Guilt
Since Old Lu said that Xue Bai was fine even after both checkups, Xue Feng gave up on his persistence. So after asking the doctor to give Xue Bai some high Yellow-grade Soul Stabilizing Pills, he once again grabbed Xue Bai and left.
Xue Bai at first wanted to refuse the pills, but thinking of the possible complications from his transmigration, he accepted them. The pills would only help him, as even if he wasn't sick, the pills could be of use in the future once he started cultivating.
After he left Old Lu's office, Xue Feng was silent as he tried to think about what to say next. But after a few seconds, he managed to gather his thoughts.
"Bai'er, I hope you don't get angry with me. You were acting extremely bizarre once you woke up. Any other father would've acted just like me." Xue Feng sighed as he put down his son.
However, Xue Bai wasn't angry at the man but instead felt a rush of guilt in himself.
Xue Feng cared so much about his son, yet he didn't know that Xue Bai wasn't his son, but rather some person from a different world or maybe even universe who accidentally possessed his son's dead body.
Yet, Xue Bai didn't speak out his thoughts. No matter how guilty he felt, his life was more important.
"It's okay, Father. I know you only mean the best." Xue Bai said with a half smile. He couldn't force himself to smile fully.
Xue Feng didn't notice this minor detail. So after giving his son a pat on the head, he walked Xue Bai over to his courtyard and left the kid alone.
Finally, alone, Xue Bai started to think about his situation. He had transmigrated in his favorite game, "Children of the Plane." as a character who shared his name.
Back on Earth, Xue Bai would spend days daydreaming about what he would do if he ever transmigrated, so once he finally managed to live through the scenario of his dreams, Xue Bai was rightfully excited. Especially with his advantage of knowing so much about the world he ended up in, it was almost cheating.
So before he forgot anything, Xue Bai wanted to make a plan. But he decided to collect some information about his surroundings first.
After ensuring his father was gone, Xue Bai left his room and began gathering information about current events and whether he was in "Children of The Plane." As he left the room, he started looking at the estate he lived in more detail.
From what he gathered after walking around was that it was separated into three main parts.
The Outer Region wasn't built on the estate but instead surrounded it, as it mainly housed the guards and foot soldiers loyal to his father. Having them live inside the estate would lower the prestige of the Duke's home.
Plus, there were way too many soldiers for the Inner Region to logically house. So Xue Feng let them live on the outskirts of the estate.
The Inner Region was where important contributors to the Duke's estate lived. Whether they were commanders in the army or hired side professionals like Old Luo, they all lived in the Inner Region.
And finally, there was the Core Region.
The Core Region was where Xue Bai and his parents lived, along with a large dormitory full of maids that kept the area lively for the three-person family. Only having three people live in a large area that was miles in surface area was lonely, so having a small legion of cheerful maids to keep the family company was pleasant.
Other than his family and the small legion of maids, the Core Region also kept the essential structures of the dukedom.
Whether they were the herb gardens that grew the many medicinal herbs, the dukedom needed or the Martial Arts Pavillion that stored the many core scriptures that Xue Feng and his wife collected over the years, the Core Region was the most important and vital area of the entire estate and dukedom.
Because of this fact, the Core Region was also the most heavily guarded. With arrays everywhere and shadow guards watching 24/7, there was almost no chance for someone to sneak in.
As Xue Bai walked around the estate and saw the beautiful landscape before him, he slowly realized something. He wasn't on Earth anymore, and this wasn't a dream.
In his heart, he should be happy. After all, he would finally live his dream life, cultivating to become immortal, fighting demons, suppressing prodigies, and finding beauties along the way, but deep down, he felt guilty.
He would never see his parents again, and while he wasn't that close with them since he spent most of his memorable life in a hospital room, they were still his birth parents, the people who raised him and gave him everything he needed to keep him happy in his prison.
They raised him with all their might, and he would never get to repay them for it or even live up to their expectations.
Just thinking of his mother's excited face when she brought him "Children of The Plane" and how she patiently explained it to him caused guilt to build up within him.
Now being thrust into a new world with another loving family, what was Xue Bai supposed to do, forget his original and live a new life or alienate his new family in memory of his old one?
The clashing feeling in Xue Bai's heart broke him, and he broke down. Thankfully he was still in the Core Region, so nobody saw him.
Xue Bai knelt under a tree in his courtyard, crying his heart out. He was sorry for his mother and father, but most of all, he was sorry that he didn't want to go back. He wanted to live his new life to the fullest.
Xue Bai didn't want to return even if he could. Earth was cruel to him. It took away his ability to walk, and his childhood, before slowly killing him. Now that he had arrived in such a beautiful world, he wanted to live a new life here.
Xue Bai had dreamt of being in this situation countless times, and now that he was living his dream, he wanted to make the most of it.
And maybe if he truly got strong enough, he could see his parents again. Thinking about that point, while it did feel like an excuse, Xue Bai genuinely thought it was possible.
In other cultivation novels, whenever the protagonist reached the later stages of the novel, they could create and destroy tiny worlds like Earth with a snap of their fingers, so why couldn't he?
So with a shaky but new-found resolve, Xue Bai stood up, wiped his tears, and returned to his room. Now that he fully confirmed that he was indeed in "Children of The Plane," he planned to fully assimilate before people noticed something off about him.
After all, Xue Bai came from the 21st century and knew nothing about this era's traditions besides what he read in Chinese novels. So after reaching his room, he went to where his predecessors kept his books and started to read about the Baishen Plane and plan for the future.
Xue Bai picked two books from his bookshelf, one about his surrounding geography and another about the history of the Baishen Plane. Of the two books, Xue Bai first picked up the one about his surrounding geography.
Even though Xue Bai had explored almost all of the mortal world, while doing this, he also ignored practically every town and city.
Since he only started exploring after reaching the peak of the world's cultivation, whatever the towns could offer him, Xue Bai already had a better version sitting inside his spatial ring.
While the book mostly re-confirmed many things he already knew, it was still worth the read as he had learned some things he had forgotten.
He lived on the Southern Continent, which was dominated by four major forces: the Great Xuan Empire, where he lived, and the Three Great Sects.
Even though the Great Xuan Empire was the most dominant force on the continent, it couldn't kick out the others as they were the only branch sect from the Central Continent. So the Three Great Sects were only suppressed by the empire but were still allowed to recruit disciples.
However, one benefit that the Three Great Sects had over the Great Xuan Empire was a passageway to the Central Continent. Highly promising disciples were allowed to continue their cultivation on the Central Continent, which enabled the three sects to stand on equal footing with the empire.
His father was a Duke, so he would typically continue to serve the Great Xuan Empire. However, Xue Bai had higher aspirations. He wanted to ascend, not serve as a general, to a mere Spirit Awakening realm Emperor.
And since Xue Bai had such an aspiration, he would obviously plan to join one of the Three Great Sects.
The Three Great Sects were Wushen Academy, a place where any type of cultivator could join as long as they had enough talent. Next, the Soaring Sword Sect, a sect that specialized in the sword, and only sword cultivators could enter, and finally, the Hundred Flowers sect, an all-girl sect.
Xue Bai planned to join the Soaring Sword Sect. His father was a famed swordsman throughout the entire continent. With his teaching, even a pig could become a renowned Sword Cultivator, much less him.
The rest of the book was either unimportant or things he already knew, so he placed the geography book down and picked up the history book.
Xue Bai only skimmed through the history book while ignoring settlements in the Baishen Plane. However, he was very interested in its story.
His primary purpose in picking up the book was to look at the history of the Baishen Plane to make sure what he knew was the same, which he quickly found true.
To cultivate, one needed something called Martial Veins. Marital Veins would allow one to sense and absorb the Spiritual Qi in the air, and they only would awaken in children ages 11-15.
If you didn't awaken them between those ages, that meant you didn't have a set of Martial Veins. Meaning that you would never be able to cultivate, effectively cutting off your fate with Immortal Cultivation.
However, to the unresigned, there was a fine print.
In the Baishen Plane, though rare, there were also natural treasures that could give someone a set of Martial Veins. Still, those were rarer than a phoenix feather or a qilin horn, making them only things of legends and not a reliable thing to bet on should someone be born without Martial Veins.
And even if there was a natural treasure of this nature found, commoners or the poor would have to forget about their chances of getting one.
Even a natural treasure that would give a cultivator even the lowest, low Yellow-grade Martial Veins would sell for sky-high prices, far beyond any mortal non-cultivator could possibly own.
Martial Veins also had another variation. Besides the neutral version, there were also elemental versions that allowed the cultivator to control the respective element instead of the neutral Spiritual Qi.
Because of the elemental variant's rarity, if a cultivator awakened an elemental version, they were considered higher than its neutral counterpart.
Away from Martial Veins, almost any item in the Baishen Plan, similar to the Four Great Realms of cultivation, natural treasures, weapons, or any supplementary item a cultivation could own, were divided into four tiers, Yellow, Black, Earth, and Heaven.
Beyond that, they were further divided into low, middle, high, and peak in each tier.
Yellow-grade correlated to the Houtian Great Realm, Black-grade to the Xiantian Great Realm, and so on until the Heaven-grade, which corresponded to the God Great Realm.
However, the last two tiers weren't ever used in the Baishen Plane, as they represented the apex of cultivation.
And even further narrowing down the talent pool, most cultivators on the Southern Continent only had a low or middle Yellow-grade Martial Vein, while peak geniuses would only have a low Black-grade set.
Moreover, if a young cultivator awakened an elemental Martial Vein, they were instantly recognized as a prodigy.
As for Martial Veins of higher rank? Those were reserved for those heaven-sent geniuses on the Central Continent and not the Southern Continent bumpkins.
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