As the intermittent, hazy sounds echoed in her ears once more, the consciousness returning to her physical body gradually coalesced.
Deep within the Shennong Mountain Range, the strange phenomena covering the vault of heaven were gradually fading.
Fortunately, their clan resided within a minor plane opened up by their ancestors; despite the strange phenomena, it would not leak out and cause unnecessary chaos.
"Clan Leader, you have come."
"No matter, this seat merely came to check on the child."
"Where is the child who triggered the clan's strange phenomena?"
"It is precisely Wan'er, precisely our Wan'er."
Hearing the echoing confirmation, the Clan Leader—who had managed to carve out this brief moment amidst his busy schedule to come and inspect—could not help but feel astonished by the newborn infant.
They saw that the baby girl's forehead reflected their clan's totem. The old man froze, subconsciously wanting to raise a hand to stroke the child's forehead and feel this agitation deeply hidden within the bloodline, but before he could make a move, the totem quickly faded away.
"...Truly a little girl with extraordinary natural talent."
The white-haired, long-bearded old man let out an exclamation of wonder.
Then he saw the baby girl in his arms slightly open her eyes, staring straight at him without crying or making a fuss.
The old man seemed to sense something, subconsciously narrowing his still sharp and spirited eyes to confirm something.
Yet before he could confirm it personally, centered on the baby girl in his arms, an invisible ripple swept outward, twisting everything the people present were currently seeing.
The Yao Clan's Clan Leader instantly widened his eyes. This is—this is—
If the strange phenomena at the baby's birth earlier had merely stirred up Dou Qi ripples within the Medicine Realm, then this tiny baby right now was stirring up ripples of the soul.
"This is... the fluctuation of a Heavenly Soul. This child..."
The Yao Clan elders, who had arrived a step later than Clan Leader Yao Dan, all sensed this completely different soul fluctuation and could not help but look at each other in dismay, only to find their compatriots' eyes filled with shock.
In this world, soul realms were divided into no more than four major realms: the so-called Mortal, Spirit, Heaven, and Emperor realms. Aside from the overly distant Emperor Realm Soul, which perhaps no one could reach nowadays, the Heavenly Soul was already the reachable peak of soul realms.
Yet what did they just see?
A child whose soul power was at the Heavenly Soul level from the moment of birth?
"Born into the Heavenly Soul realm... This is the ancestors' spirits in heaven, blessing my Yao Clan—"
Holding Yao Wan, Yao Dan could not help but look up and roar to the heavens, that aged voice echoing across the entire sky of the Medicine Realm sounding like a mix of joy and weeping.
It was not until a long while later that Yao Dan finally collected himself, looking at the baby girl in his arms who seemed to have just woken up from sleep. Seeing the old man holding her, she was not afraid at all.
Merely being looked at by this beautifully sculpted child, Yao Dan felt as though his heart was about to melt. Acting just like an ordinary old man seeing his granddaughter for the first time, he chuckled foolishly while muttering to himself.
"Hahaha... Good child, good child."
"Clan Leader, regarding this girl..."
The others merely watched and dared not speak, save for Yao Wan Huo, who bowed slightly and asked.
"...From today onward, the clanswoman Yao Wan shall be personally tutored by me."
Yao Dan paused for a breath before speaking.
"..."
The elders before him looked at each other in dismay, unsure how to respond.
Among the several elders who had followed closely behind Yao Dan, some exchanged glances, clearly somewhat surprised by the Clan Leader's unconventional decision.
"What, do you still have objections?"
Yao Dan's white eyebrows stood on end, and he flew into a rage. "Wan'er is a prodigy born with a Heavenly Soul; should she not be treated differently? If you have any objections, go and find me a second person in the clan born with a Heavenly Soul!"
Those few Yao Clan elders were scolded fiercely and repeatedly agreed, prompting the others nearby to not dare speak any further.
There was simply no help for it. Even Yao Tian, the clan's genius from previous years, only had exceptional Dou Qi cultivation, while his soul cultivation was merely average. How could he compare to Yao Wan, who was born in the Heavenly Soul realm?
Within the entire Yao Clan, Yao Wan, who was born with a Heavenly Soul, would undoubtedly receive even more attention than Yao Tian. The reason was none other than this: anyone could cultivate Dou Qi, but clansmen born with powerful soul power were far too few.
Besides, the Heavenly Soul was the necessary path to becoming a Ninth-grade Alchemist. Being born in the Heavenly Soul realm meant the Yao Clan had gained yet another Ninth-grade Alchemist; how could the significance of this be compared to ordinary people?
Yao Dan himself, however, paid it no mind, currently focusing entirely on caring for the baby girl in his arms who neither cried nor smiled, walking along while rocking her gently.
Since the Clan Leader had already decided the matter, any further obstruction on their part would simply be courting boredom.
Everyone looked at one another, and though they harbored some unspoken reservations in their hearts, they said nothing more.
Time passed quickly. Within the Medicine Realm, an extraordinarily talented newborn had become the personal disciple of the Yao Clan Leader, spending her days absorbing knowledge by the Clan Leader's side, studying cultivation, and learning pharmacology, enjoying boundless prestige for a time.
Some said this was the Clan Leader paving the way early for this girl to reach the summit of the Yao Clan.
Others even circulated rumors that the Yao Clan's upper echelon had spent a vast fortune to exchange with Old Man Shennong for a wisp of flame seed of the Living Flame—ranked fifth on the Heavenly Flame Ranking—and handed it to her to nurture with her vital lifeline.
Most people either envied the fortune of that Heavenly Pride Daughter who gathered ten thousand favors in one body, or had to look up to her in awe beneath her transcendent talent of being born with a Heavenly Soul.
Yet rumors of this sort never reached the ears of the person involved.
The people of the Yao Clan only heard frequent mentions that aside from the already famous young generation of Yao Clan prodigies, there was also a reclusive Young Miss who followed by the Clan Leader's side day and night, and she was exceptionally mysterious.
Within a secret realm of the Medicine Realm, Yao Wan paused her cultivation and slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.
In the tiny grotto-heaven, though the sparrow was small, it possessed all its vital organs.
Inside the grotto-heaven meticulously arranged according to the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams, an peerless woman in green silks and plain robes sat cross-legged atop the lotus platform in the center, regulating her Dou Qi. A moment later, she slowly opened her starry eyes.
"A one-star Dou Wang, it is done."
Accompanied by Yao Wan's self-muttering, her aura stabilized accordingly and then gradually returned to calmness.
Although she had cultivated day and night with extreme diligence ever since realizing she had entered the ranks of Dou Zhe, stepping into the Dou Wang realm now meant she had more or less grazed against her current bottleneck.
If she were to recklessly charge toward higher realms regardless of the consequences, it would instead prove to be a loss outweighing the gain.
"The path of cultivation truly is not something easily achieved overnight."
Yao Wan subconsciously raised her slender fingertips, and as her fingers flicked, a wisp of Dou Qi lingered around them, refusing to dissipate for a long time.
Ever since realizing she had transmigrated into the Battle Through the Heavens World and even become a new-generation prodigy of the Yao Clan—one of the ancient Eight Clans—Yao Wan's initial excitement had been followed by the harsh gravity of facing the future.
After all, in her memories, there were only a dozen or twenty years or so left before Hun Tiandi of the Hun Clan would give the Dou Qi Continent a taste of his minor lunatic shockwaves.
Under the shadow of her anxiety for the future, Yao Wan had always cultivated bitterly. Even though she was a Young Miss favored by the Clan Leader and pampered with fine food and clothing, Yao Wan spent her days cooped up in her Dou Qi-filled grotto-heaven cultivating day and night, so she could hardly be said to have lived a life of ease and luxury.
Yet sometimes, hard work is destined to still have a tiny little gap from the results one desires.
After so many years, having enjoyed the luxurious resources within the Yao Clan that could be considered among the very best on the Dou Qi Continent, even with her single-minded devotion to cultivation, she was now merely a lowly Dou Wang. Although part of this was due to her deliberately suppressing her level to consolidate her realm, when all was said and done, she was still far too far away from her goal of reaching Dou Di.
There was no helping it. While studying the soul realm on one hand, she also had to cultivate Dou Qi on the other; Yao Wan could not possibly chop herself in half and split into two people to use.
The result was that both sides made progress, but compared to the time left to her, it was still far too slow.
Let alone Dou Di, looking at it now, advancing to Dou Emperor might still be considered somewhat easy, but advancing to Dou Zong afterward would take a considerable amount of time, to say nothing of the two major subsequent realms of Dou Zun and Dou Sheng.
According to Yao Wan's own estimations, wanting to reach the peak of Dou Sheng while simultaneously breaking through the shackles of the Heavenly Soul to achieve the Emperor Realm Soul would require at least a century of time.
Was it fast? It was indeed fast, but clearly doing all this was still far from enough.
"Sigh, only after cultivating oneself does one realize how utterly absurd that fellow Xiao Yan's cultivation speed is."
Yao Wan sighed softly; well, complaining was useless anyway.
Just as ripples stirred in her thoughts, Yao Wan suddenly heard the Clan Leader's voice transmission.
"Is Wan'er in the grotto-heaven?"
Yao Wan paused before opening the restrictions of her grotto-heaven to let the Clan Leader in.
A moment later, that kind-faced old man with white hair and a long beard walked into the grotto-heaven, a hint of softness appearing on Yao Wan's pretty face.
"Greetings, Clan Leader."
"Very well, you and I are master and disciple, affectionate as grandfather and granddaughter; why bother being so bogged down by etiquette?"
The current Yao Clan Leader, Yao Dan, smiled and spoke.
With that, Yao Dan looked up and down at Yao Wan standing gracefully before him, nodding slightly. "Mhm, a Dou Wang. Not bad, and you haven't been rash; you've restrained your arrogance and maintained calm. Excellent, truly worthy of being Wan'er."
"You flatter me, Clan Leader."
Yao Wan nodded slightly, showing no arrogance even when facing her mentor's praise, which made Yao Dan look at her with even greater satisfaction.
Over these dozen-odd years, the more he tutored Yao Wan, the more satisfied he became. Yet the more satisfied he grew, the more his heart harbored a trace of irrepressible regret and sighs.
Wan'er was naturally exceptionally outstanding; whether in talent, diligence, or disposition, not a single one failed to make her a supreme candidate to inherit the Yao Clan's great undertaking. It was simply a pity...
It was simply a pity that she was of the female gender.
Ultimately, she would have to marry out one day.
Even if the fertility did not flow to outsiders and instead benefited some foolish brat within the Yao Clan, it would still to some extent bury Wan'er's talent and capability.
At the mere thought of this, Yao Dan could not help but sigh. If only Wan'er were a boy...
How could Yao Wan not know what the Clan Leader was thinking? Yet such matters were ultimately not something she could decide for herself.
Having lived as a woman for nearly fifteen years, she had grown more or less accustomed to this kind of life.
As for the things the Clan Leader was contemplating, she had little to no interest in them.
Among her peers in the clan, no one could match her by even a fraction, so naturally there was no one who could catch her eye.
...Comparing this to those things, Yao Wan's beautiful eyes shifted and fell back upon the Clan Leader.
"Clan Leader, actually, there is something I wish to tell you."
Before you continue