Chapter 2: 3rd Life: Mortal Branch Member of a Spirit Awakening Realm Family
A blinding light flashed, and by the time Lu Yang’s conscious cleared a little, all he could hear were faint voices.
"... and the child are both safe, congratulation, older cousin brother!"
"Sigh... let’s hope our branch of the family... produce a cultivator this time."
Those intermittent voices entered Lu Yang’s ears for a while until his infant brain could no longer maintain activity, forcing him to fall asleep.
The next three months could be said to be extremely dull and monotonous for Lu Yang.
He could not speak, could not walk, and could not even gather enough information before getting tired and falling asleep.
His days consisted of drinking milk, blabbering nonsense, rolling around, sleeping, and pooping.
In his previous life, he might have felt embarrassed with the memories of his modern earth self, but he had no such complications now.
He had not taken over anyone’s body; this life’s name of his was also Lu Yang, and this body indeed only belonged to him, the consciousness had always been his, only awakening after he was truly born instead of awakening in the womb. There was nothing to feel guilty about.
Whether it be his parents from this life, his previous life, or the life before that, he regarded them all as his true parents.
If one day he could achieve such a realm that transcended life and death, transcended space and time, he would undoubtedly let all his closed ones from every life see the scenery at the top of existence.
Over the past three months, from the scattered information he had gathered, his father in this life was named Lu Yu, and his mother was named Feng Xiaoxiao.
His father belonged to the mortal branch of the Lu Family of Canglan Prefecture, a powerful force with no less than ten Spirit Awakening Realm cultivators in charge.
The mortal branch of the Lu Family consisted of those descendents of this century old great clan who had no aptitude for cultivation, handling their mundane affairs, and the number of mortal branch members exceeded several thousand.
Lu Yang’s great grandfather in this life was a cultivator at the later stages of Body Tempering Realm who had contributed to the family, so the status of his father was among the top in the mortal branch, only inferior to those Spirit Awakening Realm bloodline descendents.
Although he had already passed away before Lu Yang was born, his reputation remained, making life quite easy.
His mother was a direct descendent of a small Body Tempering Realm family from a nearby county town, the fourth daughter of his grandfather, who was said to be in the middle stages of Body Tempering Realm.
The Canglan Prefecture was located adjacent to the Luoyun Prefecture of his past life, that was something he knew as a outer sect disciple of one of Luoyun Prefecture’s top forces.
From what he knew, unlike the Luoyun Prefecture, which had multiple Essence Gathering Realm great factions competing, Canglan Prefecture only had one dominant force: True Martial Sect.
The True Martial Sect was powerful enough to be comparable to all the Essence Gathering Realm factions of Luoyun Prefecture alone, including the Azure Spirit Sect.
But the Lu Family and several other Spirit Awakening Realm powers in Canglan Prefecture weren’t directly connected to the True Martial Sect as they weren’t established by True Martial Sect members.
However, there was one thing Lu Yang couldn’t understand for quite a while.
With only 7 Reincarnation Points spent on Background, how could he be born into a Spirit Awakening Realm family?
If there was no greater background than a deceased late stage Body Tempering Realm great grandfather and a middle stage Body Tempering Realm maternal grandfather, that would be more fitting for 7 Reincarnation Points.
It was only after a while did he realize that Luck probably played a part in his birth, letting him be born into a mortal branch of a Spirit Awakening Realm family.
This made Lu Yang realize the importance of Luck; with the right combination of attributes, Luck could play a significant role in his life.
At this moment, Lu Yang was crawling on all fours in the courtyard, trying to show that he was "different from all other children".
His two little legs could not yet support the weight of his body, otherwise, he would have already started walking to give his parents a big fright.
Even if he couldn’t walk yet, a three month old child, crawling rapidly on the ground, was enough to astonish countless people.
Just as he was about to reach the courtyard wall, Lu Yang was picked up by two big hands, and the handsome face of a man in his mid twenties appeared in his vision.
This was was his father, Lu Yu.
"You brat, not even six months old, yet you can already crawl on the ground like this. The others all say you’re a genius and will surely become a main branch cultivator in the future, but how am I, as your father, supposed to let you enter the dangerous world of cultivation? It’s hard being a parent!"
Although Lu Yu looked like a gentle and refined young master who spoke little on the surface, he was a complete chatterbox in private, rambling on and on.
Lu Yang looked at his father in this life with disdain, raising a leg to kick him squarely on the nose, yet the other person still didn’t let go of him.
Standing at the courtyard entrance, his mother, Feng Xiaoxiao, watched all of this with a smile.
Time passed quickly, and before he knew it, Lu Yang was already three years old.
Walking at six months old, speaking coherently under a year old, learning to read and write by three years old...
Lu Yang had basically displayed all the qualities of a basic child prodigy within a reasonable measure, not so outstanding to be considered monstrous, but not easily dismissed either.
In the current generation of the Lu Family’s mortal branch, he could be considered to have the greatest potential for possessing cultivation talent bar any accidents.
At this moment, the three year old Lu Yang was sitting alongside a group of children three or four years older than him, looking conspicuously out of place with his smaller body as he listened to the branch elder explaining the clan history.
The branch elder did not possess any cultivation, no one did so in the mortal branch, but he was an experienced person who had been teaching the children of the clan for decades, including those who later on became cultivators, hence his status was quite high in the mortal branch.
The Lu Family was formally established more than a hundred and fifty years ago, when the founding ancestor of the Lu Family, a loose cultivator at the Ninth Stage of Body Tempering Realm, obtained the great legacy of a Spirit Awakening Realm powerhouse after a great struggle, heavily injured, and arrived in Canglan Prefecture.
Cultivating in seclusion for several years, with a flash of inspiration and the help of the legacy, he broke through to the Spirit Awakening Realm and established the Lu Family out of thin air, causing quite a sensation back then.
He took more than ten wives and concubines, all Body Tempering Realm cultivators themselves, and had a total of 28 children over a span of twenty years, a record that remains unbroken in the Lu Family till this day, only intercepted by the fact that it was much harder for cultivators to have children than mortals, or else, he would have had over a hundred children.
He enjoyed life to the fullest, yet still cultivated diligently, breaking through to the middle stages of Spirit Awakening Realm and making the foundation of the Lu Family even stronger before passing away.
Lu Yang’s great-great grandfather was the third eldest among those 28 children, and his great grandfather was actually his only child.
Unfortunately, his grandfather did not possess cultivation talent, hence he was delegated to the mortal branch of the family.
It could be said that every single member of the Lu Family, except for the servants and retainers, was a direct descendent of the founding ancestor, possessing Spirit Awakening Realm bloodline.
Mostly, these history lessons were bragging about the founding ancestor’s might, instilling the ideology of the family’s interests above all else, listing the sacrifices made by the ancestors and whatnot to shape the mentality of the young clan children, a tactic used by many cultivation families.
Lu Yang just listened because he wanted to get more information and understand the power structure of Canglan Prefecture while also getting to know what exactly happened in the Azure Spirit Sect after his death, though that was clearly not possible for now because of his age.
The Reincarnation Points spent in his comprehension ability began to show their ability from here on, as he could remember everything just after listening to or reading it two or three times, possessing a semi-photographic memory.
Spirit Awakening was definitely hopeful for this life!
