Power and Legacy

"This isn't because our five great sects are hard to find. The problem is that, ever since the ancient primordial era, passing on our legacies has been a terrible headache. Powerful immortal arts must have a reason for their power. I've already told you about the different kinds of spirit roots," the gray-robed elder said to Li Yan with a rueful smile.

Li Yan thought for a moment. "Mixed Spirit Root, Profound Spirit Root, Earth Spirit Root, Heavenly Spirit Root, Sacred Spirit Root, and Variant Spirit Root."

The gray-robed elder nodded. "Yes, those are the kinds. But that classification only applies to other sects. The founders of our five ancient sects each created immortal arts that require something different of their practitioners. That is precisely why our arts are so powerful."

Li Yan nodded. Young as he was, he understood that much. Pies did not fall from the sky; anything good came with its own demands. He said nothing and waited for the elder to continue.

The elder glanced at him. "From the names of our five sects, you should be able to guess which of the five elements each one senses most keenly."

Li Yan nodded. That was not hard to guess. "The Yi Wood Immortal Sect must have created immortal arts suited to the wood element, so people with a strong affinity for wood spiritual energy would cultivate them. The Ding Fire Immortal Sect must focus on fire arts and favor those sensitive to fire spiritual energy. As for your Gui Water Immortal Sect, its disciples would naturally have a strong affinity for water."

The elder sighed. "You've only guessed part of it. The immortal arts of our five sects do correspond to the five elements with which we have the strongest affinities. But unlike every other sect, we don't need Sacred Spirit Roots. We need someone who possesses all five elemental attributes at once."

At this, the elder paused and studied Li Yan. Li Yan looked startled but asked nothing, merely knitting his brows as he pondered the elder's words. The elder could not help praising him inwardly. This boy is steady and thoughtful.

Li Yan was indeed trying to understand. The elder meant that these five ancient sects needed people who could sense all five fundamental elements between heaven and earth. But that was the Mixed Spirit Root other cultivators looked down on most. Why the sects needed a root no one else wanted was presumably tied to their arts. Still, such people should not be terribly hard to find. The Immortal Spirit Realm might have a small population, as the elder had said, but there ought to be some. Cultivators from that realm had even come to the Mortal Realm to establish legacies, increasing their chances further. Why, then, had the elder called succession the greatest headache of the five sects?

"That is the greatest secret of our five ancient sects. We do need people with Mixed Spirit Roots, but not ordinary ones. A Mixed Spirit Root senses all five elements—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. Not only must a person possess all five attributes, their affinities must also rank from strongest to weakest in the order of Five-Element Generation. That cycle runs: 'Water generates wood, wood generates fire, fire generates earth, earth generates metal, and metal generates water,' turning endlessly, life begetting life. A practitioner's five affinities must likewise follow that cycle in descending strength. For the Xin Jin Immortal Sect, metal comes first, so a practitioner's affinities must rank 'metal, water, wood, fire, earth.' Metal must be strongest, then water, followed by wood, fire, and earth. If any later affinity is stronger than the one before it, that person cannot cultivate the Xin Jin Immortal Sect's arts. Likewise, for our Gui Water Immortal Sect, the order is 'water, wood, fire, earth, metal,' each weaker than the last. Only then can one cultivate our sect's arts."

Li Yan now understood. Even in the Mortal Realm, perhaps only one person in a hundred thousand could cultivate, regardless of spirit root. Finding someone with a Mixed Spirit Root among them might mean searching a million people, with no guarantee of success. Then, from among those few—grains of gold sifted from crashing waves—they still had to find one whose affinities followed Five-Element Generation. The odds spoke for themselves.

He had learned a little arithmetic. Finding someone with that precise arrangement among a billion people would be a stroke of heaven's will. The Immortal Spirit Realm could hardly fare much better. He could not imagine how the sects had survived.

Seeing understanding dawn on Li Yan's face, the elder sighed again. "That is why every generation of our five sects must spare no effort to find successors. Most generations pass their legacy to a single person, or a mere handful. We must also cultivate toward the Great Dao ourselves. At first, cultivation takes relatively little time, but later it is measured in decades or centuries. A single retreat can last tens or even hundreds of years. To us, that passes in the snap of a finger."

"So apart from cultivation, we can only set aside limited stretches of time to seek suitable successors. Our trips outside are intermittent, and naturally, ordinary people rarely encounter us. As for opening our gates wide to recruit disciples, that method was tried in antiquity and yielded very little. It is faster for us to go out and scan low-level cultivators with Divine Sense. This unusual kind of Mixed Spirit Root remains a problem we have never been able to solve."

At this, Li Yan's expression froze, as though something had occurred to him. The elder noticed at once and seemed to know what he was thinking. "That teacher of yours does not belong to my sect. His claim that the Wood Shadow Sect requires a special constitution was merely a way to conceal his search for people with spirit roots. He wanted others to think it was just an unusual recruitment condition imposed by a secluded martial sect."

Li Yan fell silent. He had begun to doubt his teacher. Before taking Li Yan as a disciple, the man's concealment of spirit roots had been understandable; cultivators would be far too shocking a revelation for ordinary mortals. But continuing to hide the truth after Li Yan had entered his tutelage suggested another motive.

The elder knew what Li Yan was thinking. He sighed. "Strategist Ji's powers may be insignificant in the eyes of most cultivators, but he is a formidable man in his own right. We will discuss him later."

Li Yan nodded, knowing the elder had more to say.

"Our five sects seldom appear before the world. First, we have few members. Unlike other immortal sects, we cannot recruit virtually anyone with a spirit root. Second, the cultivation world is a place where the weak are prey to the strong. A lone traveler without sufficient power may be killed for his treasures or die in a quarrel for no reason at all. Such deaths are commonplace. Anyone from our five sects who goes out to seek a successor must therefore cultivate enough to protect himself—generally to at least the Body Integration Realm. Those who venture out with insufficient power face a high chance of falling. Our five sects can ill afford such losses when our numbers are so small."

"With disciples so hard to find, the five sects gradually declined as seas changed and turned to mulberry fields. By my time, we had begun sending people out to seek successors as early as the late Spirit Transformation stage. Fortunately, our immortal arts are powerful. Cultivators of other sects at the same realm can rarely stand against us. Killing them is like slaughtering chickens and dogs. We can even defeat three or five opponents of the same realm at once, and it is not impossible to kill an enemy a full major realm above us." Pride appeared on the gray-robed elder's face. A trace of imperiousness even emerged through his haggard features, revealing how proud he was of the arts he cultivated.

"There were two reasons we considered going out to find successors at the Spirit Transformation stage. First, we had no choice. Disciples were too hard to find. Second, cultivators above the Body Integration Realm rarely show themselves. By then, most devote themselves to increasing their power and advancing their cultivation. They spend much of their time in life-or-death seclusion or seeking opportunities in places of extreme danger. Unless their Lineage or sect faces destruction, they do not appear lightly. Under those circumstances, venturing out at the late Spirit Division stage gave us just enough power to protect ourselves. Even then, we concealed our sect identities to avoid unnecessary trouble. Cultivators who know nothing of us have coveted the arts of our five sects for ages. That is why outsiders have only seen masters of our sects at the Body Integration, Tribulation Transcendence, or even Mahayana stages. Yet successors remained exceedingly hard to find. Sometimes we had to cross vast continents, or even pass through the boundary between realms. That also meant we might encounter stronger enemies or spatial turbulence. Some masters who set out to find successors never returned. Perhaps they fell out there. And so our five sects dwindled further." The elder's voice grew subdued. He slowly raised his head toward the sky, his face lonely and full of remembrance.

Li Yan did not dare interrupt. After a moment, the elder lowered his gaze and glanced at him. "Two million years ago, I was the only one left of our Gui Water line. There was no news of the other four sects. I expect they had already gone before me." Grief crossed his face as memories welled up. The five sects had quarreled from time to time, but since ancient days they had depended on one another, branches joined to the same trunk. They had cultivated together and traveled the world together. The past drifted like smoke across the long years. Now that he had awakened, all of it was over, as fleeting as a dream.

At the words "two million years ago," disbelief broke across Li Yan's composed face. Could a person truly live for millions of years? It sounded like a tale from beyond the heavens. Yet hearing it from the man before him, he somehow found himself believing it. The realization startled even him.

The gray-robed elder paused, then gently shook his head as though to scatter the memories. When he looked at Li Yan again, he felt a little comforted.

"Over two million years ago, I entered seclusion for a century. By the time I emerged, the other four sects were deserted, with weeds growing everywhere. Only Fairy Ning Ke of the Yi Wood Immortal Sect had left a jade slip. She said she had reached the Void Refinement realm when she emerged from seclusion and had waited there for seventy years. There had been no word from the other three sects, and I had yet to emerge, so she too had gone out to seek a successor. After she left, we never contacted each other again." The elder's face darkened. His figure had grown even fainter than before, and his expression was becoming difficult to make out, though Li Yan did not notice.

Li Yan opened his mouth, then hesitated, reluctant to interrupt. The elder caught it and stopped. "Is there something you don't understand?"

"What's a jade slip?" Li Yan asked haltingly.

The elder blinked, then gave a self-deprecating chuckle. "I forgot you know nothing about the cultivation world." Everyone he had dealt with before knew such basics, but Li Yan was a complete novice.

"Then I'll give you a brief explanation. A jade slip is rather like one of your mortal books. It is made from a special kind of jade that is difficult to damage. Unlike a paper book, the words, images, and sounds it contains must be inscribed by a cultivator using Divine Sense. As long as the slip remains intact, its contents can be preserved forever; paper is far more fragile. Ah, yes, Divine Sense. It is essentially mental power, or will. Through cultivation, a cultivator develops that power until it can exert a tangible force. Your mental power has begun to develop into Divine Sense, but it is still too weak to take tangible form, much less extend beyond your body. Divine Sense generally develops at the third level of the Qi Condensation Stage, though its range is small—perhaps several yards. At that point, it can extend beyond the body and inscribe words, images, or sounds into a jade slip. It can also take the place of one's eyes and ears. The stronger a person's Divine Sense, the farther they can see and hear. Oh, and Strategist Ji is at the third level of Qi Condensation. He can already project his Divine Sense outside his body. Its range is only several yards, but within that range, he can see you without his eyes and hear what you say without straining his ears. He can scan what you are doing and saying—and perceive it more clearly than he could with his eyes or ears." At that, the elder gave Li Yan a knowing look.