"One more push my lady! It should be halfway out!"
In the Year of the Rooster, Heavenly Eagle Configuration tailing in the once-every-five decades Configuration of the Guardian of the South Vermillion Bird, guided by the Water Phase and deviated by the arid North-West Wind, many households in the Mortal Realms welcome additions to their bloodline.
"Congratulations it's a boy!"
"Wait, wait why is he like that?"
"Worry not my lady, he merely has yet to take his first breathes."
The midwife pats the newborns behind in an effort to rouse him about, and although his complexion becomes a healthy ruddy red no cries have been heard from him.
Once 8 minutes have passed and it is made sure that both mother and babe are both safe and well, the birthing room is opened to the family diviners and physicians to begin the process of determining the traits, future and auspiciousness of this birth.
"Yingyue, it seems that in your eagerness to keep waiting until that cow comes home you have damaged him."
"Grandm-Great Hierarch, Brother, say that it isn't so! Mind your words please! Look at him, he is well enough and he bears his countenance does he not?"
"Tis inauspicious to speak of such matters when the Gleaning is underway!"
"I hear no cries from him, is that not proof he is unsound?"
"Oh Hierarch, my lord, my lady, need I remind my Hierarch for the 20th time, it is indeed inauspicious to speak of such things as the rituals are underway."
-One diviner speaks up.
Another follows-
"Besides that lady Yingyue, lord Feng it is no deficiency for him to not shed tears, he knows it's no use besides making this harder."
"Now see how he gazes upon us all, which means he is very aware of everything and that is good."
Seeing this the room collapses into solemn silence, and the Gleaning continues in it.
For a hour the arrays sparked, the talismans glowed, incense burned and the dowsing rods have divined the child's place in the clan.
It could have gone on for longer but thankfully for at least once in their careers the diviners and physicians have a willing participant.
Nestled in his mothers bosom as she lies in wait with the rest of the clan elders they reveal what they have divined.
"Well... his spirit roots and physique indicate that the rank of his cultivation talent is of the Upmost Peak Middling Quality and fortunate to have a deviancy towards the Water and Earth phases, Water inter-regulating Earth in his case."
"While his Yang makes up 40% percent of his Qi and thankfully his Yin is quite excessive, it would be a pain to treat uncontrolled Rampaging Yang."
"Meaning?"
"Unfortunately my Hierarch, lady Yingyue, he hasn't inherited your husbands physique, it should be at least 3 generations before it comes again but some traces remain, and due to your prolonged pregnancy and careful womb cultivation after your incident he has good enough roots instead of becoming stillborn due to qi deviation."
"It was wise to not overly shift what happenstance had become of him and now the mutation of his roots make him much better than most of the talents like him."
"It was also wise to give birth now instead of last year when the Guardian of the South was upon us, too many mother's grasping for Heaven's favor resulted in many low grade roots and stillbirths."
"Rampaging Yang is quite problematic as seen in Young Master Long's case, however the 30% percent of Persistence and Bypassing Yin work in tandem to keep his humors in check, although the balance as you can see is way off."
"Get to the point already."
"What we mean by Upmost Peak Middling Quality Talent, my Hierarch, is that among carp there are dragons, and among dragons there is the Yellow Dragon."
"He is not a carp but a dragon, he is not Imperial Grade but he is a dragon nonetheless. Faltering towards heaven but a dragon still. His peers are without peer and yet he is among their number."
"His Ying-Yang indicates that while his countenance couldn't be said to have sword-like eyebrows, he shouldn't be in need of the companionships of... 'cauldrons' so often when he reaches majority unlike Young Master Long, yet as much as ladies would kill to have such beauty they would not deny that such a face would not also behoove them to make companionship requests."
"Slightly better than Won, Bum, and Baam get and less of a pain to Caixi's brat is he, do the fairies of today even stand to be in the presence of beauty not their own?"
"In these days my Hierarch I have heard they go much further than that my Hierarch."
"Ah... yes now looking closely too much of me than of him, at least his eyes are just like his."
"A cow's?"
"Please Great Grandmother, not of the dead! Ah sorry, sorry I was being a bother am I? There, there, more where that comes from."
"Really? I couldn't tell."
Shutting her eyes and counting to ten just like her sweet Tan'er and her master told her to, reminding herself she still needs the clan and it needs her along with the resources for his last gift to her, she falls not to the provocations of the clan's Hierarch.
"Brother, Grand Hierarch, please bless us with your suggestions for names, no Grandmother even though he is my calf I am not naming him calf."
"Niu, from his father."
"Gen, from his father's Tangen."
Thankfully her brother gave her an out like she asked, they proposed when its born if its a girl she would be Yue-Yin and if it was a boy...
"Well hello there little Gen'er, in a few days the whole clan will welcome you."
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Yesterday it had been 4 years since I had gained consciousness in this new world, not in the sense that I gained consciousness around 4 years old but 4 years since I had been 'spawned' into my mother's womb.
This is because when somebody reaches the highest ranks of Qi Compression and lowest rank of Foundation Establishment, such techniques utilizing delayed pregnancies and womb-dual-cultivating become possible, becoming the reason for so many clanless cultivators' heart demons.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
For as I temper my fists, elbows, knees and feet with the clan martial arts with some of my own MMA paired with some introspective monologuing to prepare my body and mind for the first movement and combat technique prepared for little 4 year old me, already at the 5th step beyond Body Tempering, the average cultivator of Crucible City's Melting Crucible Sect starts out barely on the first step to Body Tempering.
Many such victims to their own will crashing out deviating their qi.
Everyone would call it a skill issue and it is, no worthy cultivator can be kept down by class disparity they say.
If they cannot overcome man and nature how can they defy the Heavens?
I thank my mother, the Heavens, the clan and myself for having such good karma that I don't end up as the equivalent of a connivence store cashier in this terrifying xianxia genre world, although without me handing out the almost expired food to the homeless dudes I had an arrangement with in exchange of guarding the conbini would I not accrue such karma to begin with?
Am I worthy of such since I had asked for loyal and honest service in exchange for nearly spoiled goods?
The Chinese are strange in their morality indeed.
"Young Master Long! Show us some pointers if you will!"
"Heh, how can this seat deny such an earnest request, bear witness to the complete collection of the peerless Crucible Strikes!"
The fuck was the silk-pants troupe doing in the training courtyard this late in the afternoon, don't they have protagonists to job to or servant girls to harass?
What am I thinking of course they interrupt me the unemployed bums.
As I continue my usual amount of staring at them until they sod off I suddenly realize via my ongoing self reflection session my own mistakes.
Swiftly with a prayer to Heaven for forgiveness, I recant those thoughts comparing them to hobos and beggars.
Both past and present beggars are above them.
I keep up the staring act at their shenanigans and... they are still here after 2 minutes,
Well... I didn't think I get to use one of my birthday gifts this soon but here we go.
"Middling Little Gen, here to glimpse the strength of the clan's genius?"
"Hah... what choice must I have since this burden of being the hope of the clan was foisted upon myself..."
"Feel free to admire my stances for mayhap I can enlighten your sorry self and take all Wu-Tang clan as I ascend.
"Why bother with that fidgeting on that pole like a auction house dancer.
"When I ascend to Immortality very soon, endless resources are free for everyone to squander."
"I heard you lost to lady Tian yesterday."
"What."
"I heard you, outer disciple on 2nd step to Qi Sensing, lost to lady Tian, Fairy He's very own scion still in 7th step to Body Tempering, yesterday. Is that true."
"Who told you such slander!"
"I heard you, outer disciple on 2nd step to Qi Sensing, lost to lady Tian, Fairy He's very own scion still in 7th step to Body Tempering, yesterday. Is that true."
"You fucking cow eyed freak staring and repeating such lies, I should have you-"
"You aren't permitted Young Master."
"What!"
"You aren't permitted Young Master."
"Middling Gen insulted Young Master Long surnamed of the honored Wu-Tang clan! Surely such acts could not go unpunished!"
Oh right, The clan name.
To make a long story short, originally just Tang Clan, grandma Hierarch reached Core Formation and utterly butchered her husband and the rest of the clan that took out Wu clan and took her to broodmare.
This is a very dark matter but still, to think back then in the past life a clan name could be structured like that.
Speaking of cutting short, I should finish this.
"I heard that you, still an outer disciple still on the 2nd step to Qi Sensing, lost to lady Tian, chosen outer disciple to Fairy He, yesterday in a unsanctioned duel."
"It must be true."
The 18 year old born of his parents being one degree of familial separation predictably crashed out and promptly dragged out with his hanger-on's by his babysitter on the fact that despite given the very best of the clan resources and being born more auspiciously with the Extreme Yang High Quality Talent spirit roots he only mastered the sect's basic Crucible Breath and Strikes, never winning any Inner Disciple Acceptance Tournament with a low turnout every Spirit Beast Hunt, and spamming talismans every fight in the 3 years he spent at Melting Crucible Sect.
They said that any techniques gifted to him were beneath him and he is still searching for one worthy of his talents.
I say what talent?
Something something uneven foundation, something something unsteady cultivation.
Thinking back I also heard he learned some of the techniques sent to him as a joke to deviate his own qi, a cruel jape really who would believe such rumors, but I saw the physician make the rounds out of his room for a month before going back to the sect.
Thinking even further since qi deviations well, deviate your everything was he even made aware of the fact he deviated?
Mayhap this one of the reasons my grandma Hierarch is allowing this privilege.
My elbows thud some blood on my face snapping me out.
"Yep enough for this day."
Tonight I will go to the prepared bath with healing salves prepared after, the water infused with qi to penetrate and scour the skin, muscle and bone to further my cultivation.
Tonight I greet my mother and have dinner with her as always and then head to bed.
Tomorrow I finally will learn the breathing technique my mother has learned from her master and to be passed on to me.
Tomorrow I start my apprenticeship in art of the calligraphy and its applications in talisman creation, array forming and inscribing cultivation tools and weapons.
Such is my second life, I hope to have no regrets in this one also.