Day of Awakening

"Only two are currently being passed down: the Spirit Hall Qian Clan's Six-Winged Angel, and Sea God Island's Sea God Martial Soul."

"Sea God Island?"

"Mm. It's in the great sea northwest of the continent, the god worshiped by Sea Soul Masters and Sea Soul Beasts."

"Only two kinds?"

"Not necessarily. God-level Martial Souls are handed down by gods. Over these past several thousand years, although only the Angel God and the Sea God have become gods, according to ancient records, this continent once had more than a dozen gods.

In fact, a very, very long time ago, there were more than a dozen churches that served gods alone. Back then, they should have been able to pass down God-level Martial Souls. Perhaps in the future, a God-level Martial Soul might pop out from some forgotten corner somewhere."

"Then where did those churches go?"

"History is always winding. In any case, they disappeared into history. You can read these history books; perhaps you'll find the answer. Now, there are only the Spirit Hall that serves the Angel God, Sea God Island that serves the Sea God, and some Evil Churches."

"Spirit Hall went from the original organization of the Angel God's followers, to the Angel Church, to Spirit Hall. Looks like a lot of indescribable things happened." Chen Xiaojun was secretly startled, then asked, "Evil Churches?"

"On the continent, there are some Evil Soul Master organizations that serve and worship evil gods. Most of their believers are Evil Soul Masters. These people commit every crime imaginable, slaughtering civilians and Soul Masters for power. The powerful ones often stir up catastrophes across the continent. The most famous is the Crimson Church."

"The Crimson Church? The Crimson Church that comes out every few hundred years to create slaughter, plague the Soul Master World, and has continued for thousands of years without ever being wiped out?"

"Yes. According to information from many sources, the Crimson Church serves multiple evil gods, and its chief deity is the Rakshasa God. grandfather will tell you about these things slowly in the future."

"grandfather, what exactly is Martial Soul awakening? What's the principle behind it?"

"According to the research of my clan's theoretical genius, the Seventeenth Generation ancestor Chen Qianhua, before the age of six, the Martial Soul exists within the soul nest, its nest gate completely shut tight, hidden within the acupoints.

Because only on the day a person turns six, when the body takes its fixed shape, can the Awakening Stone stimulate the Innate Energy throughout the body and awaken the Martial Soul.

Ancestor Chen Qianhua defined a kind of Innate Energy in the human body. He called it Innate Qi. After a person is born, their Innate Qi is lost due to the contamination of the acquired environment; even without acquired things, it will gradually drain away.

Innate Soul Power is the portion of Innate Qi that the Martial Soul locks in and delays from dissipating. This portion of Innate Qi nourishes the body's Soul Power Affinity and is released when the Martial Soul awakens.

So at this time, the quality of the Martial Soul becomes important. The higher the quality, the faster it absorbs Innate Qi, and the higher the Soul Power Affinity. At the same time, the Innate Qi also nurtures the Martial Soul.

According to Ancestor Chen Qianhua's conjecture, Martial Soul mutation is also related to Innate Qi.

Of course, it is also related to one's own constitution. A strong physique helps absorb and carry higher Innate Soul Power, which is also why the children of our Chen Clan begin soaking in Medicinal Baths and eating medicinal meals from the age of three."

"As expected... incredible!" Chen Xiaojun had no choice but to admire the wisdom of the ancients.

"All right. Rest well and early tonight. Tomorrow, grandfather will accompany you to the Ancestral Hall."

"Yes. Then I'll go to sleep first."

After Chen Xiaojun left, Chen Yu's expression turned solemn. "Xun Er, what did the Xi Li Clan and Soul Fighting City say?"

"The Xi Li Clan isn't much of a problem. Although some people have their eyes on them, they're all petty fools, nothing serious. There are some undercurrents stirring over at Soul Fighting City, mainly because quite a few people are peeking in, but for now, we can bear it."

"Mm, understood."

Father and son chatted in the study for quite a while...

The next day, June 20th, five o'clock, just as the sky was beginning to brighten.

When Chen Xiaojun woke from his sleep, he suddenly felt something different. His body had a mysterious, hard-to-describe feeling, as if it had grown, carrying a somewhat solid, weighty charm.

He had asked his old man, Chen Xun, about it. Chen Xun said that on the day everyone turned six, their bones took shape, their meridians stabilized, and their Martial Soul officially formed. People with sharp perception would all have this kind of intuition.

After finishing his morning training, he burned incense, bathed, and went out in formal dress.

Nine o'clock.

Chen Yu led Chen Xiaojun, followed by his old man Chen Xun, his mother Ye Xiuxin, and his older brother Chen Jianjun, as they walked toward the Ancestral Hall on the small hillside south of the village.

After they left the house, Zhu Tianhao, Aunt Ding Dang, and Xiao Wuneng joined them as well. Zhu Tianhao was their old man Chen Xun's personal follower. In the terms of ancient Blue Star from his previous life, he was similar to a household-born servant, and had the qualifications to accompany them and observe the awakening ceremony.

Ever since his father died saving Chen Yu, he had also been raised by Chen Yu since childhood.

Ding Dang likewise came from a family that had followed the clan for generations.

Xiao Wuneng was very likely to become Chen Xiaojun's follower in the future. As long as nothing unexpected happened, once both of them awakened their Martial Souls, it would be settled, so he was specially permitted to go. After all, this was his future lord. Wuneng's older brother and older sister did not have that qualification.

Also accompanying them were his Second Aunt, Ximen Shaoping, and his cousin Chen Feng, who came out from the side courtyard.

An Ancestral Hall was a shrine each family established to worship the distant ancestors, great-great-grandfathers, great-grandfathers, grandfathers, and fathers. The Ancestral Hall was the sacred temple of a clan, recording its traditions and former glory. It was a place that gathered the unity of the clan, and a symbol and sign of every family's long history and culture. Compared to Blue Star, in this Soul Master world where bloodline inheritance was the main foundation, it possessed an incomparable influence.

The Chen Clan Ancestral Hall was a building made up of a front hall, main hall, and rear hall, with its overall layout running north to south.

The front hall was the entrance to the Ancestral Hall, and also the venue for large, important clan meetings. The main hall was the primary place for worshiping the ancestors, while the rear hall was where important non-clan figures were worshiped.

The front hall was a relatively spacious hall, used for celebrations, events, and receiving important visiting guests.

The front hall was divided into left and right sides. The left side was the ceremonial storehouse used to store offerings and ritual implements, while the right side was the ancestral chamber used to store Official Documents and genealogies.

The main hall was the core of the Ancestral Hall, used to worship the ancestors. The main hall had three rooms: the central one was the principal hall, and the left and right sides were side halls.

The principal hall was square, with a high roof covered in blue tiles, and an open central courtyard.

At the very center of the courtyard was the shrine. The principal hall had only three spirit tablets: Chen Ling, the founding ancestor; Chen Xili, the Intermediate Ancestor; and Chen Feiyi, the Restoration Ancestor.

"Intermediate" meant carrying forward the past and opening the future, turning danger into safety; "restoration" expressed reviving halfway through, turning decline into prosperity. For them to be worshiped as the main sacrifices alongside the first ancestor proved that these two ancestors held a pivotal and extraordinary position in the Chen Clan.

The left side hall housed the ancestral tablets of the clan's past Titled Douluo and the founders of the Branch Families and Separate Lineages.

Back then, Chen Qian, the second-generation ancestor and son of the founding ancestor, had felt he was unworthy of being worshipped alongside his father. He had laid down an ancestral rule: unless someone had made an exceptionally great contribution to the clan or was a Peerless Douluo, they could not become part of the main worship.

On the right were the ancestral tablets of the other ancestors from past generations.

The rear hall was the place within the Ancestral Hall used to offer sacrifices to those who had shown kindness to the Chen Clan over the years, as well as the Chen Clan's followers. It was located behind the main hall. The rear hall had five rooms, similar in structure to the main hall, though slightly smaller in scale.

Aside from the front hall, the main hall, and the rear hall—rooms that were not usually opened—there were also various ancillary buildings, such as the side hall, gardens, stele pavilions, a rear garden, and a Martial Arts Hall.

The side hall was normally used for discussions and gatherings. The gardens were places for planting flowers and plants. The stele pavilions were used to house the Ancestral Hall's inscriptions and record the achievements of the ancestors. The rear garden was a place for clan members to relax, while the Martial Arts Hall was where clan members from the ages of six to twelve studied knowledge related to soul masters.

In fact, Chen Xiaojun had come to the Ancestral Hall before, but he had only entered the ancillary buildings. Before the age of six, he had not been qualified to enter the hall itself.

In summary, the layout of the Chen Clan's Ancestral Hall placed great emphasis on sacrificial functions and cultural depth, reflecting the Chen Clan's rich and varied traditional culture, as well as its ideals of "passing down the family through culture, establishing the clan through martial strength, honoring merit and displaying achievements, uniting with sincerity, and hiding one's brilliance while biding one's time."

The Ancestral Hall was very important in Chen Lin Village, so it was described in a bit more detail.

The next chapter would be Chen Xiaojun's martial soul.

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