The four levels of the human martial path as taught to all youths in the Wood clan are:
Luc paled and then sneered thinking about how his 8 year old self had only realized that he had reached the Conception realm and had experienced pain throughout his body, as if all his limbs had been stretched to their limits. Flame Shadow had clearly done something to Luc in front of everyone at the bazaar, Luc just wasn't sure what it was. However, the orphans of Langerhans that managed to be sponsored by a faction were nothing like the children found in mundane continents, given the benefit's he'd acquired Luc didn't worry about what may have happened to him.
By time he was 8, the Wood Faction had already instilled a need for power in order to attain anything, so on that day he even felt grateful to Flame Shadow, whatever he had done to Luc allowed him to reach the Conception realm. The faction set a deadline of 13 years of age before the Orphans that were unable to reach the Plant stage would be kicked out.
Luc continued to amaze the Faction over the following years and many people looked forward to him developing a secret skill, a powerful ability that sets one apart from others, at 16 with intense curiosity. While the orphans were given many years to reach the Flower Realm, this was to prevent them using up their potential aimlessly and to allow them to build what Luc referred to as the Pauper's foundations.
The orphans that were not directly adopted by some high ranking member of the faction were faced with strict constraints between the ages of 13 and 16. They must reach the Flower Realm by the age of 14, the peak of the Flower realm by 15 and have broken through to the lower end of the middle Fromation Realm before they turned 16.
After this, they had between the ages of 16 and 30 to train their secret skills, advance to the upper Formation realm and attempt to attain a rank in the top 50 Wood Faction Juniors, by defeating someone already on the list. This was interesting because the Wood Faction was focused on healing, as such, the youths would compare: spirit density, control and the continuous ability to channel that spirit energy.
With the head start provided by Flame Shadow, Luc refused to allow himself to fall behind and spent the next few years making a name for himself as the person with the highest potential to be adopted by the Wood Faction leader. If not at 16, then surely at 30, after leaving a mark on the Junior rankings. Thinking about this, he removed his top as he reached the lake, threw it into the pouch tied across his waist and dived into the pool.
He bitterly smiled as he thought back over the 10 years between reaching the Plant Realm and now. He'd reached the peak of the Plant Realm by time he was 10 years old, his progress increased between the ages of 10 and 13 and he reached the peak of the Flower Realm, by that time, the some of the elders of the other factions had already begun sending him simple treasures and spiritual herbs in order to draw a powerful healer to their side before he'd been drawn in by any faction.
The Wood faction turned all of them away; by this time, he already knew that they wanted to avoid him forming any allegiances outside of the Wood Faction. They believed he was still mentally a child, they didn't realise that he saw them merely as stones to be stepped upon during his path to leaving the City, District and Continent; travelling the lands as a battle medic in the World Army, and possibly going even higher...
No one predicted that the once amicable youth would suddenly turn hostile soon after he turned 14. He became reclusive, studied until it affected his once robust features and would spend weeks in the wilderness surrounding the City of Langerhans. However, his cultivation continued to increase.
While one would think that the Factions would micromanage the lives of these orphans they invested in but besides food and housing, until the orphans reached 16, the Faction would not expend any extra resources monitoring or helping them.
This was fine with Luc, as far as he was concerned when they begged him for help later it would fall on deaf ears. His face passed from a lonely determination into mystical detachment as he started to rotate the increasingly uncontrollable amount of energy running through his spirit channels.
When he turned 14, he began to feel the energy fluctuations shared by all people that had reached the Flower level prior to their 16th birthday would feel. This was the awakening of his bloodline and the accompanying secret skill.
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It must be understood that in many other cities the 16th birthday, while still very important, was a simple affair. The skill, coming from the bloodline, would occur in predictable ways in the other more organised cities. In Langerhans, tracing your family back two generations was remarkable and most people would feel comfortable having one parent alive to give them some idea of what to expect.
Luc sighed as he rotated the Wood Clan's trademark Green spiritual energy possessed once the O.Ds, orphan disciples as they were called under the breaths of jealous non-martial artists, reach the Flower Realm.
If both parents had equally powerful or weak skills, you would gain access to both skills and with training the skills would be able to improve. If one parent's bloodline was to much stronger than the other, it may suppress the weaker skill, either making it go dormant, or causing it to have a greatly reduced effect.
This was the generally accepted principle anyway. For example, someone may have a bloodline which should awaken a weak water secret skill and a powerful fire secret skill. Instead they would find that they never developed the water secret skill and the negative relation between the bloodlines would go on to weaken the fire secret skill.
Of course certain Sects and Families would have hidden methods to manipulate the bloodline, some ancient heroes had passed down dormant legendary bloodlines which may require personality traits and other fortunate events to evoke. Or certain bloodlines, which on the surface level seemed incompatible, but actually evolved together giving birth to many of the strongest martial artists found on Phios, which were what Luc considered to be monsters in human form.
Luc had even heard about members of the previous top 10 youths in the Woods faction having their bloodline skills stolen away during their adventures. In the luckier cases this resulted in a decline or stunt in cultivation.
In a city like Langerhans, the 16th birthday was something many dreamed of. It could be the doorway to heaven, or a disappointment that could mar them for a lifetime.
Remember, many of these people did not know their true parents and given that Luc had been raised among his peers across Langerhans, they all waited for their 16th birthday with a mix between grim determination, hope and fear.
Many of these youths grew up on stories of the young genius going by the nickname of Athena and the 9th Young Master of the Dragon Clan who had both been adopted by powerful clans. Thinking about this, Luc's initially calm face changed between a brief moment of happiness and apprehension, before he allowed his body to be submerged in the water.
After allowing the emotions to wash over him and reaching a depth of about 30 meters below the surface; he began to rotate his spiritual energy faster. The sharp change caused all the aquatic life forms to swim away from this potential threat immediately.
While the Wood Faction would never raise dangerous animals in their lands, it was still impressive for a person at the mid Flowering level to permeate their spiritual energy into their surroundings, this tended to be a trait only found by people at the middle Formation level. However, he knew that he was firmly stuck in the Flowering Realm. As the spiritual energy began to increase steadily and very slowly form winding layers, Luc allowed his mind to drift back to his previous thoughts.
Athena was nicknamed after what Luc had learnt to be an Ancient cultivator that was said to possess boundless knowledge and had surpassed even the Reformation stage. While not even comparable to such a level, the recent Athena was still a force to be reckoned with in the city of Langerhans. By the age of 15 she had reached the Peak of the Sea realm in the Water Faction, this was equivalent to a peak Flowering level expert in the Wood Faction.
Reaching the Peak of the Sea/Flowering realm put her one realm below the current Leader of the Wood Faction in terms of talent. Many agreed that had she stayed in the Water Faction, the balance of power in Langerhans would inevitably be completely different. But many in Langerhans also agree that if you wait for heroes that have already left to come back and save you, the grunts of today will bring you back to the present.
Upon her 16th birthday, the expert only known as Athena to Luc instantly broke through to the Dispersion realm. If this wasn't shocking enough, her ancient skill had conjured up a full set of spiritual defensive armor as well as an enormous Owl familiar. The Water Faction did not have the resources necessary to nurture such a talent and looking on in fear, the Fire, Earth and Metal factions all saw a precarious future. However, due to the large increase in power Athena had just experienced, coupled with her body having not even reached the Sea stage and her spiritual energy surpassing it by up to one small level, she soon collapsed due to exhaustion before she was able to take control of her secret skill. Her body was unable to handle the sudden disparity between the strength of her body and her spiritual cultivation.
Before the other factions could even react to dispose of this potentially calamitous woman, the Water Faction's Old Matriarch crushed a life saving treasure, while the Wood Faction Great Elder worked to stabilize Athena's condition. This was only 30 years ago, while the Great Elder had already been in his position for almost a decade, his powers could not be compared to the level they had reached now; in order to keep Athena stable he was unable to move her and it seemed impossible for the Water Faction's life saving treasure to keep them protected for even 10 breaths.
However, just as it seemed the Water orb protecting them would give way due to the attacks of the other factions, the whole world went white and everyone besides the Water Faction's Matriarch and the Wood faction's Great Elder were forced onto the ground.
"You dare."
This phrase rang across the Earth Faction's 'Ancestral Land'. The most terrifying thing was, the voice was unhurried and sounded as if said casually, but it resounded in everyone's ears, fully suppressing the newly unlocked bloodlines of the 16 year old Athena and even the other faction's leaders on par with the peak Conception Realm Great Elder.
A man in Golden Armour appeared inside the Water clan's orb without causing any damage to the shield. He instructed the Great Elder of the Wood Clan to continue healing Athena who he referred to as his niece. He then turned to the Matriarch of the Water clan and thanked her for taking care of his niece as necessary due to the negligence of her Father.
In Luc's mind the man had assumed the ignorant little people in this city would never hear of him or Athena again after this. Given that they didn't know either of their true names, how could they as mere mortals, possibly chase down Gods.
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