After Ludwig left, the elderly man looked sideways. He waited for a second before saying somewhat annoyed "Heng'er and Yun', why are you not revealing yourself? You make this old man do your work and don't even thank him, did I raise you like that!"
Guo Heng, the Grand Elder of the clan, as well as Xing Cheng Yun, the Clan Leader, revealed themselves one after another and cupped their hands "Supreme Elder Kui Liang, how can this be! We only waited till the child left fully, I hope senior can excuse the juniors!"
Kui Liang waved his hand then asked "What do you think?"
The clan leader contemplated before answered "The child does well and is able to use his head. We have done similar things throughout the history of the clan, but it is indeed the case that we have been slow to act in the past few years. The outside forces are thinking of us as part of the righteous faction if we don't act! Those old people of the alliance and union will annoy us to death if we don't make things clear at that point."
Guo Heng nodded "Indeed, we have been pushing it off for a few years, it's time we make some trouble again. I will give the command to reopen all the secret branches, this should be enough. As for making the clan members more active, I will mention it in the elder council and tell them to find a solution. Those lazy people don't have anything to do."
No one seemed to try and defend the elders. Every one of the elders is accomplished, but after all the ones talking are the clan leader, grand elder and a supreme elder. After a few seconds, Yun asked "What do you think of this child?"
The supreme elder was the one to answer "He is a cunning one. This is good, we aren't the righteous after all, being too kind and gentle would be an affront to other neutral factionists. We should just let him be, he seems to be ambitious but knows the border. None of those elders stayed in line, if we start with him, then any future potential elder seed won't come to be."
A nod came from the grand elder as he continued "I agree, it's good if he is cunning. Since he seems to be inclined to the branches, at least the chaos won't be too large in the core of the clan. Yun, isn't your son's tenth birthday soon?"
Wryly smiling, Xing Cheng Yun nodded. Grand elder then smiled "I think this is a good occasion for him to make some friends. After all, they are both close in age!"
With a sigh released, Yun nodded again and replied "My youngest is indeed soon ten years old, it's not good to only be around old men, and his two elder brothers are also too old. The heirs have been secured, if he stays in the clan, he won't reach much. Grand Elder's idea is feasible!"
The grand elder shook his head "I have no such ideas, but I do indeed agree with the clan elder's assessment!" With a short laugh, the grand elder disappeared.
The supreme elder scoffed "Two of the same breed, two of the same breed! Yun'er, you should just give up your son since Heng'er set his sights on him. Anyways, there is not enough resources in the clan for so many, two slots of the clan seeds is already a lot for the main family line. If this little child can become a seed, then the path of your son is guaranteed. But you should stop giving birth to so many children! You have too much luck, your wife is probably still bedridden from the birth of your youngest!"
A proud laugh followed before the head looked contemplative again "Which position is this young child suited for? Heng has already machinations so early…"
"The current Foreign Affairs Elder seems to be getting old."
A shock was stuck on Yun's face "It seems seventh brother's line will decline."
"He has been very conservative during the last votes in the elder council, it is unsuitable for the coming change. If this child can keep his character, then he will be very suitable for this position. It has been long since a steward took the position of one of the two deputies of the Grand Elder."
"But this child won't be obedient to Heng."
"Little Heng has never been a person that oppresses people" Kui Liang shook his head "He would rather have strong-willed and ambitious people under him than a doormat."
The head once again smiled wryly before he left. No matter what, this was his seventh brother. Even if he knew this and wouldn't interfere, there was no need to listen to insults.
…
On the other side, Ludwig took the things to his room as he thought 'I felt fluctuations of the presence of two more people, and they know I did… they probably restricted their ability, else it would be impossible for me to see them. This was… a test. Let's hope I did well.'
When he came to his cultivation room which he had initially thought of as meditation room, he sat on the hard pillow, then calmed his mind before he took the jade slip with the words 'Wandering Soul Art' engraved on it.
Qi Refining cultivators don't have high control of their spiritual sense, even Ludwig's special spiritual sense only fulfils the ability of perceiving the surroundings just yet and doesn't have what a real spiritual sense can do, such as scan things in depth, communicate with others or simple read information stored in jade slips.
So he had to do what all other cultivators at this stage would have to do, hold the jade slip on the forehead and then let the minimal amount of spiritual sense available seep into it. Fortunately at least Ludwig was a bit better in this case than others and he instantly achieved this feat.
'Magnificent!' he thought as he kept on reading.
The wandering soul art is not only cultivating the soul to be able to leave the body and wander around the world with it. No, it would be more right to say that it is a full transformation of the soul. If one imagined a wanderer of the world, then one was right to assume that every key aspect of that wanderer was also inherent to this art.
Initially, at least during the Qi Refining stage, one would mainly focus on strengthening the soul and strengthening the foundation. In all the facets possible. It has one technique to form a soul seed in the dantian, it would become the core of the whole cultivation art and strengthen the cultivator's aptitude regarding soul cultivation.
After all, every cultivator can do soul cultivation as long as he has minimal talent, but to truly reach a high point, you need to focus on it. The soul seed is equal to the spiritual roots, but unlike the spiritual roots, it starts very low but can be refined slowly, if you add the natural talent of Ludwig, then his cultivation speed would be like a double spirit root at the least and it could even reach the speed of single strange spiritual roots.
Strange spiritual roots are all spiritual roots besides the main five elements, Wind, Thunder and Ice are the most common strange spiritual roots, but there are far more. The first category is the mutated spirit root which stem from the five main elemental spiritual roots, such as the Flower Wood and the Tree Wood spiritual roots, or the Ice and Cloud roots stemming from Water.
The rest spiritual roots might have some relation but are essentially just different spiritual roots, such as Wind and Thunder, although Thunder has relation to Cloud, Wind and Fire. Among the rarest spiritual root is the Soul Root. Of course it's only rare for it to appear naturally. In essence, every cultivator has this root, just as everyone has the five main spiritual roots, they are just hidden in the ethereal body.
The Wandering Soul Art's Soul Seed is able to manifest this soul spiritual root. When one builds the foundation, one strengthens the pathways of the spiritual roots and use them as the core to build pillars all around the dantian. They are like the structures in cave mining, without them one can build a cave to a certain limit, but there is always a danger. With them, you have a much more stable cave that can be expanded with every pillar built.
If one has a cultivation art as advanced and rare as the Wandering Soul Art, then there is no issue manifesting this Strange Spiritual Root, one only needs someone extremely talented in soul-cultivation and numerous resources for the foundation building, the value much higher than a single foundation building pill.
For any force lower than the lower ranked, this is as much of a possibility has birthing a natural soul spiritual root. Even those lower ranked ones most likely don't have the ability, middle ranked ones would rather not put this investment even if they have the art, only forces such as the Stardust Clan which lays a lot of value in expansion via branches does this, and only they have a higher chance of encountering one with the talent for it.
After all, how many forces would give such a chance to an orphan? No clan would do so, at most some sects, but their politics would never allow an orphan child without a backer to succeed.