Holy moly! Did the Healer Lady just say that Fungus is the Heir-apparent? And that everybody else is dead? Doesn't that simply mean that he's simply the Ming Emperor now? That's beyond troublesome! There is no way that a powerless boy like Fungus will be able to become Emperor, even if it IS his Birthright! Judging from that thick-ass history book that I had already read a few months ago, whenever an Emperor died, there would already be many noble factions in place willing to support one Prince or another in their struggle to claim the Throne with the might of their own Houses, be it wealth or military troops, and the winners would take the biggest piece of the cake once the dust settled.
But Fungus had none of that “backing”! Even if we could get the Tai Clan to help us somehow, they were just a Merchant Clan, no matter how rich they were. While they might be able to move some assets and maybe even hire some mercenary troops, none of the Tai had any actual Noble titles, that is, no land titles that had been given to them by the Crown. Just by being a “really good friend” with the former Emperor and current Heir wouldn't have allowed the Tai Clan to claim any stakes in the succession.
No, what we needed at the moment was the support of some of the Old Noble Houses, and at least the approval from half of the Large Sects. But all of those things were absolutely impossible to gain at this very moment, especially with the Ancient Evil under our feet and all of the fights for the succession that would be going-on for quite a while because of the power vacuum that had been left by the deaths of all of those bigshots. Heck, the people at the Capital did not yet know that Fungus was even still alive in the first place!
I mean, it's not like I could suddenly pull an entire army of Cultivators that were loyal only to the Legitimate-Heir-Emperor out of my ass and use them to march on the Capital!
...or could I?
I mean, we were sitting on a highly-active Dungeon after all, and that was the best place where we could Level-Up troops. It was in fact so active that it kept spilling out Monsters almost continuously, so I did not think that the Dungeon was going to run out of power anytime soon. I was actually getting worried that the normal people in the village might be feeling the effects of Qi-poisoning from being exposed for so long to such a high concentration of Qi. This was a rare case where the Dungeon Core was probably leeching power away from the Ancient Evil's magic emmanations ever since it had been swallowed, rather than the usual way where the Dungeon Core would be the one forced to supply the magic-juice for the End-Boss of the Dungeon by itself. It was a rather hilarious context, because the Ancient Evil was now basically trapped below the earth by its own power, but that did not make it in any way less-of-a-dangerous creature than it already was. As Lingfeng had pointed out, even if the Ancient Evil wasn't able to currently climb through the floors, it would still be able to dig its way out if it kept tunneling in any direction for a few miles, as it would eventually burst out either through the hillside at a lower elevation if it went towards the West and South, or burst through the riverbank if it went North or East, as the local river sort-of surrounded both of those hillsides with its curved water flow. And since the Ancient Evil was apparently some sort of a Rabbit half-breed, it wasn't that far of a stretch to assume that it was really good at digging. We would probably be forced to find a way to keep it busy and prevent it from digging its way out, if we wanted to milk this Dungeon for all of its potential in the future.
Even if that worked, and we somehow managed to Level-Up all of the local villagers and then turn them into a locally-conscripted army, they would still be basically just a bunch of high-level grunts with a higher than average statistics sheet.
No, what we really needed was a bunch of awakened people that we could turn into basic Cultivators, and THEN proceed to level them up. In a hypothetical fight between oh, lets say, 100 Level Fifty unawakened-but-really-skilled Warriors, and 100 awakened but mediocre-skilled Level Fifty Cultivators, the Cultivators would win almost every time, because they would simply blow up, curse, snare, debilitate or frighten the martial-warriors to pieces before they would even have a chance to approach and do any damage.
But out of the entire village's population, which was between 300 to 400 people from my approximations, we would probably get only a handful of people which would even remotely possess the capacity to awaken their own spirit-roots, and most of those would probably be 10 year old children, give or take a couple of years, which would not be very useful as soldiers, even if I were cruel enough to use them as such, which I wasn't.
That sent my thoughts wandering in another direction though.
"Trina, You’re doing that “staring blankly at air” thing again, while you scrunch-up your eyebrows together. Do you have something in mind?" Lingfeng asked expectantly.
"Actually...fill-in this curiosity for me, mister Know-It-All. Why can't most people awaken their spiritual-roots? There has to be a gimmick to the whole thing. Is there anybody around the entire village or among the temple Monks that is ready to awaken their spirit roots? I would love to watch the entire process, if there is anybody like that."
"Not that I know of." Said Lingfeng.
"Of course...that would have been too convenient."
"Look, when it comes to the spiritual roots, you are either born with the ability to sense them or not. When children reach a certain age, which is around 10 years old, they simply start to feel their own spirit roots inside of their heads, or they don’t. Only after this basic step has been accomplished that people even bother to begin to perform other measurements, like elemental alignment and root-growth. If you cannot even SENSE your own spiritual-roots, then it means that you will not be able to MANIPULATE them in the future, therefore you will forever remain just a mere mortal. It would be like trying to move a limb, when you have no nerve endings inside of it. While the limb might be indeed able to move, without your capacity to actually control it, the thing would forever remain a useless appendage."
"Yes, but that's not what I'm trying to find out here. Just correct me if my assumptions are wrong. First thing's first: is everybody born with a spirit root inside of themselves, or are there any people simply missing the thing?"
"Of course everybody has them! Even the animals and the bugs have them! The spirit-roots are the manifestation of your very soul into this world! Having a missing spirit-root would simply mean that you did not have a soul inside of you!"
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
"Alright then, if we take for granted the fact that everybody has a root, then what could be the difference between the people that are able to sense their own roots and the ones that cannot? Is it an anatomical difference or a spiritual one? For that matter, is there any difference between how many children from the Nobility awaken on the average versus how many children from the peasantry manage to do the same?"
"The Noble children have always had a much higher chance at awakening their own spirit roots compared to the peasants, but what's that got to do with anything? The Noble Houses have always possessed some form of a strong bloodline that has been retained through selective breeding in their families, so it is easy to understand why their children are more prone to awakening than others."
"Sure, I am not dismissing the bloodline as a factor, but I am trying to find out whether any other environmental influences may be just as important. Stuff like what the children eat while they grow up, how and when they use their bodies, and whether training for an awakening can have any sorts of positive effects or not. The children of the Nobility will most certainly always eat better than those of the peasants, and have access to a much wider variety of items when it comes to their menu, which might even include certain spiritual herbs, so I am wondering whether this is an issue of accumulation or maybe even one of accommodation to Qi, instead of a simple genetic-trigger that outputs yes or no when it comes to root-proprioception. Hmm...Ok then, the next question. What about the children of the tribes that live near the Qi-infested areas? Do they awaken more often than the peasant children that grow-up in the safe areas or not?"
"I can't exactly tell, because there is no available census that I have ever seen which had an account of such a thing, since it would be almost impossible to gather such data from the Savages, but talking purely from my own experience with the Tribes, their children awaken a lot more often, but that is easily explained through their bloodlines as well, because if the Tribe did not have a strong bloodline and the ability to awaken more often their own warriors, they wouldn't have survived for so long in such dangerous areas. Sadly, because of the inherent danger that those zones possess, they also die in large numbers before they can actually accomplish anything."
"Then, isn't it somewhat obvious about what the problem is? It's about how much Qi they children have inside of their bodies when they reach the proper age. The Nobles and the Savages always seem to have a higher concentration of Qi inside of their bodies either because of their pampering or because of their environment, so of course they would awaken more often than the peasants, since they would have more Qi stored inside of themselves that they would be able to “feel” once the time was right. So my question would be, what would happen if we were to actually take a 10-year-old child which has not awakened yet, and then stuff him full of White Qi? Would he be able to feel the Qi and awaken then? I mean, it's not like shoving some White Qi inside of him would harm him in any way. What if we did that to an unawakened adult as well? Hmm..."
"Shove Qi inside of them how?"
"Well, I could grab some White Qi with my branch-tentacles and then just simply hold the Qi against their Dantian membranes until the “juice” seeped in, since I have seen that all of the Dantian membranes are semipermeable when it comes to Qi."
"That sounds like an idea, but you are forgetting that nobody has been able to GRAB White Qi and play around with it in the way you do, anywhere in the entire world? Also, how are you going to bypass the Life-Shield that all creatures have?"
"Well, we can actually have a test run. We do have an unconscious guinea pig right here in the village, don't we?" I reminded Lingfeng of the crippled and unconscious Cultist.
"You want to experiment on the Blood Cultist?"
"Sure, why wouldn’t I? That guy has it coming 100 times over."
"Well, I thought you were usually opposed to such tortuous methods that are in a very gray area of the moral code…Didn’t you say that you felt sorry for the guy, and that he was also a victim of manipulation?"
"I DO feel sorry for the guy, and I am opposed to such methods WHEN THEY SERVE NO PURPOSE, but I sure as hell won’t simply forgive him for taking a knife to children’s throats “because someone fooled him into doing so”. Actually, let’s head there right now. I need to see if this idea can even remotely work. We also need to break the news to Fungus about his new Emperor status along the way."
Sure enough, just as we left the Weirdwood Tree’s enclosure and we got back to the makeshift barricade, I spotted Fungus as he was currently strangling the life out of one of those little red Hellbound demons with his bare hands, as his machete had seemingly gotten stuck into the skull of another. The annoying little pests just kept coming in droves from below, and all of the Guards and my party had been forced to fight them off. Fortunately, they were rather easy to kill, so it wasn’t THAT dangerous of a task.
After Fungus snuffed the life out of the little red Demon and sent it back to Hell, myself and Lingfeng pulled him to one side to inform him of the dire news. When he heard that his Dad and all of his Brothers were dead, he did not feel saddened at all, since he had very little attachment towards those nasty Ming people, as they had only been a pox upon his existence ever since he had been born, but after processing the news for a little while and having all of his lightbulbs finally light-up, Mister Heir-Apparent to the Throne of the Ming Dynasty promptly fainted in front of us like a baby, as the shock finally got to him.
After I forced him to sniff some strong medicinal-salts to wake him back up, he kept trying to inquire more about who had died, and if there wasn’t someone else in the queue for the Throne instead of him. Sadly, the truth was that the Former Emperor did not have any other male siblings to take the Throne instead of Fungus, and all his other Brothers had died in the explosion, leaving him as the Sole-Heir to the Ming Dynasty. The closest other living relative was some thrice removed cousin of the Former Emperor, and that one was only a 4 year-old child, so it wasn’t even up to debate who the REAL heir was. But the Noble Houses at the Capital did not know this yet, hence all of the turmoil and the assassination attempts. I pitied that poor child. I hoped that his family would be able to protect him, but at this moment we had a bigger fish to fry. An Ancient Evil sized-one at that!
I left Fung with the Guards, as another wave of skinless rabbits was coming from below, but this time Fung had simply hung back and used his bow instead of going into the Melee. I guess he was already feeling the pressure of his own position, but I was glad that he wasn't chickening out of a fight just because he had found out he was the new Big Kahuna.
Actually, he seemed to be even more focused and determined for some reason. I hoped that the idiot wasn't actually thinking “because he was Emperor now”, that he stood a higher chance at getting together with me. But knowing him, that was probably his exact line of thought. BLAH! I will probably have to murder his infatuation with me once again! I hated having to hurt my friends, but this was for his own good! I am not Empress material, Fungus! AND FUCK YOU SYSTEM, IF YOU DARE AND TAKE THOSE THOUGHTS AND LABLE THEM AS FLAGS!
Timmy: Scribble, Scribble, Evil Laughter…*Heheheheh*
DAMNIT, SYSTEM! NOT FUNNY! STOP PUSHING THE THREE RULES OF GENDERBENDING ONTO MY NARRATIVE!
━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━