Daily life of a cultivation judge

"Antecedent atavism? but I don't have a generational bloodline for it to happen, or even a natural one for that matter?" said Yang Qing in confusion.

The institute had given them plenty of courses into physiques. The more they knew the better they could do their jobs and even protect themselves. So they had dissected many of them over the years at the Institute, and in many cases, they even got first-hand experiences during their duels with convicts from the Requiem.

During the course of their study, he had come across 'antecedent atavism' which colloquially meant borrowing from your ancestors.

It was a unique feature that appeared to those who inherited their physiques, for example, the spirit jade turtle Li family. One of their members had a chance of antecedent atavism happening to them.

Antecedent atavism could be considered a fail-safe measure, a last-resort form of protection that would be triggered if the person was in danger. If triggered, the bloodline would call upon the abilities of its originator.

In the Li family's case in case an Antecedent atavism was triggered, they would draw on the abilities locked in their bloodline of the spirit jade turtle that had formed a contract with their ancestor.

Even though the Li family shared a bloodline with it, they did not have all the abilities of the spirit jade turtle because their bodies fundamentally differed from it and thus were incapable of supporting all its abilities. 

Even among them, the abilities they got were not similar, and it was something commonly observed among families with inherited physiques. The family members would exhibit different abilities despite sharing the same bloodline, and the difference in abilities was usually tied to the bodies they were born with.

However, antecedent atavism changed all that because, during the duration of its activation, that particular person would gain the body and full abilities of their bloodline. In the case of the spirit turtle jade Li family, they would gain the body of a spirit jade turtle and have access to all abilities the spirit jade turtle they were contracted with, and if their bodies could support it, even its full power, the power it had when it formed the contract.

Triggering it was out of the user's control, what was known was it would only do so in extreme danger, and as per the records the Order had, most could trigger the antecedent atavism once in their whole lives and it was almost always involuntary, and the highest recorded number for triggered times in one person was three times, but even then, the duration was over a hundred years apart each time.

The antecedent atavism would always occur only in those with a high-purity bloodline. 

However, over the years there have been recorded anomalies in the phenomena. In rare cases the atavism wouldn't need dangerous circumstances to trigger it, in those cases, it was usually some treasure or object with close relation to the person's bloodline that would trigger a reaction from them. This particular scenario could not be replicated, so it was assumed there had to be an additional condition to it that wasn't currently known.

Another anomaly was, that there have been few occasions where it has been triggered on those with thin bloodlines, but for those recorded, only a handful survived with the rest dying while the atavism was in progress or immediately after because their bodies could not handle the strain of it.

Therefore it was commonly believed the purer your bloodline, the higher the chances of triggering antecedent atavism, and the higher your chances of surviving it.

But as far as Yang Qing knew antecedent atavism only applied to inherited physiques since the antecedent atavism was basically a bloodline protective talisman passed from their ancestor to his/ her descendants. Their bloodline could be considered alive as it had the will of the creature it came from which was why it could be triggered.

But the peerless jade physique was different. It wasn't alive nor was it inherited from someone. What was presently known about it was that there was never a duplicate peerless jade physique so each one was unique and singular to the person, and the means of acquiring one could not be replicated either.

What all peerless jade physiques did share in common was they all gained immunity to something the moment they gained it, and those immunities could be similar among different types.

For example, both Yang Qing and Feng Xin were immune to all sorts of poison that affected the body and the mind. While for Kang Huilang, his peerless jade physique gave him immunity against the effects of slaughter baleful qi along with murderous qi. His body negated their effects completely.

They had other unique features to them, but antecedent atavism wasn't one of them, at least thus far Yang Qing hadn't heard of it.

But when his gaze fell on his grandfather, he remembered the words he left with him that day and the experience he had soon after. 

"That jade tree.." he muttered to himself.

To date, for Yang Qing, gaining the peerless jade physique was the hardest hurdle he had ever had to cross. Forming the perfect circulation in the qi refinement realm, forming purple grade pillars in the foundation establishment realm, creating a purple grade core in the core formation realm, or even breaking through to the palace realm, none of them were as hard and as life-threatening as it was to him when he was breaking through to the peerless jade physique.

Looking at it that way, the abilities he gained from the physique paled seemed to pale in comparison to the difficulty and cost it took to gain it, which led credence to what his grandfather said, ' There had to be locks to the physique that needed special keys to unlock them'. Yang Qing chose to ignore the part where he was called a glorified tree in the latter parts of the conversation.

"While I haven't been paying much attention to what Daoist Fen and the others have been working on, we have long hypothesized that there was more to the peerless jade physique than meets the eye, however, our research on the matter, was basically on a speculative standpoint and never quite fully committed to it like your grandfather and the rest.

Just like most even if we thought there had to be something more to it, at the end of the day, we were biased in the time we could afford it since no matter how special it was, it was still something one acquired when one cultivated in the lowest cultivation realm.

Ignoring the simple fact once one reaches the gold body, it's no longer just a realm but a physique, the same as those who were born with theirs. If inborn physiques never lose relevance even in the later stages of one's cultivation, neither should cultivated ones, especially a peerless jade physique.

We are truly lucky that we have you Daoist Fen, and any resources and help you need just ask.." Valley Master Fan Ru solemnly said.

However, her look turned from solemn to one of confusion when she saw the awkward look Yang Fen and Ren Shu were exchanging.

"What is it?" she asked, directing the question to Ren Shu who cleared his throat a little with a look that said he didn't want to answer.

However facing the Valley Master's vicious glare, he had no option but to do so.

"Well, I thought their research direction was interesting, especially if it can help Yang Qing, so, we already give them all the support and resources they require.." he awkwardly said as he secretly eyed his wife's reaction.

"Oh, you can't even give your wife some face huh, 'acting valley master.."

Valley Master Fan Ru intentionally dragged out the last part of her sentence with an ominous aura being released from her body.

"Now where was I...antecedent atavism, while I don't know much about peerless jade physiques as I should.." 

The valley master's gaze fell on Ren Shu who smiled ruefully in response.