Matriarch of the Immortal Clan

Lianyu was perplexed and wanted to inspect it deeper, but there was no time.

She had already arrived in front of a yard, also guarded by two.

The guards and servants in the family were mortal members, martial artists of the innate stage.

There are many paths in the world and martial arts is also one of them.

Unfortunately, martial arts can be said to be "easy to learn, hard to master", even more so than cultivation.

After all, as long as you are "lucky" and have spiritual roots, you can enter, and based on your roots, a specific stage of cultivation is basically guaranteed.

They say the fewer roots you have and the higher purity they are, the higher you will reach even if you just cultivate plainly.

Five roots is qi refining, three roots is foundation building and single roots are origin awakening.

Naturally for Taoism, you will have all roots, but spiritual roots are roots that have a purity of at least 20%. The higher the purity, the easier it is to reach the 'guaranteed' stage.

In martial arts, there is something called root bone, which defines your talent. Everyone has a root bone and theoretically, everyone can reach the peak of the outer realm of martial arts, many people call it the body strengthening stage, even cultivators sometimes take this path before formally starting cultivation.

Above the general body strengthening stage, there are many stages, and this general stage is called internal martial artist.

As long as you have a certain degree of root bone, reaching this stage isn't difficult.

While the outer stage focuses on strengthening the body and building a foundation by working out and such, the internal body focuses on internal organs and refines the physical body to the limit.

The internal stage is comparable to the qi refining stage of cultivators.

There are still a lot of mortal members who awaken the internal stage root bone, so clans often use these for all kinds of matters in the clan.

Of course that only happens when the clan is at least in the foundation building stage.

Lianyu nodded to these martial artists – she had respect for them who worked all their way up from a mortal origin, became the 'martial kings' and 'martial saints' in the mortal world, only to then become a guard for the family…

It required a high degree of responsibility, something many cultivators lacked.

She entered the yard and instantly saw two young children playing in the outer yard with toys.

They were all toys the former Lianyu carefully selected – generally they were toys that had an obvious physical aspect to them, not toys that hide everything with the idea of just playing and ignoring the inner hidden intricacies.

They were things like wooden puzzles, a few little mechanical toys of the puppetry path, toys that one could take apart if one looked deeper, and other toys that required a little deeper thought.

When Lianyu looked at this, she had to admit that the former Lianyu was really smart. Even though she wasn't a modern person and didn't see countless 'parent guides', she was still able to formulate a plan for the children.

After all, at one point, the children will ask about the toys and how they are made – in some cases the interest might stuck and they could focus on that aspect.

Although it's a bit early for these things, at least one could awaken the curiosity of children this way.

A few metres away, two maids were standing and looking attentively at the children, just like Lianyu had told them, they weren't to play or interact too much with the children if they weren't asked by the children directly.

This is to create the idea that the children can be independent and also have the ability to ask for help when they need it.

There were many more such things in place.

Lianyu walked to the children and came down, sitting on the ground with them.

When the children saw her, they run up to her and hugged her "Mom!" they called out affectionately.

"Yiyi, Xiao Ye, did you have fun today?"

Her two children, twins, the girl called Xu Lingyi, and the son called Xu Lingye. Yi meant feather and Ye meant leaf, maybe it was a little bit obsession to always make twins sound the same. Even the meaning was carefully chosen.

"Mom, we, we made the puzzle today! Haha, you told us we would get rewarded if we did it, mom, what reward do we get?" Lingyi asked.

Lingye on the side also looked expectantly to his mother.

Meanwhile, none of them asked about their father.

In fact, as cultivators, it was common to be in seclusion for long periods of time…

A child's memory before the third year of age isn't developed, in the first three years, they basically just form their emotions and initial understanding of the world around them.

In the one year they spent since then, they only met their father two or three times, and every time he just played with them a little.

For them who saw many uncles and aunts play with them, they just thought it was a common thing.

In fact, the father did this intentionally, because he knew his own danger.

Lianyu also frowned at the mentioned of her late husband because of this – in fact, when she met her husband, she really liked him.

She didn't know at that time that he was a foundation building cultivator, she just saw his young yet calm demeanour and enjoyed his presence.

It wasn't even one year of them knowing each other before he proposed marriage.

At that time, she was of course delighted but also confused – that was until the young man revealed his origin.

In fact, although he looked young, he was several decades older… he also thought the same was for Lianyu, after all, it's very common for cultivators to basically never age.

He revealed to her that he had a damaged foundation and serious injuries, even if he healed himself, he wouldn't live many years.

His only wish was to leave behind off-spring to continue his legacy, after all, for him who was a rogue cultivator, if he really died, his remains would one day just be the opportunity of a random person.

Rather than this, he wanted his children to gain more.

He revealed his cultivation and finally convinced the Xu family, they married and had children,

Initially, Lianyu offered to give one of the children the surname of her husband, but he rejected the idea.

At that time, he said "My surname doesn't mean anything. My parents sold me away when I was young, I only accidentally entered the path of cultivation.

For me, just knowing my blood continued and my legacy was passed on, is enough to be satisfied."

On top of this, something he didn't say was that he hoped his children would grow up with the best resources of the clan.

No matter how well the clan acted, everyone would prefer their own children than children with a different surname.

In the end, they agreed and lived a happy live for four years.

Her husband's sacrifice in the fight against two enemy foundation building cultivators and one foundation building beast wasn't accidental – he knew he wouldn't have long to live, so now he could only give up his life to save his family for longer.

With his death, the three foundation building enemies all fell. 

This loss woke up the forces behind them and instantly caused them to retreat – with this loss, at least the family wouldn't be in danger for some time.

Lianyu also felt a deep grief in her heart when she thought of this.

The former Lianyu's death was because of the grief… she took over the body and also took over the emotions and memories, so she deeply felt touched when she thought of the story.

For this, she promised in her heart that she would do everything in her might to make sure her children would reach the greatest heights, and to support the clan through every situation.

This seemingly impulsive promise instantly triggered something in her heart, and the fog that covered her up to now disappeared.

She didn't even know this herself, but suddenly she felt that her cultivation was light and her heart was firm.

She smiled and then ignored these matters, her attention back to her children.