Although her spiritual root combination wasn't known for their strength, they were extremely strong.
Water contains all matter and cultivating water arts will always give you a higher reserve of spiritual power. Wood is the element of vitality, and you will have a healthy body and long lifespan.
Together, they form a perfect symbiotic relationship to live for a long time and have many means.
Only if you have a lot of energy can you use all your spells, while little energy means you will focus on a few strong ones.
Just thinking of this, Lianyu felt that her talent was extremely suitable for the cultivation world!
The ones that come out on the top aren't the strongest but the ones that survive the longest!
But her family situation fully destroyed her plan – she was a matriarch responsible for thirty-four qi refining members and five hundred sixty mortals!
Don't think the mortals are few… in fact, the Xu families' foundation was always weak since they came to this territory.
Over time they had several tens of thousands of mortal members, but in the last generation, this was reduced to barely a few thousand.
Now, the matter worsened even more – mortal members didn't survive the winter or were attacked in many ways.
The only reason they had so many cultivators was because they had an old heritage that included dual cultivation methods, methods that enhanced off-spring between cultivators.
Such methods were always rare, but as a core member even before becoming the matriarch, Lianyu knew that her family, in fact, was a spiritual core cultivation family!
Spiritual core – that was the fourth stage of the nine stages in this realm! Above that was the immortal world.
Although the fourth wasn't very high, it was around the middle and should have a stable inheritance.
Unfortunately, some things happened, only the matriarch or patriarch of the clan would fully know the history, and even that was a bit broken.
Lianyu knew these but wasn't disappointed.
Being a fallen clan is better than being a new emerging clan – like they say, a lean camel is taller than a horse.
Their family not only had such a cultivation art to promote reproduction, but they also had a few other special technique one wouldn't find in cultivation families of their level.
Thinking of this, Lianyu stood up.
She said to the several elders that also stood up with her "I will pay my respects to the ancestor. After I come back, I will hold a clan meeting that will decide the matters of the future. Be ready for everything, prepare all matters to be moved instantly."
Afterwards, she didn't pay them more attention.
In fact, these elders could also take her position if she begged them, but she knew their considerations.
All of them were old and had their own factions, if they were allowed to rule, then there would be internal strife.
She, the direct descendant of the previous clan leader, was the most suitable.
Any other talented member who wasn't part of the factions would also be fine.
Having power is great, but being greedy will inevitably kill your whole lineage and family.
Lianyu didn't walk out of the front entrance but turned to the side.
As the clan main hall, the courtyards next to it were the most important.
Behind the main hall was the secret storage where the family ancestry was held, to the right was the worship hall where all worship was held, the tablets of their ancestors were there.
And to the left was the ancestor's courtyard, where the ancestor of the clan would reside.
In fact, different families have different rules – many follow the idea of having the strongest of the clan become ancestors and sit behind to cultivate, but there are some clans that make the strongest clan member the family head, making him directly control the clan instead of staying behind to cultivate in seclusion.
The Xu family wasn't either of them, or rather, it's better to say that they were forced to take the ancestor path instead of the family head path.
Usually, previously, they held the idea that strongest cultivators split into ancestors called 'grand elder' and family heads who controlled – these would then change their positions as they wanted.
Some family heads were fine with controlling and neglecting cultivation slightly, some grand elders gave up cultivation when they reached a certain age and focused on taking more roles…
Generally, it was not a family that fought for power and control. They focused on the whole clans progress and their individual progress.
Obviously, now they only had one foundation building cultivator, so it was better to make the cultivator take the ancestor position, to ensure that he wasn't disturbed by family matters.
As Lianyu thought of the family structure, she had already left the main hall and walked a certain distance on the blue stone path.
In front of her was a courtyard protected by two fully armoured guards with a sabre on their belt and a spear in their hand.
They made way when they saw Lianyu.
Lianyu then entered the courtyard and walked down the path for a bit until she arrived in front of a closed door.
Just as she was about to knock, the door opened and a voice sounded from inside "Come in".
Lianyu became a bit more solemn – the voice she just heard was a bit weak and full of exhaustion.
She entered and saw an old man sitting on the chair in the middle of the room.
He was wearing a long confucian robe and looked like an old scholar, very much unlike the taoist atmosphere around.
In this world, there were several paths, and Confucianism was one of them.
Officials of the dynasty all took this path, while sects only took taoist cultivation. Families on the other hand usually focused on Taoism while still cultivating Confucianism as a side path.
After all, Confucianism is about authority and it was very suitable for ruling people, such as family heads and ancestors.