Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

The light slowly started growing brighter and brighter. All 5 circles were shining with the same intensity. The board aside from the circles was also shining a bit yellow.

"The lights determine how well you can use that particular element. So at some point, some of the lights will go out leaving you with the ones that you have elemental alignment with." Wen Cheng said from the side.

Alex knew what his spiritual roots were, but he still looked forward to seeing how a normal cultivator went about to determine theirs.

The light shined brightly with no sign of going out and this started to make Wen Cheng nervous. The longer it went on, the more his face frowned.

At last, the lights in the circle stayed bright with no sign of increasing and the overall board also shined in bright yellow light.

"Sigh, so unfortunate," Wen Cheng said while shaking his head. Alex was surprised to see such a negative reaction.

'Isn't it good? I have all 5 elements. Why is the acting disappointed?' He was curious, so he asked.

"Is that bad, master?"

Wen Cheng sighed once more and said, "From my knowledge, Yes. It's not bad on its own, but when compared to other spiritual roots based on their advantage and disadvantages, it's the worst."

Alex got really confused at the very vague answer. Wen Cheng saw his confused face and said, "Let me explain."

"There are two types of people born in this world. Those with a spiritual root, and those without it. For the ones that don't have a spiritual root, the best they can do in a cultivation world is reach the top of the organ tempering realm. They cannot go above that."

"The ones who are born with spiritual roots don't have any sort of inherent limitations due to spiritual roots. However, even among them, there are ones that are superior and ones that are inferior."

"A superior spiritual root is one that is aligned to a single or at most 2 of the 5 elements. If it is aligned with 3, it is considered an average one. While having 4 and 5 are considered the worst of the worst."

He sighed once again. Alex was surprised too. He hadn't expected his spiritual roots to be actually considered bad. As for why that was, he decided to ask.

"Why are they the worst master?"

Wen Cheng stopped sighing and started explaining.

"Spiritual roots determine how effective a person is at handling an element. If a person has a single element root, they can use that element to its highest power. However, the more elements you introduce to one's spiritual roots, the less effective their grasp of the elements gets."

"In this manner, both ends of the spectrum have an advantage and disadvantage. The ones with fewer elemental roots can only learn techniques with those elements, but have those techniques be really powerful"

"While those with more elements, they have more freedom at learning techniques, but those techniques won't be as powerful."

"In the end, being strong in a single type of element is way better than being weak in five. Ah, I was really looking forward to teaching you many things. It seems we will have to stick to the normal non-elemental techniques." Wen Cheng said as he sighed once more.

Alex also started getting a little sad knowing that his talent, basically magic, was going to be bad. Suddenly, he remembered something.

"Hmm… but, master. But, I am good at controlling fire though. According to this, shouldn't I be bad at that?" he asked.

"Hmm… show me." Wen Cheng said.

"Uhh… I need fire to control it. It's an alchemy technique." He said.

Wen Cheng immediately brought out a piece of paper and used a fire technique on it to burn it. Seeing this Alex immediately got to work. He started channeling his Qi and used the Flame Mastery Scripture.

Suddenly the little tongue of fire that was about to go out, burned brilliantly as it expanded in size to be about a meter in diameter. Alex controlled it for a second, then started to change its size once more. Once its size was changed, he changed its temperatue. He fluctuated between making the fire very hot, to making it very low in temperature.

Alex himself had been previously surprised at how good his control of the fire had been, once his Qi had gone through another change and increased in intensity.

He dropped the fire, letting it disappear as he thought, 'Hmm… what if the reason my control is so good is because of my Qi? I doubt many people have Yang Qi if any.' He thought.

That was a logical assumption and the only one he could think of right now.

"You really are good at it. It doesn't make sense though? Is it because you also have a yang-focused spiritual root?" Wen Cheng thought.

"Yang focused spiritual root? What makes you say that master?" Alex was surprised his master got it wrong.

"Look at the board, it's yellow, meaning your spiritual roots are yang focused. If it was yin focused, it would've turned azure, and it wouldn't have glowed if it is neutral, which is what 99% of the people have." He said. Alex assumed the yellow was because of his Yang Qi, which overshadowed the yin element in his spiritual root.

'Does that mean me having both Yin and Yang is also a rarity even among the rarity? What if that is the reason behind my fire being so good?' he thought.

"Alright, that settles it. We will do something about your spiritual roots tomorrow. For today, you will have to learn swordsmanship and other non-elemental techniques."

"Now, tell me, did your Ma Rong teach you any battle techniques?"

"No, master. She only taught me alchemy-related techniques. She said that I should learn battle techniques from the Tiger sect since I can find the best techniques here. Although I did learn a mortal grade sword technique, that's it."

"Oh, you did?" Wen Cheng smiled a little and said, " Show me."