How it chose its successor was not mentioned, but what was mentioned was one of those seven cultivators managed to gain its recognition and with it, its entire fortune including a life and soul essence baptism in which the red maple spirit poured everything that constituted it, into its successor, all the insights, all its traits, everything was poured into one of the seven cultivators, who had their entire body, spirit, essence and soul transformed by the baptism.
In every essence, it was like they had become a progeny of the red maple spirit, gaining the bloodline of the red maple spirit. Yang Qing wasn't sure of how factual it was but after the life soul baptism, less than three months later that cultivator broke through to the palace realm.