Chapter 29 - Preparations

The next day...

The couple happily slept while hugging each other, laying their heads on the same, long pillow that spans across the jade bed, while their daughter was being lightly squashed in between the chest of the 2.

"Hmmmngh... Why is it so hot..." a high pitched voice muffledly sounded out from in between 2 chests.

'...Oh...yeah... Yesterday, mom and dad were having a discussion, and I was closing my eyes just casually listening... I must've been sandwiched in between mom and dad's chests...' I absentmindedly thought.

"...Ugh... It's a bit too hot here... Need to get out..."

I pushed my face deeper into mom's chest, secretly enjoying it, and pull my head from underneath, popping my head out below from mom's hot, but soft cleavage.

"Whew~ Muuuuuch... Better."

*Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu* *Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa*

"...What should I even do? I could crawl into the living room and read some books, but I'm worried that mom and dad may freak out that I'm not in bed with them..."

'I guess... I can just go back to sleep. Or at least, pretend to. Right! Almost forgot, I could work on acclimatizing to the burden of『Truth Seeker』on my eyes. Welp. Now I know what to do, let's get to it.'

Having decided what I can do, I crawled up to near mom's chest and closed my eyes, and I circulated one round of my Neutral Qi dragon. Then, I activated『Truth Seeker』at 10%.

'...Should I give a name to the circulation I created? I feel like it's a little rudimentary, like it's just a basic circulation technique... Perhaps after I improved more on it then will I actually name it.'

Feeling the effects of『Truth Seeker』at 10% activation rate on my eyesight, I tried to get comfortable and used to the world of Qi flow and simultaneously bring a few threads of Neutral Qi from all the cells in my body to my eyes so the total amount of Neutral Qi in all of my cells are more or less balanced.

Like that, I attempted to train some form of multitasking while observing the flow of Qi of Heaven and Earth, hoping to glean something from it, no matter how small, and passed my time away.

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"Hmmmmm..?" A mellow, feminine voice sleepily sounded out from a little above me while I was busy looking through my eyelids.

'Oh. Looks like mom's awake. Time to have a meal?'

"Hmm hmm... Is it morning already?" Mom sleepily asked the air while rubbing her eyes, lifting up her body and facing the closed window.

Turning my head slightly towards the direction of the closed window, I saw that a few yellow coloured Qi seeping in through the cracks.

'Is that Yellow Qi suppose to represent Light? But why? I didn't see any of it back when I activated『Truth Seeker』before during the daytime... I mean, of course, the flow of Qi was super chaotic, so I might've missed it...?

But light is everywhere, or I wouldn't have been able to see, so this yellow Qi should be everywhere... Come to think of it, How am I even able to see through things?? There's no light passing through... Ah damn it. How do I even science dis shet.'

*sighs internally*

"Wakey-wakey, hubby!" Mom pestered dad as she shook him back and forth.

"Huh what? ...Oh. Morning already?" Dad spoke with his eyebrows lifted but his eyes are still closed.

"Yup. Can you go get the materials for me? I need to feed Yan Yan..." Mom asked as she pulled out some paper, started writing down a list of materials and handed it to dad.

Dad absent-mindedly grabbed the paper and went climbed out of bed.

"I...'ll go wash my face."

"En. Have a safe trip~!" Mom waved her hand at dad. She then made some water from seemingly thin air and controlled it to wash her face.

"Ummmnnn... Mommy...? ...I'm...hungry." I slowly called out, deactivating『Truth Seeker』and sleepily opened my eyes and rubbed them with my stubby hands.

"En~ Did we wake you up?" Mom said as she got ready to breastfeed.

"No, I awoke when mommy woke up... I just kept my eyes closed so I can enjoy some more shut-eye..." I replied while shaking my head.

"Oh, I didn't mean to wake you up..."

"It's okay, I was hungry anyway."

"Right, come here, let mommy feed you~"

"En~" I answered as I crawled over to her side.

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"I'm back! I got all of the materials. I didn't check earlier when I got it, but there's a lot of materials... Are you trying to build a fortress?!" Dad shouted from outside.

"Well, when it comes to Yan Yan, nothing is too much. Hehe~" Mom went out to greet dad with me tied to her chest, having finished breastfeeding.

"Haaaaaaa. There goes most of the money I got from my alchemy jobs..." Dad sighed as he removed his boots.

"Now now, I'll make sure to make it worth your time, okay? I've always wanted to build a few formations around our house so we can improve our cultivating environment. It'll be good for Yan Yan in the future as well... I hope." Mom flirtatiously winked as she grabbed dad's hands and gently pulled him in.

"...Fine. I've got all the materials, where should I put them?" Dad asked as he kicked the door closed.

"In the living room. I'll need to process them for a bit before I can use them all." Mom replied.

As dad placed the materials in separate stacks in the living room, mom sat on the carpet and brought a lot of tools from her spatial ring.

"Mom, what are these?" I curiously asked.

"These are tools for making formations. To make formations, you need 3 things.

Materials.

Tools to process the materials.

And knowledge on the various symbols and shapes that makes a formation." Mom patiently explained as she lifted 3 of her fingers and closed them one by one.

"Formations can be both simple and complicated. It is a way to interact with the Qi of Heaven and Earth, to use it as fuel for various purposes. I'm planning to make 3 formations around our house today.

One is the Qi Gathering Formation, which is the simplest and yet most useful formation for cultivators. It's the first formation that Formations Apprentices learn, because the rudimentary ones only require Qi stones melted down into liquid to draw.

First, you take the Qi stones and place them into the powder dish. Then you carefully dip a few drops of Powderizing Solution. Once the stones have become powder, you add in the Liquidising Solution.

For all of these solutions, you have to slowly drip them in so you don't waste any. After the Qi powder became liquid, normally, you would use the Qi liquid as ink to draw the symbols and shape that establishes the formation you want to make.

But since I'm making a more advanced version of the Qi Gathering Formation, I have to add in a few more materials to enhance the capability of the formation to gather Qi." Mom demonstrated to me the whole process while giving commentary explanations.

"Am I going too fast? Can you understand what I'm saying?" Mom paused for a bit and asked.

"Nope. I can, continue on!" I stared at the 'powder dish' with excited, twinkling eyes and replied.

"Okay, then I'll continue. Yan Yan is so smart to be able to understand this when you're so young. If you continue learning like this, Yan Yan will definitely be able to grow up wise."

"Wise?" I turned my head over to face mom and then leaned my head to the right.

"Yes. Yun Hui Yan. Yun is your surname, and is also the surname of our clan, the Yun clan. And Hui Yan is your given name, which means wise and beautiful. I gave you this name in the hopes that you will grow up to become a wise and beautiful girl." Mom explained herself.

"Yan Yan will try her best!" I replied with a guts pose of sorts.

"Ufufu, I am sure you will." Mom said with a gentle smile.

"Your daddy and I are both from the Yun clan, but we're very distant cousins on the family tree. Daddy is descended from the 1st son of our strongest Ancestor, who started the Yun clan, while I am from the lineage of the 8th son.

The strongest Ancestor, was descended from the First Ancestor, who was a rogue cultivator, and he had many children, but all of his descendants never came close to reaching his glory..."

"Glory?"

"Yes. He was very strong. Even stronger than his father, the First Ancestor. He managed to reach the 1st stage of the Nirvanic Rebirth Realm, but he died when he tried to breakthrough into the 2nd stage of the Nirvanic Rebirth Realm."

"Why?"

"Because the Nirvanic Rebirth Realm is about destroying your own body and rebuilding it back better, so that you may set a foundation for reaching immortality, or so the legends say.

This is a very dangerous process, as a little distraction may cause you to be unable to hold your existence together and you will just scatter into the wind." Mom still patiently explained with a sad smile.

"Oooooh~ I see~ Then what about the 1st son and 8th son mommy and daddy are descended from?"

"Ah, that one is about the descendants of the strongest Ancestor. You see, he had many wives, and as such, he had many children. So, instead of ordering by who was born first, he ranked his children by excellence, and in turn, seniority.

The 1st son was the most excellent one, though he was far from being able to compare to his father. The Ancestor had dozens of children, but by the time he died, there were only the 10 most excellent sons left that survived to leave behind descendants, and they shared the riches of the clan by dividing it according to their excellence.

They shared the clan's riches and income according to their strength,

with the 1st son getting 10,

the 2nd 9,

the 3rd 8,

the 4th 7,

the 5th 6,

the 6th 5,

the 7th 4,

the 8th 3,

the 9th 2,

and the 10th 1 portion,

so they split the whole clan's riches and income into 55 equal parts and gave everyone their deserved resources."

"Hmm... The strongest Ancestor was very perverted huh?" I commented after hearing that.

"Hahahaha~! You're not wrong, Yan Yan. But he wanted to build a big and strong clan, and that's why he had so many children. The never-ending decennial wars was both a curse and a blessing. The sons that survived the war came back stronger and more mature, but the one's that didn't just died, not leaving behind any descendants.

Even if they did, without the support of parents that are actually alive, they wouldn't be able to grow well. In the end, they just married with the children of their uncles.

Of course, they married the ones that are more distant in the family tree to themselves. The many sons all had wives that were unrelated to the clan, so as to bring in fresh blood.

History has shown repeatedly that incests usually doesn't end well, especially between siblings. Half-siblings had better results, but not as good as cousins. The more distant the cousins, the less likely for the children to be disabled in one form or the other.

The kingdoms across the continent have learned their lessons in maintaining the so-called royalty blood purity. They tend to find excellent people of note and marry them into their family, to bring more 'excellence' into the blood. Well, at least the stronger kingdoms." Mom continuously went off tangent.

"I see. With experience comes wisdom... At least our ancestors were smart enough to look around, and even take care of our clansmen." I commented yet again.

"Of course! Even with many children, he still went around and guided each and every one of them. He decided to adopt the same manner his father tested him, the First and Second Hunt, to determine the resources each child would earn for their future endeavors.

Before then, every child in our clan gets equal resources for their Body Tempering Phase until the age of 10. After all, they would be able to live up to the full potential of natural mortal lifespan, 100 years. They would be able to manage the business and incomes of the clan well.

Thankfully, the resources for Body Tempering Phase isn't difficult to get. We have a large herb forest that a lot of our clansmen focus on, as it is one of our most important foundation.

Most of the time, we even have plenty of extra materials that we sell or make pills out of for profit. " Mom proudly informed, both happy and proud of the compassion of the clan to at least let all of their descendants to unearth their potential.

"Hum hum, that is very great, but weren't we going to draw up the formations...?" I nodded along.

"Oh, right! These are much more complicated, so I am afraid you will be confused. I will only tell you about what the material is called and its properties, as well as show you how it looks like.

As for the formation drawing part, I won't talk about it because it's better if you know the basics first. Besides, mommy needs to concentrate when drawing the formations, or I might misdraw and waste the materials.

The more materials I add in, the more advanced and complicated the formations are going to be. I would need to draw in extra symbols so as to balance and complement the materials used.

A simple Qi Gathering Formation using only liquified Qi stones to make is very different from an advanced Qi Gathering Formation that uses a lot of materials to improve its functions." Mom explained her reasoning.

"Okay, Yan Yan understands." I nodded my head.

Mom then began her long explanation

"Good. This, is Qi Attracting Grass. It is a very common grass in the Primordial Chaos Mountain Range. If many of it gathers, it can have a compound effect and result in thick Qi gathering in the surroundings, so they are easy to find in clusters.

It's used in many types of side professions, as it is a very mild herb, and has very useful effects and little demerits. It is very weak if it is a single stalk alone though.

But if enough of its essence is gathered, it can have similar effects as a cluster, but it will evaporate, so long term, it's better to plant it instead.

To extract the essence, there are 2 ways. First is to use an extracting machine. It's not good, but it's fast and can extract large amounts in one go. However, there's a lot of impurities.

Second is to use soul force to affect the grass and extract its essence. It is difficult and somewhat time-consuming to do it perfectly, but the good side is that you can extract the essence with little to no impurities. And you get to train your soul force as well. But the bad thing is that unless your soul force is very strong, you can only do it in small amounts..."