pjbooks Chapter 128 Chaotic Spiritual Root
Chapter 128 Chaotic Spiritual Root
Three months.
To the Void Temple of the Apostle Realm, it was but an insignificant moment in the vastness of time. Kahn leaned back on the first throne, his amber pupils reflecting the Qingyun Academy, which was slowly operating under the shroud of the Spirit Gathering Array, on the light screen. The smile on his lips had neither deepened nor faded in the past seven days, like an ancient mark etched into the origin of the void, constant, solemn, and unshakable.
But for the 1,100 students of Qingyun Academy, three months is a lifetime.
In the first week, Wang Kai broke through to the third level of Qi Refining.
Under the artificial spiritual energy concentration of five percent in the Spirit Gathering Array, his five elemental spiritual roots exhibited a compatibility that surprised even Jiang Chen. Jiang Chen had seen countless spiritual roots in the cultivation world—heavenly spiritual roots, earthly spiritual roots, mutated spiritual roots, dual spiritual roots, triple spiritual roots—but none of them were like Wang Kai's, whose absorption efficiency of artificial spiritual energy was almost eighty percent of that of the natural spiritual veins in the cultivation world.
"Your spiritual root is no ordinary five-elemental spiritual root." Jiang Chen stood at the eye of the Spirit Gathering Array, the Primordial Sword slowly rotating above his head, its golden light casting interplay of light and shadow on his face. He looked at Wang Kai, who sat cross-legged on the bluestone slab, his body soaked in sweat, his voice calm yet carrying a seriousness he himself didn't realize. "In the cultivation world, the evaluation of five-elemental spiritual roots is 'strength in balance, but not in the upper limit,' because having all five elements means that cultivating any one attribute requires five times the time. But you are different. Your absorption speed of artificial spiritual energy is even faster than the cultivation speed of a top-grade celestial spiritual root in a natural spiritual vein."
Wang Kai opened his eyes. The true essence core deep within his dantian had expanded to the size of a soybean, and the golden patterns flowing on its surface were more than twice as complex as they had been a week ago. He looked down at his palms, where each held a slowly rotating five-colored halo—gold, cyan, blue, red, and yellow. The five elements had reached a delicate balance in his palms; the five colors neither devoured nor suppressed each other.
"Brother Chen, what does this mean?"
"That means you might not have the Five Elements Spiritual Root." Jiang Chen raised his right hand, his index and middle fingers joined together, and touched Wang Kai's brow. A wisp of true essence entered Wang Kai's body, flowing along his meridians, finally stopping at the surface of the rotating light core deep within his dantian. The moment the true essence touched the light core, the Five Elements power on the surface of the light core lit up simultaneously, then quickly converged, merged, and condensed, ultimately transforming into a pure white light without any attributes.
Jiang Chen withdrew his finger, looked at Wang Kai, and remained silent for a moment.
"Chaotic Spiritual Root." When he uttered these four words, his voice carried an extremely complex emotion, as if confirming an answer he had always doubted but dared not be certain of. "In the ancient legends of the cultivation world, there is a kind of spiritual root that is not among the Five Elements, not among the mutations, and not within any known lineage of spiritual roots. People who possess this kind of spiritual root can absorb spiritual energy of any attribute, can cultivate techniques of any attribute, and can ignore the attribute conflicts between the spiritual root and the cultivation technique."
He paused for a moment, looking at the ball of white light in Wang Kai's palm that was slowly dissipating.
"Thirty thousand years ago, the last cultivator with a chaotic spiritual root was the Demon Ancestor."
Wang Kai's pupils suddenly contracted. His hand froze in mid-air, the white light in his palm completely dissipating, leaving only a slowly swirling five-colored halo. His lips moved a few times, finally uttering only a hoarse syllable: "Demon Ancestor?"
"The Chaotic Spiritual Root isn't a talent, it's a curse." Jiang Chen withdrew his gaze, looking at the sky above covered by a golden light membrane. His voice softened. "The power of chaos is the most primordial form of power in the universe, one dimension higher than spiritual power and half a dimension higher than true essence. The reason the Demon Ancestor was able to survive being besieged by hundreds of Immortal Emperors in the Primordial Era was because his Chaotic Spiritual Root could continuously draw upon the power of chaos from the void. His immortality isn't immortality at the level of laws, but at the level of energy—as long as chaos exists in the universe, he will always have a source of energy."
He looked at Wang Kai again, and for the first time, an emotion that Wang Kai had never seen before appeared in those eyes, which were as deep as a thousand-year-old pool.
"But you are different. Your Chaos Spiritual Root is different from that of the Demon Ancestor. The Demon Ancestor's Chaos Spiritual Root was innate; his body had been automatically absorbing chaotic power since the moment he was born. Your Chaos Spiritual Root, on the other hand, was suppressed for seventeen years by the Awakened System of this world, and was only activated when my artificial spiritual energy entered your body. Your Chaos Spiritual Root is currently in a dormant state, an energy form that has been diluted by true essence, neutralized by the power of the five elements, and is countless times gentler than chaotic power."
Wang Kai took a deep breath, clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. He looked into Jiang Chen's eyes, his voice not loud, but every word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth: "Brother Chen, will this spiritual root turn me into the next Demon Ancestor?"
Jiang Chen looked at him and remained silent for a long time.
"No," he said, "because you're not fixing it alone."
The moment those words were spoken, Wang Kai felt the true essence core deep within his dantian suddenly throb.
In the void of the hundredth floor of the First Apostle's Hall, Kahn opened his eyes.
He sensed it. In a corner of that azure planet, amidst the chaos surrounded by layers of Apostle Temples, Abyssal Rifts, and black ice flowers, an extremely faint yet extremely pure power was awakening. The frequency of that power was exactly the same as the chaotic power of the being he had waited for tens of thousands of years—the Demon Ancestor.
"Interesting," he said softly, his amber pupils reflecting the scene of Qingyun Academy on the light screen. In the scene, Wang Kai was sitting cross-legged on the eye of the Spirit Gathering Array, five-colored halos slowly flowing in his palm, and the white light core deep in his dantian was expanding at a speed that even Jiang Chen had not expected.
The smile on Kahn's lips finally deepened.
"The Chaos Spiritual Root. Thirty thousand years ago, when the Demon Ancestor was sealed away by a hundred Immortal Emperors, his Chaos Spiritual Root was shattered into countless fragments, scattered in every corner of the universe. Thirty thousand years later, one of those fragments fell into the body of the disciple you have chosen."
He raised his right hand and lightly tapped the air with his index finger. The scene on the screen instantly switched—from Wang Kai to Jiang Chen, from Jiang Chen to the long street outside the main gate of Qingyun Academy where people were still queuing, and from the long street to the abyss rift on the western border of the Dragon Kingdom that was sealed by the Primordial Sword Intent.
"The legacy of the Immortal Emperor, the spiritual root of the Demon Ancestor, human civilization, the laws of the Apostles." Kahn withdrew his fingers, leaned back on his throne, and slowly closed his amber pupils. "Jiang Chen, just how many pieces do you intend to place in this game?"