Chapter 12: Unity of Purpose

“Now, the time has come. The sect has no other option, but to truly become strong. So strong, that the entire continent would come and plead. Come and plead, for the sect to be its very leader.”

Still on the throne, An Shan crossed his legs.

“In order to be strong, foreign affairs must be excellent. To make foreign affairs excellent, internal affair must be kept in rein. For me, I desire full harmony within, but such a thing could only happen when parasites are gone. Thus, let us deal with internal affair first, ridding ourselves of our own problem. Only afterward, can we make a presence in the world.”

He stood up, hand on his spatial ring.

Light came from the ring, bringing out lines of weapons arranged tightly on six steel racks. From lances to swords, boomerang to chakram, shield to armors, knives and hidden weapons, bows and arrows, it was an assortment of armaments.

Soul Armaments.

Seeing this, An Hong and the protectors all had wide eyes. Never in their life did they see such an assortment of Soul Armaments. There were six lines of a dozen weapons each. Meaning, there were 72 of them! As far as An Hong was concerned, after 2000 years since his time, there were only 40 or so Soul Armaments left, out of the 108 he left them in the sect.

These were not them.

These were not even recorded!

“These are among my early works. While they are different from my latest work, they are more than capable of rivaling others. O’ Blood Warriors, let this be clear, I’m cleansing the sect of filth, baggage and worms. Take these Soul Armaments, align your will with mine,”

How valuable were these armaments?

These were special armaments forgeable only by Soul Titans. In a way, they were similar to Soul Artifacts, and many people even thought of them as the same.

There was a difference though. While everything about the Soul Artifacts was made by a Soul Titan, Soul Armaments were top-tier weapons and equipment enhanced by Soul Titan’s Soul Enhancement Technique, strengthening them with the energy of their Titan stars and giving each of them special properties in the process.

In other word, Soul Armaments were only a tier lower than Soul Artifact. Though they were considered one tier lower, one ought to know that even for most large sects controlling millions of people, these armaments could only be used by their Patriarch and Ancestors!

Valuable? It’s freaking valuable!

In order to create them, it required the ability to use Soul Techniques.

This was the best factor differentiating a Soul-Titan and a Titan-Star stage cultivator. While their amount of energy often did not differ too much, Soul-Titans had merged their Titan stars with their soul, enabling them better control of their massive energy. With their Soul Technique, they could fully utilize their Titan stars’ energy in order to make these Soul Armaments.

After a moment of consideration, the leader of the protectors bowed before stepping forward.

Seeing him making the move, the others followed suit. An Shan closed his eyes, nodding. Taking his nod as encouragement, they walked through the racks, eyeing the Soul Armaments before trying some out. Shining, sharp edges with design full of artwork, they were not able to resist appreciating these weapons. It took some time, but one by one, they chose their very own armament.

Seeing his protectors having their very own Soul Armament, An Hong gulped. He himself already had one given by Ancestor Aomi, and a Soul Artifact given by An Shan just yesterday. However, a human’s greed should not be underestimated. Even he, with his pacifist-like attitude, still had feelings for superior weapons like these. Eyes watery, he looked intently at his Ancestor.

Unfortunately for him, An Shan was dozing off.

Only when all forty of them took their very own armament and returned to kneeling, did he wake up. Greeting his sight, was An Hong’s pathetic look. His eyes glistening, as if little puppy’s expecting a meal. Seeing this, An Shan’s face contorted.

His palm almost moved in response, but he held back.

“…Fine, take one,”

“T-thank you, Ancestor!”

What a spoiled child, hmph!

Regardless, he was his descendant. He could not help spoiling him a little. However, a certain training course was registered in the back of his head.

‘Un, I’ll just make him pays for it later.’

With that, he turned to see the protectors.

When his eyes fell on them, they clasped their hands in unison, heads down, signifying their allegiance. While these blood warriors were loyal to his great granddaughter, he was their founding ancestor. There was nothing wrong following his will, as long as it coincide with hers.

They had all came to the same conclusion.

“Un, since all of you willed it, this will be much easier. First order of business, our world-view must be standardized. Let’s start with our unity of purpose. Our purpose is simple, ‘Strengthening Absolute Aegis, in power and value’. Let this be the guide for our action from now on, what do you say?”

“…Your will is mine, Ancestor!”

“So, blood warriors, what is our purpose?”

“Strengthening Absolute Aegis, in power and value!”

In unison, they answered him, he nodded.

Afterward, all he needed to do was to discuss and give them their specific work. With these Soul Armaments, there was no need for twenty of them to guard the Patriarch at a time. Thus, he reduced An Hong’s guards down to ten at night, ten in the day. He needed the remaining twenty to do his bidding.

“Alright, let’s do something with your cultivation first.”

He eyed every single one of them.

All of them were in Heavenly-Stars stage, only in different levels. The leader and the vice leader both in Peak-level, while fourteen in Mid-level. The remaining 24 were in Early-level, but all had reached the bottleneck, knocking on the Mid-level for many years. They had paired four more of their stars, but could not quite merge them yet.

“Let me address this first problem of our sect, cultivation. I’ll be blunt, I’ve checked all of you, your cultivation has problems. Fortunately, all of you cultivate the same manual, so the problems were similar. After many years, opinions of others creep into it. Flaws are abundant, it’s disgusting to even consider it to be the same. To solve this problem, I’ll teach you the original cultivation, free from corruption. Listen well,”

“Yes, Ancestor!”

With that, he taught them the original cultivation method, the Iron Sovereign Divine Cultivation. The pure, untainted original vastly superior to the one they were cultivating. Discarding the corrupted version filled with human filth and conjectures, he expected these true warriors to improve by leaps and bounds. Soon enough, these forty would be a formidable force under his command.

He left some instructions for these guys, to investigate and gather information on certain issues. As for An Hong, he had to bring forth some matters into attention during the monthly Grand Elders Meetings. He also left some tasks, including fixing cultivation method for those under the Patriarch. It seemed all Core Disciples were under the supervision of Grand Elders, aside from the few An Hong took as his direct disciples. All three of his disciples were out for training.

“Have Mei-er cultivate this as well, be strict with her,”

“Yes, Ancestor!”

“Hm, almost forgot. Get me a pen and paper!”

“Y-yes!”

Before An Shan went back into Soul Severing, he wrote An Hong a list of precious herbs.

It was important for him, to give extra boost for his soul. Even after 2000 years, his soul did not recover fully. Even after all those herbs and even sleeping inside the turtle shell, the limit for recovery was evident. In fact, his soul was still in a serious state. However, as long as he did not overexert himself, he was confident he could still live for some decades, barely.

These herbs could not restore his soul. It could not be so simple. What these herbs could do, in simple words, was to help him resist the urge to sleep.

“Hong-er, gather these herbs. These will help me stay awake,”

“Ancestor, these are all rare… Wait, Emei’s tea touched purely by virgin’s hands? I thought those still residing on Emei Mountain are all virgins?”

“Don’t question too much and just do as you’re told!”

“Y-yes! But this one, it’s from a Heavenly Rainbow Peacock? It’s a Titan-Star Beast, it’ll be hard. I fear,”

“It’s fine. Just get me the location, I’ll get it myself.”

“But Ancestor, your condition…”

“I know. I’ll restrain myself, so I’ll be using my latest Soul Armaments. My early works could barely withstand my handling… Ah, where are they?”

“They are in the Ancestral Hall, but I don’t really know their exact location,”

“No, I mean all of them. I already sensed those in Ancestral Hall, only 40 of them there. There should be 108, those I need are not there,”

“Ah, apologies Ancestor! Many of them were lost in wars in these thousand years. Some went missing with some of the ancestors,”

“Some of them missing?”

“Do you remember the incident involving Ancestor Tian?”

“Ah, that incident… Well, it couldn’t be helped. I’ll just take what I have,”

“Yes!”

With that, he went on his way to bed. Err, into his turtle shell. With all these guys working, his plan should be well underway while he comfortably, um, focused on his recovery.

‘Ah, how comfortable…’

…

Hm, hm…

Ah, such serenity, so peaceful…

This bounciness, this life-force…

Wish this last fore— Wait, I had a bad feel—

“Ancestor, wake uppp!”

‘My ears…!’

A childish voice rang within his chamber. Somehow, the voice’s pitch was really stinging, he could not resist waking up. A bit annoyed, his head came out from the turtle shell. Opening his eyes, the blurry figure in front of him slowly became sharper.

A plum-like little girl, with long black hair. This time, she was wearing a black robe.

“Ancestor, you wake up!”

“…You,”

His eyes twitched, for it was An Xiao Mei, again trespassing into his room! While this was not Ancestral Hall, it was still a hidden room. It was under the Patriarch’s study, so not everyone could enter. Um, how did she even know he was there?

Wait, there was something wrong with the security here!

When he decided to use this room for his temporary isolation, he contemplated using a stronger barrier formation. However, he still put forth the usual ‘only block outsiders’ for fear that when any emergency arose, even the protectors could not contact him. He thought that for now, only An Hong and the two leaders of the protectors knew of his whereabout…

Yet for the one waking him up would be this troublemaker? Ah, he actually forgot to block this one descendant of him. She could bypass the formations from her blood alone, but how did she get pass the first gate? That needed the ancestral to— Oh…

Thinking about it, he actually forgot to spank this girl back then.

Ah, he was too sleepy… In a second, he dozed off.

“Ancestor, please wake up!”

“…Mei-er, how in the heaven did you get in?”

“Ancestor! They’re bullying elder sister Shuren!”

“Can’t you even listen… Wait, what bully? Who bully?”

“That fatty Elder and—”

He was still drowsy, yet a bunch of indistinguishable words landed on him. Hitting his ears, in full force.

While he wanted to reprimand her, he listened first. Piecing the words together, he understood what matter troubling her. A month had gone by, and it seemed Xiao Mei again wanted to help Ling Shuren. Thinking about it, this little girl must really like that friend of hers.

How troublesome.

“So, let me get this straight. Your friend Ling Shuren attended a lecture for core disciples, only to be turned away by the lecturer, a Grand Elder? He just said she’s not qualified, and many of the core disciples supported him? Is that right?”

“Umm, un!”

“So when you heard about this, you get to your father for help, but he was too sleepy? And in his sleep, mumbled about getting my help? And he actually blurted out my location?”

“Uh-huh,”

“And you actually stole the ancestral token again to open this room’s door?”

“Borrow, Ancestor, borrow! Xiao Mei never steals, nuh-uh!”

“Borrow your ass! Lend me your butt!”

“Ahh, Ancestor! D-domestic violence! Mercy, naaahhh—”

This time, Xiao Mei had her wish fulfilled.

No longer she envied, Aunt Su Min’s perky butt.

“Ha, ha, ha…”

He was a bit annoyed, but he let her go with just three hundred spanking.

He put her pants back. Making the unconscious girl float by his side, he got out of the underground room, then out from the study. It was dark outside, somehow Xiao Mei chose to wake him up during early morning again. Yet thinking about it, the time was the most convenient, and the child must have known it. Anyway, it was no big deal. He had slept for a month, and it was about time for him to wake up.

The time he set for the investigations, and the announcements for many things, such as the risk of Dan pills, were just around the corner. Thus, he did not blame Xiao Mei too much. Still, a certain someone who blurted out confidential information ought to be punished later…

For such a thing, should never happen again.

He snapped his fingers, and two protectors on duty nearby appeared before him, cupping their hands and bowed. With a nod, he caught the butt-swelled Xiao Mei, speeding up into the sky.

Chapter 12 End