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Current year 1321,
"Alright. We are done with tutoring. You can go play, Yaming." The scholar happily dismissed the seven years old kid in front of him.
The black haired kid with a sickly thin body and nearly pale white complexion nodded seriously as he stood up and left.
The tutor named Shen Wenhao looked at the back of the young Ye Yaming and sighed. ’This child has a unique temperament. He takes everything so seriously.’
Unlike the other kids his age, Ye Yaming was a rarity. He did not like to play with others, did not prank people, and was not childish at all.
Shen Wenhao felt happy at the child’s talent but also felt empty that he did not have friends. He was a social outcast of the martial arts clan, Ye clan. "It’s alright. He would eventually go to a better place." He sighed, thinking this martial arts path was not suited for the child’s aptitude, anyway.
"Yes!" A chubby child of around six years shouted jovially after spotted Ye Yaming coming to the playground.
Ye Yaming looked at the chubby small relative of his, flashed a smile and began doing push-ups instead of playing.
"Hey Yaming!! Are you not going to play, again?" The chubby child asked, disappointed. He was hoping that this brother of his would finally play together with them but it didn’t happen.
"Leave him, Ziyang. He is so weak even with all that training! Who knows if he might get beat up by commoners if he doesn’t train and waste time playing around? Hehe." Ye Wuchen, a little tall for his age, made a sarcastic remark loudly before pulling the chubby Ye Ziyang to play.
Ye Wuchen hated Ye Yaming’s personality. He disliked how Ye Yaming could learn techniques pretty fast but didn’t have enough strength. All the time spent on training was a waste.
He could beat Ye Yaming pretty easily in a fight but the slippery Yaming did not fight much. Also, thanks to the talent he possessed, Ye Yaming was given special treatment by the clan. As he pointed out, Yaming had a weak body for a member of their clan.
They were the noble members of the Second-Tier Ye clan. Nobles had been blessed with Bloodlines and every member of the clan possessed that bloodline to some extent, granting them a physique multiple times better than common populace but Yaming’s body was weak like a commoner.
They went ahead to play as Yaming kept training alone.
Ye Yaming kept his eyes on the stats screen in front of him as he trained without a break. A dark black fog surrounded his body as he exerted more strength than his body was capable of and completed his set.
He was Rae. Well, not anymore. His new name was Ye Yaming. A member of the Ye clan.
The Ye clan was a Second-Tier martial arts clan. Yes, this world was influenced by Wuxia. And from what he had managed to gather, it had traces of cultivation too.
He gathered these details from gossip so he couldn’t be sure about Xianxia but Wuxia was pretty common.
Ye clan’s ancestor itself was said to have slayed a Raven and consumed its soul. At least that’s the known reason for most of the clan members possessing a Beast soul similar to a Raven.
The beast soul... How to put it?
The dark black Qi that Ye Yaming was emitting while doing push-ups was coming from that beast soul.
He was only at Stage 1 of the Beast soul mastery. So, he was not able to summon the Raven but he had seen a few elders at Stage 2 using it to fly high in the sky.
He was able to use the Beast Qi at such a young age then why was he being mocked?
Well, he didn’t seem to have inherited much of the Raven traits. Also, he lacked the talent to become a warrior. His physique was not at the level that was expected from other Ye clan children or even other clan’s. Learning martial arts was too big of a strain to his weak body.
...
"100 push-ups done." He muttered before glancing at the screen expectantly. But the numbers on the screen remained the same, not a single one moved.
His forehead scrunched in frustration as he glanced at the unmoving percentage. "Darn it!! How much do I have to push myself to get another stat increase??"
He had transmigrated to this place and used it as an opportunity to live his new life perfectly but then he found out that his talent seemed very lacklustre compared to the others.
The good thing was that his maturity and experience were taken as a sign of spiritual talent and some of the decision makers of the clan decided to treat the Orphan Ye Yaming well and assigned him a scholar.
But he knew the truth.
Physical Talent: 72 -> 300.
Spiritual Talent: 100 -> 450.
Mental Talent: 200 -> 500.
Bloodline: Mutant Raven.
Beast Mastery: Stage 1 (238)
Beast Qi: 320 -> 660.
The triple digit numbers he could see were the result of the last 2 years ( Year 1319 - 1321 )
of his serious training. His physical talent was in double digits, spiritual 100, and mental 200, when he had just awakened in this body at five years old.
His body was five when he transmigrated and was seven years old at the moment, and the academic lessons were going to be over anytime now.
Thankfully, he had trained really hard back then and realised that he could increase his talent. Yes, that was it. He could train harder, push his body, to increase his aptitude, his talent.
He pushed his mastery of the Beast Qi and became good at fighting. He increased his Physical talent and improved in martial arts quickly but his physique held him back. He had a weak physique that was unable to bear the strength bestowed by his bloodline.
The training of the dark Beast Qi which assisted him in pushing his physical limits increased his Beast Mastery. If he trained enough, he could potentially alleviate some of the burden his body had to bear because of the bloodline.
Perhaps it was his weak physique or maybe the mutant bloodline but he also couldn’t breakthrough to Stage 2 of Beast Soul Mastery. His mastery of the Beast Soul was already in the 200s but there was no sign of a breakthrough.
The option to depend on his Beast Soul to achieve strength was unavailable to him. So, his only hope was the increase of talent by the stats screen.
No gain in strength dramatically!!
No overpowering cheats!!!
Just an increase of talent if he pushed his limits and now even that seemed to have stopped..
The Talent did not seem to be increasing anymore. No matter how hard he worked.
Although, now that he had nearly gotten five times the talent of an average person, he finally had the confidence to keep up his persona of a little prodigy.
But that was it!
He was not a real prodigy even with 300 and 500 in the Talent . He knew this because he had heard of feats of many prodigies from First-Tier clans. Leaving aside their powerful Beast Soul traits, their comprehension itself was enough to beat the most talented commoners.
They could learn a sword or fist technique in a day if the average person took ten days. That was the level of their talent.
Ye Yaming on the other hand, he could only outsmart the children thanks to his intellect. Many of the seniors seemed to have realised this and decided to quickly assess his talent in cultivation. What if that had some problems too? Like his weak physique.
He did not know much about cultivation but the reverence they showed for cultivators and Sects seemed legit. They were not trying to push him into some sacrificial cauldron.
Their urgency was a little suspicious but he assumed it to be some internal clan conflict.
How would they check talent for cultivation?
Well, they only had a primitive method of letting the candidate try and learn the technique and then they would judge cultivation talent by the number of days it took to reach the second realm of Qi refining.
That was why they had assigned him a tutor. A tutor would guide him with all the basics and then he will be finally given the cultivation manual to start.
Cultivation realms: Qi Refining - Foundation Establishment - ??
And his academic level seemed enough for him to go through the assessment already. He was capable of trying the cultivation manual after much tutoring. Unfortunately for him, his talent was not increasing anymore. It was stuck as if it hit a ceiling.
He was stuck and didn’t know how to increase his talent anymore. The day to begin the assessment was already close. He was not sure how his talent would translate in that path.
He would have been instructed to begin with the cultivation practice already if not for a warrior from the clan dying recently, requiring everyone’s attendance at the funeral.
Every member of the clan had to attend the funeral, even kids. So, he got another day or two to try increasing the numbers.
Unfortunately, the excessive studying didn’t work anymore and his tutor dismissed him. The physical training also didn’t seem to work. The stats stubbornly remained the same.
More than the stigma of being a fraud, he was scared of the possibility of hitting his limits. His talent was already far better than two years ago but he would be really disappointed if this was the limit. He could already not access his Beast Soul traits except for the basic Qi of stage 1, and the traits of the Beast Soul didn’t seem very obvious to him either.
With just this much talent, his cheat could not be called a cheat.
He looked disappointed as he left the playground to attend the funeral.
He returned to his empty courtyard first. Since he was an orphan of the clan he should have been under a nanny’s care but his talent allowed him greater perks.
He changed his dress and quickly reached the funeral site.