21 Li Family's Meeting

When Li Mo Shang returned to the Li Mansion for the annual family meeting, it had already been six days since he had left for his training. Ever since he had entered the nearby woods, he had not taken a single period of respite from training his <Broken Martial Art> and the new spiritual sword.

His proficiency in the <Broken Martial Art> could be considered average, for the <Broken Martial Art> was merely a supplementary art that enhanced other abilities. For Li Mo Shang who had no basic martial arts training, the <Broken Martial Art> was nothing more than another enhancement to his physical fighting strength. His ability in an actual fight, however, remained unchanged; rather, with the added complexity of the three additional spiritual techniques provided by the <Broken Martial Art> made it challenging for Li Mo Shang to maintain a fluid combat style.

The practice with the spiritual sword, had the same issue. Although Li Mo Shang had mastered the transformation sequence of the sword, capable of changing the length, weight, and structure of the blade mid-swing, his attacks were merely sequences of motions; due to not having accumulated any battle experience, Li Mo Shang had no way of making his motions more flexible and responsive in a form that would better suit fast-paced combat.

The spiritual core did little to resolve this problem. Although the plundering of the general studies library had given Li Mo Shang massive volumes of information regarding martial arts techniques along with a plethora of the authors' experiences and accumulations leading to the finalized copy, Li Mo Shang was unable to combine these individual arts into something that suited his desire.

If he wished, he could instantly display Swordsmith Wu's <Dancing Fire Art> to its peak and mow any opponent down in less than three breaths, or he could utilize Sword Fairy Liu's <Eternal Spring Arts>, a technique that relied on fast, horizontal cuts to generate unstoppable angular momentum.

However, if he initiated with <Dancing Fire Art> but was interrupted midway, he could not switch his style to <Eternal Spring Arts>. Li Mo Shang believed that either a moment of enlightenment was required to discover a method of transitioning between these distinct arts, or he had to realize a point of these creators' lives that all resonated in some indisputable form to link these techniques into a singular whole. Of course, he could gain experience the brutal and most direct way by getting engaged into life and death fights.

It was just that modern society forbid life and death fighting, nor were the intellectually liberal citizens willing to die for an intangible ideal of cultivation. The public sentiment of the jianghu had perished tragically centuries ago, nor was Li Mo Shang publicly known as an age-old martial arts fanatic.

When he stepped through the Li Mansion's gates, Li Mo Shang gleaned from many of the servants' hushed conversations that the entire Withered Springs resort was in chaos from the unknown act of arson in the nearby forest. Each tree in that forest was near priceless in value, and the destruction would exceed several hundred billion RMB if the perpetrator was caught. Seeing how is act of "enlightenment" resulted in such an exorbitant sum in damages, Li Mo Shang rubbed his nose, inwardly a little sheepish.

Beelining towards the Spring Courthouse, Li Mo Shang intruded upon an intimate scene consuming his parents. Seeing how Li Yuan and Jiang Lanying were engrossed in exchanging messages of spring to notice his considerably loud entry, Li Mo Shang quietly bade his way into his room, ignoring the couple reenacting their youthful days.

Stepping into the untouched room, Li Mo Shang quickly stripped off his slightly ragged clothing while operating the large concentric tub in the bathroom to fill with hot water. While waiting, Li Mo Shang sat cross-legged in the center of the room, pondering on his issue of conjoining martial arts techniques.

Li Mo Shang had two approaches towards this nagging problem, one of which was to continue inputting information into the <Hourglass of Eternity> to be decoded by the spiritual core. The other was to find a very basic martial art technique, utilizing that as the essential springboard for the specialized techniques of the immemorial masters. The only downside was that both methods took extensive lengths of time, and perhaps such an encompassing martial art technique did not exist in Blue Flame World.

With a pleasant 'ding' sound emitted by the bathroom monitor, indicating that the tub was filled to its optimal capacity for bathing, Li Mo Shang ended his thoughts. Carefully stepping in, he proceeded to gingerly scrub away at the accumulated grime, restoring his skin to pristine condition.

-

Early the next morning, Li Mo Shang exited his room to find a wrapped parcel placed in front of his door. Opening it, he discovered a set of blue scholarly robes, and a letter indicating that the Li family meeting was beginning at noon. Noticing that he had a few hours left, Li Mo Shang carefully placed the clothes to the side, before returning to the room.

Closing the doors and sitting on his bed, Li Mo Shang opened his palm and facing it towards the ceiling, before initiating his prepared spiritual qi sequence. Heeding his command, the spiritual core relinquished a miniscule strand of spiritual qi that very quickly became molded into the indistinct shape of a dagger. Within seconds, a very utilitarian, sixty-centimeter long steel dagger was floating in front of Li Mo Shang.

Focusing on his other hand, the same phenomenon occurred, and Li Mo Shang displayed a relieved smile. Neither blade had any inscriptions or embellishments by the nine interlocked suns tattoo or the dragon-wrapped broadsword inscription of the Ancient Ming Tribe, representing that these swords were simply ordinary steel military daggers.

Retracting his spiritual sense, the daggers fell to the wooden floor with loud thuds, causing two deep gouges to be carved onto the acacia flooring.

Sweeping his gaze towards the embedded daggers, Li Mo Shang urged his spiritual qi to lock onto the daggers, before returning them to their original hovering state. Next, he commanded the blades to carry out exquisite maneuvers midair, soon causing them to fly within the room at extreme speeds.

Li Mo Shang had noticed that while he personally could not transition between two martial art techniques without ample time and reducing his momentum to its minimum, the swords he controlled could exhibit multiple techniques without problem. The dagger formed above his left hand was performing the <Seven Songs of Tong> from the ancient Xia dynasty's military, while the other was exhibiting the classic <Endangered Elements> martial art general mimicked in wuxia entertainment shows.

Immersed in his act, Li Mo Shang only stopped when his terminal informed his that the family meeting was starting soon.

The Li Family's annual meeting convened with both the main branch and the branch families, discussing the year's profits, discoveries, and divisions for the future. Here, the futures of descendants reaching their coming-of-adulthood would be decided. Li Mo Shang was of the main family, thus was able to partake in studies of medicine, as well as view the Li Family's medicinal collections to a certain extent.

The Li Family Patriarch, Li Shao Qing, had three sons and two daughters. One son had perished during a past conflict with Bei Yan Long while serving in the military, leaving no offspring, while a daughter had been married off to the neighboring Tang Family, specialists in weapon development. As anyone could contend for the head position of the family, the tensions between each main branch escalated on even the most trivial of things.

The branch families monitored the global research trend of the Blue Flame World regarding medicine refining, manipulating the business society to constantly profit the Li Family. As politicians, businessmen, government officials, and even school teachers, these families operated undercover to maintain the Li Family's supreme status in the world of medicine. Though unknown to others, even family members, Li Shao Qing was the commander of the Nine-Winged Sparrow, an organization infamous for its world-class assassins.

As Li Mo Shang stepped into the main reception hall of the Li Mansion, he marveled at the overflowing demonstration of wealth. Displayed on walls of purified blackwood, were highly rare medicines and herbs held in jade boxes, creating a refreshing aura that calmed Li Mo Shang's pores. In the center of the massive hall was a massive encirclement of dozens of tables, each indicating the placing of a family line. The chair for the Li Patriarch was made of polished mahogany, with engravings of glorious dragons and phoenixes on its arms.

As Li Mo Shang sat in his assigned seat, he observed the others slowly making their way in. Particularly, he noticed that the Wang branch family had brought an additional young child, a girl eight years of age, and that the Liu branch family had two less members than usual, with only a wizened old man with a withered complexion. None of the main family's attendance was changed, causing Li Mo Shang to slightly reduce his alertness.

Once everyone had been seated, the originally noisy hall strife of conversation had dwindled into nothingness as a silent pressure enveloped the room. An aura of silent grandeur resounded within the hall as everyone gazed respectfully at the Li Patriarch. Not a single sound was leaked from anybody until he had opened his mouth.

"Branch Families, report your annual progress."

With a curt tone of command ringing through the air, not less than a single second had passed since Li Shao Qing closed his mouth did the lowest ranked branch family head stood up. A young man with average appearance, his slightly hoarse voice boomed loudly in the quiet hall, first displaying his respects before speaking.

"Responding to the Patriarch, the Lang Family has achieved average progression in the Bei Xi Country! With our analysis and review of the Liu Tao Pharmacy, the annual income should estimate to approximately thirty million RMB. Projections for the next year display an increase by thirteen percent if achieved accordingly, and monopolization over Bei Xi should be done within a decade!"

The man bowed once he had given his report, then sat down without making another noise. The families nearby also stood up one by one, each describing their progress in their respective countries.

"The Ling Family has completed the process of monopolization over the medicine supplies in Bei Gong. Direct experimentation can now be conducted without having to apply the <Infringement Procedure>."

"France's government has refused to comply with the Tian Family's procedural agreements in handling medicine, as there have been thirty armed seizure attempts this year. Hence, the Tian Family will relocate to the neighboring Austrian country."

"The Liang Family has reached the half-completion mark of achieving monopolization in Australia. Although direct experimentation could be conducted, the weather conditions and biological structures of the country's inhabitants may return abnormalities beyond our correction measures."

"The Hui family…"

"The Lin Family…"

The branch families had one by one announced their progression in controlling the medicine world, with mostly successes and some failures. Li Shao Qing simply nodded at the branch families who had failed and had to relocate to neighboring countries, as border and island countries disliked having foreign monopolization of resources.

Thus, it would be unlikely to directly control the domestic medicine supply, though indirect coercion via limiting and withdrawing foreign medicines was still possible. Finally, the Liu branch Family Head stood up, his aged voice filled with the vicissitudes of time.

"The Liu Family makes its annual report. Hua Xia's Third Imperial Prince has forced a marriage with both of mine granddaughters, exploiting the nation's laws regarding marriage to hasten the wedding ceremony before this one returned from an overseas inspection. As the Third Prince had violated this one's daughters and issued an imperial edict guaranteeing their status as equal wives, the Liu Family had to maintain its reputation of a relatively renowned rare herb distributor, and could only carry out the memory-erasure procedure."

Following the conclusion of his report, the old man let out a despairing sigh as he slowly sank down into his seat, trembling with rage and sorrow. The Wang Family, awaiting the Patriarch's indication to report, merely waited at the side as the hall broke into anger.