“Sir Renaud! I see you are another step closer in becoming a True Immortal!” The captain of the ship, Pierre Bobier, a middle aged man, dressed in a worn leather armor, greeted the leader of the small group with a smile, “You shouldn’t have arrived so early, We haven’t fully loaded yet ...”
“To arrive early is the rule of the Renaud household!” Lyam Renaud interrupted, not paying attention to the flattery.
While he looked like a man in his thirties, he was, in fact, already in late sixties – accomplished cultivators like him were aging differently than the common folk. Unfortunately, after reaching the bottleneck of the early Core formation stage almost ten years ago, Lyam was forced to realize he lacked the talent to form a nascent soul, but that didn’t hinder him in becoming the strongest cultivator and the head of the most influential clan in the region.
While technically the Renaud clan were only ‘startup’ aristocrats, Lyam’s strength and the connections established by calculatedly marrying away his daughters made the foundation of the family strong and seemingly unshakable. While the strength of the head of the clan was self explanatory, the connections created through marriages turned almost every other known aristocrat their relative and thus – their ally.
At first Lyam himself despised the concept of gaining influence though such means and felt it was beneath any accomplished cultivator, but when his wives kept giving birth to one daughter after another he got used to it after a couple of decades.
Indeed, in hopes of finally getting a successor, Lyam methodically took multiple wives in succession, but all he got in return was a herd of daughters as a reward. He had even lost count how many he had, to not speak about knowing their names. All he knew was that there were definitely more than forty and the bunch turned living in the mansion a torture.
It was not that Lyam didn’t try enough to get a son. Exactly the opposite – he tried so hard his cultivation progress stagnated. He was so focused on getting an heir that he visited several of his wives every day and, if not for the pleasant process, he would’ve started to hate the endeavor.
In order to finally have a son he used all means known to a man – from consuming rare spirit herbs and alchemy pills and performing special techniques during the process, to numerically increasing his chances by taking more spouses and even listening to the advice of the famous seer William Allan who was said to possess some kind of heaven grade secret divining techniques.
Unfortunately no matter what he did or what ‘auspicious dates’ he picked for doing ‘it’ according to the seer’s advice, the were no results other than getting more daughters. Lyam was almost sixty when he finally understood that all the effort was most likely for naught and if something was not meant to be – it was not going to happen no matter how hard one tried.
But then the strangest thing happened. One of his first wives, Camille, who currently was already almost as old as Lyam while not being a cultivator herself and whose granddaughter just had a daughter few months ago, nine months after a visit from her tired and drunken husband gave birth to a healthy boy. The news like an earthquake shook not only the Renaud clan, but the whole Burundy region with the capital Ferrand in the epicenter.
While surprised by the pleasant and long expected gift, Lyam didn’t get complacent. As if trying to make up for the lost time, he put all his efforts into grooming the newborn heir, Leonel Renaud, while not forgetting to pay nightly visits to two or three of his wives every night ‘just in case’.
No child in the history of Burundy experienced what Leonel did. Lyam spared no expenses and provided his son with the best available medicinal baths from the day he was born in order to remove the impurities and strengthen the boy’s body. Since the new mother was already relatively old, the rest of wives who were currently capable of breastfeeding were tasked to feed the baby as well and the newborn basically spent all waking ours with a tit in his mouth.
When one day one of sisters for some reason began lactating while holding the little brother in her hands, she was tasked with the same job and soon a bunch of others were forced to join while Lyam ignored all the potential ethical conundrums caused by that. As a result before he turned to solid food, Leonel had seen more tits than the most lecherous brothel clients in a decade without a slightest clue how to appreciate his luck.
While Lyam would’ve gladly began to teach his heir how to cultivate the moment the child came to this world, he was forced to be patient while the nature took its course and the Qi meridians in the toddler’s body were fully formed. Thus the only thing he could do was to groom the oblivious son passively while providing him with the best available nutrients and alchemy products.
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Contrary to the father, the countless Leo’s mothers and sisters pampered him in more ‘traditional’ ways. He was always dressed in the best clothing, carried around by someone and the moment the child made even the slightest grimace indicating displeasure, the person at fault was removed from his sight in an instant.
Luckily such parenting didn’t make him overly egocentric and arrogant. Even more – even though similarly to any other child in the world Leo considered himself to be the center of the universe, for some reason from the day he was born the boy worshiped his father as if he was some kind of a deity. He copied father’s gestures and expressions, when he could sit he did it in a similar fashion his old man was sitting and when he began to walk – for some reason he tried to do it with his head up high, while keeping shoulders down and back straight, and with a slightly puffed chest as if he was a proud and experienced cultivator, and the frequent stumbles and falls didn’t bother the boy one bit. Obviously it was atypical for a toddler, but while the women of the family found it cute, it made his father delighted.
What made Lyam even happier was when Leo began to put together his first sentences, the speech closely resembled that of his father. All in all, if one only considered the attitude and the bearing, a miniature Lyam had been born.
Unfortunately the boy’s looks were a completely different story. Since the child did nothing, but take medicinal baths, eat and sleep, he grew into a shape of a round ball, albeit much taller than his piers were at the same age. While once again his sisters thought it was cute, his father was getting more and more concerned until finally when Leo was about to turn five, Lyam decided it was time for a change and ignoring all Camille’s pleas, took him along on a lengthy trip to a neighboring continent.
Of course, with how calculative Lyam was, this was not planned as a vacation voyage. They were going to visit Lyam’s childhood friend Gabriel Vernier and seal the marriage deal the fathers agreed upon over forty years ago.
The fact that Leo was about to get wife at the age of five didn’t bother the boy one bit. From his father’s attitude he gathered it was only normal when tens of wives were needed to take care of his needs, although he had no clue what the ‘needs’ actually were.
Of course, in order to take care of the actual daily needs of the family head, two of Lyam’s youngest wives, Gaelle and Ines, accompanied them together with daughters Colette, Zoe, and Yvonne, whom Lyam grabbed along in case good opportunities of marrying them off arose. Lyam’s trusted aides, Gaston and Maurice, both peak Foundation establishment stage cultivators, for the time being were forced to act like pack mules and carried the luggage that for the half year long trip consisted of a small heap of bags and sacks.
Thus, while the sun had barely crawled over the horizon and just began to play with the waves in the harbor, the group of nine stood at the pier and captain Pierre Bobier didn’t let the opportunity to slip by and did his best to suck up to the strongest man in the city.
“Sir William Allan himself picked this day for beginning of the trip, so I’m sure it’ll be an auspicious …”
“There are no auspicious days!” Lyam Renaud interrupted the flattery attempt, “Load everything up and let’s go!”
Every time he heard the seer’s name, his mood for some reason immediately dropped. During the past decades William Allan while looking at the stars and creating strange formations had brainwashed him multiple times promising ‘auspicious this’ and ‘auspicious that’, but in the end the success was only the result of Lyam’s own efforts.
Lyam would’ve killed the seer long ago if the guy wasn’t an old man – it felt kind of beneath him. Of course, the fact that Allan was supported by basically every other aristocratic clan was a deterrent factor as well – no matter how strong Lyam was he couldn’t go alone against the whole region. The dream of creating his own nascent soul was over, but luckily he finally had someone to put his hopes on.
Lyam glanced at the boy standing besides him, trying to copy father’s posture even though he more resembled a round ball, and smiled in satisfaction. Last month they did the first elemental affinity test and, from it looked like, just like his father Leo also had the disposition towards the fire element – the most destructive of them all. It meant that the boy only had to work hard enough and if he ever reached at least the early level of the Foundation establishment stage, he could also begin to manipulate fire and increase his power manyfold.
Of course, a rundown place like the Burundy region didn’t have many elemental techniques, but Lyam through his own experiments and from bits and pieces he gathered throughout his life had amassed enough experience and was confident in properly guiding his son. Unfortunately the harsh training he intended to put the boy through had to wait for at least a couple of years for the Qi meridians to properly form in Leo’s body. He was growing faster than his piers, but there was no reason to risk the future of the only son just because of impatience.
Leo, feeling his father’s gaze, looked back, smiled and asked, “Dad, what is this ‘auspicious day’ the ship-guy was talking about?”
“Son!” Lyam patted his head, “There is no such thing. It is something old charlatans have invented to confuse the dumb people.”
Leo, of course, had no clue what ‘charlatan’ was, but seriously nodded in understanding. His father was really smart and if he said something, it was definitely true. Well … and the second thing he learned from it was that the ‘ship-guy’ was stupid.
On the other hand captain Bobier’s expression turned ugly for a second, but then he inwardly grinned. There were only few people who knew how this ‘voyage’ was going to end and he was one of them. The arrogant head of the Renaud clan might throw his weight around the Farrand city, but out there, in the sea, he was not as safe.
Still, captain’s cultivation was only at the late foundation establishment level and it was not advanced enough for him to voice any opinion, therefore he swallowed the insult with a forced smile and offered the group to board the cargo boat that would bring them to the ship.