Seeing Ye Xuan's blank stare Miss Li gave felt a quite a disappointed look, as if she had been expecting a bit more reaction from him. But to her disappointment, the reaction of Ye Xuan was quite lackluster.
She brushed off that look of disappointment pretty soon and started to speak "Well as you heard before losing consciousness, You're my nephew. Quite a coincidence, right?" she gave a soft smile after finishing speaking.
"And you can stop being so cautious, it's quite painfully obvious that you have a lot of questions, so ask away. But do it one at a time though" she said as she slowly walked past Ye Xuan to the bed and sat down on it.
Ye Xuan was caught off guard, he thought he did a good job to not make his expression so obvious but he was still figured out by this person.
Despite a lot of hesitations Ye Xuan made up his mind to ask the questions he was dying to know the answers, "You said I'm your nephew after knowing that my mother is Li Xiuying, so that must mean my mother's your sister."
"Twin sister actually" said miss Li while having a somewhat sad expression.
Ye Xuan was baffled at first, his mother would be around 40 years old if she had been still alive but this woman in front of him clearly looked to be in her mid twenties, but then he understood that his aunt must also be an immortal cultivator like that man, Li Shizhen.
"My name is Li Xiu, your mother Li Xiuying was my little sister, albeit a single minute younger." continued Li Xiu still having that sad expression on her face.
"How was my mother's relationship like with you, and her family?" He probably could have worded that better that it didn't sound so awkward, thought Ye Xuan. His social awkwardness kicked in at the worst time.
Ye Xuan always wanted to know this as he had never found the answer to this question when Ye Hong, his father told him stories about his mother.
Actually his father had never told him anything about Li Xiuying's family, whether he didn't want to tell Ye Xuan or just simply didn't know.
"We were a very happy family, me, mother, father and grandfather... We all adored her. She possessed a cheerful personality that always brought a smile to our face. From her childhood she was very understanding and kind to a fault."
"And she loved us back just as much we loved her, if not more."
Ye Xuan was listening carefully as to not miss a single word of what his mother was like even though he had heard about her personality multiple times from his father.
"Where is this place?" Ye Xuan asked. His questions were quite out of order, he went from asking about his mother's relationship with her family to the location he was currently in.
"You're currently in Kunlun Continent. We are headed towards the main branch of the Li clan, to visit my father, but we decided to take a break along the way in one of my cave abodes that I use when I'm out of the clan vicinity." Said Li Xiu, the sad expression slowly disappearing from her face.
Ye Xuan was horrified when he heard this news, he was in a different continent? Just how long was he knocked out for them to travel this far...
"How long was I unconscious for?" He asked, the jumbled thinking of his finally getting into order slowly.
"Mm, about 3 days and it's night time now" she said casually. Ye Xuan stopped being surprised at this point. But anyone else in his situation would be puzzled.
He was unconscious for 3 full days after what Li Shizhen did, he really didn't like that man bcus of it. After all that nausea and that splitting headache was not the most pleasurable experience he had.
But what was really shocking was that traveled to a different continent in just 3 days. Not to mention the Kunlun Continent was quite the distance from Nanjiang continent.
Kunlun Continent is one of the biggest and most influential continent in the distant north, whereas Nanjiang continent which was the smallest continent to exist, was in the far south.
It would usually take people months of venture to travel this sort of destination but they had traveled this far in only 3 days.
"Now, you haven't still introduced yourself to me, how long do you plan to keep me waiting" said Li Xiu in a semi joking tone.
Ye Xuan listened to her and wondered why Li Shizhen didn't tell her in the 3 days that he was knocked out but he decided to politely reply "My name is Ye Xuan, I turned 14 this year"
Li Xiu looked at the now standing Ye Xuan up and down and said "Anyone ever told that you don't look your age?"
Ye Xuan slowly walked over to a chair and sat down "I do get that a lot, people often mistake me as an adult" he replied to Li Xiu.
Li Xiu smiled a bit and then took a transparent crystal out of thin air, Ye Xuan had seen Li Shizhen do a similar thing back when they first met with that jade box, but it still managed to surprise him.
The crystal was transparent and spherical in shape, it was extremely clear almost making it seem like nothing was there, if you didn't look at Li Xiu holding on it , you could never tell it was present there in plain sight.
Li Xiu walked over to the chair he sat on which caused Ye Xuan to slowly stand up, " Place you hand on this orb, we'll be testing your spiritual root"
Ye Xuan was confused to say the least, what was a spiritual root, he had never heard of it. Also how would placing his hand on the orb help in testing his so called "spiritual root".
He had let a look of confusion and doubt slip on his face which was seen was by Li Xiu who just smiled and said nothing.
Ye Xuan decided to not question things to himself that he wouldn't understand anyways, and placed the palm of his hand on the ball which gave him a tingling sensation in his abdomen.
Moments later the crystal radiated a green color which slowly diminished and then again radiated a dark brown color.
"Double spiritual root, Wind and Wood element. A variant element, that sure is rare" She said with a clearly pleased expression.
Ye Xuan still held on the confused expression on his face. He has already not sure about what the spiritual root was, much less the variant spiritual root? Wood and wind elements?
Seeing the visible confusion in Ye Xuan, Li Xiu guessed that Li Xiuying had never told Ye Xuan about anything related to cultivation. Ofc she didn't know that Ye Xuan didn't even get to see his mother.
"We absorb the heaven and earth qi to cultivate, but to absorb the heaven and earth qi we need a spiritual root. There are different qualities of spiritual roots that we determine by how many elements the spiritual root has, the more elements it has the more energy is needed to be absorbed, and the harder it is to cultivate. Their cultivation rate will be slower."
"There are five elements that can be found commonly, they are fire, water, earth, wood and metal. But there are three elements that are found very rarely in people, they are called the variant elements. They consist of wind, lightning and ice"
"The variant elements take half the time to cultivate compared to the common elements. So the best spiritual root one could have is a single variant element spiritual root, then followed by a single common element or two variant element spiritual root, and then comes the spiritual root that possesses three variant element or one common element and one variant element, which is what you have" Li Xiu came to a halt after speaking for quite a while.
Ye Xuan heard everything Li Xiu was saying in details, he now had a brief understanding of what a spiritual root was and found that his was not bad at all.
But he still wondered how the orb figured out his spiritual root and displayed it by changing colors. He found it very intriguing.
Li Xiu further continued "The variant element stops appearing after a person has two or more common elements, therefore the worst spiritual root is when a person has all five common elements."
"They should still be able to cultivate in theory, but most can't even get to the later stages of qi refining"
"What's qi refining?" asked ye Xuan with a clueless expression unbefitting of a scholar such as him with all his knowledge.
Li Xiu looked at Ye Xuan with a blank stare and then went back to the bed and laid down sideways facing the opposite direction of Ye Xuan. "Goodnight, I'm too lazy to explain anymore today"
Ye Xuan just stood near the seat not knowing what to think about this woman, his aunt. He wondered once more "Is she actually older than me? No way right? I must be getting pranked"
But such thoughts of his stopped when he remembered Li Xiu's sad smile while speaking about Li Xiuying.
Ye Xuan remembered every bit of the conversation, to the point that it wouldn't be strange if he could replay it like a video in his mind.
After thinking thoroughly about the entire conversation he deduced that... He really sucked at conversing with people. He once again walked to the exit. He went to open the wooden door open once again when someone opened it from the outside.
Fortunately it didn't hit him in the face this time, he stared at the person outside the door. It was Li Shizhen.
Li Shizhen looked at Ye Xuan who was standing right in front of him inside the room. Ye Xuan stared at the man with a look that clearly stated that he didn't like him.
Li Shizhen understood and apologized and further explained that it was the only way to prove that Ye Xuan was actually a Li clan member. He further explained that he would have had to experience the same thing when he got to the clan anyways even if he didn't do that.
Ye Xuan still didn't like Li Shizhen though, was he being petty? Yes. But was it justified? Absolutely.
"Did martial sister Li explain everything to you?" asked Li Shizhen.
"Not really" replied Ye Xuan with a s complicated expression.
Li Shizhen sighed as if he already knew this would happen. He asked Ye Xuan what she explained and continued from there.
Li Shizhen slightly walked away from the doorstep and put him palm up in the air. Suddenly a hologram was created.
Qi refining, foundation establishment, Golden core, Nascent soul and Half Immortal. These were the things that was displayed in an ascending manner, each realm written at the top of the previous one.
"Every time you reach a higher major realm your lifespan is prolonged, and qi refining is the first realm, when we get into the first layer of qi refining, we officially start our cultivation journey"
Li Shizhen finished giving a rough explanation of cultivation to Ye Xuan. Ye Xuan just stood there processing everything.
"You'll know about it in further details when you embark on your journey as a cultivator" Li Shizhen said having that annoying aloof look on his face.
He wondered what the realm of Li Shizhen and Li Xiu was. And he wanted to know "Was my mother also a cultivator?" Ye Xuan asked to Li Shizhen hoping that he'd know considering he did somehow knew his mother.
He still didn't know if he was related to Li Shizhen. Li Shizhen replied "Miss Li Xiuying? Of course she was a cultivator. She was one of the brightest talent of our clan having a Wind variant spiritual root"