The seventh day of Yu Lingshe's seclusion was finally the day of her awakening. She had cleaned up the day before when she finished the mantra, after washing up, she went to sleep.
Today was the important day, so she took a lot of time, relaxing her mind greatly and feeling the changes around her body before sitting down and meditating for another hour.
This was a little test of her calmness, but she felt that it wasn't difficult at all as long as she kept reciting the mantra in her mind. The mantra was very easy for her to recite, and a little aura of a teacher spread around her. If a newborn was around her, it would be able to awaken wisdom early, if a student was here, he would be able to memorise things better.
Being happy with the change, she finally checked the inheritance treasure in her mind and tapped the central jade pearl on her crown. Connected with jade inside and out, she started to pull spiritual power around her. This time, she had taken out all her jade ornaments, furnishings and such into her room, laying quietly around her.
All cultivators live best in certain environments, and a jade cultivator has the best chances of cultivation in an environment of jade. Unlike other cultivators such as fire or wood cultivators, they didn't need to absorb strange water or tame certain plants – instead, they would have to fulfil certain aspects of jade.
Being surrounded by jade, feeling their aura and seeing with their own eyes how wonderful they are is the best way of cultivation for jade cultivators. She was able to quickly fall into a trance.
Unknowingly, a few hours passed when a small sound was heard from her body. She struggled a bit but continued to hold on. There seemed to be a tool swinging around in her body, polishing her jade root. The tool surprisingly didn't remove anything from the root but smoothened the root instead.
This is one of the specialities of jade root cultivators – they are all born with supreme purity, something other cultivators struggle with. Instead, they have a different difficulty – their jade root is often crooked and deformed, it has to be polished and gradually changed to enter the optimal state.
If it wasn't for this reason, there would be many more jade cultivators. There are many other cultivators who can change their roots from something like water and gold to ice – why can't jade do the same?
The simple answer is that other roots are born naturally and mutating to them can also be done through natural processions, but jade has to be polished to become a root on its own. Those without an inheritance won't ever be able to cultivate the path of a jade cultivator.
After some pain, it calmed down. The jade root was polished into the right position. The later awakenings would have different goals and didn't change the cultivation speed.
On the other hand, it was Lingshe's turn to focus on her jade root, her mind that attempted to stay concentrated slowly sank into a semi-conscious phase.
…
Lingshe was hovering in the air right in front of her body, looking at herself. She realised the situation as the awakening ceremony, this was specifically if she got an awakening that would affect her soul.
Humans have three souls and seven spirits. The seven spirits are different key-points of the human behaviour, controlled by the human soul that resides in the human body. Lingshe was able to see an exact replica of her body, the exact size of her body, being in the same position at the same place.
The only reason she was able to distinguish the human body and soul was because her soul was shimmering in a jade-green light. Then, she looked below and saw her own shadow, but, unlike the shadow behind her, the shadow below her was like looking at water.
It stood on the ground with an earthy-yellow colour, reflecting the human body but remaining inside the ground. This was the earthy soul; it was responsible for anchoring the human soul and body in the world they live in.
Without the earthly soul that anchors the human in the world, the soul itself might be caught by the messengers of the netherworld, it would have no way of replenishing exhausted soul power and would only become a candle running with thin oil or suffer worse situations.
Finally, Lingshe looked at the sky. She saw a thin jade-green line connecting her body with a hovering white body. If she didn't look carefully, she'd think it was a cloud flying above her head. Once she looked carefully, she saw it was another self of hers – it was the heavenly soul.
The heavenly soul has the ability to communicate with the heavens and the order behind everything. The line that connects the body and the heavenly soul is exactly the spiritual root of a cultivator. Through this, they can communicate with the spiritual power and accept it into their body, while later cultivators use this connection to comprehend the laws of the world.
At this moment, she saw how the jade line that connected the heavenly soul and the human being become thicker. The pure white soul at the other end that was nearly forming a cloud started changing form, some jade colour was added to it.
She could also see how the jade coloured silk slowly became thicker, an intuition told her that with this change, her heavenly soul would become closer and closer to her, until it finally crosses the long distance and becomes one with her.
This process happened only for a few breaths time before she returned, waking up. She looked upwards but saw nothing, only murmuring 'My nourishing talent… is to nourish the heavenly soul?'
She was extremely shocked. Among all the aspects, the heavenly soul is one of the very few that can't be changed, even rare spiritual treasures that widen the spiritual roots can't accomplish this. The heavenly soul isn't something meant for mortals to touch at all!
And now, she had the ability to nourish her heavenly soul and the connection that bound the heavenly soul!
Her excitement didn't come from the fact that it became stronger – in fact, there are some extremely rare treasures that can have a similar effect, although it wouldn't be nearly as beautiful nor effortless as her talent, it would still be possible.
The reason why she's so shocked is nothing more than that the nourishing talent every jade root awakens isn't a simple bonus to themselves. She had read the book and knew that this talent was bound to the responsibility of jade roots!
She could nourish others with no cost besides some expendable spiritual power!
'This…' she didn't dare imagine what this meant. Although her nourishment of others was weaker than what she experienced… she was sure that if this was possible, then she could even influence the qualifications of others!
The overall influence of this talent went beyond her capabilities as a cultivator. No matter what, she could never have imagined that awakening this talent was possible
'Ancestor…' she knew this was the gift of her ancestor. Or rather, he probably didn't have the ability to assign any talents, he only gave her a chance to awaken a talent higher than what should be possible with her measly bloodline. No matter how much of a direct descendant with she was – her branch of the blue star Yu clan was so far away from the main clan, this shouldn't have been possible!