Announcementspan>A/N: Time skip to awakening. I'll be showing off Jian's research on cultivation in preparation for becoming a soul master, as well as some events. There's also going to be some history on how the politics of the city works, and why the northerners disdain southern politics. The story is going to focus on West Lu city for a while, with Jian, Lingling, and his little sister and 'cousin' developing. I've put Jian in the older generation, about 10 years pre-Tang San's birth. That means he's going to see the fall of the Haotian Sect, but I'm going to have him not know about the possible future. The gods supporting him, on the other hand, WILL have future knowledge. I hope this twist is exciting for everyone.
P.S. this WILL be a long chapter, as there's a lot of background that needs to be expined so we can understand how West Lu deals with outsiders. It mostly boils down to "We respect the Spirit Hall, and we'll deal with being part of the Empire, but neither are going to take away our autonomy"
Discimer: I do not own Soul Land or its associated characters
A year passed after Ling'er joined the Lu household. During that time, Jian's little sister, Lu Chunri, was born, and her innocent face soon had everyone wrapped around her tiny fingers. Shuang Nezhi's son was also born at this time, and he named his son Shuang Bing, hoping that his son would follow in his footsteps. The whole family came together to support the two new children during this year, and they grew up surrounded by the love of their family.
During this time, Jian had been working secretly on how to develop soul rings without hunting spirit beasts. While hunting needed to happen for food, this could be done by picking off those at the edge of the forest, who had been forced out of the deep reaches by other soul beasts. The extraction and refining of soul rings seemed closer to the methods of evil soul masters for his liking. If soul beasts didn't need to kill to grow stronger in their cultivation, there was no need for humans to do it.
Without his martial spirit, he could only guess and ask his father about how it felt when absorbing a soul ring, and the feedback he got was actually quite helpful. His father said it felt like he was fighting the soul beast a second time, and after the fight it was like part of himself woke up. To Jian, it sounded like a type of mimicry, where the soul master's soul power assimites and adapts to the inherent soul power of the beast. This led him to think that talents are inherent to the soul master, and the absorption of the ring just takes this talent and guides it in a specific direction. This meshed a little too well with his idea of the chakras and dantians being the original path, and by refining each major node, the talent would awaken, potentially with the help of external objects.
Taking a deep breath, Jian sat down to organize his thoughts about soul master cultivation he had developed over the past 7 years in his dream. His other self, who he has taken to calling "Old Jian" given the current physical difference between them, had grown to the point where he had graduated college and was working as an apothecary back home. This gave Jian plenty of time to research and experiment with things, and his findings were as follows:
1. The first 10 levels, the so-called Innate soul power, is determined by how clear the root chakra is. This determines the "talent" of a soul master, not because it's a true measure, but because the people in this world don't work to clear their chakras, the level of cleansing they are born with determines how smoothly they can gather energy. Proper nutrition and exercise can help provide a better foundation for the martial soul awakening to cleanse the root chakra, but not every martial soul provides this cleansing.
2. Higher quality martial soul bloodlines naturally clear more of the chakra upon awakening, but restrict their path. Everyone who awakens can cultivate, but without clearing the chakra, it would be torturous just to accumute one level of soul power. Lower quality martial souls do not restrict the path of the soul master, but they also do not cleanse the root chakra, and therefore the soul master must do this themselves
3. The proper sequence for chakra cleansing and dantian refinement goes as follows:
A. Root chakra cleansing, sacral chakra cleansing, sor plexus chakra cleansing. These three stages, the first thirty levels, can be defined as foundation establishment, and talent defines the quality of the foundation. Without a good foundation, even the best martial soul will not be able to grow past level 29 B. Lower dantian refinement, heart chakra cleansing, middle dantian refinement. These three stages, the second thirty levels, can be defined as energy refinement, and talent determines the quality of the soul power that will be used going forwards, which will have great effects when refining the body, soul, and mind. C. Throat chakra cleansing, third eye chakra cleansing, and upper dantian refinement. These three stages, the final thirty levels, can be defined as mortal vessel perfection. When clearing the throat chakra, the body is refined to perfection. When clearing the third eye chakra, the mind is refined to perfection, and when refining the upper dantian, the soul is refined to perfection. This stage prepares the cultivator for ascension, and this is where many will stagnate if they have not prepared an adequate foundation or refined their energy as best they can. D. The dder of ascension involves clearing the crown chakra, and this requires understanding the martial soul, and how it connects to the greater ws. Without the connection to the greater ws and the astral, the cultivator will get stuck. This connection is what separates the mortal from the divine.
4. When a chakra is fully cleared, or a dantian is fully refined, a talent intrinsic to the martial soul will be released. This may be influenced by spiritual materials. Most people of the world stretch their potential by condensing as much soul power as they can, and then using the soul ring of a soul beast to forcefully clear out the chakra or dantian. This has the effect of sacrificing both the good and the bad within the node, leaving a stagnant talent. Over time, or with proper training, the good part of these nodes can return, but it must fight against the remnant will of the beast. During the dder of ascension, the soul master's cultivation first goes to repairing these injuries inflicted by the use of demonic methods.
5. The martial soul can be used to refine spiritual materials for use in talent blooming, and may be integrated into the martial soul directly to help evolve the martial soul
While Jian was uncertain of that st point, he was confident in the theory, and that is what he was going to use to try to create his first spirit ring. Today was the day he and Ling'er were going to awaken their martial souls together, and he was very excited to test out his theories. He had discussed this with Ling'er before, and she supported him and wanted to try it too. Sometimes, she seemed even more hopeful than him that this new method would work.
Over the st year, the two of them had grown very close, and when she wasn't working at the inn cleaning up or doing the dishes - as she was far too young to be serving to the people who came here, she was by his side. She had taken a keen interest in bcksmithing, and when Jian asked her why she liked it so much, she said that when she was hammering, she felt in control. He shrugged, and told her about the goddess Brighid from Old Jian's home, and her role as a protector of families. To say she was excited when she learned this would be a severe understatement.
It was refreshing for Jian to see the growth of Ling'er into a more normal child. When she first arrived, she would wake up screaming, and her face was rgely impassive, only subtle tells in her eyes telling if she was pleased or annoyed. Once she began to trust the Lu family, there was a period where the reality of the situation crashed down on her, and even those tells were drowned out by the sorrow in her eyes. That all changed after Chunri was born. Seeing the small, innocent child, Ling'er had assumed the role of "big sister" with an almost zealous fervor, and life began to come into her eyes. Her face was still cold, but her eyes became much more expressive as time went on.
After telling her about the gods from his dream world, which his parents had long since chalked up to an overactive imagination putting together clues that he had seen during the day, he also set up a small shrine to the two hearth goddesses in his room. They performed the daily sacrifices as was passed down by the Greeks, dedicating some of their bounty to them as thanks for the warm home and loving family.
Jian left his contemption, walking out of his room at their house behind the inn, and heading to the foyer to meet his parents. The children of commoners under their family's jurisdiction would be arriving soon, and both he and Ling'er would be awakening first, and then leading the other children in their awakening. That thought brought him back to his lessons on the history of the city. As the official nobles ruling the town, there was a lot going on to keep things stable. His paternal grandfather was the current lord, which left his father in charge of the main inn, while his grandfather took a high-level approach to managing the businesses with the other families.
The Lu family had a long history, serving as chiefs back when the bustling coastal city was just a vilge. They had opened an inn for travelers passing through, and some of those travelers stayed in the vilge to work their trades. As time passed, more and more people were attracted to the burgeoning trade city, and when the Kingdom came up, they pledged loyalty in order to keep the peace. They were leaders, yes, but having served travelers for generations they knew that there was no need for a pointless show of strength. The continent was chaotic, and if some local superpower was rising, there was no need to resist when the cost was just some resources that they had an abundance of. With this ck of resistance, the family became nobles managing the city, and with a token effort in the war from the other trade families, they all put on a show to keep things quiet, without causing much trouble.
When the kingdom and the others were united by the Xue family into the empire, they stayed out of the war, as most of the fighting happened in the south, so they kept their titles when the empire formed, going along with their king. While outwardly the Lu family ruled the city as a Count, with the other major trade families being Barons, internally the situation was very different. West Lu City was lead colboratively by all of the trade families, and the Lu family was just the appointed middleman between the city and the country or empire. The Lu family dealt with Hospitality and Carpentry, the Gang family dealt with Bcksmithing, the Hai family were fishermen, Zhong family dealt with farming, and the Lie family was in charge of Security and Leatherwork. These five families formed the West Lu Company, which managed the official interests of the city. The Anying family and the Xueshui family, the leaders of the local Thieves Guild and the Smugglers association, were also part of the company, with the Anying family officially representing librarians, and the Xueshui family officially representing shipbuilding. They didn't hold noble titles, but within the city they were treated the same regardless. They took care of external appearances, to make sure it looked like there was a normal crime rate in the city, but none of the residents were ever the victim.
What this meant for awakening, is that as an undecred city-state, they took care of these things internally. Every child in the city had always been able to awaken their martial soul, as the families took care of their own. When immigrants came to settle down, they decided to be cunning about it after they officially submitted to the surrounding kingdom. The families were responsible for each sector, and unaffiliated families were more than welcome to go to their local noble on awakening day every year. This was passed around by word of mouth, without officially announcing it to prevent leaks. By getting the families indebted to them from an early age like this, they would foster a subtle loyalty. When the children graduated from one of the local soul master academies, they would be given the opportunity to apprentice at a company within the city. This was reguted by the members of the West Lu Company, so that everyone would be given a chance to rise. If someone wasn't a soul master, they would skip the academy and go straight into the workforce to help provide for their family. With the rge amount of trade coming through the port city, there was always work to be done, and everyone was valued.
For the children of the families, they would follow the same path as everyone else, but with extra responsibilities. They were the first to go through the awakening, and then they would be the ones to awaken the martial souls for the rest of the children. Unlike the Spirit Hall, who had to transport the awakening formation so it didn't get stolen, the families had long made the ptforms static. Everyone in the city was entitled to awakening anyway, so there was no worry about someone trying to hog all the power. The vilges surrounding the city were left to the spirit hall, mostly to keep up appearances for the empire, so they didn't get some jumped up duke or prince looking too closely at what was going on.
The spirit hall in the city knew what was going on, but there was a tacit understanding not to mention it to the empire. The temple in the city was well funded, and while they pretended to have conflict, all evil soul masters were given up to keep the peace. Jian remembered the story his father told him about the one time one of the Xueshui children had mutated in an evil direction. The family head at the time had tried to cover it up, but the head of the Anying family found out what was going on when citizens started going missing. Both the child and the father were executed as a result of that incident. The families learned early on that once someone degrades and starts preying on people for cultivation, they are not to be cssified as humans any longer. That's part of why so few evil soul masters are sent to sughter city from West Lu. They're executed personally once they show that they've given into temptation. Hunting beasts and using them to cultivate that way is fine, as it follows the natural order. That's part of why the Xueshui family formed to begin with, as the family as a whole needs energy-rich blood to cultivate. Over the years, the families banded together and developed a way to farm soul beasts with high-energy blood to support them. This was probably the only point of contention between the city and the spirit hall. They believed that a martial soul made you good or evil. The families in West Lu knew that to be nonsense, some people are just born broken, but as long as they can fake it enough to get along in society, it's not like the rest of them were saints.
With the weight of tradition leaning on him, Jian made it to the Foyer. As he walked in, he saw Ling'er standing there waiting for him, her face expressionless, but her eyes lighting up when she saw him.
"Brother Jian, you're finally here!" She said, walking over to him with a gait that showed she was excited, but deliberately trying to hold herself to a composed image. When she reached him, her hands twitched like she wanted to hug him, but she ultimately stopped herself.
Jian chuckled softly at her, and drew her into a one-armed hug, his other hand patting her oak-brown hair softly. "I wouldn't miss it. I was just caught up going over my ideas; today we'll finally feel what soul power is like, and that means we'll have a better idea of if it will work." He expined patiently.
Ling'er's eyes narrowed in pleasure at the head pats, and then lit up when talking about his ideas. If he was right, then it might fix her family's ancestral problem of only being able to heal. To be fair, they were the best at what they did, but if by absorbing spirit rings from beasts they really were just forcing a soul to work for them by sacrificing their own Innate talents, forming some weird hybrid soul that settled in their chakras, then maybe her Innate talents would let her have some way to defend herself. She also secretly hoped that it was exactly this reason that cursed their family to only have two generations, a small blush coming to her face at the thought of being able to have a big happy family with a certain boy.
Jian saw that she was getting distracted, and pulled her along towards the awakening altar to help her center herself. "I wonder how many citizens we'll have this year," he began casually, drawing Ling'er's attention away from her racing thoughts.
"I'm not sure, Auntie Xia mentioned that it was a fairly slow year, so no more than twenty from our sector, probably. The next few years are supposed to be bigger, though, and that will be for us alone to handle, as we should be soul masters by then." Ling'er replied casually.
Jian nodded, slightly worried about how this was going to go. As they reached the altar with his parents, he steeled himself and greeted them as the four of them settled in to wait for the citizens to arrive with their children. Regardless of how long their families had been in the city, they always came to the Seven Families' manors for awakening. It wasn't that they couldn't afford their own awakening array, it was mostly done out of respect for the past. As they Seven rose to lead, they had never abandoned those lesser to themselves. While no system was perfect, there was a lot of mutual respect garnered through the noblesse oblige approach that the Seven had fostered in West Lu. Each family had set up a guild for their professions, and as citizens grew they joined the guilds, helping to form bustling industries. If a merchant had a request, they would usually go to the guild to find out who could make what, and in this way all of the families found their niche without stepping on toes.
A couple hours passes as the Lu family waited to begin the ceremony, and once the st family shuffled in, Hao waved his hand to the guards to close the doors, and he began to speak to the audience.
In another universe, Hestia, Loki, Brighid, and the Morrigan were sitting around a hearth, watching the beginning of the Awakening ceremony. Hestia was quite excited for her champion's first steps on his path. Loki was slightly impatient, wondering when the hard-headed snake would get the memo and head to West Lu city to get treatment for his son. The man had about three years left to live at the current rate, and although he would never admit it, the closer the deadline got, the more worried he was over the life of the little snake girl. Brighid was quite happy about the tough little sapling that was prepared to grow.
The Morrigan had come on her request, apparently the little sapling had quite a few simirities to her Domain, and Brighid requested her help to nudge it from a consuming darkness that was all too common - the call of the void was very strong, especially in matters where a drive for quick strength was present - towards a proper holy darkness associated with the winter courts and restful slumber. Truthfully, she was quite interested in this little universe that had reached out to theirs for help, and seeing the champion that seemed to be a little dark daughter of Brighid, she was growing more interested by the minute. Using a little power to reach out, she was appalled by what the divine in this world were doing to the beast-men.
The beasts only thought themselves beasts at this point, true, but she had been around long enough to see the Youkai of the East grow. Every species of beast-men start that way, and then as they embrace civilization, they become a new race entirely, beginning to shed the need to grow into anthro-form by having those that have started found a bloodline. Sometimes, it results as a cn of natural shifters. Sometimes, the bloodline dominates and some of the beast features stay. In this odd universe, she was almost certain that the Blue Electric Tyrant Dragon cn was actually among this number, but age and loss of records had dulled the history. Still, with her small group of friends selecting champions, it seemed she might as well find one to join the merry band forming here.
Reaching out into the Akasha for the fate-that-was, she watched the hero of the age gather supporters and rise to godhood. He seemed to be in a position to establish a good bance between the two sides, especially with that little rabbit he caught. As she continued to watch the tale, her eyebrow began to twitch more and more, her amused grin deepening into a frown. Eventually, she began cursing the meddlesome War God who seemed to be doing his best to make the wrong choices every time. Opportunities without proper tempering, a love story turned into a sick manipution, conspiring with others to bcken a child of holy darkness that could solve the issue of mutated souls by forcing love towards a lowlife and then warping the thoughts of a holy man. So many lives touched and ruined just so that he can get rid of his responsibilities.
Once she saw the results of this disgusting excuse of a legacy inheritance, with the soul he brought over becoming an immoral tyrant, her patience snapped. She transformed into a crow and flew around the room they were in, crowing in frustration and rage.
Hestia looked up at her with a bitter knowing smile. "You looked at the original fate, didn't you?" She asked casually.
The Morrigan dove down and nded in front of her, changing back into her human guise. "Of course I did! How are you not totally outraged right now! Asura and Poseidon both are worse than that madman from Canaan ever was. I shudder to think of what might happen if anyone tried to do to Terra what that Tang San did to Douluo. It makes me sick on a fundamental level. I'm taking in that wildcat from their team. A couple of whispers and a crow at the right moment, and she'll see that bastard of a fiancée for what he is.
Then it's a matter of positioning a loyal maid with ties to West Lu by her side - if you can get one of the Anying girls to go to the Zhu family under the guise of a life debt, she could support the girl from a young age and tie her there with a better match - perhaps the Shuang boy could help her in the forest?
I want to groom her into a proper war shifter for this little pantheon we're helping them raise. Home, Family, War, Medicine, Duty, and Sun. We'll need a Moon God to pair with that little Chunri, I'm thinking the Xueshui boy that will be coming in a year. I know we can't arrange the marriages, but I think it would be good to nudge them towards each other. We should pair a Judgement God with the little medicine snake Loki is raising... maybe that Angel girl? She'll be going on that mission of hers, and while we don't have the reach to offer her guidance, we can offer it to the snake girl. You Greeks already have the Amazons, and -"
"Enough," Hestia said, cutting her off, "I agree that it would be wise on all those counts, but we've made enough changes at the moment. As for your pn with the little wildcat, go ahead. It's a good idea, and I'd love to get her out of there. Touching the rabbit would cause problems, as she's been wrapped up in so many threads it's impossible to nudge her without them taking notice, but if 100 millenia of experience isn't enough for her to make better choices than she has already, there's nothing we can do to help. The little princess is, frankly, beyond help. She'd probably get on well with Lucy from Arabia with how well her sins developed. That would be a good test for them ter, making sure they limit their vengeance. Sages can't be as excessive as demons, after all."
The others at the meeting nodded absently, growing excited as the awakening ceremony was beginning in the fire. The Morrigan and Hestia ended their pnning, returning their focus to the fate-changing event that would shape the future of that universe.