Chapter 13

While Ludwig and Xing Cheng Ye were talking, a few metres away, the clan head and grand elder were looking at them while an invisible barrier seemed to surround the area around the statue. The clan head looked at the grand elder before he sighed "It seems like this is the right decision."

The grand elder smiled "You should tell little Ye not to ask for a loyalty swearing, this young one has great ambitions. If he one day truly reaches a stage where he ascends, then this heart demon that accompanied him from the Qi Refining Stage will do its work."

"After all, you still care for the young, don't you, Heng?"

"Our future lies in their hands; how could we not worry?"

The clan head nodded; he fell into deep thought before he talked once again "How are the preparations for the promotion ceremony?"

"It is estimated that the fruit tree will bear five fruits in less than two hundred years, if at least two of them promote someone, as well as the ancestors behind… we will quickly become stable after our promotion… the inheritance of the ascended elder has brought us many benefits, only thirty thousand years after he ascended, we jumped from the an unknown clan to a middle ranked one…"

Yun shook his head "If only he stayed a little longer, we might have…"

Heng instantly interrupted him "The elder has repaid all the efforts of the clan by building the branch in the Upper World. The favour is beyond what was given to him… he might even still be alive and watch over the Main Family, we call ourselves the Ancestral Family, but who doesn't want to leave this place and advance? Even if we could just send the talented children of our family to the Upper World…" he looked at both Ludwig and Ye "Alas, we can only advance steadily and hope that one day we become a Supreme Force, then our inheritance in this world will forever be ensured and we don't need to hold back like this."

…

Back at the statue, the two kept talking.

"What do you suggest, Steward Ludwig?"

"Young master Ye, please just call me Ludwig."

"Then I ask you to also only call me Ye."

Ludwig smiled but didn't hang on it, anyways he didn't care about this kind of etiquette. "Except the formation art, we need something else too..." he thought for a minute and suddenly had an idea "I will learn the art of Spiritual Planting, and you can learn the art of Alchemy. It has always been one of the greatest creation arts, and together they are a great foundation for a new branch."

Ye nodded and the two talked a bit more, till Ludwig heard a voice in his head, the voice of the grand elder, telling him that they would leave.

He arrived in front of the palace once again and flew off with the grand elder. He looked around once again but barely saw anything, when they arrived at the steward hall, the grand elder looked at him and gave him a token to visit the clan's library once again.

Ludwig didn't think much of it. He knew he would be spied on, especially on such an occasion, so it came to no surprise for him.

He just took the opportunity and went to visit the old elder once again. The elder seemed to be indifferent, he took the token and asked him once again "What do you look for?"

Ludwig smiled at the straightforwardness and replied simply "I need a spiritual plant inheritance."

The elder nodded and simply gave him the general spiritual plant inheritance that included all the basics and reached a very high rank, then he thought for a second and said "Every spiritual planter needs to take natal plants, we have different kinds of inheritances for that, the general inheritance only includes the basic way of adding one every major cultivation stage, do you wish to follow that or do you want to take a different route? For spiritual planters, the natal plants they take are the essence of their cultivation."

Ludwig was once again thankful for the elder for taking care of him, then he though about it and answered honestly "I would like to have a path that takes less plants, possibly to make the few natal plants stronger, although I will go down this path, I do not wish to become a master of all trees or something the like."

Kui Liang nodded satisfiedly. There was nothing wrong with going the normal path, everyone would have their differences based on what they chose, but in the end it also meant that spiritual planting would be the core of one's cultivation, while for Ludwig, Soul Cultivation will always be his core.

"We do indeed have different ones where you can only cultivate a few, for your situation, I recommend the Yin-Yang Planting Art. It cultivates only two plants, and you can only take each plant after two major breakthroughs, meaning in the foundation establishment realm and the Mystique Awakening realm, afterwards you won't be able to take more plants.

Unfortunately this art is used only by few even though it's very strong, because one needs to take plants with very high and pure affinity towards yin and yang, not to mention the rarity of such plants, taking them means that one would have too much of the other affinity until they reach the mystique awakening, but how could you reach that stage if your yin-yang balance is all over the place? You also can't be a pure yin or yang cultivator, since once upon your breakthrough, you would need to take the other affinity. In many situations, it will be bad.

But for you… you are cultivating the soul, which is a pure yin cultivation art. You would need to make measures for your body to advance and have enough yang energy to ensure your body isn't too much of a holdback, especially when you want to breakthrough, even condensing the golden core might be difficult. Now this is a solution, as long as you take a pure yang plant that has great effect on the body and steadily advance this plant, you won't need to worry about imbalance."

Ludwig cupped his hands and bowed in front of the supreme elder, these were things he didn't know, and he would have been in difficult situations later on if he didn't have the teachings. He also understood something else "Does that mean I should hold off practical cultivation of spiritual planting until I reach the foundation establishment stage?"

The elder nodded and handed a jade slip to Ludwig since he was satisfied with Ludwig's quick thinking "Indeed, it is so. You already have many arts, it is better not to split your focus too much."

A few more words and Ludwig was sent away, while the supreme elder kept looking at the young boy till he left the building. He didn't think any deeper of it, after all, everyone had their own path and there was only so much he could do to help the younger generation, so he closed his eyes.

…

Ludwig was back at his place, but he didn't practice any of his new arts but only focused on his soul cultivation. He had reached the qi refining stage by doing the simple exercises and nothing special, but now he wanted to truly cultivate.

Now was the time for Ludwig to enter the ethereal world, his progress was much faster, but the earlier he awakened his soul seed, the better it was. Ethereal Awakening would actually just awaken the soul seed, which enables one to intentionally pull the ethereal spiritual power and strengthen the dantian with it. As for cultivating the soul seed to a soul root… that would take longer, at least currently Ludwig had no idea how to do it, but he had a guess that it was probably in the foundation establishment chapter of his cultivation art.

There were many different materials listed for how to awaken one's soul seed, it didn't seem difficult at all, as long as one had the materials needed. Ludwig also saw many different plants that made this possible, so he thought about that and finally decided to check the spiritual plant inheritance for that.

The same issue was present here as the one with the cultivation art, he was only able to see the qi-refining chapter, but the catalogue was so enormously large, he had to filter out a lot of things firstly before he checked things out. Luckily, he had a strong soul, so this wasn't too much of a strain. As he browsed through the catalogue, there were actually many different kinds of plants that had the function of awakening the soul.

It was a surprise, but when he checked them out, the closer description was lacking and most were marked as ancient plants that aren't available anymore, so Ludwig had to search further.

After a long time of searching, he finally found a plant which he thought should be available in the clan. In honesty, if he just went and asked for a plant that could do what he wanted, he'd be able to get such a plant, but he wanted to do the work himself and find something that is more aligned with his attribute. He wasn't sure whether that'd affect it, but it was better to be careful.