Chapter 15: Seven Siblings
Chapter 15: Chapter 15: Seven Siblings
That night, a banquet was underway in the small courtyard where Li Ping lived.
Cultivators are not given to gluttony, so the long table was simply set with some fruit, wine, and the like. Seven figures sat around it.
Li Ping sat at the head of the long table. To his left and right sat three figures each, with Zhang Tie and Gumu Sheng in the seats closest to him.
Aside from those three, the other four figures were the remaining Cultivators of the Friends Association.
To make the Friends Association’s principle of mutual aid more convincing, Li Ping had specifically established a few rules for recruitment.
First, the Friends Association would not consider Cultivators with five Spiritual Roots, nor those with talent superior to Three Spirit Roots.
Cultivators with five Spiritual Roots have difficulty even breaking through to the Mid-stage, let alone reaching Foundation Establishment. They’re simply too much dead weight.
Meanwhile, Cultivators with talent superior to Three Spirit Roots can easily join a Sect on their own merits and have absolutely no need to rely on mutual aid for Foundation Establishment.
Second, the Friends Association does not accept Cultivators from clans or Sects, only Loose Cultivators.
Cultivators from Sects and clans have cultivator elders and masters. They receive support from their organizations on their path of cultivation, so the Friends Association’s motto of ’crossing the river in the same boat to reach Foundation Establishment together’ holds no appeal for them.
Inviting them is not only a waste of time, effort, and thought, but we could also end up being resented by the elders backing them.
Third, the ages of joining members must be staggered, with a difference of at least three years between them.
The reason for this third rule is that when a Cultivator attempts Foundation Establishment, the older they are, the lower their chance of success. Once they pass sixty, the probability becomes frighteningly low, even with a Foundation Establishment Pill.
As such, it would be inappropriate to create a ’joint Foundation Establishment fund’ with Cultivators of the same age group. Conflicts would easily arise over who gets to attempt Foundation Establishment first.
Fourth, we do not accept troublemakers or those with restless personalities.
The Cultivation Realm is full of strange people and unpredictable events. If a restless person joined and accidentally offended some major figure, it could bring disaster upon the other members. We can’t accept people like that.
...
For the reasons above, the current seven members of the Friends Association are as follows.
Li Ping: Age forty, Three Spirit Roots, Foundation Establishment Cultivator, professional Talisman Maker.
Zhang Tie: Age thirty-six, Three Spirit Roots, Qi Refining Eighth Level, professional Leatherworker.
Gumu Sheng: Age thirty-three, Four Spirit Roots, Qi Refining Sixth Level, professional merchant.
Cheng Yao: Age thirty, Three Spirit Roots, Qi Refining Sixth Level, professional Spirit Plant Master.
Qi Hanmo: Age twenty-six, Four Spirit Roots, Qi Refining Fourth Level, professional Musician.
Teng Feng: Age twenty-three, Three Spirit Roots, Qi Refining Fourth Level, Beast Master apprentice.
Bai Qing: Age nineteen, Three Spirit Roots, Qi Refining Third Level, Pharmacist apprentice.
The fourth sister, Cheng Yao, was a short, plain-looking Female Cultivator. Her background was similar to Gumu Sheng’s, and she had joined after being introduced by him and passing Li Ping’s test.
One thing about her that particularly pleased Li Ping was her average appearance.
Li Ping was well aware of the troubles a beautiful woman could bring; if Cheng Yao had been as beautiful as a goddess, he would have had to turn her away.
Not long after Cheng Yao joined, Li Ping used his connections to get her an apprenticeship at a Spirit Medicine Garden affiliated with the Immortal City. She had since become a Tier One Lower Grade Spirit Plant Master, capable of cultivating Spirit Grass on her own.
The fifth brother, Qi Hanmo, habitually wore white robes and had a rather romantic air about him. He hailed from a scholarly family in the neighboring Ji Kingdom. His love for music led him to meet a certain Cultivator who was living out his retirement in the mortal world. This Cultivator guided him onto the Immortal Dao and even taught him the skills of a Musician. After that Cultivator passed away, Qi Hanmo came to the Immortal City to make his way.
When he first arrived in the Immortal City, he had hoped to make a living on his own with his skills as a Musician. However, the ’Music Guild’ that controlled the Outer City accused him of stealing their business, gave him a sound beating, and threatened him to stop practicing as a Musician.
Gumu Sheng, who had a similar experience, introduced him to the Friends Association.
After investigating, Li Ping found that his background was simple and that he was singularly devoted to music, with no interest in worldly affairs. Thus, he agreed to let him join.
With the Friends Association as his backer, he was able to continue earning Spirit Stones for a living with his musical skills.
The sixth brother, Teng Feng, was a rugged-looking young man who wore leather armor. He was originally a mortal Hunter from the lands governed by the Immortal City. While chasing his prey, he lost his footing and fell off a cliff. By a stroke of luck, he found the legacy of a deceased Qi Refining Cultivator at the bottom of the cliff and set foot on the Immortal Dao.
Later, while selling Demon Beast Hides at Old Man Lin’s leatherworking shop, he was noticed by Zhang Tie and introduced to Li Ping.
After speaking with Teng Feng, Li Ping felt that he had an Innocent Heart and was blessed with good fortune, so he agreed to let him join.
After he joined, Zhang Tie used his connection with Old Man Lin to introduce him to the Immortal City’s Spirit Beast Garden to study the art of Beast Taming. He is still just an apprentice.
The seventh brother, Bai Qing, was a young man dressed in cyan robes. He came from the Bai family Cultivation Clan. The Bai family’s Spiritual Land was about eight thousand li from the Immortal City, and with a Foundation Establishment Cultivator presiding over it, the family was the hegemon of the surrounding thousand-li radius.
Bai Qing was the illegitimate son of a Late-stage Qi Refining Cultivator from the Bai family, the result of that cultivator’s dalliance in the mortal world.
However, after his dalliance, Bai Qing’s biological father simply left without a care, completely unaware that he had left a son behind in the outside world. Bai Qing grew up with his mother.
Shortly after Bai Qing came of age, his mother fell ill and died. Before passing, she finally told him that his father was an Immortal and urged Bai Qing to find him after her death.
Bai Qing cultivated using the Cultivation Technique his father had left behind. Once he reached the entry level, he came to the Immortal City alone to make a living. He was eventually recommended by Gumu Sheng and joined the Friends Association as a Loose Cultivator.
But to Li Ping’s surprise, two years ago, Bai Qing encountered a Cultivator from the Bai family in the Immortal City. Through the blood connection between them, his identity as a member of the Bai family was confirmed, and he was officially accepted back into the clan.
If Li Ping had known about his identity as a clan Cultivator before Bai Qing joined, he never would have agreed to his membership.
But since his membership was already a fact, Li Ping had to let it go.
Thus, Bai Qing became the only ’clan Cultivator’ in the Friends Association.
Of course, Bai Qing held no fondness for the father who had loved and abandoned his mother. Even after being accepted by the clan, he spent most of his time in the Immortal City and rarely returned to the Bai family estate.
...
When the banquet was in full swing, Li Ping clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention.
He smiled and said, "Thanks to everyone’s collective effort, I have successfully reached Foundation Establishment. First and foremost, I want to thank you all for your contributions."
Hearing this, Zhang Tie broke into a simple-minded grin, while Gumu Sheng’s expression turned solemn as he opened his mouth to speak, but Li Ping raised a hand to stop him.
He glanced at the others and continued, "Now that the Friends Association has a Foundation Establishment Cultivator in its ranks, we have naturally reached a new level. Therefore, I’ve decided... from now on, the Friends Association will no longer recruit new members."
After successfully reaching Foundation Establishment, the Friends Association was no longer of any use to Li Ping. However, the oath he had once sworn still bound him to help the remaining members get their chance at Foundation Establishment.
Therefore, recruiting new members would now be detrimental to his own interests.
Of course, the same could not be said for the other members who had yet to reach Foundation Establishment.
After all, the more new members they recruited, the faster they could accumulate enough Spirit Stones, allowing them to attempt Foundation Establishment sooner.
On this matter, Li Ping’s interests were now in direct conflict with the interests of the other six people present.