Ordinary People: Starting with the Chen Clan

High above, amidst the ethereal clouds, a colossal ship, carved from jade and hundreds of feet long, traversed the sea of ​​clouds, soaring past like a blue-winged roc, yet without disturbing a single cloud wave.

Inside a room about ten feet in size on the spirit boat, Chen Xuanzhou was sitting with three members of the Chen family.

"You did a good job this time. Now you can go back and prepare for the Foundation Establishment."

"By the way, there's no need to rush the Foundation Establishment process. Come back to me in six months. I still have some methods that can somewhat increase your success rate."

Upon hearing Chen Xuanzhou's promise, a flush immediately rose to the faces of the three.

"We are deeply grateful for the great kindness of the patriarch! We did not accomplish much in the secret realm, and it was only thanks to the treasures bestowed upon us by the patriarch that we were able to return safely. We are truly unworthy of such praise from the patriarch."

Chen Houzhe quickly kowtowed and said loudly.

Seeing this, the other two quickly followed suit and bent down as well.

Chen Xuanzhou gently waved his hand, and the three of them immediately sat back down, making them all somewhat dazed as to whether they had just knelt down.

In another private room of similar size, three rooms away from Chen Xuanzhou's, Liu Chuanzhi's beard and hair stood on end, and his once handsome face now resembled that of a jackal—sinister and ferocious.

He wandered aimlessly around the private room, grabbing and releasing his hands repeatedly, and several times tried to pick up the only decorative item in the room—a set of teacups on the coffee table.

But as soon as his fingers touched her, he restrained himself.

In this way, the anger in one's heart not only does not subside, but is like a simmering pot on a fire, the more one tries to hold it in, the stronger it becomes, and it is easy to explode if one is not careful.

Unfortunately, on this spirit ship, no matter how angry he was, he had to be like a sick tiger that had had its teeth pulled and claws cut off, and keep a low profile!

In the end, all his resentment turned into a low curse: "Chen Xuanzhou, you just wait. Once I'm sure that old ghost is really dead, I will make your entire Chen family pay for it."

This way, you can be his slave for generations to come!

Upon hearing this, Liu Chuanzhi seemed to finally release some of the pent-up frustration in his chest, and the ruthlessness on his face finally subsided.

The person stopped pacing around the private room and sat down, picked up the teapot next to them, and started gulping down the tea.

In a short while, he shook the teapot, drank the last drop of tea, then raised it high with one hand and slammed it hard onto the coffee table next to him with a bang.

Fortunately, this teapot truly lived up to its reputation as an artifact from the cultivation world; apart from leaving a shallow mark on the tea table, it didn't even have a tiny chip.

"Achoo! Achoo..."

Just as Chen Xuanzhou finished giving his instructions and was about to sit quietly and return to his sect, his nose suddenly started to itch, and he sneezed several times.

This made him wonder who was secretly plotting something.

He immediately closed his eyes and calmed his mind. When he opened his eyes again, he was already in a cave.

Beneath his feet, a spiritual lotus was slowly rotating, and streams of extremely pure spiritual energy were continuously pouring into his body.

"Alas! This Six Harmonies and Five Elements Gathering Spirit Array is becoming increasingly weak. After reaching the mid-Foundation Establishment stage, its effectiveness has greatly diminished."

Looking at the spiritual spring beneath the lotus, it not only failed to expand, but the water level actually dropped slightly.

This is why he has been having his two clones infuse their bodies with spiritual energy, in addition to having some clansmen with good aptitude come to benefit from the spiritual energy.

This means that even a naturally blessed land with auspicious feng shui cannot withstand such exploitation, especially since this land is of inferior quality; otherwise, it wouldn't be his turn.

"Fortunately, this sacred site can now be considered to have completed its mission..."

A smile appeared on his face as he sensed the magical power within his body and found it to be almost the same as when he left.

This caused the smile that had just appeared on his face to vanish without lingering for even a moment.

"In the early stages of cultivating the Blood Refining Divine Light, there are indeed no bottlenecks, but in the later stages, there are pitfalls at every step."

In particular, I have been using the method of infusing spiritual energy into my body to replace my essence and blood, which makes cultivation even more problematic.

An unpredictable surge of qi and blood would require me to expend a great deal of energy to suppress, and even after it subsided, it would cause my meridians to atrophy.

It wasn't that Chen Xuanzhou was unwilling to use his essence blood for cultivation, but rather that he had too many mouths to feed at home, and the few spirit beasts he kept were simply not enough.

There's no other way but to make things difficult for my clone.

Now it seems there's no need to rush into practicing this technique. The Blood Path Technique reminds him of someone.

Hopefully, Young Master Wang won't let him down.

He suppressed this distracting thought, took out a few talismans, said a few words to them, and then threw them out.

These talismans were nothing special; they were just given to my parents in the market and a few elders in the family to ask if anything had happened recently.

Chen Xuanzhou took this sixth sense quite seriously.

As for why they didn't contact the Foundation Establishment cultivators within the sect, it wasn't because they didn't trust them, but because they didn't want them to know that they had a Foundation Establishment clone.

Most importantly, this clone can act independently even when the original body is not present.

This is something that even most Core Formation cultivators cannot do. As for the clone that Chen Houwu and the other two knew about, it could be fooled because of the short time.

At least in his abridged version of One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones, the split souls formed during the Foundation Establishment stage can act independently for a short period of time.

At worst, I can just hand over this set of techniques. Although it hurts a little, it's still acceptable.

His clone within the sect remained there for several days and was still able to act autonomously—or, to be more precise, he was still able to control the clone from such a distance.

Such methods cannot be explained by Chen Xuanzhou's cobbled-together version of martial arts.

Chen Xuanzhou didn't have to wait long. The mid-level transmission talisman he had personally drawn was effective. In just a quarter of an hour, three transmission talismans flew into his hand.

Upon clicking on the first item, a gentle voice, tinged with concern, came through: "Zhou'er, has something happened to you lately?"

Don't keep anything to yourself. Your mother and father may have limited abilities, but they can still offer advice or...

Before she could finish speaking, a slightly hoarse voice interrupted: "Women, you've been talking for so long without getting to the point."

Zhou'er, nothing has happened within the clan! The clan's development is progressing steadily, and although there hasn't been much expansion in the market area, it has firmly established itself.

So you don't need to worry about the situation within your family. If anything happens that could affect you, I think it's more likely to happen within the sect. You need to be extra careful!

Hearing this, Chen Xuanzhou stroked his chin, feeling that his father's words actually made some sense.

It seems that my father has been tempered by his years in the market; he is calm and composed in the face of adversity, and his analysis is reasonable and well-founded.

Of course, with the incense burner around, if something serious happens to his family, it will inevitably have a heavy impact on him.

This is something they naturally wouldn't consider.