Akitsu Country, Mizuhara Domain, Kawase Town.
The late-summer afternoon sun slanted across the old tiled roof, casting a pale golden sheen over the inner courtyard of the Kurose residence. The house had been repaired through many generations. The hallway wood had darkened under years of rain and sun, and several paving stones had sunk with age. At the lowest corner, water from the noon rain had yet to drain completely, forming a large, murky blue puddle.
Kurose Nobumasa stood outside the eastern room, taking a few steps before turning back. He was only twenty-two, with a slightly stocky build, dressed in a dark-blue robe whose cuffs had faded from repeated washing. His hands alternated between clasping behind his back and rubbing together unconsciously. None of his usual composure remained—the calm he displayed when calculating the farmland accounts or handling servants' affairs.
Occasionally, a muffled moan came through the paper door. Each time the sound reached him, Nobumasa's steps faltered for a moment.
Outside in the courtyard, his two children had no idea what their father was feeling.
Seven-year-old Kurose Munetaka was stirring the puddle with a branch. His three-year-old younger brother, Kurose Ieharu, wanted to imitate everything his brother did. The little boy gripped the hem of his clothes with both hands, lifted one foot, and stomped hard on the edge of the mud. Water splashed all the way to his knees.
Munetaka immediately burst out laughing.
“Stomp harder.”
Ieharu obediently threw his whole weight onto his other foot.
Splash!
This time, mud splattered both their clothes.
Nobumasa turned his head, one eyelid twitching slightly.
“Munetaka. Ieharu.”
The two children froze at once.
Their father's voice wasn't loud, but years of experience had taught them that this was usually more dangerous than shouting.
Nobumasa pointed at the mud on their pant legs.
“I told you to stay away from the standing water.”
Munetaka lowered his head but still tried to explain. “I was just checking how deep it was.”
Ieharu looked up with an innocent face and immediately sold out his brother. “He told me to stomp.”
Munetaka turned and glared at him.
Nobumasa lightly rubbed the space between his brows. On an ordinary day, he would have dragged both of them away to change clothes long ago. But after hearing the sounds from the birthing room, he truly wasn't in the mood to argue with two little children.
“Get out of there. If I see you do it again, you'll both stay inside for the next few days.”
Munetaka hurriedly pulled his brother away.
Nobumasa watched them for a moment before turning back toward the room. He knew that if he stopped watching them, there was no telling how long they would remember his warning.
This courtyard, this old house, the farmland outside town, and a few mischievous children—those were nearly Nobumasa's entire life at present.
The Kurose clan had once been far more glorious.
His great-grandfather had earned merit in a major war, and as a result, the clan had been entrusted with managing a stretch of fertile farmland around Kawase. In those days, the granary stores were always full, the dependents numerous, and every farming family working Kurose land had to bring part of its harvest to the main house each season.
But the foundation of a clan could not rest solely on the achievements of one dead man.
War and upheaval dragged on. The land was gradually divided into smaller parcels, and the connections that had once kept Kurose standing disappeared one after another. By Nobumasa's father's generation, the family fortune had been reduced to the ancestral home, a few granaries, and enough farmland for the Kurose residence to still be regarded as a modestly wealthy clan in Kawase.
They weren't poor.
But they were no longer worth fearing.
Both of Nobumasa's parents died in the war and upheaval while he was still young. At fifteen, he had been forced to take over everything that remained.
No one asked how much a teenager understood about farmland, taxes, or human relationships.
The seasons still came.
Wages still had to be paid.
The granary still needed someone to manage it.
The people who depended on the Kurose estate couldn't stop eating just because their master was young.
Over the past seven years, Nobumasa had grown used to calculating every income and expense, reading the water level in the fields to predict the harvest, and thinking of the clan before thinking of himself.
But deep in his heart, he had always kept a secret he had never told anyone.
From the moment he was born, Nobumasa had possessed memories that did not belong to this world.
He had once lived somewhere else.
In a world without spiritual energy, without people controlling energy to cross mountains, and without creatures capable of living for hundreds of years.
Those memories had taught Nobumasa something from childhood that none of the children around him had ever considered.
If the immortal path truly existed, then immortality was no longer something found only in legends.
When Nobumasa was six, a group of cultivators responsible for testing children's constitutions came to Kawase.
Nobumasa arrived before sunrise.
Hundreds of children took turns placing their hands on the spirit-testing stone. Some made the stone's surface flash with a faint light. A few caused several spirit patterns to appear. Others produced no reaction at all.
When it was Nobumasa's turn, he scarcely dared to breathe.
His small hand rested on the cold stone.
One beat.
Two beats.
The spirit-testing stone remained dull gray.
The examiner glanced at him once, then called for the next child.
He had no spirit root.
Those four words severed Nobumasa's greatest dream when he was only six years old.
He had been unwilling to accept it and had asked around to see whether there was any way to change his constitution. The answer he received wasn't entirely hopeless. There truly were things in this world capable of reversing one's innate talent.
But every one of them was so far beyond reach that a minor clan like Kurose had no right to dream of them.
After that, time passed.
His parents died, and the family fortune weighed down his shoulders. Nobumasa married, had children, and learned to live as the head of a clan.
His dream of the immortal path was gradually buried beneath the trivial matters of daily life.
He had once thought he had truly accepted it.
If he couldn't cultivate in this life, then preserving the family fortune, raising his children to adulthood, and giving the later generations a slightly better life wouldn't be such a bad ending.
A newborn's cry suddenly pierced the eastern room.
Nobumasa lifted his head at once.
The cry was remarkably loud.
Not long afterward, the door opened. Sakuma Tome stepped out, her forehead covered in sweat, but her expression had relaxed completely.
She had served the Kurose clan for many years and was the most experienced midwife among the women in the area around Kawase.
“Congratulations, Master. It's a girl. Both mother and child are safe.”
Nobumasa felt the weight that had pressed against his chest all afternoon finally lift.
“As long as they're safe.”
He was about to step forward and ask about Shizuru when a completely different sound suddenly rang inside his head.
It was unlike a human voice.
Nor did it come from anywhere around the courtyard.
“Bloodline extended. A new sprout enters the genealogy.”
“The Thousand-Leaf Family Hall awakens.”
The world before Nobumasa's eyes immediately went dark.
The children's voices, the footsteps, the afternoon light on the tiled roof—all of it vanished.
When his consciousness steadied, he was standing in a hazy space without visible boundaries.
An ancient hall stood ahead.
It was neither particularly grand nor ostentatious. The strangest thing was the countless branchlike patterns spreading across the stone pillars and roof, each branch ending in the shape of a small leaf.
Some leaves glowed faintly.
Other branches were completely bare.
Before Nobumasa could take a step forward, a name appeared in his consciousness.
The Thousand-Leaf Family Hall.
At the same time, he remembered an antique that had been passed down through the Kurose household for generations.
It was merely an oddly shaped black jade ornament. No one knew what it was used for. His father had once said it was an heirloom from their ancestors and, though it wasn't worth much money, must never be sold.
Nobumasa had never imagined that object could be connected to the scene before him.
He stepped inside the hall.
A wall of blue-green stone stood opposite the main entrance.
Thin lines of light, like leaf veins, intertwined across its surface to form a structure resembling a great tree.
Names appeared one after another.
Kurose Nobumasa.
Kurose Chiyo.
Kurose Shizuru.
Kurose Munetaka.
Kurose Ieharu.
At the very bottom, a small, nameless leaf had just appeared.
The Thousand-Leaf Genealogy Wall.
Nobumasa stared at the wall for a long time.
He didn't rush to guess what rules those names represented. The thing before him far exceeded his current understanding, and any conclusion at this point would be premature.
Immediately afterward, a large amount of writing appeared in his sea of consciousness.
The cultivation method's name consisted of only six characters.
The Harmonized Life-Nourishing Root Method.
As soon as Nobumasa absorbed the opening section, he felt a pressure build at his temples. Its contents concerned blood and vital energy, meridians, life force, and the harmonization of two living beings—things entirely beyond the understanding of someone who had never cultivated.
But the Thousand-Leaf Family Hall didn't seem to require him to understand everything immediately.
The most important parts were directly transformed into clear concepts.
Descendants carrying blood recognized by the Family Hall could cultivate the Harmonized Life-Nourishing Root Method once they reached the age of fifteen.
During cultivation, when the life force of two people harmonized and circulated through one complete cycle of the method, the cultivator would have roughly a ten-percent chance of changing their constitution and growing a spirit root from a state of having none.
Ten percent.
Those two words alone made Nobumasa's heart beat faster.
To the great immortal sects, ten percent might not amount to much.
But Kurose was currently nothing more than a mortal clan.
There were no cultivators.
No arcane lineage.
No spiritual land.
If one person with a spirit root could appear out of every ten, its meaning would be entirely different.
Even if the transformation failed, the method could still nourish one's blood and vital energy and extend one's lifespan to a certain degree.
Before Nobumasa could fully digest that information, another message appeared.
As the person who had awakened the Thousand-Leaf Family Hall, he had received a special guarantee.
The first time he and his spouse completed one full circulation of the Harmonized Life-Nourishing Root Method together, his constitution would definitely undergo a transformation.
He would grow a spirit root.
Its lowest quality would be a five-element spirit root.
At its highest, it could reach a dual-element spirit root.
Nobumasa stood motionless.
His mind held no complicated thoughts anymore.
He could cultivate immortality.
Sixteen years after the day the spirit-testing stone had failed to emit even the faintest light, the path that had once been sealed shut before him had finally reappeared.
It wasn't a rumor.
It wasn't hope based on some treasure he might never encounter in his lifetime.
As long as he fulfilled the method's conditions, a spirit root would certainly appear.
It took Nobumasa a while to force himself to continue examining the remaining parts of the Family Hall.
To the left of the main hall was a small plot of land.
The soil was dark brown, covered by a nearly transparent layer of thin mist.
The Spirit-Nurturing Field.
To the right was a tranquil pond. It wasn't large, but its water was so clear that the bottom was almost visible.
The Still-Life Pond.
Both places required a special kind of energy to maintain.
Family-Line Vital Energy.
This vital energy came from descendants who cultivated the Harmonized Life-Nourishing Root Method. The higher their cultivation, the more vital energy would flow back into the Thousand-Leaf Family Hall.
Family-Line Vital Energy could nourish the Spirit-Nurturing Field and the Still-Life Pond while maintaining the ability to accelerate time within them.
In their current state, the growth rate could reach twice that of the outside world.
But vital energy wasn't infinite.
Each time a descendant successfully grew a spirit root through the Harmonized Life-Nourishing Root Method, the Thousand-Leaf Family Hall would consume part of its accumulated reserves.
Nobumasa looked at the plot of land, then at the surface of the pond.
The excitement in his heart gradually subsided.
What he had received wasn't a path that would let one person immediately soar into the heavens.
It was more like a piece of land.
There were seeds.
There was water.
There was the potential for growth.
But turning those things into a true foundation would still require someone to cultivate them over many years.
If Kurose had only him cultivating, the Family Hall wouldn't suddenly make the clan prosper on its own.
If the later generations were to continue benefiting, the preceding generation had to accumulate enough first.
For one person to awaken a spirit root, someone had to create Family-Line Vital Energy beforehand.
Nobumasa didn't fully understand the mechanism, but he had seen one thing clearly.
This treasure didn't belong to him alone.
It was tied to the bloodline behind him.
His consciousness suddenly trembled.
The scene inside the Family Hall dissolved.
When Nobumasa opened his eyes, Sakuma Tome was still standing before him, as though only a moment had passed in the outside world.
“Master?”
She looked at him, somewhat puzzled.
Nobumasa realized that he had clenched his hand so tightly that his knuckles had gone white.
He slowly relaxed it.
“It's nothing. I'll go see Shizuru.”
Nobumasa stepped through the door.
The room still smelled strongly of blood and boiled medicine.
Kurose Shizuru lay on the bedding, her face pale from exhaustion. Sweat had tangled her black hair and stuck it to her temples and neck. Her eyes, usually bright—especially when she sat teaching the children to read—now had barely enough strength to open a crack.
Shizuru came from a family with a long scholarly tradition. War had swept through her hometown, and she had followed the stream of refugees to Mizuhara before fate brought her into the Kurose household.
She could read, calculate, and was stricter by nature than her appearance suggested.
No matter how mischievous Munetaka was, the moment Shizuru sat down before him with a book, the boy knew to behave a little better.
Nobumasa sat beside her.
“Shizuru, you've worked hard.”
She slowly turned her head.
“How is the child?”
“She and the baby are doing well. It's a girl.”
Tome carried the baby closer.
The infant was wrapped in clean cloth. Her face was still red, and her eyes were squeezed shut. A tiny hand emerged from the blanket, moved a few times, then clenched again.
Shizuru looked at her child, and the weariness in her eyes gradually softened.
Nobumasa also stared at the baby for a long time.
This was the child born at the moment the Thousand-Leaf Family Hall awakened.
But he didn't immediately assume that his daughter was special because of it.
There were still too many things he didn't understand about the Family Hall.
The only thing he knew for certain was that mother and child were safe.
Sakuma Genbei entered from the outer room. He had served the Kurose household for many years and was in his fifties. He usually handled the storehouses, horses, carriages, and all the errands that required running around outside.
When he saw the baby, Genbei immediately smiled.
“The old folks in Kawase have a saying. When a baby is born, aside from its parents, the first person it sees is the one it will resemble in temperament later on, at least to some degree.”
Tome spun around.
“Then stand farther away.”
Genbei blinked. “What did I do?”
“You scowl at the servants every day. If the girl takes after you, who could stand it ten years from now?”
The two young maids in the room couldn't hold back their laughter.
Genbei shook his head. “You say that as if you're so gentle yourself.”
Even Shizuru's lips curved faintly.
Seeing the atmosphere in the room ease, Nobumasa felt lighter as well.
“Tome did good work today. Go to the storehouse tomorrow and collect your reward.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Shizuru's hand suddenly tightened around his wrist.
Nobumasa immediately bent down.
Her face, which had just relaxed, tightened again in pain.
“Nobumasa, my stomach still hurts.”
Tome immediately stepped forward.
She examined her quickly, her expression shifting from suspicion to tension.
“There is another one.”
Nobumasa thought he had misheard.
“Another one?”
“Yes. There's another baby in her womb.”
Tome had no time to explain. She turned and called for hot water and clean towels, then looked directly at Nobumasa and Genbei.
“Both of you, get out.”
Before Nobumasa could say anything, Genbei pulled him out of the room.
The door closed.
Shizuru's moans rang out again.
In an instant, all thoughts of spirit roots, the Family Hall, and the immortal path vanished from Nobumasa's mind.
Twins.
In a place where childbirth could already claim a woman's life, two children arriving one after another was never something to take lightly.
Nobumasa paced beneath the hallway.
He knew there was nothing he could do in the room.
But standing still was even harder.
Just then, the sound of splashing rose from the courtyard again.
Nobumasa turned his head.
Munetaka and Ieharu had somehow returned to the muddy puddle.
The two were competing to see who could splash the water higher.
The moment Munetaka saw his father looking over, he grabbed his brother's hand and tried to run.
Nobumasa strode straight toward them.
He grabbed Munetaka with one hand and lifted Ieharu with the other.
“What did I just tell you?”
Munetaka lowered his head.
“Not to play in the water.”
“Then what is this?”
The boy thought quickly.
“I was just checking whether the water had drained.”
Nobumasa looked at his mud-covered legs.
“With your feet?”
Munetaka fell silent.
Ieharu quietly added, “He said stomping was the only way to know.”
Munetaka immediately turned and stared at his brother in disbelief.
Nobumasa was already so worried that his mind felt taut. Hearing that, he couldn't hold back any longer. He smacked each of them a few times on the rear, then called for the child minder.
“Take them to change their clothes. Neither of you is allowed back in the courtyard today.”
Munetaka tried to hold it in.
Ieharu immediately burst into tears.
After the two were led away, Nobumasa stood alone in the courtyard.
His anger had come quickly and faded just as quickly.
The matter in the room behind him remained.
The sky gradually darkened.
Lamps were lit throughout the house, one after another.
Shizuru's voice rose and fell, making every passing moment seem longer than usual.
Nobumasa didn't know how many times he had walked around the courtyard.
At last, another cry rang out.
Weaker than the first.
But still clear.
Nobumasa turned back at once.
Not long afterward, Tome opened the door and stepped out. She looked far more exhausted, but the tension on her face had finally disappeared.
“A boy.”
Nobumasa felt as though the weight had lifted from his legs.
Tome continued, “Shizuru passed out from exhaustion, but her breathing is steady. The baby came late and his vital energy is weaker than his sister's. He'll need careful attention for the next few days.”
Nobumasa hurried into the room.
The first thing he did was look at Shizuru.
She was sleeping deeply, her face still pale but her breathing even.
He sat beside her for a while, confirming that she was truly safe before turning to the two babies.
They lay beside each other.
The girl was clearly healthier.
The boy was smaller by a full circle, his face slightly pale. Even his cries lacked strength.
Nobumasa looked at the mother and her two children before him.
He had spent the day waiting for one child to be born.
In the end, there were two.
On this same day, the path to immortality that had been severed when he was six suddenly opened again.
But at this moment, cultivation wasn't the first thing on his mind.
He only wanted to protect the three people before him.
Nobumasa looked at the girl.
“Her name will be Fumino.”
Tome nodded softly.
Nobumasa looked at Shizuru.
“She loves books and has the patience to teach children. I hope our daughter can learn some of that from her mother in the future.”
Then he looked at the smaller boy.
The baby stirred faintly and let out a weak cry.
“Takehisa.”
Nobumasa gave him his name.
“Call him Takehisa.”
Tome asked, “What do you hope the boy will become when he grows up?”
Nobumasa looked at his son's still-pale face and finally gave a faint smile.
“That can wait until later. For now, let him grow up healthy.”
Tome smiled as well.
Nobumasa turned toward the outer room.
“Genbei.”
The steward immediately entered.
“Yes?”
“Take some money and leave tonight. Find the best apothecary you can reach and buy medicine to replenish Shizuru's blood and vital energy. If they have anything suitable for a frail newborn, ask carefully and bring it back.”
Genbei didn't ask how much money to take.
He simply nodded.
“I'll go at once.”
Nobumasa added, “Don't spare the expense. People matter more than money.”
Genbei understood and turned to leave the room.
His footsteps quickly faded into the distance.
Nobumasa sat back down beside the bed.
In another room was Kurose Chiyo.
Outside were Munetaka and Ieharu, the two boys he had just smacked for playing in the water.
Before him was Shizuru, unconscious with exhaustion; Fumino, newly born and healthy; and Takehisa, slightly weaker than his sister.
This was the Kurose clan as it stood now.
There were no cultivators.
No spiritual leyline.
No inherited arcane lineage.
Only an old house, ancestral farmland, a few granaries, several dependents, and children who had yet to understand how vast the world was.
But there was now something else in Nobumasa's sea of consciousness.
The Thousand-Leaf Family Hall.
The Harmonized Life-Nourishing Root Method.
Family-Line Vital Energy.
The Spirit-Nurturing Field.
The Still-Life Pond.
And a path that could allow Kurose descendants to develop spirit roots from mortal beginnings.
Nobumasa understood how precious that opportunity was.
But the more he understood, the less he could simply assume that cultivating immortality himself would solve everything.
One person with a spirit root wasn't enough to make a clan endure forever.
Even one powerful person couldn't guarantee that his descendants would retain what he left behind.
The Thousand-Leaf Family Hall needed descendants.
Family-Line Vital Energy needed to be accumulated.
The spirit roots of later generations required a price paid by the generation before them.
If Kurose truly wanted to step onto the immortal path, what he had to build wasn't merely his own cultivation.
Nobumasa looked at the children lying beside their mother.
Outside the window, night had blanketed Kawase.
On the old roof, lamplight spilled from the room in a warm golden streak.
When he was six, Kurose Nobumasa had only wished to step onto the path of immortality himself.
Sixteen years later, that door had finally opened.
But this time, he had a family behind him.
And perhaps, after that family, there would be many more people bearing the same surname.
One leaf had just grown.
There would be a second, then a third, until the branches covered the genealogy wall inside the Thousand-Leaf Family Hall.
Nobumasa didn't know how far away that day was.
He only knew that, from tonight onward, the Kurose household possessed a path that had never existed before.