John soon discovered that his spiritual roots were low grade. But having them was a thousand times better then not. He could walk down the path of cultivation. Generally, someone with low grade spiritual roots would struggle to build a foundation in their entire lives.

Still, he was now treated different then a mere servant now, his siblings were extremely jealous.

He joined the sect as an outer sect disciple. The sects name had changed over the years, from merging and battling other sects.

It is called the Amalgamation Sect.

Having spiritual roots didn't mean you instantly became a cultivator. You had to awaken them.

The awakening status was a percentage roughly.

As for the location of the spiritual roots? The cultivators thought it to be a spatial anomaly and that it was tied to the consciousness.

But this was clearly wrong! Otherwise, no matter how many rebirths he went through. He never would've acquired spiritual roots. It was clearly related to the biology of the person.

John hid deeply and acted as a salted fish.

Training in the mornings.

Sleeping at night.

Picking up his allowance every month.

He began to study his body on the microscopic level. Comparing data and changes between his other bodies. Trying to find what made this body have spiritual roots over the others...

He did find a biological difference.

It was the pineal gland! The body with spiritual roots had a structure in the pineal gland that the other bodies didn't have.

He tested his other bodies and found that copying this structure in future bodies guaranteed that he would have spiritual roots.

He could get higher grade spiritual roots if he dissected someone with them. It would be hard to acquire a body in the sect without looking suspicious.

He wasn't in a rush.

He could wait hundreds of years and it wouldn't even be suspicious if he lived longer then a mere mortal, as long as he broke through in his cultivation.

He attended classes and heard sermons of the Dao.

Experts talked about their experiences in 'creating' your dantian.

Well first off, it wasn't something that needed to be created. Unlike spiritual roots, everyone has multiple dantians. They are simply an energy center and you aren't able to feel them without spiritual roots.

You had the lower dantian located around the belly button. It contains your vital Qi. But first we must look at what exactly Qi is? John had used Qi himself as an energy drawing expert. Qi is many things.

Think of it as Yin and Yang, Qi is everything and relative to other things.

You can think of yin as form and yang as function. One being passive, the other active. Everything is made of Qi in some sense, it is like matter and energy in the sense that it can neither be created or destroyed, it can only change forms. It is a system fundamental to reality. This also makes it not entirely dependent on the environment. It is a system of itself in the true sense.

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Yin is material, yang is immaterial.

One is matter, the other is energy.

They are constantly chasing each other and in constant flux.

The roles of yin and yang can easily be reversed. So yang can become material and yin can become immaterial. They just have opposite qualities and bleed into each other. In this particular system, yin is form and yang is function.

You can think of yin as condensing, cold, and dark.

You can think of yang as expanding, warm, and bright.

The body is made of Yin as flesh.

While the energy of the body is made up of Yang.

The body without energy is dead and cold.

While the body with energy is warm.

But energy without a form is useless.

Both are essential to life.

The lower dantian holds the Gate of Life.

You can imagine yin and yang rotating in this area.

It also holds your vital Qi. This is lifeforce you are born with and it can not be replenished easily.

As well as your prenatal energy inherited from your parents.

You then had the middle dantian located at the solar plexus.

This can be looked at as the engine. It is different from your lower dantian. In that it is the system connected with your organs. It is how you replenish your Qi from the food you consume and from the air that you breathe. This is the renewable energy. This is also what you mainly use to cultivate. This is extremely important.

Then you had the upper dantian. This was located in the center of your brain. This is far more mysterious. Most experts don't understand how this dantian works. It is related to your spirit and intuition. This dantian controls your perception and senses.

All three dantians must be cultivated in different ways. But they also must be cultivated together to keep the body balanced. Failing to keep balance can lead to catastrophe, causing disease and anxiety.

The sect techniques had three parts for cultivating each dantian. But they were inaccessible to someone like John.

You had to become a cultivator first to access them. You had to awaken your spiritual roots.

We know that John's spiritual roots were low grade. But they also were an uncommon element.

There were five main elements.

These were wood, fire, earth, metal and water.

Earth is not to be mistaken for the wood type element. Earth itself lacks much yin and yang, while wood is full of Yang energy, full of vigor and growth. Earth is more material in itself. It is more on the yin side of things.

When someone is tested for spiritual roots. If it lights up they are confirmed to have them. You can tell the element from the color. Wood is green, fire red, earth yellow, metal white, and water blue.

There were then the four minor elements.

These were space, time, light, and darkness.

The colors that lit up upon being tested for the minor elements was always purple.

This put someone with the more rare element of spiritual roots at a disadvantage.

Why? Well it was because in order to awaken the roots you needed to meditate using your element.

The rarer elements required heavenly treasures to awaken the roots.

Those with the five main elements knew exactly what to do and what mortal techniques to practice to become cultivators.

Meanwhile those with the uncommon elements were just thrown under the umbrella of the four minor elements. Or worse, they lacked an element at all or a mysterious element that wasn't known territory.

The light tested purple for John.

So he had no idea what element he was.

So he practiced techniques for all of them!

His training consisted of paying attention to an incense stick while doing planks, while speeding up and slowing down his perception of time.

This was to train just in case he had the element of time.

He also would teleport around his room just in case it was space.

Conjure healing spells to train for the light element.

Cast debuffs on himself for the darkness element.

He made sure to cover all the bases.

He then noticed when he would teleport, he would feel a weird tingling in the center of his brain.

Then it felt like a heartbeat.

The more he teleported, the more intense this feeling grew.

"It would seem I have a space element spiritual root!"

He wasn't too excited about this. He could already use magic to teleport, which was something only a peak space cultivator was able to do. He could do it before even starting his journey.

Only someone like John would have a chance to awaken a space type spiritual root without the use of some heavenly artifact. Not just everyone could casually teleport around to stimulate their spiritual roots.

Although it was a tier five spell and took 512 energy.

So he couldn't spam it.

But it depended on what skills the sect had.

Teleportation was considered legendary in this world. So he doubted his sect had the skill scrolls on it.