Chapter 127 The Concept of Spiritual Roots
As they walked and conversed, Han Li subtly extracted information about the cultivation world from the young man. He learned quite a bit of common knowledge that cultivators should know.
For example: Cultivators are divided into three major stages based on their realm: the Lower Realm, the Middle Realm, and the Upper Realm.
The Lower Realm includes five levels: Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, and Soul Transformation.
The Middle Realm consists of three levels: Core Formation, Soul Fusion, and Mahayana.
As for the Upper Realm, there's only the hurdle of Tribulation Crossing left.
Once this hurdle is crossed, one can ascend to the Immortal Realm and live as long as the heavens and earth.
However, while it sounds easy, actual cultivation is a distant dream.
Not to mention advancing through the three major realms, even reaching the pinnacle of the Lower Realm, the Soul Transformation stage, according to the young man, has never been achieved by anyone in the entire Yue Kingdom.
Even lingering at the Nascent Soul stage is rare, with only a few lucky old monsters having such fortune.
According to the young man, a cultivator's lifespan is closely related to their cultivation realm. Each advancement in realm represents a multiple increase in lifespan.
For ordinary mortals, living over a hundred years is rare.
Successfully cultivating to Foundation Establishment can extend one's lifespan to over two hundred years, which is quite normal.
If someone manages to form a Golden Core, they could live to four or five hundred years, with even the possibility of reaching a thousand years if they miraculously attain the Nascent Soul stage.
Listening to this, Han Li was astonished.
While he vaguely guessed that cultivators had longer lifespans than ordinary people, he never imagined it would be to such an extent.
It seemed like living for over a thousand years would turn one into a veritable old turtle!
However, if Nascent Soul cultivators could live so long, what about those in the Core Formation stage and other realms, even the Upper Realm? Wouldn't they be even more long-lived?
Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Han Li indirectly broached the subject. The young man nonchalantly replied, "Who knows? Perhaps they live even longer, or maybe they simply become immortal."
"According to legend, if a cultivator truly reaches the Soul Transformation stage and perfects it, they must leave this world and go to another, higher dimension. What this dimension is, and whether anyone has returned from it, nobody knows."
"No one has returned, then how are the realms above Soul Transformation delineated?" Han Li felt a bit vexed, but he restrained himself from asking the young master before him, knowing he probably couldn't explain it either. So, he held back and refrained from asking.
Aside from the classification of cultivator realms, Han Li also gained a rough understanding of the cultivation sects and clans in the Yue Kingdom. While the young man didn't know much about other places, he was quite knowledgeable about the cultivation sects in the Yue Kingdom.
From him, Han Li learned that there were seven major cultivation sects in the Yue Kingdom, including the Concealed Moon Sect, the Yellow Maple Valley, the Spirit Beast Mountain, the Clear Void Sect, the Alchemy Blade Sect, the Heavenly Summit Bastion, and the Giant Sword Sect.
Among these, the Concealed Moon Sect was the strongest, followed closely by the Spirit Beast Mountain.
The other sects were more or less evenly matched in strength, with no significant disparity.
If these cultivation sects were towering trees supporting the entire cultivation world of the Yue Kingdom, then the cultivation clans were various branches and vines entwined with them, relying on these sects to survive in the cultivation world.
According to the young man's mysterious words, almost all the ancestors of long-standing cultivation clans in the Yue Kingdom were disciples of these sects, with their bloodlines continuing through these disciples.
The reason for this lies in the common attribute shared by all cultivators: "spiritual roots."
"What are spiritual roots?" Most cultivators don't quite understand. But they all know that if someone lacks spiritual roots, cultivating is out of the question, because they can't even sense spiritual energy, let alone cultivate mana.
However, people born with spiritual roots are incredibly rare among ordinary folks, even one in ten thousand or even one in a hundred thousand.
Yet, even with such scarcity, only a tiny fraction of those with spiritual roots can embark on the path of cultivation, while the vast majority lead mundane lives.
Because those with spiritual roots are difficult to find, they are scattered far and wide, making it challenging for cultivation sects hoping to recruit disciples.
Moreover, merely having spiritual roots doesn't necessarily meet the requirements of cultivation sects. Because not all spiritual roots are the same; there are good ones and bad ones.
Generally speaking, spiritual roots are categorized into the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
Most people's spiritual roots are a mixture of these five or four elements, allowing them to sense spiritual energy, but their cultivation effects are abysmal.
They can only master the basic cultivation techniques of the Qi Condensation stage to the third or fourth layer and are basically unable to progress beyond the Foundation Establishment stage.
Therefore, those with five or even four-element spiritual roots are called "pseudo-spiritual roots" by the cultivation world, to distinguish them from "true spiritual roots" that have two or three elements and can cultivate more quickly.
As for those with single-element spiritual roots, they are called "heavenly roots" by the cultivation world, meaning they are heaven's favored children.
Because regardless of the attribute of their spiritual roots, their cultivation speed is two to three times faster than those with ordinary spiritual roots.
And when they reach the pinnacle of the Foundation Establishment stage, they don't need to face the bottleneck of advancing to the Core Formation stage and can easily begin Core Formation.
If the astonishing cultivation speed of these "heavenly roots" makes other cultivators envious, then the absence of bottlenecks for Core Formation for these "heavenly roots" makes other cultivators almost vomit blood with jealousy.
You see, if out of ten Qi Condensation cultivators, only one can enter the Foundation Establishment stage with the help of a Foundation Establishment Pill, then out of a hundred Foundation Establishment cultivators, not even one might succeed in forming a core and advancing to the Core Formation stage.
With such a disparate Core Formation ratio, how could other cultivators not be extremely jealous of the innate advantages of "heavenly roots" individuals?
Therefore, whenever a "heavenly roots" individual appears, they are often fervently sought after by various cultivation sects, as they essentially secure a Core Formation powerhouse for their sect, greatly increasing their sect's strength.
However, the appearance of "heavenly roots" individuals, with their exceptional talent, is almost negligible, with perhaps only one discovered by cultivation sects every few thousand years.
Conversely, another type of spiritual roots, though not "heavenly roots," and also not the five-element spiritual roots, called "variant spiritual roots," have a higher probability of appearing, with one appearing every twenty to thirty years.
The so-called "variant spiritual roots" refer to spiritual roots where two or three elements of the five elements are mixed together, undergoing mutation and refinement.
Examples include "Thunder Spiritual Roots" formed by the mutation of
"Earth Spiritual Roots" and "Water Spiritual Roots," and "Ice Spiritual Roots" formed by the mutation of "Metal Spiritual Roots" and "Water Spiritual Roots." Of course, there are also "Dark Spiritual Roots," "Wind Spiritual Roots," and other variant spiritual roots.
Cultivators with variant spiritual roots, while not blessed with the bottleneck-free talent of "heavenly roots" individuals, have cultivation speeds no less than those of "heavenly roots" individuals.
Moreover, if they can find cultivation techniques that match their attributes, these individuals are often remarkable experts, usually able to rival three or four cultivators of similar strength.
So cultivators with variant spiritual roots are also highly welcomed by major cultivation sects.
But in the past, not to mention talents like "heavenly roots" and "variant spiritual roots," which cultivation sects could hardly find, even ordinary "true spiritual roots" individuals were difficult to find for various sects.
Because among cultivators, one couldn't simply test every child of every household in the mundane world! It's known that among ten thousand people, perhaps only one will have spiritual roots, and out of five or six with spiritual roots, only one might have true spiritual roots.
Thus, faced with such harsh search conditions, there have even been instances in the history of the cultivation world where certain small sects were left with only a few disciples, almost leading to the discontinuation of their heritage.
Facing this awkward situation, some people diligently researched and eventually discovered that spiritual roots were extremely likely to appear in people of the same bloodline.
For example, if a man and a woman both have spiritual roots, then their children have a one in four chance of having spiritual roots as well.
Of course, if both parents have spiritual roots, the probability of spiritual roots appearing in their descendants is even higher, and it's not uncommon for all their children to have spiritual roots.
The discovery of this fact greatly excited those who were aware of it. Under their push, many young disciples of various sects were dispatched to start families and careers in the mundane world. After they had children, they returned to their sects to continue cultivation.
In this way, when these sects were short of disciples again, they could directly select children with spiritual roots from their disciples' families, greatly increasing the rate of true spiritual roots.
As a result, although the probability of spiritual roots appearing among ordinary people remained low, the number of people with spiritual roots increased. Families with spiritual roots flourished, and with time, they formed the current cultivation clans.
While these cultivation clans may lack advanced techniques, they are not short of basic cultivation methods and gradually become peripheral branches of various cultivation sects, possessing a certain degree of independence.
So, behind each cultivation clan, there is usually a cultivation sect supporting it, not to be underestimated by others.
The young man in white had not spoken so freely in front of others for a long time.
The feeling of having someone listen attentively to him made him feel relieved, and his fondness for Han Li increased greatly.
Without hesitation, he divulged all he knew about the cultivation world to Han Li, seemingly showing off in front of him.
Han Li naturally listened with great pleasure, sometimes interjecting to instigate more enthusiasm from the young man.
Unfortunately, the mist-shrouded hill, not far from the village, was reached after only a few hours of walking, leaving Han Li quite unsatisfied.
He hadn't had his fill of knowledge about the cultivation world and wished he could turn back and start over again.
But, of course, he knew it was impossible, so he could only keep his mouth shut and gaze eagerly at the mist.