Building a sect from scratch.

Chapter 136 Spiritual Root
"Fellow Daoist Wang, this..."

"Excuse me," Wang Qiqing said after a moment of confusion, finally realizing he had embarrassed himself. However, he never cared about his reputation, so he ignored the whispers and instead said with shining eyes, "I was wondering, what exactly is spiritual energy? Although we can sense it, is it really a gas?"

"'gas'?"

Wang Qiqing quickly explained, "Gas is a state of matter; it has no shape but has volume. Matter has many states, such as solid, liquid, gas, plasma, etc. Among them, gas is a gaseous substance."

"For example, water. When water freezes into ice, it becomes a solid. When it melts into flowing water, it becomes a liquid. When it evaporates into water vapor, it becomes a gas."

"For example, the air we breathe is mainly composed of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, etc. These are all gases, and are also the most typical colorless gases."

"Therefore, based on the properties exhibited by spiritual energy, it is most likely to be a gas."

Lu Wenyuan thought for a moment, then asked sincerely, "Fellow Daoist Wang, I'm not questioning you, I just want to know, what's the use of analyzing all this?"

"Understanding the world is never about whether something is useful or not. Just because it's not useful doesn't mean you should let it pass by and not explore it! Besides, the significance of understanding this matter is too great!"

Wang Qiqing slammed his fist on the table in excitement, adding, "First of all, the efficiency of a cultivator's practice is affected to some extent by the concentration of spiritual energy! So, if spiritual energy is really a gas, we can use various means to increase the concentration of spiritual energy per unit volume. In other words, we can even freely control the concentration of spiritual energy—doesn't that mean we can quickly improve the efficiency of a cultivator's practice?"

Ignoring the strange words, Lü Wenyuan could understand most of it, especially when he heard "improving the cultivation efficiency of cultivators," he couldn't help but widen his eyes.

Altering the concentration of spiritual energy, artificially increasing the efficiency of cultivation—how is that possible?!

This is simply incomprehensible!
But seeing Wang Qiqing's matter-of-fact expression, Lü Wenyuan began to believe it—even though he couldn't figure out the reason behind it no matter how hard he tried.

Wang Qiqing continued to speak eloquently: "Not only that! If we master the method of changing the form of spiritual energy, or rather, if its properties are similar to those of ordinary gas, then can we produce spirit stones by changing its state?"
"Of course, all of this is based on the premise that spirit stones are indeed a solid form of spiritual energy, and that spiritual energy is indeed a gas."

"What if it isn't?"

"If it weren't... I can't imagine what it could be if it weren't a gas... If, if it were something else entirely..."

Wang Qiqing's voice became increasingly weak.

Actually, something else would be more reasonable.

If spiritual energy is indeed a substance, then it's hard to explain why it doesn't exist in the Earth's universe.

Because in almost every small world within the Guixu Realm, spiritual energy exists, the only difference being the amount. Even the infamous "Land Without Spirit" only has negligible spiritual energy, not that it is completely devoid of it.

If it is a substance composed of elements, then it is almost certainly theoretically replicable. After all, Earth has now even developed particle collider technology, so replicating any substance composed of elements is only a matter of time.

So why is there no spiritual energy in the universe where Earth is located?

The Guixu Realm and Blue Star China have such a close connection that many things recorded in ancient Chinese texts have similarities and correspondences. This can no longer be simply described as a coincidence. If we really follow the records in the ancient texts, there should be spiritual energy in Blue Star!

But in reality, there was none – no matter what kind of experiments and tests were conducted, no trace of "spiritual energy" was found!

“I have a question,” Lü Wenyuan interrupted Wang Qiqing’s thoughts: “If, as you say, ice is a ‘solid’ form of water, then what is the connection between ice spiritual roots and water spiritual roots?”

Wang Qiqing was stunned.

He stood up in disbelief, pacing back and forth by the small table with a frown. After a long while, he finally asked, "What is a spiritual root? Is there an explanation?"

Lu Wenyuan knew that Wang Qiqing was not asking for the mysterious explanations in various secret manuals and techniques, but rather a more precise description, so he organized his words and said: "If I had to say, it should be a talent that is attached to the soul and affects the body."

Wang Qiqing never expected this response: "Talent?"

"Everyone has spiritual roots, but not everyone's spiritual roots can grow."

As if he had spoken of a field he knew very well, Lü Wenyuan spoke with great enthusiasm: "Most people have incomplete spiritual roots, which means they only have very small spiritual roots. This is called 'heavenly incomplete.' Those with heavenly incomplete spiritual roots find it very difficult to sense spiritual energy, so their cultivation will naturally be ten or a hundred times more difficult, which means their path to immortality is cut off."

"If the spiritual roots are too balanced, without a dominant spiritual root to lead the way, although it is not a damaged spiritual root, it is still difficult to achieve results in cultivation. This is because the spiritual energy will flow back and forth among the five spiritual roots, which greatly slows down the cultivation speed. Even the absorption of spiritual energy will be much slower than that of other cultivators. This is called 'Earth Deficiency'."

"The best talent is having many superior mutated spiritual roots. These spiritual roots have mutated due to their excellent growth..."

As he was speaking, Lü Wenyuan suddenly slammed his hand on the table and exclaimed in delight, "I understand! It's precisely because water can freeze into ice that the ice spiritual root is a mutated manifestation of the water spiritual root!?"

But then he frowned and said, "That's not right! How do you explain the mutated lightning spirit root?"

Wang Qiqing pressed further, "Um... Fellow Daoist, what are the specific manifestations of a spiritual root?"

"How am I supposed to explain this?!"

Lu Wenyuan muttered a complaint under his breath, but still explained seriously: "There are five major categories of spiritual roots: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. Some of these categories have other sub-branches, with mutated spiritual roots being the most common."

"The metal spiritual root is extremely sensitive to metals such as iron, copper, gold, and silver, while the wood spiritual root can naturally sense plants. The water spiritual root has a strong control over lakes and seas, the fire spiritual root allows cultivators to easily cultivate innate spiritual fire, and the earth spiritual root is even more exaggerated, able to manipulate earth and stone, making it much easier for them to learn the art of earth-遁 (earth-遁 is a type of magic or technique) than other cultivators."

"What about the Ice Spirit Root?"

"An ice spirit root? An ice spirit root is a mutated spirit root that can freeze objects, condense water into ice, and melt ice into water, it seems..."

Lu Wenyuan scratched his head and said, "It seems to be very similar to a water elemental root?"

"So, does that mean all spirit roots with the same spiritual root have the same effect?"

"That's definitely different! Otherwise, there wouldn't be any distinction between aptitude, innate talent, or the eight extraordinary meridians!"

"Can't spiritual roots grow after birth?"

Lu Wenyuan was almost speechless at Wang Qiqing's outlandish question: "Do you think it's a cabbage? Growing up like that?!"

(End of this chapter)