After a few minutes of small talk, the sect master offered to assess her meridians.

Mei shifted uncomfortably as he held her hand and channelled his qi sense within.

"Interesting. With the help of your body art, one of your elemental roots has recovered!"

"Eh? I can use a new element now?"

"Likely because it was able to resist elemental corrosion best, your fire roots have recovered."

"Oh..."

Bleh. Of course, it had to be fire. She remembered Wang Wei talking about how dangerous it was to cultivate fire as a primarily wood cultivator. If only her fire roots were fine from the start... Mei wouldn't have minded being a fire cultivator.

Seeing her disappointed look, the sect master chuckled.

"It's not as useless as you think. I've heard from the elders that you're pursuing the dao of the spirit master? Now that your fire roots have recovered, you can bond with fire spirits properly now!"

In the face of the "big reveal", Mei paused.

"Ah... I didn't even realise I was restricted. I only got Su Qing because the training room was the first place I thought of looking."

Sect Master: ...

"Does this mean as I breakthrough, I will recover my roots one by one? Until I reach grade 6 talent?" she said, growing excited at the thought.

The sect master shook his head.

"It's not very likely, unfortunately. The breakthrough into Foundational entails truly reforming the body, to step past being a mortal. It's a rare opportunity you won't be able to take advantage of again." he said. "Not to mention, the rest of your meridians have shown no improvements after the breakthrough."

"Oh..."

"From the looks of it, your fire roots are grade 4. As for your wood roots, they have fully recovered and are now grade 6."

Mei thought about it for a moment. Wasn't there another root she had?

Right! Back when she asked Qian Shun to access her talent with formations, didn't he say she had grade 3 water roots?

"What about water?"

The sect master coughed.

"Ahem... I was hoping you wouldn't ask. The recovery of your roots wasn't without a cost. Your wood roots devoured your water ones, releasing the suppression of the fire roots and letting them recover."

"Oh."

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

What does devour even mean in this context?! The last time she checked, spirit roots didn't have mouths...

She faintly absorbed a wisp of qi from the air. Throughout her body, she found many new connections that weren't possible previously, though, they seemed oddly lifeless. Were the water roots integrated somehow?

Besides that, there were a few new pathways that while open, couldn't be controlled directly. Fire roots?

Above all that, she found her control of qi had increased by a frightening degree! Before, she could only faintly absorb it, but now it felt like she could actually shift it at will.

She focused, and for a moment, formed a weak spiral of qi before her.

The sect master looked to the clock on the table briefly.

"There are still many disciples shortly, so I'll cut to the chase. Mei Xiu, do you want me to help you awaken a nascent soul early?"

"What?" Mei was stunned. "Just me?"

She wasn't sure what exactly she did to garner the sect master's attention.

The sect master flicked her forehead.

"Ow."

"Not just you, silly! Since I've decided to go into seclusion, I've decided to help all the outer disciples this year awaken."

"Oh."

"Granted, an early nascent soul isn't the only thing I can help you with. I can help you awaken core qi early, or awaken your soul. It all depends on the path you take."

"I see..."

The sect master sighed and shook his head.

"You've not been listening properly during my lectures, have you?"

Mei looked away, sweating slightly.

"After reaching the Foundational stages, boundless possibilities open up! Our sect specialises in the classical dao."

"Meridian Opening. Qi Gathering. Foundational. Core Refining."

"And finally, you reach a crossroad. From this point, you can choose to break into one of the three paths: Nascent Soul, Gold Core or True Soul! It's not like in fiction mortals write, where there is only a single route in cultivation."

Mei had an expression of shock.

If she was actually present, there was no way she wouldn't have been listening! It had to be on one of the days where she arrived at the hall late..

"These aren't the only choices either. If you wish to deviate from the classical dao, some of our elders teach unorthodox daos."

"If you want to deviate, there are 2 daos that I think might suit you!"

"Ming Jiang can train you on the Inverse Core dao! Instead of enclosing your core to condense qi, you form a core that pulses qi throughout your body. Your ability to use magic is severely weakened, but your body cultivation will be unrivalled!"

Mei quickly shook her head. Why would she want to be a musclehead?

"Li Xuan can train you on the Spirit Body dao! You forsake your current talent and find several spirits to fuse with, forming a spirit body. Even with the worst talent possible, you can be an unstoppable force if you fuse with powerful spirits!"

Mei shook her head weakly. The only spirits she was able to convince to join her were gullible young spirits... Spirits like the sect master mentioned would probably yell at her instead. And call her stupid.

The sect master smirked.

"I suppose it's the classical dao for you, eh?"

Grr... Mei felt like a more unique path would be cooler.

"Are there any more?"

"Hmm... only one other comes to mind. Not many of our elders follow unorthodox paths, you know? Our sect explicitly only follows the classic path. The only elders that teach unique paths are those that joined from other sects!"

Fair enough.

"Tie Yin, the blacksmithing elder follows the Artefact Core dao, a rather weird one. To follow this path, upon reaching the peak of core refining, you extract it from your dantian and refine it into an artefact that grows with you"

"Isn't that kind of dangerous? Why not just buy a normal artefact?"

"Indeed. But what this path excels in is how it allows you to have massive qi reserves. After all, your core will no longer be constrained by the dantian's size, but however big you decide to make the artefact! I've even seen him attach qi compression devices to automatically gather and compress qi. Quite the ingenious man."

Huh. That actually sounded decent! She could slack away while-

"It's also a ludicrously expensive dao and requires a lot of smithing and artefact making expertise."

Nevermind.

"So... what do those 3 classic paths specialise in?" she asked.

"Given up already?"

"Don't make fun of me..."