Anna and Annaly came to see him, surprisingly, together with his new elder, Yavin Redaxe.

  “Greetings, Sect Master.” Yavin Redaxe was the one who led the conversation. “There’s something we’d like to discuss.”

  “We?” Tundra found himself amused by the odd group, but gestured for them to take a seat in his private tea hall. It was a more intimate space, with old paintings inherited from previous sect masters. The few ancient statues made of old dried woods gave the area a pleasant, lightly woody scent.

  “Ah, yes. Anna came to me to talk about possibilities of joining other sects as an outer, or perhaps, inner disciple, together with Annaly. It is a long, complicated process, one that comes with many little concerns. So, they would like to visit the Crimson Lotus Spire and also join the entourage for the upcoming tournament at the White Tiger Temple, when the time comes.”

  “Oh. That is a few years away, but I don’t see why it is not doable. Make a note to include them, then.” Tundra nodded,

  “Ah, so, on the matter of the Crimson Lotus Spire, we’d like to ask for your assistance to send word to Lady Zuri Bckpetals to be our host? Some of the Core Disciples expressed an interest in sparring and learning from the Crimson Lotus.” Yavin asked, clearly on behalf of the mother and daughter pair.

  Tundra rubbed his chin as he thought about the matter. Anna’s metal spirit roots weren't particurly adapted to the generally fire-element of the Crimson Lotus Spire, but that may depend on whether they have holdings where the energies of the metal element were more abundant. The main home of the Crimson Lotus Spire could also have some mountains with sufficient metallic energy for her to cultivate in, and failing that, a supply of pills with metal energy could compensate for those failings.

  But a visit wouldn’t hurt, or perhaps just a short term stint for them to get a taste of life. Visiting disciples programs, or disciple-exchanges were not unusual among friendly sects. They would have to trade pointers frequently, but the sect’s healers will be at their back.

  “Very well. I will send her a note.”

  “Thank you.” Yavin said. “Ah, I believe there are some matters Anna wants to speak to you privately, I will take my leave now.”

  “How interesting of you to get Yavin to speak to me.” Tundra praised Anna, once Yavin was out of sight.

  She didn’t respond to that. “It is something the Core Disciples wanted as well, as a way to hone their skills before the White Tiger Tournament. So, since our interests align-”

  “Very well, your reasons notwithstanding, I am pleased.” Tundra walked to Annaly and noticed she made some decent progress as well. “Would you like to start cultivating?”

  “Let’s wait for the others.” Anna said, as a few more of Tundra’s children and grandchildren entered the room, for their scheduled cultivation session. They’ve missed a few months because of Tundra’s travels, but now that he is back, he resumed his duties to his children.

  ***

  Tundra found Edison staring out of his home’s windows, and at the busy city streets of the Verdant Leaf.

  His situation has not improved, Edison's mind still clouded by the defeat, a kind of inner turmoil only he can solve himself.

  It’s not a coma. Instead, it’s as if he was just less. It was a feeling not unlike that alchemist who failed her cultivation breakthrough.

  “I’m making good progress on the bloodline transfusion methods, and so, I need your blood.” The regressor said to his son.

  His son, without a word, just gave the father his hand. Tundra didn’t say more, just used a knife and made a cut into his son’s arm, and drained the blood into a small clean porcein bottle.

  Tia Truehaven, a somewhat pedantic practitioner of the 72 Iterations, insisted that she accompanied the sect master as he extracted blood from the potential transfusion targets. She cimed that it would be easier to identify the issues in the compatibility tests if she saw the process from the start to the end.

  Tundra thought it was just a way she cooked an excuse to meet his family and certain members of the Verdant Snow Sect.

  But he had nothing to hide, so he allowed her to meet them. If the elder from the Truehaven family could help out, that would be wonderful as well.

  The bottle was filled up, and Tundra passed his son a blood replenishment pill and applied a healing patch to the wound. Not that such a thing could hurt a 4th realm cultivator like Edison. His body would heal naturally. “Eat this, you should be fine by evening.”

  Yet, Edison paused and asked, perhaps, as if he too began to question the purpose of this all. “Why do all of this, father? What is this all for?”

  Tundra looked at his son, and sighed. “A bloodline test, whether you can receive one.”

  For a moment, the boy turned to look at him. He was a full adult, but in Tundra’s eyes, he was a boy. Still a boy at heart. “Why bother, father? I failed. Leave me alone.”

  Did every conversation with his son have to go this way, Tundra wondered to himself. “I do want you to be better, instead of being a shadow of yourself.”

  “No. That’s not it.” Edison somehow didn’t buy it, his eyes looked at the regressor, and Tundra saw a sense of helplessness, confusion, and emptiness. A ck of purpose. A sense of loss and hopelessness, as if he wasn’t deserving of anything. “Why do you do this, father?”

  Tundra blinked. He wanted to ignore that question, though a part of him felt a fire lit up in his heart.

  And yet, somehow, his son managed to fan the fme. “I’ve failed the treasure realm, father. The smart thing to do is to leave me. Let me rot as you initially pnned. Is that not why you allowed me to go there? To test me? Well, I took the test and I failed. Why not just let it be?”

  He looked into the boy’s eyes and realized he wanted him to say, yes, he would throw his son away. A strong part of the regressor couldn’t help but want to say yes.

  Yes. A sane, normal part of him wanted to just chuck the boy aside. After all, he has been given countless opportunities to make a difference and yet he has not grabbed them as he should. Yet, how was that different from what he had done in his first life?

  And it almost felt like Edison wanted him to do just that. Was he goading him to do so? Did he really want to be tossed aside?

  Yet it is in those empty eyes that Tundra knew he cannot say yes.

  A fire lit in his heart.

  Ten thousand years of neglect.

  He judged his family as just nothing more than an ornament, and so neglected them beyond the bare minimum. No, he did even less than the bare minimum.

  Though he was jumping from pce to pce to defend his descendants, wage wars and fights on their behalf, and all that, it was just a matter after the fact. His children were just not as important as the sect.

  He breathed, as he calmed his heart. His son, however, continued to fan the fmes. His son goaded him, perhaps that emotion came from a pce of despair. A person who has accepted that he would forever be in his father’s shadow. “Let it go, father. Some days I wished you just left us alone like you once did.”

  Tundra blinked, and then turned to Tia Truehaven. “Elder Truehaven, please leave. I have a few words to share with my son. Words I-”

  What he wanted to say next would be unsightly for outsiders.

  “You don’t have to expin. I’ll leave.” Elder Truehaven nodded, she wasn’t a fool to realize she was an outsider present to something of a familial conflict. She stepped out in a blink.

  Tundra waited till she was outside, and then he sat back down on the chair, right next to the tea table.

  “There are days I wonder to myself that same question, Edison. Why don’t I just be like what I was? After all, it led me to much success, and it will lead me to more.” Tundra said, a bit of his voice cracking. He noticed Edison was listening, even if his eyes were elsewhere. “But somewhere, someday far away, I met a man, a really wise man who once said to me. The pursuit of immortality and greater powers is a noble goal, but be mindful of what you use immortality and that greater powers for. If you used it wrongly, one day you may find yourself at the moments before death, and realize that it was all for nothing. The castles and paces that you’ve built are but sculptures made of sand within an hourgss, that would wither and fade once the hourgss flipped.”

  Edison didn’t turn to look back.

  “You are a father too, Edison.” Tundra said. “You have two sons. Do you ever feel a sense of responsibility for them?”

  Edison paused. “A little.”

  “Really?” Tundra prodded. As far as he knew, Edison left the raising of the sons to his wife, Suri. The two sons, objectively, were both mediocre individuals, just in the first realm despite already in their 50s and 60s. It was only in the st two years they’ve made more progress and are now slowly inching closer to the 2nd realm. Perhaps it was a ck of talent, perhaps it was a ck of attention. Most likely, both.

  Edison didn’t answer.

  “I feel a sense of duty to you too. Guilt, for letting you be what you are today. I ask myself some nights, and think when have we gone so wrong. Maybe it is selfish. Maybe, it is guilt. But the reason I do all of this is also for me. Not only you.” Tundra answered. “I realized at the end that what I wanted wasn’t power, or a long life. Those are great things, but they exist as a means to achieve something else."

  Tundra continued. "When I reflected on my life, I found most joy in the moments when I carried out my life with honor and duty. A life with friends and family. I want a life where I’ve done right by my friends and family. A life where I have done a parent's duty and more. A friend's duty. It’s something I want, and it is something I will build.”

  “So you are selfish, after all.” Edison answered, but Tundra could sense the wavering in his words.

  “Yes. You are not wrong to say so when I do what I do out of a sense of duty as your father.” Tundra answered, his voice cracking slightly. “I want to have a family that grows with me. A family that I can trust, and a family that I can build a life with and face the end together. The world can end. The world can burn. But, I will die happy if I have family and friends I trust that are there to face the end with me.”

  Tundra hoped his son would be there. There is always hope, but hope is a fragile pnt. It must be tended to, it must be fed. His son was unlikely to be like him, but if his heart was in the right pce, there are still many different paths to take.

  “So. You may have failed. But the fates gave me a second chance, and this time, even if you scream and resist, I will try my best to do things the way I judge to be right. I will do my best to do right, at least to the point when I say it is enough. Even if you don’t see it that way.”

  Edison turned briefly, as if he wanted to see his father’s face. He took a short gnce, and then looked away once more. The boy couldn’t face his gaze.

  The father and son were both silent for a while. Tundra waited, and hoped those words reached his son’s heart.

  After a while, Edison broke the silence. “Is that the wisdom you received from the dream?”

  “Maybe.” Tundra said.

  “Before that dream, you would’ve discarded us.”

  Tundra wasn’t ashamed to admit it. The old him was too focused on the sect and achievements. “Yes, and I was an ambitious fool to do so.”

  “Did you meet a wise man that left you some guidance? The old you was not so wise.”

  The regressor found that question amusing. As if a revetion like that could be achieved with a single sentence of wisdom. “That is true, but it was not so easy.” Tundra said. “Our character, our identity as a person is a house we build as we live. In our lives, we pick up certain materials and items that form the building blocks of our character. Our lives cannot be summarized into a single moment. A wise man can contribute a few such building blocks, but in the end, we are more than the wisdom gleaned from just a single wise man.”

  Edison paused, and then, the words that came after were a surprise. “And I am a frog in a well, my wisdom is no more than the life I’ve led in this town.”

  Tundra sighed. “It was for that reason I offered a chance to travel to other sects and spend some time there. The strength of our character is unknown to us, if we do not let it face some unfamiliar winds and storms.”

  Travel. Maybe Tundra should do more than just offer him a chance to travel. Maybe, what his son really needed was a journey of his own. A journey for him to discover himself, a journey for him to pick up new pieces, and forge a new version of himself out of the whole.

  His son did not respond to that, and continued to look further away. There was another long silence, and Tundra felt Elder Truehaven shift outside.

  Perhaps, she was getting a little impatient.

  He had said his part, and it was now up to Edison to put them together in his heart.

  “Be well, son.” Tundra stood, and said as he left his room. “I will find a bloodline for you. And after that, it is up to you to step out of my shadow.”

  He hoped that Edison went further than that.

  ***

  Tia Truehaven looked around the Verdant Snow Sect and found it to be an ordinary sect, at first. There were some special defensive artifacts and relics that contained powerful spirit beasts, and the formations were rated for a 7th realm attack. The other elders of the Verdant Snow also seemed perfectly ordinary. Talented, for sure, but nothing that would make the Ancient Titans turn an eye.

  Above average talents like Elder Yavin Redaxe or Elder Severian were uncommon, but not exceptional in the Ancient Titans. After days of snooping around, there really didn’t seem to be much to pay attention to.

  In short, the Verdant Snow Sect was uninteresting.

  So, the woman turned her attention to the family of the Sect Master, and thus found them thoroughly mediocre. Every single one of them didn’t have much. The wives were pin, and would likely not rise beyond Inner Disciple in the Ancient Titans. The children were even more untalented.

  In Tia Truehaven’s eyes, the Sect Master’s decision to obtain a bloodline technique to improve their base capabilities was thoroughly well advised. Her immediate conclusion was to actually believe Tundra Fox’s cim. The bloodline techniques really were for his family.

  But if she returned with such a finding, what would the Titan’s Council think of her?

  No. She must have failed. Deceived by the foe. So no. She cannot return with such a finding. There is something else here.

  And so, her attention now turned to Tundra. There was something about the man that was unusual.

  What is it that required her uncle’s attention?

  ***

  “So, these are all the blood jars of my family.” Tundra said, but he also needed to start construction of the bloodline transfusion room. He quickly set up a series of rooms underneath the Verdant Snow Sect itself.

  That was when Tia Truehaven, the nosy elder, began to ask questions. “What’s the purpose of all this?”

  “The seventy two iterations are to be separated and processed in a safe, clean, isoted space away from contamination.” Tundra said, the fact self-evident.

  “That’s unstated in the scripture.” The elder said, perhaps, a little impressed.

  “Contamination is always a problem.” Tundra countered, as he got to work. Some of the materials are mundane and it wasn’t a problem for merchants to provide them. “An alchemist should know that by heart.”

  The fact that she didn’t answer was good enough. He got to work, and she watched. He worked for days, and all the woman did was watch him at work.

  When he was finished, at least, to the extent he was able with the resources avaible, that was when the woman finally asked.

  “Where did you learn all of these things?”

  Tundra looked at her, smiled, and decided to y the bait. “An inheritance, of course. Did you think these thoughts just popped into my mind?”

  She didn’t buy it. She wasn’t a fool, and the fact that she continued to eye him suspiciously was a clue.

  “Are there any items or areas where you believe I can improve on, Elder Truehaven?” Tundra smiled, and asked.

  “Are you teasing me?” Tia Truehaven countered.

  “Not at all. I may be familiar with the ways of alchemy, but these aspects are new to me, even if there are some overps.”

  “No.” Tia said, much to her own annoyance.

  "Since you are here, there is something I want your views on."

  "Oh?"

  "You've seen my son, Edison. How do the great Sects deal with such things?"

  "Deal?" Tia Truehaven blinked, and then shook her head. "We don't. Those who cannot rise to the occasion are discarded. It is all up to them to ask for help if they need it, up to them to fight their heart demons and deal with monsters that exist in their minds. If they fail, they fail. The Great Sects have many other talents to take their pce."

  Tundra sighed. The Great Sects are probably not the best person to ask for advice. Their overabundance of talent makes any individual talent less meaningful.

  ***

  Tundra breathed a sigh of relief when Tia Truehaven finally left him to work in peace. There were things he couldn’t do, not with her present, and things he didn’t want her to see. Secret compartments, little trinkets, formations. Things he knew that would raise even more suspicion.

  He activated a protective formation, meant to hide his actions, and got to work. He extracted a set of materials, retively ordinary 4th to 5th realm metals, woods and stones, and sat down. It was an idea that Tia Truehaven would frown on, but the potential was worth the risk.

  It is not altogether unusual for alchemists, because various alchemists cultivated their own herbal gardens, and kept their own flock of spiritual beasts for a constant supply of resources. In the process, many alchemists, Tundra included, become fairly skilled at mixing and matching various herbal pnts and spiritual beasts, interbreeding them as necessary in order to create something new.

  Bloodlines, in theory, could be grown in a b. There are artificial marrows and conditions where blood could be made to grow outside of a body, and in some cases, there are even spiritual beasts modified explicitly for the purposes of ‘growing’ more blood.

  In the ter years of the Zuja, Tundra had to perform numerous high risk blood replenishments, in order to save cultivators from death. Many of these failed, but many also succeeded, and from those experiences, he gained some understanding of how to ‘grow’ blood.

  So, one of the ideas he had was something called bloodline breeding. Bloodlines, especially lesser ones, could be spliced together in order to amplify certain features, quite simir to how alchemists attempt to amplify the qualities of herbs and materials in the process of making pills.

  It is something he knew could be done, and there are smaller, more blood-based tribes in the far east swamp and desert regions who engaged in blood-based techniques through the use of special ‘bloodsucking leeches’. These bloodsucking leeches are then turned into living cauldrons, to process and forcefully mix various bloodlines.

  That was one of the paths he could go on, and if he ever traveled to that side of the world, he’d have to acquire some of these unique leeches and slugs.

  Another idea he had, involved the use of actual modification of a person’s bone marrow. The old bloodline transfer methods used on young children often involved flooding a child with no spiritual roots with a new type of blood, and keeping the child alive until that stronger bloodline took hold within the body.

  But with his newfound knowledge of the bloodline compatibility and how it is affected by a person’s spiritual roots, spirit realms and bloodline, it should be possible to alter one’s bone marrow with a compatible bloodline, and enhance the likelihood of a successful bloodline transfusion.

  For that purpose, he needed to construct a special bone marrow growing and modification chamber. There are certain spiritual pnts and spirit beasts containing structures simir to bone marrow within their bodies, which should serve as the base for this experiment.

  He would have to then test the experiments on more spiritual beasts, in order to test their compatibility with people.

  The work took him three days, but once he was done he stored it within a secret compartment of the chamber.

  Maybe she would find it, but Tundra had the feeling she wouldn’t.

  ***