Ancestor Above

After Lu Qing finished talking about the Water Ghost Lake, he told Lu Chaoxi about the three conquest missions that he scouted out recently.

Lu Chaoxi expressed his understanding. Over the next few years, he would organize the human resources of the clan to clear off and deal with those three places that contained threats.

Those three places were not difficult to deal with. The Level One conquest mission was slightly harder to deal with than the horde of Cave Foxes but was still manageable. The Level Two conquest missions were a little more threatening. Each one of them had a Level Two monster as the leader. However, both the strength and the overall number of monsters were far less scary than the Water Ghost Lake.

Thus, Lu Qing did not worry too much about the three locations. He could just wait for a report to spring out in the system interface.

After Lu Chaoxi left, Lu Qing started to think about how he should use the 200-odd Karma he still had.

As of now, there were not many items he could exchange for in the “Exchange” tab. It was unproductive to wait for the system to refresh itself in ten years. He definitely had to refresh the tab with his Karma.

He had never tried out the refresh function and did not know exactly how the refresh would happen. He did not know how many new options would be presented every time he refreshed the tab.

It would be decent if a batch of seven to eight options sprang out with every refresh, just like it had been when he first obtained the system. However, if only one new option appeared with every refresh... Then, the ten Karma he spent would not be very worth it.

“I’ll know if I try it out.”

Lu Qing thought that way as he tapped on the refresh function.

The “Exchange” tab suddenly disappeared. Then, the two options that were originally there appeared again first. Below these two options, three blurry and hazy lines of words appeared. They gradually became clearer.

“Three options with every refresh. Is that fixed?” he thought.

There was no way to know otherwise. Lu Qing decided to try again.

He spent another ten Karma and activated the refresh function for the second time.

This time, five new options appeared.

It seemed like the number of options added with every refresh was random.

Out of the eight new options he got in the Exchange tab, there were four Level One options and four Level Two options.

Lu Qing glanced at the options. Several of the options were quite valuable.

One example is “Level Two Status-type: Core Lifespan Recovery.”

[You can use this option on a clan member whose Core Lifespan had been damaged to have their Core Lifespan return to normal. This can only be used on cultivators in the Foundation Building Stage or under.]

Lu Qing immediately became elated when he saw this option.

When he first regained consciousness, other than being extremely worried about the situation of the clan, he was also anxious about the condition of his eldest son, Lu Chaoxi.

Lu Chaoxi did not have much Core Lifespan left. He only had ten years left, which was far lesser than the 180 years a normal Foundation Building cultivator should have. Even though he had almost reached the hurdle of the ninth tier of the Foundation Building Stage and could advance to that tier in two to three years, the amount of time he had left was too short.

He would only have six to seven years left in his Core Lifespan when he reached the ninth tier of the Foundation Building Stage. He had to advance to the Initial Enlightenment Stage if he wanted to stay alive.

However, six to seven years... That was only enough to stabilize his current cultivator level. It was not enough for Lu Chaoxi to accumulate strength and charge for the Initial Enlightenment Stage.

If he could exchange the “Core Lifespan Recovery” for Lu Chaoxi, the time he had left would increase from 10 years to 60 or 70 years!

If that were the case, then Lu Chaoxi would definitely have a chance of reaching the Initial Enlightenment Stage!

However, Lu Qing’s heart grew cold when he looked at the price of the Level Two option.

That option required 300 Karma!

He only had 208 Karma left after he refreshed the Exchange tab twice.

He was a good amount of Karma off.

However, he quickly considered that it was all right for him to lack the Karma now. After all, he still had ten years.

Even if he did nothing but engage in closed-door training for ten years, he would be able to obtain another 100 Karma. He would be able to exchange the “Core Lifespan Recovery” for his eldest son.

Of course, Lu Qing would not do that.

Just the three conquest missions he scouted previously would earn him close to 500 Karma.

He deliberated for a moment and decided that he did not have to save the 200-odd Karma he had for the time being.

He had to protect his son’s future, but he could not neglect the development of the clan.

The more powerful the clan became, the easier it would be for him to earn Karma. That way, he would also be able to provide more support for Lu Chaoxi and Lu Mingchao, who were powerful fighters of the clan.

Lu Qing started to deliberate about which of the remaining options he should get.

Lu Qing came to a decision after he spent some time devising a plan.

He first exchanged for the only blessing option for the clan.

[Level One Clan-type: Family Planning]

[Increases the reproduction rate of clan members to a certain extent. Lasts for ten years. Costs 10 Karma.]

This was a Level One blessing status for the clan. It was not expensive, and thus, Lu Qing obtained it immediately.

The old ancestor was rushing the clan for babies!

Under normal circumstances, the birth rate of cultivators was lower than the average human. However, that was not due to biological reasons.

Instead, it was due to their desire to have kids.

Compared to the traditional view of “carrying on the family name,” cultivators did not care too much about passing down their legacy. Furthermore, having a kid would put female cultivators at a disadvantage. They would have to spend ten months pregnant, which would hold back their cultivation.

The most important factor had to do with cultivation. While Core Yin and Core Yang were not the sole determining factors, they did affect cultivators to a certain extent. To a few people with lofty aspirations, they could restrain themselves from heading further down the path of cultivation.

On the macro scale, the Lu Clan did have relatively many descendants.

Lu Qing had nine children. Out of the nine children, other than Lu Mingchao who had never got together with a partner and had no children, the rest of his eight children were not too far off from their father. Further down, the “Ting” generation and the “Ming” generation continued on that legacy and proliferated. It allowed the population of just blood relatives of the Lu Clan to reach 106 when Lu Qing woke up five years ago.

Of course, that number included people who were brought into the Lu Clan by marriage. Women and men who married into the Lu Clan were all members of the Lu Clan. However, daughters who married out of the clan would not be registered in the Lu Clan’s “Population” tab.

...

From this angle, the “Clan Development System” felt quite traditional.

Five years had passed. The population of the Lu Clan had reached 118.

Of course, not every member of the Lu Clan were cultivators.

The cultivation level of the father when a pair was having a child was somewhat related to the talent of the child.

This relationship was not direct. After all, even Lu Qing, who was a Golden Core Patriarch, had a child who had five Spiritual Roots like his second son, Lu Chaoheng. However, there was still a relationship. For example, all of Lu Qing’s nine children had Spiritual Roots, no matter how good or bad they were.

The cultivation level of both the mother and father affected the child, but it was minute. A more important factor was the child’s fate.

For example, five years ago, Lu Wenen, who had been brought away when the Qingfeng Sect came to the Lu Clan to search for a disciple, had exceptional Double Spiritual Roots. However, his father, Lu Mingcheng, was an ordinary human.

Currently, all members of the Lu Clan lived on Yuyan Mountain regardless if they were cultivators or not.

However, that was unsustainable. If time dragged on, the Lu Clan would not be able to escape the fate that plagued all cultivation families. Many splinter groups who have not produced a cultivator for many generations might be forced to leave Yuyan Mountain and set up something like a Lu Town at the base of the mountain.

Of course, Lu Qing would not give up on those clan members. However, the spirit vein was also an important resource. The Yuyan Mountain was only a Level Two spirit vein and produced a limited amount of spiritual energy. As the population of the clan increased, it was natural that they moved the ordinary clan members away and reserved the spiritual energy they freed up for the cultivators to use.

The ordinary clan members who were moved would be brought back to the mountain to train if they managed to have a child with Spiritual Roots in the future.

...

No matter the case, the population of the clan was of utmost importance if the clan were to develop and prosper.

The larger the population, the higher the probability that an exceptional talent would appear in the clan.

How many more children would the Lu Clan, who already had many children, have when “Family Planning” was in effect?

Lu Qing was looking forward to it.