Chapter 8: Spirit Root Awakening (1)

Shan has been sitting in the middle of the courtyard, under a parasol driven into the earth and a veil of beast skin that hung from it, blocking the sunlight.

Time to time his face was reddening, and he had to throw up some crimson-black substance into the bucket he had nearby.

After one more such occasion, he sighed wearily and closed his eyes. Once again, he restored the expression of deep concentration.

"Blood-restoring root, entire plant in one portion, I should've had taught him better."

He complained in his mind with annoyance, but in a way, it wasn't so bad. At least the blood overflow was helping with getting the impurities out, he had to eat some vitality-restoring herbs to compensate for it, though.

Right now he was occupied with clearing and restoring his meridian system, for during the last seven years he was strictly forbidden to cultivate and gather more than a set amount of Qi. Everything to stop him from breaking his shackles.

That damaged his health quite a lot: his meridians were thinned, weakened, dry, and full of impurities. Fragile so much that he had almost burned them while running and fighting the Elemental.

Shameful display, he thought, reddened, and vomit once more.

All of that was a huge mental burden, but it felt minor in comparison to the feeling of cultivating again. It was a joy both mental and physical; itchy at first, soon the pleasure of Qi running overwhelmed him. As if he, after wandering a desert for seven years, he suddenly stumbled upon a heavenly oasis.

Sadly, it wasn't the best possible location.

His Element was Darkness so some deep and dark place would have suited him more. On this mountain, the Sun was too dominant.

The local underground was, sadly, not an option. Several formations restricted the Qi production in that place to hide it from possible Qi-search.

There are several types of Qi, Elements, and while they vary a lot, most people rarely have any.

An average cultivator has to be content with the most common Elementless Qi. At least it is abundant everywhere.

Only talented individuals with at least Six Meridians could feel Elemental Qi. The Fire of Yang, the Earth of Yin-Yang, the Water of Ying, and the Wind of Yang-Yin.

The two great opposites, Yin and Yang, were the measurement of all things, and the four basic Elements were as balanced as it gets.

After the basic elements, there were mutated ones. They were much stronger for the balance, after all, isn't the key to destructive power.

Such was Qi of Dry Sand, or of Smoke.

People weren't born with them, only gained as a result of some accident.

One prominent master, for example, started feeling the Qi of Steam after almost getting boiled in a water.

Steam was a more Yang version of Wind.

Such people are geniuses, but as the saying goes, there's always Heavens beyond Heavens.

And the next Heavens were Greater Elements. Shrouded in mystery, little was known of their nature.

They could be gained only after a second mutation, or a great luck in other words.

Masters of old were rumored to have control of Lighting, almost the extreme of Yang, of Stars.

There were talks that Emperor Tian Long himself had an affinity to the Sun.

Greater Elements were different in their nature, but one thing was definite for them all: great might. Far surpassing that of normal or even Mutated Elements.

The question is, why did Shan bother to recall all that stuff?

Well, every genius needs sometimes to remind himself about his genius. Ha!

…

Shan opened his eyes. The time has come, his Plan has to be executed now. With a move of his sleeve, he wiped the remaining dirt from his lips and crawled out of the parasol.

He walked to the kitchen and there he saw Xin, sitting on a chair while crunching on a barely cleaned carrot. The boy twitched when he saw him, and the carrot fell and rolled under the table. Wei Shan wasn't in the mood to mock the kid now.

"Let's go." He bluntly said and without a second glance lead Xin to the outer courtyard. When he saw the well and the seal lying around he slightly smirked:

"You better not to drink from there, the water is poisoned."

Wei Xin was staring blankly as his once servant was drawing with his leg complicated patterns on the sand. "Qi-Gathering Formation", several words surfaced in his mind. He saw it more than once in many manuals he has read. Oh, and during the lessons, too. Shan's leg was shining in the process.

"That's about it," said Shan finishing the final line of the circle, "Who knows what element you will have, the Wei Family got kind of deviant from the clan in that regard, so I've designed it to gather any kind of Qi. Let your body choose which will suit. It will take some time, though."

"You are welcome to sit in, "young master", don't be shy." He said in a sarcastic tone to wake Xin from a daze.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The boy silently followed the order.

"Now then, the key is to be patient. When you will start feeling your spirit root, don't try to infuse it with Qi at once. It's like growing a plant, it can drown if you won't be careful." He said.

Wei Xin did as he was told; he wasn't wary of any kind of deception from Shan, his life was already in his hands, what would be the point?

After several minutes the air became denser, it was harder for Xin to breath now.

"Don't just sit there, imagine your crown as a dry sand and air as water. That's what you get for reading manuals as an entertainment and not studying them by heart, should've listened better in classes."

Shouted Shan while resting his chin on hand.

Wei Xin followed his instructions, and soon a cold sensation appeared in his head. Not harmful cold, but relaxing, cleansing. He suddenly felt at ease. That was Qi, the primordial energy of Heavens and Earth, everything in its basic form.

He concentrated, trying to guide it to his Spirit Root. No use. He tried again, feeling a bit fearful about Shan but suddenly, he stopped. Right, has he read all these manuals for entertainment only? Into his head and out his *ss hole, no. He calmed down and started to absorb more; soon the Qi overwhelmed his mind, a slight feeling of floating appeared and then…

"Chi." Something broke, the Qi vanished at once, and Xin saw a new space open deep in his own consciousness.

There was a flower, white but bulging with red trembling veins across its surface. Around it was a sea of blood.

That was his Spirit Root, and it was far from normal.

According to descriptions, it should be red, and the sea of blood wasn't mentioned at all.

Its current appearance was the result of "Divine Sacrifice" carried by Wei Zu; he killed more than twenty people, several of which were masters, to fill this deathly parasite of a Spirit Root with enough vitality.

Still, Shan has told him that even that amount could only prolong his life for ten years at most. Truly, what a terrible disease, Inner Death.

Actually, not even once a person sick of it managed to awake his spirit root. Even already established masters, even those at the Inner Sea Realm, were losing their cultivation the moment the sickness was awakening in them.

Many years ago Wei Zu put a lot of thought into how he could cure it and, being the medical genius he is, he actually found a cure, sort of.

The problem was directly related to sick person's Spirit Root. Basically, it was some kind of anomaly that was transforming the Spirit Root into a vicious leech, so instead of transferring Qi, it was absorbing its host's vitality.

The question was, where vitality was disappearing to? It couldn't just vanish, could it? And the Spirit Root was only becoming weaker with absorption, not stronger.

What's more, the more it absorbing the faster it was absorbing…

After some researches Wei Zu concluded that vitality wasn't vanishing, it was transforming, right, into some kind of anti-vitality. Everything has an opposite, the law of Yin and Yang…

Yes, that's it! He thought and clapped his hands.

But the problem remained, analyzing his own theory Wei Zu came to the right but unsatisfactory conclusion: to cure the sickness, he had to transform anti-vitality back into vitality.

"..."

Was it possible? Any other doctor would say no, Wei Zu would stay silent.

The extreme Yin has a bit of Yang, the extreme Yang has a bit of Yin, so the extreme amount, or rather concentration, of anti-vitality should start to transform into vitality...

The next line of his thought process was confusing even for Wei Zu himself. So, if he wants anti-vitality to turn into vitality he has to gather an extreme amount of anti-vitality. But how? The same way, by infusing an extreme amount of vitality into the sick Spirit Root! That way it will turn into an extreme amount of anti-vitality, which then turn into an extreme amount of vitality! And then… A circle, a perfect wheel!

His head was almost spinning when he came up with that idea.

But sadly, he couldn't actually accomplish it. Wei Zu planned to use Wei Shan as a source of vitality, and the first bunch of people to prolong the life of Wei Xin for a bit until he will be able to endure it.

By the time of his Awakening, he should be strong enough to endure the vitality of Twelve Meridians and transcendent the disease.

However, he failed, miserably.

Not only Wei Shan got out of his control, Wei Xin was now trying to awake his spirit root without him.

If Wei Zu knew what was happening now he would have been screaming at top of his lungs.

The Awakening would speed up the vitality absorption by thousand times!

The three years remaining from the sacrifice will be exhausted in few hours. Unknowingly, the shadow of death approached the young boy.