Northern Plains
It was winter, a season of coldness, a very troublesome period where the everyday of survival will rise in difficulty, becoming harder and harder with each day of the season—this especially applied to the people of Northern Plains, to the always moving tribes.
Northern Plains can be said to be the harshest place to live, out of all regions of gu world—well, depending on what you consider harsh, that is—in this context, constant wars, constant competitions, the constant need to always move to a new place, all in an environment that favored no one. this was what set Northern Plains as the harshest place to live in—because no weak or foolish person could survive in these grounds, normally.
But still, even weak people have their way to live, and that is to join together, to form a great force, to gather their strength and help one another survive—even a swarm of ants, if gathered together, can resist the wind that comes their way with the purpose of destroying them.
Zhao tribe was also one such place of gathering for such people. Zhao tribe was just what you might call a middle to low level force, with only one Rank 4 and few Rank 3 elders; they were one of those forces with a bleak future ahead of them.
Inside the Rank 3 Gu house at the center of the tribe settlement.
Tribe leader Zhao Han sat at the head of the table, observing the clan elders at the other seats, who, similar to him, wore a rather grim expression.
"We must do something about this; if not, Zhao tribe will end up going extinct," Zhao Han said in a grim tone. "Does anyone have any new idea for what we can do?"
For a few seconds no one spoke; everyone in this room knew that, at the rate things were going, Zhao tribe would probably have no future ahead of it—its fate, to be just like many other nameless tribes in Northern Plains, disappearing without leaving anything behind.
But even so, they couldn't accept this end—no one could.
Suddenly an elder raised his hand, asking for permission to speak. He was a burly and muscular man with a bald head, and after getting the permission, he spoke with some hesitation. "Tribe leader, at this rate we really can't survive on our own. So how about we give a second thought about the Lou tribe's proposal—"
Bang~
Hitting the table, the tribe leader Zhao Han interrupted the bald elder's speech.
"Hmph, how can we even consider such a thing?" He scoffed, anger obvious in his tone. "Don't you dare bring this up again, understood? I'm with all of you; I, Zhao Han, don't have any intention of becoming the greatest sinner in Zhao tribe's history—if any Zhao tribe remains after accepting the proposal from those Lou tribe bastards, that is."
Came another wave of deafening silence. The muscular elder sat again, feeling embarrassed from being reprimanded like this by the tribe leader in front of all others.
The other elders looked at this youngest elder of the tribe with pity, but this scolding was really deserved in their opinion—and there was a reason for such a thing.
In the Northern Plains, every tribe was of one family and bloodline, that being the giant sun's bloodline, the Huangjin family. Thus, things like assimilating into other tribes weren't strange; in actuality it was one of the norms in this place. But even with that, no one would actually do it out of free will. So what about sharing the same blood and origin? At the end they were born with different surnames and in different families.
And the Lou tribe leader, while knowing full well about such things, after seeing the current weak state of Zhao tribe, shamelessly sent various letters expressing his willingness to "accept" Zhao tribe into Lou tribe—and the most frustrating of all, they, Zhao tribe, had actually fallen to the point that they must consider such a thing?
At this moment, an old, gentle-looking elder stood up—the strange thing though, was the fact that he he didn't even ask for permission from tribe leader before speaking. "Tribe leader, please calm down. I'm sure Elder Li didn't mean what he was saying; he is our newest elder and also the youngest of all of us. He hasn't been around long enough to know fully about the topics related to Lou tribe." He then bowed in a hundred-degree angle, continuing, "I will apologize in his stead. I hope tribe leader can forgive his foolishness."
The muscular elder—Elder Li—quickly stood up, trying to stop this gentle elder, but he was late as all the words were spoken and the bow was given. He felt touched in his heart. 'Truly deserving of the substitute tribe leader,' he thought.
The tribe leader Zhao Han, seeing his old friend like this, took a deep breath and gestured for him to raise his head. "Now that Elder Lin has spoken, how can I, the tribe leader, hold anything within my heart? Please sit again, please sit again." But even though the tribe leader insisted, Elder Yang didn't sit, still standing.
"Hmmm, is there anything else you want to say?" asked the tribe leader, as he knew his friend very well.
"If the clan leader allows me, I want to also share my own humble suggestion," he said as he touched his long beard with a smile. "Although our tribe's situation could be said to be the worst it has ever been, I believe there is still hope left; and this hope lies within the new generation of the tribe—I believe we still must not forget about nurturing our future seeds. Thus I suggest we should increase our investment in the academy."
Upon hearing those words, the other elders' faces, as well as the clan leader himself, were quite troubled. It is not that they hadn't considered such a thing before, but with the financial situation of the tribe and the increasing beast attacks—most likely the sign of an incoming beast tide—they really didn't have the capital to redirect their resources to somewhere else.
Seeing this, the gentle looking elder smiled and brought out a Rank One information path Gu from his, letting the tribe leader check it. "The information inside is the record from the awakening ceremony this year. As the tribe leader can see, this year we not only had four B-grade talents, but we also had two A-grade talents." He then paused, letting the said information sink in.
And pretty much, that was also what happened; the elders went into a frenzy. For a small tribe like them, having one or two B-grade talents every few years would be good enough, but to think that there were four of those this year, and on top of that, there were two A-grade talents—such talents that would only appear every decade within the tribe. this was simply too good of a news!
That was also what Zhao Han thought; seeing the information, he had a better understanding of how much fate favored them this time, as this year's Gu master talents were simply the highest it had ever been in one year.
'Heavens, to think the results of this year would be so good,' he thought, his bad mood from before gone, taking a hundred-eighty turn—replaced by a cheering face.
He could finally see the hope to pass this calamity that came upon his tribe. This was simply a gift from heaven—a chance for them, and he would not waste this precious opportunity.
---
Zhao tribe's academy
As it was nearing sunset, this was the last class for today, and it was the infamous history class at that. Thus, at this time, it wasn't weird for a few of those children to not pay attention to the class, but the young teacher was still disappointed to see how many of them actually didn't really listen wholeheartedly, how many chattered to each other, and how many times he needed to go out of his way to silence and discipline those little rascals.
But the biggest disappointment of his was that even some of the high-talent students were not listening to him properly.
Among those high grades, was also a boy named Zhao Muchen. And amongst student he was particularly famous or rather infamous, as he was known as the biggest slacker of the academy—the most incompetent of all; someone who couldn't even refine his vital Gu earlier than many of those C-grade and D-grade talents despite possessing B-grade aptitude himself, someone that made a clown of himself in gu worms usage test after letting his vital Gu worm die of starvation—also suffering severe backlash from it.
In the eyes of many people, Zhao Muchen, this lazy and incompetent student, was the definition of what it meant to be a waste of talent. The teacher didn't even pay any attention to this person who was sleeping in his class—he had tried a few times before out of kindness, but this Zhao Muchen hadn't listened to him at all, so from a certain point he started to just ignore the kid.
Soon, a certain bell started ringing—a sign that the class had ended.
The students soon packed their things, going out eagerly, as if freed from a prison—though, not all of them thought of those classes as torture sessions, well, most of them did.
And In the back row, at a corner of the class beside the window, Zhao Muchen finally woke up from his sleep. He raised his head to see the scene of the teenagers going out, then cleaned his drool and stood up to exit as well.
Walking out of the academy, he moved towards the south of the tribe settlement. There, he entered a tavern and ordered the very cheapest meal on the menu—like he always does.
"Does young master want any drink with his food?" the female waiter asked—the young man came to this almost place every day, ordering the same thing, she would always ask the same question and as always he would respond—
"No, there is no need for that."
The girl smiled as she took her leave. This was one very loyal customer they had—every day, coming here, ordering the same meal again and again. Even though he always ordered the cheapest one, with the business situation lately, it still helped quite a bit.
Soon, the boy finished his meal and filled himself—the food was quite dry; maybe that was why the waiter girl always offered some kind of drink, he thought. He then brought out his pouch; inside, there were only a few primeval stone fragments. The scene made his bitter mood even more bitter, but there was just nothing he could do about the situation.
He scraped up a few fragments and paid for his meal, leaving the tavern with an even worse mood.
"There is just no way, this world is so hard," he mumbled under his breath as he felt like cursing his luck while entering his rented house.
He then sat on his bed, looking at his hands as he thought gloomily, 'Huh, what chosen by heavens, what perfect strategy—it's all just bullshit.'
"..."
"Maybe I need to use one of them…" he muttered quietly and he thought of his days in this world, of barely eating two meals a day, of the constant need to spend his resources on cultivation, of the strange urgency that never let him rest. Even if it had been just a little more than two months, it was hard, hard, hard, hard!
But at the end, he decided to keep following his so-called "perfect" strategy—at least he wouldn't use those now; he wouldn't use those limited chances for something like this—even thought it would easily let him get out of all the troubles he is in.
He laughed to himself. "Really, planning for immortality while stumbling at the first step… haha, I'm really hopeless."
But at the end, as a mortal and a transmigrator, that plan was the only way he could think of—the only way for him to become a venerable.