’Now, it is finally time to get to the real thing.’
Qing immediately got to work without wasting any more time. The refined Spiritual Energy that had accumulated inside his Dantian after an hour of cultivation was already much stronger than the unrefined Spiritual Energy surrounding him, and now he directed it toward the nine special meridians at once.
The moment the refined energy entered those meridians, Qing once again felt the same powerful resistance he had encountered earlier. It was as if something invisible had sealed the nine meridians from within, preventing any Spiritual Energy from entering them no matter how much force he used. However, this time, Qing was not trying to absorb Spiritual Energy from the outside.
This was his own refined Spiritual Energy.
Qing carefully forced the Spiritual Energy outward through the nine meridians, allowing it to push directly against the resistance. Because the energy had already been refined inside his Dantian, its force was far greater than the ambient Spiritual Energy he had previously been trying to use. He only needed to apply the slightest amount of additional force.
CRACK!
All nine meridians broke open simultaneously.
Qing immediately stopped sending more energy through them. He could clearly feel something changing inside his body, and before he could understand what had happened, an overwhelming sense of hunger suddenly emerged from his Dantian.
It wasn’t ordinary hunger, it felt as if his entire body was desperately demanding something, and the sensation was coming directly from the nine newly awakened Roots.
Before Qing could even frown in confusion, the familiar mechanical voice of the System rang inside his mind.
[Detected: Host has awakened the Nine Sovereign Spiritual Roots!]
[Protocol #0009 has been executed. Any kind of outside detection has been concealed completely!]
Qing’s eyes immediately snapped open.
He stared at the System Window for several seconds before his expression changed.
’Oh!’
He hadn’t considered that awakening a constitution as rare as the Nine Sovereign Spiritual Roots could potentially create a disturbance that powerful cultivators might notice. If the awakening truly had some kind of unique phenomenon attached to it, then revealing his constitution now would have been extremely dangerous.
’Is this some hidden function that only the System can activate?’ The thought appeared in his mind, but Qing quickly dismissed it. There was no point in trying to understand something he currently had no way of investigating.
’Well, it’s good for me, nonetheless. I don’t want to be hunted down for my entire life because of my constitution. If worse came to worst, I might have died right after awakening it.’ A sense of relief washed over him as he thought that.
Knowing that the System had concealed the awakening from outside detection meant he could cultivate without immediately attracting the attention of powerful cultivators. Qing closed his eyes once again and shifted his attention back toward his body.
There was still much more to understand.
Now that the nine Roots had awakened, he could finally circulate the ambient Spiritual Energy through those previously blocked meridians with ease. As the Spiritual Energy flowed through them, Ultimate Comprehension naturally remained active, allowing Qing to instantly understand the nature of each Root and the aspects connected to them.
The blue Root represented Water and Calm, while the red Root represented Fire and Rage. The purple Root represented Lightning and Intensity, and the black Root represented Void and Silence.
The white Root represented Stars and Hope, while the yellow Root represented Light and Purity. The brown Root represented Earth and Stability, the green Root represented Life and Vitality, and finally, the orange Root represented Sound and Joy.
Qing quietly observed the nine Roots as Spiritual Energy flowed through them.
Each color represented a unique element, but there was also an emotion or concept associated with it. The connection between the elements and their respective concepts made the Nine Sovereign Spiritual Roots even more extraordinary.
’This really is absurd.’ A normal cultivator would usually only be capable of wielding one or two elements. Extremely talented cultivators could sometimes possess three or four, while a heaven-defying genius might possess five different elements.
Five was already considered an extraordinary limit.
Yet...Qing possessed nine different elemental Roots simultaneously.
And that wasn’t even the full extent of what he had, his eyes narrowed slightly when he focused on the white Root.
The Star element itself wasn’t limited to simply manipulating stars. As Qing’s understanding deepened, he could already sense several deeper aspects contained within it: Gravity, Space and Nebula.
Those were all connected to the Star element, that meant Qing wasn’t simply wielding nine elements. He was effectively wielding eleven different elements and aspects at the same time.
For an ordinary cultivator, possessing such a ridiculous number of elements would not necessarily be a blessing. In fact, it could become an enormous burden.
The more elements a cultivator possessed, the more difficult cultivation became. Every element had to be cultivated alongside the others, and the cultivator needed to raise all of them to the required level before advancing to the next Realm.
If one element lagged behind the others, the cultivator could become stuck at their current Realm until that element caught up. For someone like Neolan in his previous life, this would have been an enormous problem.
But now, Neolan as Qing, however, didn’t feel the slightest bit worried, ’If I were still relying only on my abilities from my previous life, this would probably be troublesome.’ He calmly circulated the Spiritual Energy through all nine Roots.
’But I’m not.’ He possessed Ultimate Comprehension, allowing him to understand every aspect of his cultivation with terrifying efficiency. More importantly, he had the System, which could use Soul Essence to strengthen his cultivation and Techniques.
The difficulty of cultivating multiple elements was still there, but Qing no longer considered it something that could truly stop him. Instead, he saw it as another advantage that would become increasingly valuable as his cultivation progressed.
For now, however, there was something else demanding his attention.
That strange hunger inside his Dantian had not disappeared. Qing focused on it while continuing to circulate Spiritual Energy through the nine Roots. The sensation became clearer the longer he cultivated, almost as if his Dantian itself was desperately waiting for more Spiritual Energy.
’Maybe it’s because this body has remained in the same stage for twenty whole years that it’s so eager to advance to the next Realm?’ Qing considered the possibility for a moment.
The original Qing Lan had spent twenty years cultivating and had only reached the Late Qi Refining Stage. His cultivation had remained stagnant for an extremely long time, and the nine Sovereign Spiritual Roots had remained dormant throughout that entire period.
’It could also be because of the awakening of the dormant Roots.’
Either explanation was possible, there was no way for Qing to determine the exact cause at his current level, but he didn’t really care.
Whatever the reason was, the result was beneficial to him.
Qing slowly increased the circulation of Spiritual Energy through his body, allowing all nine Roots to absorb it simultaneously. The Spiritual Energy that had once met resistance now flowed through the nine special meridians as naturally as water through an open channel.