his brows as he bowed in thanks.

“Many thanks for the Sect Master’s favor!”

The sleeping child suddenly opened his eyes. His bright, watery gaze looked at Shi Lan as he waved his little hands aimlessly in the air and chuckled, making Shi Lan smile in spite of herself.

“What is his name?”

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“Lin Mo.”

“Lin Mo…”

The smile on Shi Lan’s face faded slightly as she stared at the infant for a long while.

Lin Mo’s eyes were utterly clean, without the slightest trace of impurity, as he simply stared straight at her and grinned.

“You may go for now.”

Having found nothing unusual, Shi Lan waved her hand and had Lin Lang leave first.

“Sect Master, about this matter of the Dao foundations…”

After Lin Lang left, Li Canglan spoke softly.

“Hadn’t you mentioned spirit roots before? Call something false often enough and it becomes true. If you say it is a spirit root, then it is a spirit root. Just treat it as a spirit root.”

Shi Lan had no better way of handling the matter. If the Dao foundations were forcibly removed, it would inevitably damage the children’s life force. At best, it would greatly shorten their lifespan; at worst, it would kill them on the spot. The only thing to do was wait and observe how things developed.

“And as for what you said earlier, about some families becoming suspicious, there is no need to bother with that. Send word out directly: within three days, every region governed by every family is to establish a Tianyan Sect branch station, and they are to proclaim to the world that they bow their heads in submission to the Tianyan Sect.”

Shi Lan lowered her gaze slightly, and a faint chill entered her voice.

“From this day on, I want Yunyan Star to have only the voice of the Tianyan Sect.”

By rights, the entire Yunyan Star was hers. As things stood now, those families were occupying her spirit veins and living off the cultivation resources that belonged to her. All she wanted was an attitude of submission from them—she was already being very merciful.