Lunch was ready when Gu Changhuan returned home.
Fang Yurong called him over to wash his hands and eat.
Seeing her look untroubled reassured him; she had looked very upset when Gu Sheng’s mother made a scene the night before.
However, Gu Shan was still somewhat sullen at this moment.
Fang Yurong couldn’t be bothered to pay him any attention, focusing only on Gu Changhuan at the dinner table, continuously serving him food.
What he did not know was that his mother was still furious.
That shortsighted fool thought Huan’er meant her son harm!
There had been a better way to arrange the test, but she had insisted on inviting humiliation.
Cultivators had lived long enough to see through such things.
How could they miss the reason Changhuan had brought his father and the concubine along for his brother’s test?
If this matter caused the Gu Clan’s cultivators to form a poor opinion of Gu Changhuan, she, Fang Yurong, would definitely not let that shallow-minded fool off!
Gu Changhuan naturally didn’t know his mother’s thoughts.
He was savoring the dishes his mother had made herself, thinking that his mother’s culinary skills were no worse than the chefs at Emerald Maple Mountain’s Dining Hall.
Gu Changhuan did not return to watch the afternoon testing.
It was simply too boring.
Jade Clear Town had sparse Spiritual Qi, and without Spirit Stones he couldn’t continue cultivation.
Gu Changhuan also didn’t feel like reading.
He sat in his room, entered his Sea of Consciousness, and opened the mysterious Brocade Cloth.
His Divine Sense poked at the Brocade Cloth, which displayed the grades of the spiritual objects Gu Changhuan carried with him.
Nothing else happened.
Gu Changhuan sighed.
He had used the cloth to appraise treasures in his old life, but cultivators kept their treasures hidden, genuine or not.
Why would they show them to a stranger for appraisal?
He sighed again.
Was his special advantage really this disappointing?
Other protagonists got portable spaces, ancient divine artifacts, or wondrous treasures.
Why did he get a map that could do nothing but label things?
Could it be because he wasn’t the protagonist?
Gu Changhuan thought seriously, then painfully discovered he might have guessed the answer.
Still, he had a spiritual body.
Even if he was not the main character, surely he was not cannon fodder.
He steadied himself.
He was not giving up so easily; the brocade must have other uses he had yet to discover.
He studied the brocade in his sea of consciousness.
It looked like cloth but worked like a map, one that could show him things hidden from sight—such as objects underground.
Gu Changhuan immediately felt deflated.
He knew little about geology, but enough to realize that ore veins lay at all sorts of depths.
Finding one would depend on luck.
It felt as though a mountain of gold lay before him, but he had no tools to mine it.
All he could do was look on and sigh.
Forget it, forget it.
Perhaps he had seen too little and couldn’t properly utilize this map.
Rather than counting on this map, he might as well cultivate diligently.
Gu Changhuan cast all his chaotic thoughts out of his mind, took out a Low Grade Spirit Stone, and began cultivation.
Gu Changhuan could be considered wealthy among Qi Condensation cultivators.
Gu Wanhao had transferred him quite a few Contribution Points, and his Spirit Stones had no use at all on Emerald Maple Mountain, but now using them for cultivation was just right.
The Spirit Root Testing Assembly lasted a total of three days.
After three days, Gu Changhuan bid farewell to his parents and boarded the Crane Feather Boat back to Emerald Maple Mountain.
Besides the five who had come, Gu Shiyuan brought back a total of six children to Emerald Maple Mountain.
Of the six, Gu Changcheng naturally drew the most attention with his earth-wood dual spiritual roots.
Next came Gu Changgong, whose triple roots were water, earth, and wood.
His main water root measured over six cun, giving him aptitude much like Gu Changze’s.
With hard work, he could become a pillar of the clan.
Jade Clear Town had more than a hundred thousand mortals, including over ten thousand children and many descendants of cultivators.
Yet this assembly had found only six children with spiritual roots.
Gu Shiyuan and the other two took the roster to the General Affairs Hall to report.
When Gu Wanhua heard there was a Dual Spirit Roots cultivator, she was naturally delighted and immediately sent a message to Clan Leader Gu Wanchang.
She also took the initiative to increase the mission reward by one-third.
Gu Wanhua happily tallied up the rosters brought back by each team leader.
“Six from Jade Clear Town, five from Gu Family Town, four from Rong Town…” “Adding up all the clan members with Spirit Roots this time makes twenty-three people!
The Chang generation is truly prosperous!” Gu Wanhua was both happy and worried.
A prosperous clan was a good thing, but over twenty people meant the annual stipends would be no small expense.
Gu Changhuan was currently at the Scripture Pavilion.
He described to Gu Xuanzhan everything that had happened at the Spirit Root Testing Assembly over the past two days.
When Gu Xuanzhan heard that another Dual Spirit Roots cultivator had appeared in the clan, his expression actually dimmed.
Earth fostered wood, and wood nourished earth.
Gu Changcheng was luckier than he was.
Gu Xuanzhan’s two roots were water and fire, opposing elements.
To reach Purple Mansion, he needed an earth-attribute spiritual object of at least the third tier, high grade, to reconcile their energies.
Without it, the incompatible qi would explode inside him and kill him before he could even attempt the breakthrough.
Such objects were rare.
Gu Xuanzhan had remained at the ninth layer of Foundation Establishment for over thirty years, unable to reach Purple Mansion.
He was now 243.
Without another breakthrough within fifty years, he would reach the end of his life.
Gu Changhuan knew nothing of this.
Why did Great-grandfather look so troubled?
Another clan member with dual spiritual roots should have been good news.
Was there something he did not know?
“Enough, you may withdraw.” Gu Xuanzhan waved his hand and said.
Gu Changhuan bowed deeply.
Gu Xuanzhan had taught him with such care for half a year, and he felt sad that he would no longer be able to come every day.
“Thank you for everything you have taught me, Great-grandfather.
I will still come to visit often.
I hope you won’t find me too noisy.” Gu Xuanzhan helped Gu Changhuan up, also somewhat moved.
However, having cultivated for many years and witnessed countless partings in life and death, he naturally wouldn’t lose his composure.
He merely sighed that Gu Changhuan was truly a sincere and genuine child.
That evening, the clan assembled.
Gu Wanchang lit the children’s Soul Lamps one by one and settled the rankings of all twenty-seven, who belonged to the Chang generation.
Gu Changhuan suddenly had ten more younger sisters and thirteen more younger brothers!
The next day, the Teaching Hall was bustling with activity.
Twenty-four children took their seats separately in a classroom at the Teaching Hall, and before long they had become familiar with each other.
Gu Changhuan sat in a corner, inwardly crying out in dismay.
He wasn’t some ordinary seven-year-old child!
Why did he have to come to the Teaching Hall with these little sprouts?
Gu Changhuan, who had over thirty years of memories from his past and present lives combined, felt he inexplicably had a sense of superiority when looking at these children.
His usual friends, Gu Changze and Gu Changqing, were quite mature.
They could be lively, but they had outgrown this sort of childishness.
These little kids, though…
He had just seen one little sprout and his deskmate drawing a line on the desk…
“It’s you!
You’re a weirdo just like your father!” “I heard he’s a stray!
He hasn’t got a mother!”