Chapter 38: Detecting Spiritual Roots Thinking of this, Ye Linyuan pondered for a moment, and then said, "I'll go take a look when the time comes. I hope one or two fairy seedlings will appear this year." There was no external threat for the time being, and the family's finances were gradually improving because of Ye Linyuan. The Ye family had an especially comfortable New Year. The family of seven Qi-cultivating monks celebrated a happy new year with great joy. Even the ordinary people of the Ye family on the island seemed to feel a certain atmosphere, sweeping away the haze of uneasiness that had lasted for many years. Time flies so fast and it’s already the eighth day of the Lunar New Year. The eighth day of the first lunar month every year is the day when the Ye family tests their spiritual roots. This is the most important event of the year for the mortals in the Ye family. On this day, Ye Linyuan followed Old Man Ye down the mountain. Looking at the Yejia Village in front of him, he couldn't help feeling a little emotional. Yejia Island is dozens of miles in diameter, with a total of six villages with more than 3,000 people. Among these six villages, the other five are mortal villages with no background, and only Yejia Village is populated by mortals of the Ye family. Yejia Village is not big, with only two hundred people in total. They mainly make a living by fishing in the shallow waters around Yejia Island and collecting taxes from the other five villages. Before his spiritual roots were detected, Ye Linyuan also lived in Yejia Village and was raised by the Ye family members.
Most of the people in Yejia Village are descendants of Old Man Ye, and a small number are descendants of Old Man Ye’s youth. Old Man Ye is eighty-three years old this year, and he has been practicing for nearly seventy years. Because he had inherited the legacy of a cultivator who had achieved perfect Qi Refining in his early years, Old Man Ye's cultivation progressed extremely rapidly in the early stages. When he was only in his twenties, he had already reached the middle stage of Qi Refining. He was considered a somewhat famous independent cultivator in the Qinghe Islands. Later, Old Man Ye became a Taoist couple with Su Miaoyan, who was also a casual cultivator. They traveled to the Qinghe Islands together and gave birth to Ye Linyuan's father. Unfortunately, Ye Linyuan's father had no spiritual roots, and Su Miaoyan died in a war with monsters, leaving no descendants with spiritual roots for Old Man Ye. After that, Old Man Ye became disheartened and gave up the opportunity to reach the late stage of Qi training. He used the spirit stones he had accumulated over the years to buy the Ye Family Island. He also married seven or eight mortal concubines from several villages, and then found clansmen from his mortal days, and finally left the Ye family immortal clan on this Yejia Island. Ye Linyuan's second uncle Ye Qinyang, third uncle Ye Qinchu, and aunt Ye Qinxin were all born to these mortal concubines. Ye Linyuan was very understanding of the fact that Old Man Ye married a large number of wives and concubines. After all, in the world of cultivation, the most taboo thing is the lack of successors. Because it is difficult to give birth to offspring with spiritual roots, any cultivator who wants to inherit the family will marry a large number of concubines to give birth to bloodline. Otherwise, when there is a lack of young generations, the entire cultivator family will become someone else's wedding dress. After all, there are always scenes of families being wiped out in this world. Old Man Ye obviously had deep feelings for his Taoist partner Su Miaoyan, which was definitely not comparable to those concubines. It was also because of this that when Old Man Ye discovered that Ye Linyuan also had spiritual roots, he made him the eldest grandson and clearly had more preference for Ye Linyuan. Of course, in a family of cultivators, spiritual roots and qualifications are still the core. The real core and direct line of Ye Family Island are still those Qi-cultivating cultivators. Ye Linyuan actually has several brothers, but because they have no spiritual roots, they have never received much favor from Old Man Ye. "arrive." The two men walked into Yejia Village, and Old Man Ye couldn't help but feel a little emotional. Most of the mortals in Yejia Village were his bloodline, but as he grew older, most of his mortal descendants gradually passed away, and he rarely came to Yejia Village in recent years. Now that he came to Yejia Village again, he couldn't help feeling that things had changed. "go in."
Ye Linyuan smiled, and then stepped into Yejia Village. At this time, the mortals of Yejia Village had been waiting for a long time. After seeing Ye Linyuan and others arrive, they immediately bowed and saluted with extreme respect. Ye Linyuan greeted everyone and then came to the center of the village. Here, all the mortals of the Ye family have gathered, and each of them looks uneasy. Ye Linyuan calmly observed the people in Yejia Village and found that among the gathered crowd, there were only about a hundred adult men, but there were obviously more than two hundred women. As the masters of Yejia Island, the status of the Ye family mortals is extremely high in Yejia Island. Often a man has three or five concubines, which is also a necessary move to expand the family population. If Ye Linyuan did not have spiritual roots, he would probably have to take a few concubines to pass on his bloodline. There is no other way around it. As the head of the family, Old Man Ye must ensure that after his death, his descendants can maintain the foundation of Yejia Island. If there are not enough Qi-cultivating monks in the future generations, Yejia Island will be completely destroyed, and the mortals of the Ye family will also fall into complete decline. In fact, the other several mortal villages on Yejia Island were basically the remains of the Qi-cultivating families on Yejia Island. The cultivators of their ancestors were either not strong enough and were driven out of Yejia Island and became wandering cultivators, or they failed to produce new Qi-cultivating cultivators and were completely wiped out by others. No matter which one it is, it is directly related to the lack of sufficiently outstanding descendants. If it weren't for the fact that the new Qi-training families would leave a certain number of people for them in order to avoid intermarriage, I'm afraid these former Qi-training families would have been completely extinct within three to five generations. Just imagine, if Old Man Ye passed away and no new mid-stage Qi Refining cultivator was born in the Ye family, then it would be inevitable that the others would be driven out of Ye Family Island and become independent cultivators. As for the mortals on Yejia Island, they will become the same as those in the other five villages. Most of the women will become concubines of the new island owner's family, and it will be difficult for new Qi-cultivating monks to emerge among the men. In fact, in the entire Cangling Sea, 90% of the independent cultivators were once cultivators from families that possessed spiritual veins, but were driven out of the spiritual veins because of their lack of strength. To make an analogy, they are like wandering lions on the grassland, leading a precarious life. It is not until they or their descendants are born in the middle or late stage of Qi training that they may be able to regain or purchase a new family spiritual vein. Just like the Qian family, Zhang family, and the Liu, Li, and Wang families in the Xinghu Islands, after being driven out of the Xinghu Islands, they have now become a group of independent cultivators. According to Ye Linyuan's estimation, the Qian and Zhang families still have some strength. If they are willing to pay the price of blood, they have a 30 to 50 percent chance of capturing a small spiritual eye. But for the remaining Liu, Li and Wang families, it would be incredibly difficult to seize a new spiritual vein, at least it would be impossible to do so before the second person in the middle stage of Qi training is born. "It's time to test your spiritual roots." Just as Ye Linyuan was thinking, Old Man Ye said calmly. Ye Linyuan looked up and saw Old Man Ye flicking his sleeves, taking out a spiritual bead emitting five-colored light and displaying it in front of everyone. (End of this chapter)