Through two stone corridors scored over with crossing sword marks, a sealed stone chamber at the far end was the inner testing room.
Spirit-gathering jade was set in a ring around all four walls, its light circulating slowly, and the half-height high-grade spirit-testing stone stood in the center of a white jade platform. One step inside and a soft warmth wrapped itself around the chest; even breathing came easier.
Lei Wujie stopped, turned to the two beside him, a slight, unhidden disdain at the corner of his mouth. "Qingxue, let us wait here and get a proper look at what this Brother Lin is actually made of."
The words had barely finished before a light snort of laughter drifted through the quiet chamber, full of low expectations.
Nothing was left in the room but the slow hum of the spirit stone. Nobody answered him. Lei Wujie waited two breaths, turned to look at Chu Qingxue, and froze where he stood.
Chu Qingxue's head was half bowed, long silver-white hair slid forward to cover most of one side of her face, her eyes hollow and unfocused, her lips opening and closing without her meaning them to, a fine murmur held between her teeth that nobody could make out. The plain white dao dress hung loose and slack on her, every scrap of vitality scattered out of her — and though her face was still the finest in the Eastern Wilds, she looked like a jade statue of a goddess knocked into a crack. Lovely, and about to break.
Lei Wujie's gaze stuck deep on that exquisite face, his throat working once, and it was a long moment before he pulled his mind back and softened his voice to lean nearer. "Qingxue, where does it hurt? The testing is a trifle. Throw any outer sect disciple at it to supervise. Shall I see you back to your cave dwelling to rest?"
His hand came up to settle on her shoulder, and when his fingertips were still an inch from the cloth Chu Qingxue shuddered from head to foot and came abruptly back to herself.
She swept a blank look around the chamber, her speech quick and flustered. "We are at the testing place already? Lin Jin, start the test, quickly."
In that spell of blankness a numberless procession of horrors had churned through her head. The seven-day recruitment lecture and the Grand Tournament a month out, two death sentences sealing the road ahead, and not one measure of sword-dao foundation inside her. The moment the mask slipped it was the Soul-Refining Lamp burning her soul day and night, while the traitor who had murdered the original owner watched from the dark.
The thought of fleeing to the Cold Abyss in the far north had put its roots in for good. The original owner had sheltered there as a child, and the ice-crystal phoenix's remnant soul was there — the one road out that existed anywhere in the world. Once Lin Jin's spirit root was tested she would take out every spirit stone, every pill, every sword she had, and the two of them would go that instant. Even hunted by the Harmonic Joy Sect and the whole orthodox path, it beat sitting still and waiting to die.
The weight on her lifted a little. She let out a long breath of stale air and turned to press Lei Wujie. "Senior Brother Lei, if you would — arrange Lin Jin's test as soon as possible."
Lin Jin had just stepped onto the white jade stair when he suddenly put up a hand to stop things.
"Hold on, Senior Brother Lei. Don't start channelling yet."
Every gaze in the room swung onto him. Lin Jin scratched his cheek, his eyes full of curiosity. "I happened to read a few miscellaneous storybooks about cultivation once, and they mentioned a top-tier talent called a heavenly spirit root. Does such a thing actually exist in this world? And while you're at it, could you run me through how spirit roots are graded? I would like some idea of where I stand."
Lei Wujie blinked, then laughed low, the contempt behind his eyes thinning a little and something like surprise taking its place. "I would not have guessed a man from another world had read that sort of trash fiction. No matter — the test needs a few moments of preparation anyway, so I shall set out the Eastern Wilds' full ladder of spirit roots for you clearly. That way, when your own is measured, you will at least know good from bad."
He walked slowly to the testing stone, touched a fingertip to the light circulating over its surface, and unrolled the entire system of cultivation talent at his leisure.
"At the very bottom is no spirit root at all — the mortal root. The meridians are sealed; not the smallest part of heaven and earth's spiritual energy can be absorbed. Such a person never touches the threshold of cultivation in an entire lifetime. Ninety-nine of every hundred ordinary people are like this, and they live out their lives as townsfolk or sect menials. Heap all the treasures of heaven and earth on them and they will not draw in a single thread of energy."
"One step up, the five-color mixed spirit root. All five attributes — metal, wood, water, fire, earth — tangled together in the dantian, the five phases colliding and cancelling one another out, so that the speed of absorbing energy is slow past all bearing. Ten years of bitter cultivation may not match one month for a single-root cultivator. At the very most such a person scrapes into Qi Refining and stays trapped at the bottom for life. When a sect recruits and measures out a five-color mixed root, they refuse the candidate outright."
"Above that come the four-mixed, three-mixed and dual-mixed roots, on the same principle. The fewer the attributes, the weaker the internal waste of the five phases. But so long as two or more roots coexist, the flaw of energies conflicting cannot be escaped. The dual-mixed root is the ceiling of the mixed roots. With a vast expenditure of resources it can barely be cultivated to Foundation Establishment — but for striking at the Golden Core, a thousand years may not produce one who manages it. Such a life is hemmed in at every turn, and only the lowest ranks of the outer sect are open to it."
"Cross that watershed and you have the single-attribute roots, which are the mainstream of Eastern Wilds cultivators. One attribute of heaven and earth's energy in the body, no waste between the phases, cultivation running smoothly with the wind, able to reach the Golden Core in good order. And the single roots divide again into five steps: ordinary, low-grade, mid-grade, high-grade, and top-grade."
"An ordinary single root can cultivate normally and needs ample resources to break through. A low-grade single root gains a small increase in speed. A mid-grade root comes along once in a century, and most core disciples of the great inner sects are of that quality. A high-grade single root is one in a thousand, standard issue for a peak master's personally taught disciple. And a top-grade single root — one great sect produces one in a thousand years, and the sect master will see to that disciple's cultivation with his own hands."
"And above the top-grade single root lies the rarest thing in the world: the top-grade mutated root. Which is precisely what Qingxue carries."
Lei Wujie turned his head toward the silent Chu Qingxue at his side, undisguised admiration in his voice. "An ordinary water root merely calls up water vapor and ice. Hers, mutated, comes with an affinity for the Great Dao itself — it harmonizes the surrounding energy of its own accord, and nourishes the foundation of everyone near her without their noticing. Ten thousand swords bow their heads before it, and every living thing draws toward her. In all the ten thousand years of the Eastern Wilds there has been exactly one such case. It is that unique mutated root the Harmonic Joy Sect would go to war to carry off."
"As for the heavenly spirit root you have set your heart on."
Lei Wujie's tone turned, his expression growing rather more serious. "It exists only in the record of broken texts out of antiquity. Since the sects of the Eastern Wilds first had lineages to pass down, not one heavenly-root cultivator has ever been born here. The legend says it transcends the fetters of the five phases — that heaven and earth's energy needs no deliberate drawing but pours into the body of its own accord, that cultivation has no bottlenecks, that Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul and even Divine Transformation all come as water flows downhill, that every method is understood at a glance and a single sword can see through to the origin of the Great Dao."
"The old texts say only that the heavenly root is born on the Immortal Spirit Continent, where the energy is rich past all measure, and that continent lies beyond boundless seas and ten thousand layers of demon territory. The Eastern Wilds' energy is nowhere near thick enough; talent that defiant of heaven simply cannot be gestated here. Do not indulge in wild hopes in a moment. To measure out a mid-grade single root would already be an enormous piece of fortune."
Lin Jin listened with his eyes shining, fixing every gap between the grades firmly in his memory, his anticipation swelling further. He stepped briskly to the very center of the testing stone and spread both hands, waiting to lay them on. "Thank you for the explanation, Senior Brother Lei, I have the measure of it now. We can start the channelling!"
Chu Qingxue, having heard the whole ladder out, was quietly running her own calculations. If Lin Jin measured a high-grade or a top-grade root, their ability to protect themselves on the road north would double outright. At worst a dual-mixed root would still let him move spiritual energy at all, so that she would not have to shield him single-handed the entire way.
Lei Wujie put away his conversational manner, walked slowly around behind Lin Jin, gathered a thread of gentle silver-white lightning energy at his fingertips, and passed it slowly into Lin Jin's wholly empty dantian.
Fine motes of lightning travelled slowly along blank mortal meridians, prising by degrees at the root of the spirit buried beneath flesh and blood.
In the next instant the entire half-height high-grade testing stone shook violently. The mild, obedient pure-white light of it detonated outward, and red, green, black, yellow and blue broke into fine flying shards of color that raced madly along the patterns in its surface. The hum in the chamber climbed several times over, until it set the eardrums faintly numb.
Lei Wujie's expression snapped taut. He took half a step forward and called out at the top of his voice. "Testing, commence!"