Lin Qing, the Old Spirit Tree

Chapter 19 Lin Qing, the Old Spirit Tree

Truthfully Lin Qing was not without any skills to survive.

Beside fighting and defensive skills which she would be taught at the military camp when she turns 14 years old two months later, she had learned simple defensive moves her brother and relatives. And with her current skills, she could comfortably live and stay in the wild and mountains.

And having an older brother who had adventurous heart was conducive to her own growth's development. Lin Ren, who likes to play 'camping and exploration' in some forest he thought interesting, would usually bring her along to go together.

Though admittedly each time they went exploring there's a guardian who took them there.

In fact, from the beginning there had always been adult accompanying along, beside looking after their safety, the main purpose was to teach skills such as tracking, tracing and so on. This was part of the family's education tradition.

However, when one day Lin Ren secretly sneaked out during one of the tasks, that finally sound the alarm in the mind of the adults.

Though Lin Ren told them later that he merely went for a walk to search for his so-called hundreds-years-old snake, but he was indeed missing for a few days!

Thus, ever since then, the family needs to assign a guardian to especially look after Lin Ren and Lin Qing whenever they enter the forest or went out on some 'journey'.

After having mingled with her 'broad hearted brother' who warmly let her tag along, she eventually picked up some survival skills as well as some useful tips and tricks.

In fact, when she tagged along with Lin Ren into the mountains several times before, if it were not for Lin Qing, Lin Ren life there would not be easy.

Reason? Because Lin Ren is too lazy to do things which he thinks troublesome.

For example, cooking.

So, after Lin Qing was old enough to learn cooking, Lin Ren would eagerly anticipate her to tag along. Lin Ren, who had tasted the advantage of having a personal chef in the form of his sister, found that it was a blessing to have a younger sister such as Lin Qing

He, who had been lazy to prepare food was glad to oblige whenever she asked him to take her!

Lin Ren had never been a picky eater. He felt that eating and drinking was only to supplement the nutrient his body needs. There's no need to cook delicious foods if it was inconvenient. And being as lazy as he was, it was indeed a bother to cook.

In his backpack there's even nutrient supplement pills such as multivitamins pills and so on laying around.

But on the other hand, Lin Qing was a foodie. She can't get used to the thought of having to eat plain and tasteless food, even worse doing it every day.

The first several times she went to follow Lin Ren, she felt it unbearable to eat just fruits and roasted fish. Learning from her experience, she would not let herself to suffer in the future. Thus, she decided to learn how to cook!

During one of their little adventure, Lin Qing once saw Lin Ren eating fruits and pills while looking away, but the drools at the corner of his mouth secreting now and then betrayed him. Feeling sorry for her brother, she then gave some of her food to him.

Thus, since then, every time they went out, she would not be stingy and would share her food with him.

Thanks to this, ever since then, Lin Ren life had become more comfortable when he went adventuring.

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Besides survival skills, her ability to keenly detect whether the opposite party was lying or not when talking to her, makes her survival ability in unknown city and places rise another step.

As mentioned, ever since her parents had known she had this ability, instead of feeling relief, they became more were worried that someday she was scammed by people. They were worried that she relied too much on her ability without her own judgement capability.

For the sake of protecting her, they decided to train her in information management related skills.

Ever since she was young, she was trained so that she does not trust other's statement easily even if the other person did not tell a lie, nor distrust other's words simply because they were lying.

She was slowly trained to nurture the habit to discern the truth, understand the implied meaning hidden in spoken words and most importantly to have the ability to judge whether a statement was truly a lie or not.

Later, she was sent to the workplace of one of her cousins, the information agency. Every day after school she would go there to learn and look how those experienced agents in extracting, acquiring, managing, and manipulating information from various sources and through various medium.

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When Lin Ren coming-of-age ceremony draws closer, the family was worried that the duo combo would cause trouble and complication.

At that time, they were worried Lin Ren might run away after obtaining the Elemental Jade Fruit. And according to Lin Qing temper, she would absolutely help her brother with whatever plan Lin Ren might come up with.

So, they decide to keep it a secret from the two.

And the best way to hide information from them is to remain silent.

Several days before the ceremony, they even distract her attention by sending her away for agent's practical training. This way, they can keep her busy, avoiding her from contacting Lin Ren as usual.

Otherwise, if Lin Ren ran away, it would be troublesome.

Why would it become troublesome? Because only the Spirit Tree knows the coordinate and location for a child of the family to go out to train!

They, who had believed that Lin Ren had too many attachments to the Earth, had totally misunderstood Lin Ren. They believed that even if a word were mentioned about it, Lin Ren would absolutely refuse to be sent to the foreign land.

After all those who were sent outside for training would be all alone, without family and friends. They would need to struggle in order to survive in various life and death situations. They can't return to the family unless they found the road home by themselves.

Though the places they were sent were mostly allies, thus not without any help. But nonetheless it is a trial.

So, if Lin Ren were to run away, they who had no way to communicate with the Spirit Tree, couldn't ask it to again send the child.

In the first place, the whole reason that a Spirit Tree that has wisdom, to even agree to manage the coming-of-age ceremony was because of the founding ancestor's instruction. Thus, it faithfully and loyally continued to look over the younger generation, from one to another, managing the ceremony.

But it didn't have any responsibility to conduct the ceremony twice for the child nor was it obligated to tell them where the child's training location was.

So, if Lin Ren missed it, he would miss his most important chance.

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As an old Spirit Tree that can sense a person's aptitude, it naturally knows the children's potential. Using its vast background, it knows which places that are suitable to send these children to, to better tap their potential.

From the perspective of Lin Clan, they trust the judgement of the Spirit Tree.

The reasons were simple.

The first reason, the Spirit Tree was their founding ancestor contracted tree.

Spirit beast and spirit plants are creatures who have intelligence and wisdom. And because of that they have spiritual and mental strength. This allowed them to form contract with other similarly wisdom creatures, such as human. And this old Spirit Tree was one of the founding ancestors trusted friend and companion.

That's why he felt relieved to leave the Spirit Tree behind to look after his family and the reason the family trust and respect the Spirit Tree.

The second reason, the tree can sense anyone's aptitude and understand their potential.

As a tree that grants Elemental Jade Fruit, its ability to discern potential is great.

Third and last reason, the tree is knowledgeable and wise enough to understand various information.

The Spirit Tree was planted at the center of the whole backside of the mountain and even Lin Clan's base surrounding area. It served as the eye of the clan's protection formation and thus all formations within were, one way another, connected to the tree.

Under the Spirit Tree is one of the most precious resources on Earth, a spirit vein.

And the eight bidirectional transmissions in the dome building were all interconnected into a complex formation. Thus, all information that were transmitted through the formation were known to the tree.

After the accumulations of information, the continuously gathered information over the millenniums were very vast. Along with its knowledge and experience when accompanying the founding ancestor, the Spirit Tree knew many places. This includes the places' backgrounds and various anecdotes.

Though unfortunately, the generations after founding ancestor, there's not many people who could communicate with it.