AnnouncementA/N: Sorry for the dey all, I was going back over the start and the plot and decided to totally rework the pairing, main villian, and how the little overseer is going to develop. I had an idea to have him meet our angel Renxue at a young age and have them understand each other, and then I realized that doing so would have totally changed her character in a way simir to how our silver queen Gu Yue was changed and I just don't want that for her, and it was way too forced. I'm confirming that Ye Lingling will be the heroine, and while the setup is cruel to her, it sets up the antagonists in a more realistic way, and while there is a bit of a forced martial soul change, there's some precedent with Tang Ya in how this works, and I'm going to flesh out her family history a bit more than just "this whole family is a pitiful resource to be used". Chapters should be at least one per week going forwards.

  Discimer: I do not own Soul Land or its associated characters

  Early the next morning, Lu Hao woke up and crawled out of bed, the adventure doing nothing to soothe his regret for having to leave his family for a time. The journey to the nearby hunting forest would take a month on foot, but there were no major settlements to take a carriage to, and the family carriage was tied up in a business run.

  Sighing, Hao turned around and saw his wife sleeping peacefully, and decided not to disturb her dreams. He tucked her into the bed more snugly, id a kiss on her brow, and then quietly wrote her a short letter and left it on his pillow.

  Grabbing his hunting gear from the floor by the doorframe, he exited the room and quietly closed the door, and then turned around and went to head out when he saw something that startled him. His son was sleeping against the wall opposite his door, seemingly waiting to see him off. Smiling slightly, Hao gently shook his son's shoulder to wake him.

  "Huhwha?" Jian muttered intelligently as he blinked his eyes. When his mind caught up, he saw his dad standing there with a soft smile on his face and amusement reflecting in his silver eyes.

  "Good morning son," Hao said, trying to suppress his mirth at the sight of his son struggling from his sleep.

  "Are you leaving, papa?" Jian asked, confused as he thought they would all have breakfast together first.

  "Yes, it's better that no-one knows we have left. People are easily jealous, and while being strong is good, rivals may try to disturb our growth if we openly show it. It's better to make quiet moves, and when trouble comes, handle it with silent grace. We may not be revered by the world, but our home and our hearts will be safe, and that's more important than any momentary glory." Hao expined, not expecting to give his son a small lecture on how the world works this early.

  Jian looked thoughtful, nodding his small head before remembering why he had camped out st night.

  "Here, papa, I made this for you to remind you to come home safe" he said, taking a small charm out of his robe, with a simmering cauldron resting on a hearth engraved on a bck scale. "The cauldron is for mama's spirit, and the hearth is for our home here. Don't get lost out in the woods looking for trouble!"

  Hao was stunned for a moment, the reminder of having a family to come back to overtook the boyish wanderlust that had been creeping up on him while pnning the hunt. He reached out and took the charm from his son, his eyes a little misty from the reminder.

  "Thank you, son. Why don't you get some more rest now? Your mother is still asleep, and business is slow today." Hao said after a moment of contemption.

  "Sure, papa, have a safe journey" Jian said, giving his father a short but firm hug, before heading back to his room to rest some more.

  Hao spent another moment recentering himself before taking a deep breath and heading outside, where his long-time brother in arms was already waiting for him.

  Shuang Nezhi was a tall man, with brown, curly hair and a thick mustache, but clean-shaven otherwise. His blue eyes were topped with thick eyebrows, giving him a very paternal feeling regardless of what he was doing. He had served as a city guard for years to get the resources he needed, before he caught the eye of the Lu family when he was peacekeeping near the tavern.

  He was wounded in capturing an evil soul master that was trying to turn the workers of the nearby oiran house into his personal cauldrons. The Lu family patched him up as a thank you, and decided to support his cultivation going forwards, getting him some medicines he needed to resolve his hidden injuries from training.

  Over the years, he had become close to Hao, who was next in line to manage West Lu City after his father retired. They had gotten their third and fourth rings together, and this was just another round of the same, albeit slightly more dangerous without Hao's soul saint father tagging along this time.

  "Well, look what the cat dragged in!" Nezhi excimed with a wide grin on his face, obviously thoroughly enjoying the sleepy look that had yet to leave Hao's face.

  "Yeah, yeah" Hao yawned back, "Let's get this show on the road, I don't like leaving my family alone for so long"

  "Ha!" Nezhi retorted, "That's your trouble, you're getting into that old man mindset. More sea beauties for me, anyway!"

  "Oh, yeah?" Hao replied to the cackling Nezhi with a knowing grin, "Want me to tell Mei about all of those 'sea beauties' you keep going on about?"

  That stopped Nezhi short, sputtering out nonsense about how he's gone steady and was just blowing smoke, while Hao lightly chuckled at his friend's reaction. The two of them continued out of the city, and when they reached the gate, they took one st look back.

  Hao clenched the scale his son gave him and tucked it into his breast pocket, and looked out at the road ahead.

  "Let's go," he said "I'm not looking for anything special this time around, a 10-thousand year tree or monkey will do just fine for my Elder Staff Martial Soul. What about you?"

  "Same here," Nezhi replied, "we've been hunting metal beasts for my rings for my Sword Martial Soul to try to improve the foundation, but I think it's time to add the Sword grass like we talked about to give it some oomph"

  Hao took a sharp intake of breath at that. While most pnts were mostly tricky because they had auxiliary abilities, and other beasts cimed them, grass beasts were much trickier to deal with. From evolved blue-silver grass that would entangle you like a snake and suffocate you, to sword grass which had formidable sword intent that could unch bdes of mental power at invaders.

  "In that case, we're going to have to be careful, are you sure your mental strength is up to it? Sword grass is tricky enough to outst alive, but the shock will be fatal if you're not prepared." Hao warned, feeling that this hunt was going to be exceptionally dangerous.

  "It'll be fine," Nezhi replied, confidence radiating from him, "After seeing your staff intent at Jian's birthday party earlier this year, I've been working hard on training my sword intent. While it's not as stable as yours, it'll be a match for a beast that's only just stepped into awareness."

  Hao gave a light sigh, both relieved that his brother had some tricks to work with, and exasperated that he was still pnning to do this so soon "Well, if you have the confidence to do it, I won't stop you, but please don't make me carry your body back. Besides, you went and got Mei pregnant this year, how am I supposed to face her and say 'oh, this idiot decided he wanted to challenge a sword grass for sword intent and went and got himself killed'?"

  Nezhi paled a little at that, but he still remained firm in his choice. "I know that. I'm not pnning on killing myself with a pnt, but you must have felt the tension tely, with those Twin Stars from the Clear Sky cn, and that terrifying Holy Maiden from the Spirit Hall. I've heard she's going around challenging in the Spirit Arenas, and she hasn't lost a match yet. With all these talents and the rivalries, I'm just worried that something big is going to happen. If it does, the chaos is going to sweep through here at some point. I don't want to be blown away, unable to do anything when the time comes."

  Hao grew thoughtful at those words, and nodded slowly "You're right, we're part of the Heaven Dao Empire, and those southerners will drag everyone into their pointless wars. Frankly, I'd rather just let them duke it out and then pay nominal fealty to whoever wins. No sense in sending out our people to die for what comes down to a few fish and import taxes."

  Nezhi chuckled at that "Yeah, it does seem pointless when you point it out like that. Besides, Clear Sky is over in Star Luo, so we'll have warning enough if something is going to shift the bance."

  The two men continued on their journey to the forest, pensive about the future and not knowing the trouble they were walking into.

  Back at the Lu household, the days seemed to crawl by for both Jian and Xia. Xia tried to throw herself into her work to ease her worries, but the stress of knowing that her husband was out there hunting a dangerous beast without her and his father left a knot in her stomach that refused to loosen. She was able to keep a professional demeanor at the inn both out of habit and sheer willpower, but when she was at home, she was sharper in her demands for Jian.

  Jian was frustrated by his mother getting mad at him, and some of that Imperial pride he was born with was starting to surge back, but every time he went to snap back at his mother, something mysterious drew his eyes to hers, and all he saw was worry and sadness. This st time almost pushed him over the edge, and as he saw her eyes and his temper was fading, he realized that she needed more family around her. The home wasn't complete, and he wasn't old enough to fill the role his mother needed, but her parents might be able to.

  He ran over to his mom's parents' house, and expined the situation to them, telling them how his mom was worried about his dad and he didn't know how to handle it. His grandmother chuckled at that, reminiscing of the time her husband went and left to hunt while she was pregnant and how miserable... She stopped at that thought, wound it back, and then instead of the worry Jian expected to see, his grandmother turned to his grandfather with what looked like excitement.

  "Chen, do you remember that time you went hunting before Xia was born? And how I was handling it?"

  Jian's grandfather looked over at his wife, thoughtful, "You mean the st time, when I came home and you told me..." and then he started, just as excited as his wife, Xue, "You mean?"

  Xue nodded, "Yes dear, it looks like there will be another little one to spoil!"

  Jian looked back and forth between his grandparents, confusion radiating off of him.

  "Granny, Grandpa, what are you talking about?" He asked, tilting his head.

  Chen and Xue looked at each other, nodded, and then looked back to Jian, "We need to go back to see your mother, if we're right there might be a surprise!"

  Jian, still confused, nodded and guided his grandparents to see his mother. When the three of them were sitting down, he saw his mother rex a bit, and decided to make himself scarce and go back to his project while the adults were talking. He thought that after their almost-fight over weeding the garden they both needed to cool down some.

  When he reached his room, he found the two staves that he had been working on. Jian had been learning all sorts of neat carpentry tricks from his time dreaming of the other world. In fact, most of his gains had been in the form of trade knowledge, given the rural Irish upbringing. When his father left two months back, he decided that he wanted to learn to use a staff like his dad did, and they would need staves to train with. He learned the tricks he could from his dreams, and asked his cousins who worked for the carpentry store the rest, and got to work.

  While sanding down the staves, he thought about what he had learned from the cultivation books. He had heard his parents talk about their dantian, but from what he learned on the internet, there were supposed to be three of them. He also learned about chakras and purifying those, but there seemed to be no reference for those here. In the Greek culture, there were mostly elements of refining the body to be able to compete with the supernatural, but after learning the importance of wisdom he felt that the Greek gods must have had it hard with such simple-minded champions. The magic they used seemed to mostly be curses that they learned to use by manifesting sheer spite. He wanted to use his brains to hopefully make his patron goddess proud in the future.

  Thinking back to the chakras and dantians, he realized that there with 7 chakras and 3 dantians, there was a perfect road from Mortal to Divine sitting right in front of him. Given that the head chakra was reted to the divine, that was probably for st, so the other 9 stages must be for opening the 6 chakras and refining the energy in the three dantians in order to purify the mind, body, and soul. It seemed simple enough for him, so he decided that when he awakened his Martial Soul in a year and change, he'd start trying the exercises that are supposed to clear the chakras one by one and see where it goes. As for soul rings, he still didn't get why they had to hunt for them. If soul beasts could develop abilities though instinct, humans must be able to do it through thinking, right? Humanity would be too wretched a race otherwise.

  As Jian was contempting an idea that would completely overthrow the world order, Chen and Xue were sitting in the dining room with Xia, knowing smiles on their faces as they cornered her.

  "So," began Xue, "when were you going to tell us that we had another grand baby on the way, hmm?"

  Xia, who was taking a sip of tea, spit out everything in surprise. "I'm pregnant?!" She demanded in a shocked tone, before realizing what her mother said, and thinking it over.

  'It's true,' she thought to herself, 'I haven't bled this month or the st. I just chalked it up to stress with Hao being gone'

  Xue watched the dawning comprehension on her daughter's face with an excited smile "So how far along are you? I love little Jian to death, but he'll be lonely without a little sister or brother."

  Xia deadpanned at her mother, wondering where her little brother or sister was, then remembered how frugally they lived before she caught Hao's eye and joined the Lu family. She counted the months, realizing that she must have conceived the month before Hao left, and replied "It's been about three months. I wonder how shocked Hao will be when he comes home and finds out"

  While his wife was pnning how best to give him a heart attack, Hao was currently finishing his hunt of the Three-Eyed Monkey King, a naturally agile beast that used fallen branches as staves. He was hoping for an augment skill that helped his coordination when welding his staff, and to maybe add an ice element for control.

  Before absorbing the soul ring, he looked over at Nezhi, who had finished absorbing the sword grass a few days back. He raised his level directly to 52, and the skill he got amplifies his newly formed sword intent, as well as adding a bit of flexibility to his sword.

  Nezhi, understanding his gnce, nodded. "Go ahead," he said, "I'll watch your back. I'd prefer to be more secluded with that fire we saw st night, but it's probably just another team like us, so hurry and absorb the ring so we can get out of here."

  Hao nodded, and sat down on the frost-den ground to absorb the soul ring. He summoned his Martial Soul, and around him four rings swirled, yellow, yellow, purple, and purple. Extending his intent, he drew the bck ring closer and started absorbing the ring.

  Off to the side, Nezhi stood vigint, prepared to fight anything that wanted to disturb his brother's advancement. For two hours, nothing happened, then just as Hao was about to finish, he hear a rustling in the bushes to the side, and a soft cry of "Attack!"

  Immediately summoning his sword Martial Soul, he prepared for the charge of the interlopers. Five rings swirled around him, yellow, yellow, purple, purple, and bck. As the first man came into view, he realized that these men were bandits, and that he and Hao hadn't done a great job of hiding their high-quality equipment while they were hunting. Cursing these fools in his mind, he ran forward to engage, pnning to stall until Hao finished absorbing the ring, and praying that he could hold out long enough.