The Theory of Spiritual Roots

Chapter 127: The Theory of Spiritual Roots

As they walked, they chatted idly. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say Han Li asked questions while the youth answered.

From this talkative young man, Han Li skillfully extracted information about the world of immortal cultivation without the boy even realizing he was being questioned. He learned many things that any cultivator should know as basic常识.

For instance, the hierarchy of cultivation realms was divided into three major stages: the Lower Realm, the Middle Realm, and the Upper Realm.

The Lower Realm included five layers: Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, and Spirit Transformation. The Middle Realm had three layers: Void Refinement, Form Synthesis, and Great Ascension. As for the Upper Realm, it consisted of only a single threshold: Tribulation Passage. Once this was crossed, one could ascend to the Immortal Realm and share the heavens’ eternal lifespan.

It sounded simple enough, but actually cultivating to that point was an impossibly distant dream!

According to the youth, within the entire Yue Nation, there was not a single person who had ever reached the peak of the Lower Realm—the Spirit Transformation stage. Even those lingering in the Nascent Soul stage were exceedingly rare, amounting to only a few old monsters with exceptionally deep karmic fortune.

The lifespan of an immortal cultivator, the youth explained, was directly tied to their cultivation level. Every breakthrough in realm meant a multiplied lifespan.

A mortal who lived to over a hundred was already considered exceptionally long-lived.

But a Foundation Establishment cultivator could easily live past two hundred. If one was fortunate enough to form a Core, reaching four or five hundred years was a very real possibility. And if a miracle occurred, if one defied the heavens and successfully condensed a Nascent Soul, then congratulations—celebrating a thousand-year birthday was no longer out of the question.

When the white-robed youth reached this point, he clicked his tongue in admiration, deeply envious of those old monsters who could live eight hundred or a thousand years. That was ten times the lifespan of an ordinary person!

Han Li listened, stunned into silence. He had vaguely guessed that cultivators lived longer than ordinary people, but he had never imagined it could be this absurd! A thousand years of life? Wouldn’t that make them genuine thousand-year-old tortoises? Han Li couldn’t help but think maliciously.

But if Nascent Soul cultivators could live that long, then Spirit Transformation cultivators, and those in the Middle Realm, or even the Upper Realm… wouldn’t their lifespans be even more ridiculously long?

Han Li finally couldn’t hold back and probed the question indirectly.

“Who knows? Maybe they live even longer. Maybe they simply stop dying altogether?” the youth said carelessly.

“According to rumors, any cultivator who truly reaches the Spirit Transformation stage and achieves Great Perfection in that realm is forced to leave our world for another, higher plane of existence. What that specific space or world is, no one knows. No one has ever come back to tell us.”

No one has ever come back? Then how are the realms above Spirit Transformation even categorized? Han Li thought, somewhat frustrated. But he knew that this young master before him couldn’t possibly explain it clearly, so he suppressed the question.

Aside from the division of cultivation realms, Han Li also gained a rough understanding of the immortal cultivation sects and clans within the Yue Nation.

The youth didn’t know about places elsewhere, but when it came to the immortal sects of the entire Yue Nation, he spoke with great authority.

From him, Han Li learned that there were seven major immortal cultivation sects in Yue Nation: Moon Concealment Sect, Yellow Maple Valley, Spirit Beast Mountain, Pure Void Gate, Weapon Refining Gorge, Heaven Fortress, and Giant Sword Sect. Among them, Moon Concealment Sect was the strongest, with Spirit Beast Mountain following closely behind. The other sects were roughly equal in strength, with no severe disparity between them.

If these immortal sects were the towering trees that supported the entire cultivation world of Yue Nation, then the cultivation families were the vines and branches that wound around them, large and small, relying on these sects to survive in the world of cultivation.

The youth said mysteriously that any cultivation family with even a bit of history could trace its ancestors back to disciples of these sects. These families were the continuation of those disciples’ bloodlines.

The reason for this could be traced back to a concept shared by all cultivators: “Spiritual Roots.”

What exactly were “Spiritual Roots”? Most cultivators couldn’t explain it. But they all knew that without them, one shouldn’t even think about cultivating. It was simply impossible to sense spiritual energy, let alone cultivate magical power!

However, people born with Spiritual Roots were incredibly rare among ordinary mortals. It was, at best, one in ten thousand, or even one in tens of thousands. And even among those who possessed them, only a fraction could actually walk the path of cultivation. Most lived out their lives in mediocrity. The problem was that people with Spiritual Roots were simply too hard to find. They were scattered too sparsely, causing great headaches for the immortal sects that wished to recruit disciples widely.

Furthermore, simply having a Spiritual Root didn’t guarantee entry into an immortal sect. “Spiritual Roots” were not all the same; there were good ones and bad ones.

Generally speaking, Spiritual Roots were categorized by the Five Elements: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth. Most people’s roots were a chaotic mix of four or five of these attributes. While such people could still sense the world’s spiritual energy, their cultivation progress was abysmal to behold. They could barely train the basic Five Elements techniques of the Qi Condensation stage to the third or fourth layer before hitting a wall. They would never, in their entire lives, have any hope of crossing into Foundation Establishment.

Therefore, Spiritual Roots with five, or even four, attributes were called “False Spiritual Roots” by the cultivation world. This was to distinguish them from “True Spiritual Roots,” which had only two or three attributes and allowed for relatively faster cultivation.

As for single-attribute roots, they were called “Heavenly Roots” by the cultivation world, meaning they were favored by the heavens. Anyone with this kind of root, regardless of the attribute, could cultivate two to three times faster than an ordinary cultivator. What was more, when they reached the peak of Foundation Establishment, they would face no bottleneck when attempting to form a Core. They could begin the process with ease.

While their astonishing cultivation speed was enough to make other cultivators green with envy, the fact that “Heavenly Root” holders could form a Core without any bottleneck was enough to make others spit blood with jealousy.

After all, if only one out of ten Qi Condensation cultivators could enter Foundation Establishment with the help of a Foundation Establishment Pill, then out of a hundred Foundation Establishment cultivators, maybe not even one would successfully form a Core.

With such a brutal ratio, how could other cultivators not be fiercely envious of the Heaven-favored “Heavenly Root” holders?

Thus, whenever a Heavenly Root individual appeared, they would be frantically fought over by every immortal sect. After all, it was practically a free reservation of a Core Formation grandmaster for their sect, greatly increasing their strength.

However, the appearance of such a heaven-defying Spiritual Root was so rare that its probability was nearly negligible. At best, one would be discovered by the sects every few hundred years. A slightly more common occurrence was “Mutated Spiritual Roots,” which, while not Heavenly, were not part of the Five Elements either. They appeared roughly once every two or three decades.

“Mutated Spiritual Roots” were formed when two or three Five Element attributes mixed together and underwent a mutation or sublimation.

For example, “Lightning Spiritual Root” was a mutation of “Earth” and “Water” roots; “Ice Spiritual Root” came from mutating “Metal” and “Water” roots. Of course, there were also other mutated roots like “Dark Spiritual Roots” and “Wind Spiritual Roots.”

While cultivators with Mutated Spiritual Roots did not have the blessing of a bottleneck-free Core Formation, their cultivation speed was in no way inferior to Heavenly Root holders. Moreover, if they could find a cultivation technique that matched their attribute, they would often become extraordinarily powerful experts, capable of standing against three or four ordinary cultivators of the same rank.

Therefore, people with Mutated Spiritual Roots were also highly welcomed by the major immortal sects.

But in the past, it wasn’t just prodigies like Heavenly and Mutated Roots that were hard for the sects to find. Even ordinary “True Spiritual Root” individuals were difficult to locate.

After all, the people of the immortal sects couldn’t very well drag every child from every mortal household out for testing! Remember, only one in ten thousand people might be born with a Spiritual Root, and of those five or six, only one might be a True Spiritual Root.

Under such harsh conditions of discovery, the history of the cultivation world had even seen cases where some small sects were left with only a handful of disciples, barely able to maintain their lineage.

Faced with this embarrassing situation, some thoughtful individuals engaged in painstaking research and finally discovered that Spiritual Roots were very likely to appear in people who inherited the same bloodline.

For example, if one of two parents possessed a Spiritual Root, their child had a one in four chance of having one as well. Naturally, if both parents were Spiritual Root holders, the probability was much higher. It was not even unusual for all of their children to possess Spiritual Roots.

This discovery greatly excited those who had been working on the problem.

Driven by them, many young disciples of various sects were sent out by their elders to start families in the mortal world. After they had children, they would return to their sect to continue their cultivation.

In this way, when the immortal sects were short of disciples, they could select children with Spiritual Roots directly from the families of their own sect members. The ratio of True Spiritual Roots also increased significantly.

In this manner, the great problem of lacking disciples for the immortal sects was finally alleviated.

Although the rate of Spiritual Roots appearing among ordinary mortals remained low, the total number of people with Spiritual Roots grew steadily. The families that inherited these bloodlines produced Spiritual Root disciples generation after generation. Over time, as these families branched out further, they gradually formed the cultivation families of the present day.

These cultivation families might lack high-level techniques, but they were not short of simpler cultivation methods. They gradually became the outer branches of the various immortal sects, possessing a certain degree of independence.

Thus, behind every cultivation family, there was generally an immortal sect providing support, preventing them from being looked down upon.

The white-robed youth had not spoken this freely to anyone in a long time.

The feeling of having someone listen to him with such rapt attention gave him an unstoppable urge to keep talking. His goodwill towards Han Li grew greatly, and without much thought, he poured out everything he knew about the world of cultivation, as if trying to show off.

Han Li, for his part, listened with great pleasure, occasionally interjecting a leading word or two to encourage the youth to speak even more enthusiastically. It was a pity that the mist-shrouded slope was not too far from the small village. After walking for several hours, they still arrived at its base.

The short journey left Han Li feeling deeply unsatisfied. He had not heard nearly enough about the world of immortal cultivation and wished he could turn around and start the entire walk over again. He knew this was impossible, however, and could only watch as the youth fell silent, his own eyes shining as they stared at the mist.