The carriage entered the prefectural city and drove straight into a grand residence with five successive courtyards in the western part of the city.
This was the Xu Household's secondary residence in the prefectural city, its pavilions and towers luxurious without sacrificing elegance.
Liu Yun alighted with her young son, and maids and serving women welcomed them into the inner courtyard to settle in.
Xu Xuan did not pause to rest, immediately summoning Xu Mingyuan to the study.
"Where is it?" he asked without preamble.
Xu Mingyuan carefully presented a jade box.
Inside lay the old hide scroll.
Xu Xuan picked it up and released a faint thread of spiritual power from his fingertips. The hide scroll immediately responded, giving off a faint spiritual glow.
The contours of the mountains and rivers upon it grew clearer, while those few spiritual markings flickered incessantly.
A faint spatial fluctuation emanated from one of the marked locations.
"Just as I thought."
He reached his conclusion inwardly.
"This is a guide. It must be activated with spiritual power before the true route and entrance can manifest."
"The place it points to is somewhere north of the city."
"Household head, this item..." Xu Mingyuan asked quietly.
"You have rendered a great service."
Xu Xuan put away the hide scroll. "This matter is of grave importance. Not a word of it must leak out."
"Have those fellows been dealt with cleanly?"
"Rest assured, household head. All loose ends have been tied up," Xu Mingyuan replied.
"Very good."
"You may go. Take extra care with the gang's affairs over the next few days. I need a few days to think in peace."
"Yes."
Xu Mingyuan withdrew.
Xu Huai'en stood guard outside the study like an iron tower.
Xu Xuan closed his eyes, immersing his spiritual sense in the hide scroll and carefully sensing the guidance of its spiritual markings.
The direction of that marked location gradually became clear.
However, a restriction seemed to conceal it, making it appear and disappear.
It would require a particular time or method to open.
Fortunately, I prepared something to break restrictions ahead of time.
Xu Xuan understood.
Over the next several days, Xu Xuan outwardly busied himself with business engagements and visited friends with his wife, looking every bit the young household head.
In secret, however, he repeatedly disguised himself and changed his attire, following the hide scroll's guidance to investigate near an abandoned garden north of the city.
The place was rumored to be haunted, and visitors were few.
Yet he sensed traces of a lingering formation and minute fluctuations of spiritual energy.
After several investigations, he finally confirmed it.
This place was indeed where the entrance marked on the incomplete map lay.
But the restrictions here were ancient, and there were no traces in the surroundings.
It looked as though no one had come here for a very long time.
An intuition stirred within him, and he guessed that he had probably come at the wrong time.
None of his methods for breaking restrictions had proved effective.
Xu Xuan felt a little disappointed by this.
However, he grew increasingly interested in what lay within the restrictions.
There was plenty of time ahead.
Once he had studied it thoroughly, the day would come when he could unravel it.
Another year passed in this way, and Xu Xuan began teaching his young son, Xu Yuming, to cultivate.
Both he and Liu Yun had spiritual roots, and Xu Yuming had also been born with spiritual roots.
However, his spiritual roots were somewhat mixed, half water and half wood.
His essence tempering progressed far more slowly than Liu Yun's.
Still, this was an auspicious beginning.
The Xu Household's main direct line already had a Spiritual Root bloodline passing down through it.
As long as they sought more people with Spiritual Root bloodlines to marry in the future, they would surely be able to establish an immortal-cultivating lineage.
That day, Xu Xuan was teaching Xu Yuming to draw energy into his body.
Liu Yun was pregnant again and sat beside them brewing tea, watching father and son cultivate.
Suddenly, they heard a clansman hurrying over, calling, "A letter from the trading house!"
Liu Yun took Xu Yuming away for the time being.
Xu Xuan returned to the study, unfolded the letter, and deciphered its coded language.
It turned out that a group of Azure Mystery Gang members had encountered a torrential rainstorm while escorting medicinal herbs.
The downpour had washed away a mountainside, and a set of remains had been swept out with the mud and water.
Judging by the clothing, the remains were quite old. Beside them was a damaged leather pouch containing several dull pieces of jade.
They felt warm and smooth to the touch and seemed to be the "spirit stones" Xu Xuan had described.
That desolate valley was strange as well.
After returning, all those gang members had been listless and had fallen ill for half a month before recovering.
They were often trapped in nightmares, urgently muttering, "Ghosts, ghosts!"
Upon receiving this news, Xu Xuan immediately ordered the information suppressed.
He also had Xu Mingyuan lead men to cordon off the surroundings of the desolate valley, forbidding anyone from approaching.
Xu Xuan looked at the map.
That desolate valley lay on the banks of the Azure River, south of Heyang Prefecture.
Several days later, Xu Mingyuan personally delivered the recovered items to Xu Household Market.
In a secret chamber, Xu Xuan looked at the seven dull pieces of jade on the table, each the size of a pigeon's egg.
He sensed a trace of spiritual essence within them.
Though they contained little spiritual energy, their quality far surpassed that of any spiritual item he had obtained before.
"They are indeed low-grade spirit stones. More than half their spiritual energy has dissipated, but they can still be used."
Xu Xuan was overjoyed.
With these spirit stones, he could attempt to break through his bottleneck and open his second chakra!
"What about the remains?" Xu Xuan asked.
"Only dry bones remained, and the clothes had all rotted. We could not determine their origins, and there was nothing else nearby."
Xu Mingyuan answered, "But that desolate valley is indeed strange. Stay inside a little too long, and you feel dizzy, with your blood and vital energy flowing poorly."
"It is probably some lingering miasma or bewildering formation."
Xu Xuan made his assessment. "Without spiritual power to protect you, you must not stay long."
"You handled this very well. Keep the valley sealed off. I will investigate it myself in the future."
With spirit stones, Xu Xuan's cultivation progressed considerably faster.
Over the following six months, he made several attempts to open his second chakra.
Finally, after consuming five spirit stones, he broke through the bottleneck and opened his second chakra in his right arm.
Of the human body's six major chakras, two were now open.
The blood and vital energy within Xu Xuan grew several times stronger than before. His physique was powerful, possessing the strength of nine oxen and two tigers.
He gave the remaining two spirit stones to his wife, Liu Yun.
After five years of cultivation, Liu Yun had reached the essence fusion stage. With the spirit stones' aid, she could accelerate her cultivation.
As for Xu Yuming and Xu Huai'en, their spiritual roots were mixed, so they had no use for spirit stones for the time being.
At the beginning of spring, Liu Yun bore Xu Xuan another child.
It was a daughter, named Xu Xingchan.
Three years later, once Xu Xingchan's physical body had stabilized, Xu Xuan examined her spiritual roots and indeed discovered a thread of spiritual essence.
Like her mother, Xu Xingchan had a water element spiritual root.
This made Xu Xuan even more certain of his conjecture.
Children with spiritual roots could be produced through the merging of bloodlines.
Over the following ten years.
Xu Xuan took five concubines in succession, all women who possessed spiritual roots.
The quality of their children's bloodlines varied greatly.
Some possessed spiritual roots, while others were mortals. For the moment, Xu Xuan could not understand the reasons behind this.
During this period, through slow and steady effort, he thoroughly stabilized the cultivation of his second chakra as well.
Only after making preparations did he travel to that desolate valley.
There was indeed a poisonous miasma and a bewildering formation within the desolate valley.
Xu Xuan broke the formation and recovered three formation flags.
He then located the grave where the remains had been buried, but there was nothing else within it.
Only a golden sword and a pill furnace covered in verdigris remained.
After pausing to pay his respects before the grave Xu Mingyuan had rebuilt, Xu Xuan took the golden sword and pill furnace and returned to Xu Household Market.
Xu Household Market had now become Xu Household Town.
Its population exceeded ten thousand, most of them of the Xu Household's bloodline.
Xu Huai'en was also nearing thirty, his cultivation stuck at essence fusion without any further progress.
Xu Xuan found him a marriage match. The woman also possessed spiritual roots, but unfortunately, their child did not inherit them.
In accordance with his promise from years before, Xu Xuan also listed the child among the Xu Household's direct descendants, allowing the child to attend the clan school.
Over these ten years, the Xu Household's children had pursued either scholarly or martial paths, each making their own achievements.
Those who possessed spiritual roots all cultivated in the thatched cottage on North Ridge Mountain.
Using the formation flags obtained from the desolate valley, Xu Xuan channeled the mountain's terrain here and laid down a rudimentary Spirit-Gathering Formation.
Although its spiritual energy was not as dense as that of a spiritual vein, it was still considerably better than the outside world.
Without this formation's help, there was no telling how many years Xu Xuan would have needed to cultivate his third chakra.
At forty, Xu Xuan still looked like a young man, though his bearing was more imposing, and the vicissitudes of the years showed a little more upon him.
He had now opened another chakra, this one in his right foot. His blood and vital energy surged, at their very peak.
The Azure Mystery Gang had become the second-largest gang, beneath the Great Dragon Gang.
Through all the struggles among the gangs, Xu Xuan had acted only once.
With just one move, he had slain the opposing gang's leader.
When Liu Qingshan learned of this, he even hoped Xu Xuan would step forward and take the helm of the Great Dragon Gang.
Xu Xuan had no interest in gang affairs.
He promised that the Azure Mystery Gang would never attempt an overthrow while Liu Qingshan remained alive.
Liu Qingshan had long since learned of Xu Xuan's abilities from his daughter.
Xu Xuan's immortal methods both startled and amazed him.
He had also asked Liu Yun to examine the aptitudes of the Liu Household's children, but not one possessed spiritual roots.
Only then did he abandon the idea.
Another two years passed.
Xu Mingyuan, now nearly sixty, quietly returned to Xu Household Town.
Upon seeing Xu Xuan, he could not help sighing:
"Household head, you retain all your former grace, while I have already grown old."
Xu Mingyuan had no spiritual roots. Despite cultivating the Grain Garment Art all this time, he had only reached the essence tempering stage and found it difficult to advance.
Xu Xuan had also refined pills to help him, but unfortunately, they were useless.
"I have come this time to inform you, household head... some strangers have come to that place."
"Whenever the moon is full, figures can be seen entering and leaving it."
At these words, Xu Xuan's gaze sharpened.
The landmark shown on the incomplete map had finally undergone a new change.
After nearly twenty years of waiting, the moment had finally arrived!