Chapter 393 - Dejected Talent
A coat of snow blanketed the sect grounds, while my children walked, or more aptly described as wobbling, through the grass within the Spring Array surrounding my home.
Their childish laughter rang out like innocent chirps, washing away the dissonance in my soul.
They were so… pure.
Fu Yating stood beside me as we watched them, her head resting lightly on my shoulder.
“They’re starting to look more like you,” she said, a hint of teasing in her voice.
“They’re not even a year old,” I replied. “It’s too early to tell who they’ll resemble.”
“I was just trying to make small talk, you socially inept buffoon,” she muttered, though the smile never left her face.
Fu Yating believed that children should never see their parents argue, for that would leave behind instinctive, lasting scars.
I agreed.
She was more attentive with them than I was, but I still tried to fulfill my role as a father. Most of the time, that meant following her lead.
“Also, I’ve been thinking about your idea with the wooden horses,” she continued, drifting into another one of her long tangents. “Maybe we should wait a bit before getting them. They might try to climb them too early…”
Her voice faded into the background as I found myself watching her eyes instead. She was different now.
The mask she used to wear, with its subtle scheming and guarded intent, was gone.
Motherhood had changed her.
…Had fatherhood changed me too?
I didn’t feel that different.
But just as I was thinking about the metaphysical space between myself and the image of a good father. Something clicked.
My thoughts, which had wandered far from arrays, suddenly snapped back into place.
I had been stuck at the peak of Level 5 Array Conjuring for a long time.
It wasn’t that I was rushing toward Level 6, as it was the stage where one could truly manipulate space, create storage rings, and reshape it in more tangible ways. At Level 5, one could only graze the surface by barely bending space.
Instinctively, I had always treated space as something incomprehensible.
Even with a teleportation technique at my disposal, I still viewed it through a rigid lens.
In my mind, bending space was a matter of complex mathematics or overwhelming gravity.
But now, watching my children move freely through the world and remembering the moment they were born. Space didn’t feel so rigid anymore.
It wasn’t a straight line.
It was…
Something softer.
Something that could fold.
Like cloth.
I extended my index finger toward something I couldn’t see or sense and touched it. A ripple spread outward, like my finger had brushed the surface of a perfectly still lake.
Fu Yating turned sharply, noticing what I was doing, and frowned.
“Do not experiment inside the house in any way that might endanger the children,” she said coldly. “If they get even a scratch, I will do my best to find a poison potent enough to kill you.”
Just like that, the gentle Fu Yating vanished, and my image of her as a newly reborn gentle woman was shattered.
Her eyes were bloodshot, her gaze sharp enough to cut, yet she still angled her body away, careful not to let the children see that side of her.
“Don’t worry,” I said calmly. “I have everything under control.”
It felt like I had awakened a sixth sense. Something that had always existed, yet remained just out of reach. Now it was as natural as my own heartbeat, not something I could consciously control. Still, if I did something like running, then that heartbeat would increase.
“How annoying…” I muttered. “This kind of realization is impossible to teach. Everyone has to stumble into it on their own.”
I would have preferred a more structured breakthrough as an Array Conjurer. But this insight was born from watching my children run around like excited kittens.
Also, controlling space was such a difficult thing to describe in words. How was I even going to write a book and teach others about it?
“Honey, I need to test something,” I said, already turning away. “I’ll be back later.”
Without waiting, I shot into the sky like a streak of light. Behind me, my children stared up in confusion.
…Maybe I should tone that down in the future.
No need for them to grow arrogant just because their father was an inner elder.
Not long after, I arrived at the library pagoda.
The moment my feet touched the rooftop, I disabled the Spring Array maintaining the area. The warmth vanished instantly, replaced by the biting cold of winter.
I closed my eyes. The wind brushed my face, sharp and almost alive.
I breathed it in.
Yeah…
This was it.
When I opened my eyes, I raised my hands. Between my palms, a faint, translucent cube shimmered into existence. Then it expanded. In an instant, enveloping the entire library pagoda and the surrounding ground.
Then it stopped.
And yet…
It continued expanding, like a contradiction that made no sense when I tried to think it through logically. But at the same time, I understood it better than anything else.
Something impossible to grasp without understanding space itself. From the outside, nothing had changed. But inside the cube, everything had changed as space stretched and the world's color deepened as light moved differently.
It followed the same principle as a storage ring, but far more direct and raw in a way.
And now, as a Level 6 Array Conjurer, even a newly advanced one, I could see just how vast the gap was between this and Level 5.
The ground beneath me extended outward, far beyond its original limits. What should have been a confined area now felt… endless.
Even with all this, I instinctively knew this was all a crude and incomplete mess, as I had barely touched on the essence of a level 6 array conjurer.
It was a primitive version of something far greater, like creating a miniature world just like the one within the Silver Road Mirror, as Jiang Yeming called it.
That was when someone suddenly approached the barrier and touched its edge. The inside of the spatial barrier disrupted my Qi-sensing abilities quite a bit.
The person's figure appeared distorted and blurred, as if seen through warped glass.
Then the guy knocked on the edge of the barrier like it was a door.
As my perception adjusted to the stretched space, I opened a small gap in the barrier and let the visitor in.
It was an old man. Tall, with slicked-back white hair and a neatly trimmed beard, carrying himself like a refined gentleman.
This was Cai Hu, my teacher, who occasionally guided me in higher-level array formations.
“When I heard you had children, I assumed your next breakthrough in Array Conjuring would be delayed,” he said, his deep voice carrying a hint of amusement. The corner of his lips lifted slightly, with something that barely resembled pride flickering in his eyes. “Yet you’ve surprised me again, my talented disciple.”
He glanced around, observing the space.
“How did you manage to break through to Level 6 so quickly? When I sensed the spatial fluctuations, I thought it was Muchen causing trouble again. That mountain barbarian…”
He clicked his tongue lightly, clearly unimpressed. After a moment, his gaze returned to me.
“Unfortunately, your cultivation hasn’t caught up,” he continued with a sigh. “The amount of Qi required is far beyond what someone at your level can handle. At best, you’ll only be able to perform the most basic applications, like expanding a barrier.”
“As long as I have enough spirit stones to compensate,” I replied with a shrug, “I can still experiment. They can act as both a source of Qi and the core of my arrays.”
The Song family had accumulated wealth over tens of thousands of years, mere spirit stones were hardly an issue.
“Ah, right,” Cai Hu said, as if recalling something. “Your devoted admirer. I’m surprised she hasn’t grown tired of you yet.”
I understood what he meant by that. Song Song had outgrown me.
She might not be the most socially adept leader, but she had gained enough experience to stand on her own. Even if her leadership style was… unconventional.
She no longer needed to consult me on every decision, with only the truly important ones requiring my opinion.
Also, I no longer relied on her strength as I once did. Because even if others didn't know, I now had a Core Formation beast under my control.
Still, we remained friends.
If she needed a hidden array set up, someone dealt with quietly, or simply ran out of ideas, my door was always open.
And I didn’t mind that she sometimes brought troubles too.
To most people, Song Song was the same person she had always been.
But I knew better. She had changed.
“Also, since you didn’t name me as the guardian of your children, I can only assume you chose her,” Cai Hu said. “Which… honestly, sometimes it feels like your brain fell out somewhere along the many head injuries you got. You really want someone like that taking care of your kids if something happens to you?”
“I haven’t really had that many head injuries,” I replied.
“That wasn’t the point,” he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It was a metaphor.”
I understood what he was getting at.
Choosing Song Song as their guardian, despite her personality…
But it wasn’t about temperament. It was about confidence.
If I wanted someone to properly guide my children and teach them, to shape their character, Cai Hu would have been the obvious choice.
But this world wasn’t fair, and power outweighed everything else.
If there were a choice, I would rather have my children hurt others than be hurt by them.
And Song Song was almost guaranteed to reach Nascent Soul. When that day came, her name alone would be enough to deter most threats. No one would dare touch what belonged to her.
Cai Hu didn’t press further. He likely understood the reasoning well enough.
People in positions like his rarely needed things spelled out for them, especially in a sect like the Blazing Sun Sect, where survival favored the perceptive.
“How long do you think it will take you to reach Core Formation?” he asked.
“My plan hasn’t changed,” I said. “Forties, most likely. Early fifties at worst, assuming nothing unexpected happens.”
He clenched his fist.
“What a waste,” he muttered. “The heavens give some drooling fools talents that allow them to break through the Foundation Establishment realm in less than a decade. And then there are people like you... if only your cultivation talent were better.”
“Song Song only needed a few years to get past Foundation Establishment,” I said. “Though, to be fair, her father did provide some heavenly treasures near the end. Probably sped things up by a year or two.”
She wasn’t even the most absurd example of talent, since there were people like Ye An, and not to mention Wu Yan. Talents so ridiculous they felt like glitches in the system itself.
If this were a game, people would call it cheating.
Even someone like Song San, who was a genius by normal standards, paled in comparison to his sister.
“I still don’t see even a trace of jealousy on your face,” Cai Hu said, his tone shifting. “Are you truly that detached from the unfairness of it all? Or are you just that good at hiding it? Even I feel irritated on your behalf.”
I met his gaze and smiled.
“From the very beginning,” I said calmly, “I never saw them as competition.”
For a brief moment, Cai Hu froze.
Then his eyes widened and he burst into laughter.
Cultivators who lived past a century were a strange breed. I had a hard time understanding what they found so amusing.