January 1st, year 152 of the founding of the Immortal Sui Clan.
Ling Hua planted the last seeds of the Spirit Dew Flower as winter's frost lashed his body, but despite this bitter cold, Ling Hua—cultivating at the second level of Qi Refining—remained unaffected; once a farmer reaches this level, weather conditions no longer affect him, nor does anything from the mortal realm touch him.
He wiped the sweat running down his forehead, covered the Spirit Dew Flower seed with soil, and injected it with a breath of Germination Talisman energy, just as he'd done with the 39 seeds before it. A heavenly-colored spirit cloud formed, covering the entire field; this was the Spirit Rain technique he'd learned two years ago, which had now entered the Minor Success stage, its diameter now exceeding 500 square meters.
Green shoots split through the spirit soil the moment they touched the spirit rainwater, announcing new life in this field. Ling Hua smiled at this peaceful sight before him and wished this could be his only life in this world: a field to farm, and a family that cared for him with love. None of those childish ambitions that afflict other people with delusions of grandeur, wanting everyone beneath their feet, appealed to him—he was their exact opposite; the most important thing to him now was simply preserving this peace. But he knew well that to protect his family's safety, he must first become strong enough to protect them, and he'd arrived at one conclusion that summed up the state of this world: the fist is the only language of dialogue, and nothing else.
His thoughts were only interrupted by the buzzing of bees just emerging from their hive to renew their military patrol against any lurking enemy across the field. But as always, there was no trace of the queen, still in her dormancy for nearly a month now, showing no signs of waking.
But the surprising thing was the spirit-insect tree the hive itself sat upon; it had grown larger still, and the patterns on its trunk had become brighter and deeper, like threads of liquid gold flowing through its deep patterns. This great growth was due to stimulating the tree with the Germination Talisman the day before, which had been the last push it needed to grow after being planted beside the spirit field for a full year. Without the talisman, the tree would have needed to continue for months to reach this level, though of course this was only because it was still at the peak of the early stage of the first tier; had its rank exceeded the middle stage of the first tier, such stimulation would be like a drop of water in an ocean and wouldn't affect it at all, and it would have needed to remain planted in a spiritual area for decades at minimum to advance.
This was one of the benefits of the farming inheritance he'd received earlier from the Inheritance Hall, which had contributed to accelerating the growth of all his crops at an insane speed, and the further he advanced, the faster his crops' growth would become. Yet despite this, and although these methods that farmers had developed over hundreds of years had cut the growth period of spirit elixirs and spirit trees in half, they created a weakness: the quality of this elixir was slightly lower than that of wild elixirs, which took decades to grow. This is why the price of wild elixir differs from elixir grown in spirit fields, though it still met farmers' needs, and they only use wild elixir to advance in the greater realms of their cultivation. None of the weaker farmers cared anymore whether an elixir was wild or farmed, but noble families and sects couldn't accept commoners' goods, and monopolized all discovered wild elixir growth areas.
Ling Hua finished all his work and surveys by midday, and afterward headed directly to the villages surrounding the clan mountain to attend the annual gathering held every three years, presided over each time by a spirit farmer to discover new blood for the family.
He advanced with steps like a leopard through the forest passages covered by giant white banyan trees that blocked all rays of sunlight and darkened every path, moving through those roads as smoothly as a leaf. Every time he passed through some part of this forest, memories renewed of the attack that had happened a year before now, after which his father had scolded him severely and punished him with a full year's ban from leaving the family mountain—and the time for his freedom had finally come; this was the first day he'd gone out.
He headed toward Cui Village, the largest of the four villages descended from Sui family farmers who, lacking spiritual roots, had descended the mountain and founded these villages generations ago. These villages would gather at Cui Village, being the largest and oldest among them, and it was there the spiritual root discovery event was held.
A great red gate and a wall exceeding 4 meters in height, built entirely of blue brick, appeared before his eyes. He surged toward the gate, and his nose was assaulted by many smells, from fried food to the neighing of horses to the shouts of traveling vendors throughout the town, which had turned into a lively festival because of this event.
The moment he entered, the humans felt the overwhelming aura emanating from Ling Hua's body, and they all collapsed to the ground, falling to their knees before him, and from them all came a single unified voice: "Welcome, Immortal!"
Ling Hua didn't utter a word and advanced toward the testing platform, carrying in his hand the root-measuring rod the family used to discover the roots of potential farmers, one of many means by which spiritual roots could be measured. Their legs trembled even more from this overwhelming pressure still emanating from Ling Hua's body, but behind this cold, stern mask, Ling Hua was baffled by the state of the people kneeling before him, sweat seeping from his body: "What's wrong with these people? Why are they acting this way?"
But after a few moments he grasped the truth, so he hurried to suppress his aura and accompanied it with a voice devoid of emotion: "Let the ceremony begin now!"
The pressure finally eased off the people's hearts; his aura had been like a millstone on their backs, so they'd knelt without any ability to resist. They straightened up and dusted off their clothes. And though this behavior would give them a bad impression of Ling Hua, it didn't matter to him, for he'd already entangled himself in this from the start, and he couldn't now appear hypocritical and laugh along with them—it was better to continue with this persona that had built itself in their imaginations without any prior planning on his part.
He took out the rod designated for measuring spiritual roots from his clothes and shouted in a resonant voice: "Let the children of each village line up behind their village chief! Let the children of Cui Village step forward!"
Cui Village was the largest in terms of number of children, owing to it being the mistress of the other three villages, its population exceeding 7,000 humans. A long line of children advanced, and when Ling Hua looked closely, he found it numbered around 300 children.
A child wearing shimmering silk robes stepped forward, with brown hair and green eyes radiating great arrogance, but what Ling Hua noticed more was the tension of Cui Village's chief, swallowing his saliva every minute: "Hmph, seems he's one of his relatives."
"Step forward, boy, place your hand on this rod."
The child in shimmering sky-blue robes placed his hand on the rod, utterly confident he'd be a bearer of spiritual roots, given he descended from a former Sui family farmer's lineage.
"Mortal, step aside!"
But Ling Hua's cold words struck like the frost of this winter's air, and all his dreams of ascending in this world evaporated. He turned his gaze to his father and found him in worse shape; he'd fainted from the shock of it, for this had been his last hope of returning to the family's embrace on the spirit mountain, but with these three words, all his dreams melted like salt dissolving in water.
Ling Hua paid no attention to the atmosphere around him, and his gaze remained cold, unchanged: "Next!"
Another cheerful girl stepped forward, two beautiful braids atop her head, and he repeated his previous command: "Touch this rod... Mortal girl, step aside!"
And so the testing continued, with hundreds of children from Cui Village passing without yielding any results.
"Damn it, what is this? Among hundreds of children, no results at all!" These were Ling Hua's thoughts after the initial shock, which made him discover just how rare spiritual roots truly were.
"Let Ming Village step forward!"
An old man leaning on a cane, his back bent like a bow, stepped forward, clasping his hands toward Ling Hua, with more than 200 children behind him.
"Step forward!"
...No result. No spiritual roots discovered yet. Ming Village passed and nothing was discovered, and likewise Ma Village passed with the same result.
A gloomy atmosphere settled over the area, and everyone bowed their heads in shame and despair at this incident repeating itself 4 times out of every 5 testing visits. Adding to the gloom was the sky beginning to darken and clouds gathering to cover the sun's rays one after another.
After all this, Ling Hua no longer expected any result from these remnants of children passing by, and called the last village expecting the same previous result: "Let Ji Village step forward!"
A woman in the prime of her life clasped her hands toward Ling Hua standing atop the platform, and bowed her head to him: "Sui Fu, chief of Ji Village, offers her respects to the Immortal." Then she whispered to the children as though pleading with them: "Step forward, children, don't disappoint Ji Village!"
Ling Hua nodded coldly toward her.
...
"Mortal, step aside!"
This phrase had repeated more than 100 times since Ji Village's children began climbing the platform to explore the possibility of spiritual roots, but like Cui, Ming, and Ma villages, it yielded no discovery among Ji Village's ranks.
Only ten children remained out of 120 from Ji Village.
A girl stepped forward walking shyly, hair black as night cascading down her back, and through her childish features one could tell she'd become a beauty in the future. Ling Hua paid her no attention, having truly lost hope in these catastrophic results and no longer holding any expectation for these villages.
He said to her, in the final stages of self-restraint: "Touch this rod."
He turned his gaze toward the crowd gathered beneath the platform, not expecting any result different from the hundreds before. But suddenly, a powerful glow made of four colors struck his eyes!
He lowered his head quickly toward the girl, who was bewildered by this anomalous result unlike anything before it. The girl froze in place and didn't utter a word, and with her froze the voices of the crowd gathered below.
"Good, good! Finally, four roots: Water, Wood, Earth, and Metal!"
Life returned to Ling Hua's face, which had lost all hope in these villages descended from the clan's blood; he hadn't expected their lineage to have degraded to this degree in less than 100 years.
"What's your name, girl?"
The residents' cheers erupted beneath the platform, restoring the vitality that had prevailed before the testing began. But the happiest person of all was Sui Fu, chief of Ji Village, a smile splitting across her face—had the Immortal not been present before her, she would have danced with joy at this news.
"My... my name is Yui." She was very confused and understood nothing of what was happening, and this only reminded Ling Hua of his own past state when he'd been in the same position, ignorant of everything.
Ling Hua smiled and said: "A beautiful name. From now on, your name will become Sui Jiang Yui, and from this moment you'll call me Elder Brother Hua, not the Immortal, agreed?"
"Sui Jiang Yui? Alright, Immortal!"
Ling Hua pretended to be angry with her, so she quickly corrected herself: "I mean, Elder Brother Hua!"
Ling Hua smiled and ordered her to line up behind him so he could examine the remaining children, but no other roots were discovered. Jiang Yui had been the greatest stroke of luck on this journey, otherwise the result that had repeated 4 times before would have repeated again. And hers weren't merely ordinary spiritual roots from the standard five, but four roots, considered the highest efficiency; the fewer the roots, the greater the talent. This was what made Ling Hua understand the reason behind the rarity of Immortals in this world.
Ling Hua completed his examination, and the result was the same: no other new blood existed, and the testing ended.
Ling Hua tossed a bundle of mortal gold toward Sui Fu, who caught it with lightning speed and clutched it to her chest as though fearing someone would steal it.
"You know the rules, no need to explain them, correct?"
Ling Hua released his aura toward the three chiefs, with the pressure more concentrated on Cui Village's chief, since he was the one most concerned by the threat. The matter was clear: when someone with spiritual roots is discovered in a particular village, it becomes the one that rules the rest of the villages, and this time a farmer had been found in Ji Village, so naturally the chieftainship would transfer to Sui Fu. Ling Hua focused on Cui Village's chief so he wouldn't commit any vile acts against Sui Fu once he left, thus breaking his fangs before he could think of striking.
All those present knelt in awe of this scene, but the difference this time was that they knelt of their own accord, not because Ling Hua had forced them to.