Chapter 7: Composite Restriction

However, the Five Elements Art is not a panacea.

For cultivators like Chen Mobai, whose spiritual root attributes are not significantly different, the Five Elements Art is a supreme profound art. The spiritual energy cultivated from it not only perfectly aligns with their physique but also progresses at a good pace.

However, for cultivators with high-grade spiritual root attributes, it is quite mediocre.

For example, cultivators with Heavenly Spiritual Roots only need to cultivate spiritual energy of a single attribute. This not only yields twice the results with half the effort and purifies their magical power, but also results in fewer bottlenecks when breaking through to new realms.

Generally, every cultivator is born with 100 points of spiritual root attributes.

Within the territory of the Immortal Sect's Blessed Lands and Grotto-Heavens, every cultivator must undergo precise spiritual root testing at a top-tier hospital before entering the Qi Cultivation stage. This is to determine their spiritual root attributes, and only with a spiritual root assessment report issued by the testing hospital can they enroll.

For example, Chen Mobai's attributes are: Metal 23, Wood 27, Water 23, Fire 17, Earth 10.

The Immortal Sect stipulates that if any single spiritual root attribute exceeds 20, it signifies the possession of that attribute's spiritual root. Chen Mobai, with his Metal, Wood, and Water roots, was barely categorized as having true spiritual roots.

This was also where his deskmate, Lu Hongsheng, felt aggrieved, as Lu's spiritual roots were: Metal 8, Wood 25, Water 23, Fire 22, Earth 22.

Although his attributes were actually quite similar to Chen Mobai's, due to a more even distribution of spiritual root attributes, he was classified by the hospital as having four pseudo-spiritual roots.

As for the so-called Heavenly Spiritual Root, it means that one of the five elements has a spiritual root attribute exceeding 80 points!

This means that even a cultivator with a Heavenly Spiritual Root will still possess spiritual roots of the other four attributes, albeit in very small quantities.

As for the theoretically perfect Heavenly Spiritual Root with 100 attribute points, there has been no recorded instance of it in the Immortal Sect's thousands of years of history.

The spiritual energy cultivated by the Five Elements Art automatically adapts to each cultivator's spiritual root attributes. However, even for Heavenly Spiritual Root cultivators, the spiritual energy produced will be mixed with some attributes from the other four elements, akin to unnecessary impurities.

The same principle applies to cultivators with unusual spiritual roots.

However, none of this was important to Chen Mobai.

He activated the Five Elements Art taught at school, channeling his Five Elements spiritual energy into a glass bead, causing it to emanate a multicolored rainbow glow, like a solar halo floating up from his palm.

This type of glass bead is a small toy used to practice spiritual energy control. A Qi Cultivation Stage 1 cultivator can control one bead. With Chen Mobai's current Qi Cultivation Stage 5 strength, he should be able to simultaneously control five beads, making them float and move as he pleases.

However, having just entered Qi Cultivation Stage 5, his realm was not yet stable, so he chose not to overexert himself.

Following the information provided by Old Man Ding, he guided four glass beads towards the right side hall.

A surge of water ripples appeared, bouncing away the first glass bead to arrive, followed by a second ripple, and then a third, deflecting the subsequent beads one by one...

Chen Mobai held his phone, frowning as he looked at the descriptions of the three spells Old Man Ding had provided.

He discovered that the water ripple restriction in this side hall possessed characteristics of the Flowing Water Shield, Surging Wave Spell, and Scale Wave Art simultaneously. Given his current cultivation realm, to break such a composite restriction, he would either need to use powerful talismans or wait until he broke through to the late Qi Cultivation stage before attempting again.

"Never mind," he thought. "I'll just cultivate for now. There'll be plenty of time to explore this water mansion later."

Finally, Chen Mobai checked the time and decided not to waste this second-grade mid-tier spiritual land. He sat cross-legged in the center of the main hall and began meditating and cultivating.

Earlier that day, he had sent a text message to his parents, informing them that he would be in seclusion in his room and not to disturb him.

Pure water-element spiritual energy transformed into blue light particles. Refined by the Five Elements Art, and after the cyclical generation of the five elements, it converted into spiritual energy perfectly suited for Chen Mobai's spiritual roots and physique. This energy then slowly circulated throughout his body, nourishing the meridians and acupoints that had been forcefully opened by taking the pills.

Although resources were scarce within the Immortal Sect, due to thousands of years of management and resources plundered from expansionist wars, the variety of spiritual herbs was essentially complete. Furthermore, cultivation was adapted to local conditions based on the ley line formations and climatic patterns of the Blessed Lands and Grotto-Heavens, resulting in good yields.

Alchemy, one of the Immortal Sect's four major disciplines, combined with medicine, allowed for the perfect utilization of medicinal herb properties. This was also the fundamental reason why the Immortal Sect could support three hundred million cultivators with a single star of local resources.

The Immortal Sect possessed elixirs of virtually all attributes.

However, one type of elixir was rarely refined: the Foundation Establishment Pill.

Although the Immortal Sect possessed this ancient elixir formula, its refinement had been prohibited by the sect five thousand years ago. The issue wasn't with the elixir itself, but that its production was excessively wasteful.

The Foundation Establishment Pill is a third-tier low-grade spiritual medicine, but its main ingredient, the Jade Marrow Golden Ganoderma, is a third-tier high-grade spiritual medicine. Using it to refine Foundation Establishment Pills was simply an egregious waste of heavenly treasures.

Moreover, the Jade Marrow Golden Ganoderma could be used to refine an elixir called the "Golden Liquid Jade Reversion Pill," which could assist Foundation Establishment cultivators in forming their Core.

If the Immortal Sect had abundant resources, with Jade Marrow Golden Ganoderma growing crop after crop in medicine gardens, then a small amount could be used to refine Foundation Establishment Pills simultaneously with the "Golden Liquid Jade Reversion Pill."

However, the problem was the Immortal Sect's limited resources. Although the variety of spiritual herbs was complete, Jade Marrow Golden Ganoderma could only be cultivated in two Grotto-Heavens. There wasn't even enough of it for refining the "Golden Liquid Jade Reversion Pill," so how could it be wasted on Foundation Establishment Pills?

Although the lower-level cultivators disagreed with this Immortal Sect regulation, the biggest difference between cultivation civilization and mechanical civilization was that the upper echelons decided everything.

The value of a Golden Core True Person exceeded that of ten Foundation Establishment cultivators. Given the same piece of Jade Marrow Golden Ganoderma, should it be used to refine a "Golden Liquid Jade Reversion Pill" or a "Foundation Establishment Pill"?

The answer was obvious.

It was precisely for this reason that breaking through to Foundation Establishment was an arduous, almost insurmountable challenge for Immortal Sect cultivators.

In ancient times, at least there were Foundation Establishment Pills to hope for, but now, ninety-nine percent of cultivators could only rely on their own efforts to break through.

This was also why cultivators of the Immortal Sect all yearned to enter the Grand Dao Academy.

Although the Grand Dao Academy did not refine Foundation Establishment Pills, it could produce spiritual medicines of a lower grade that assisted with Foundation Establishment. Furthermore, it possessed numerous secret techniques to increase the success rate of Foundation Establishment, not to mention tens of thousands of Foundation Establishment experiences, ensuring that cultivators could always find one that matched their needs.

The Purple Fire Pill Chen Mobai used to break through to Qi Cultivation Stage 5 was an elixir refined by the local Scarlet Cloud Academy in Danxia City, with only one hundred pills released each month.

Chen Mobai was able to secure a purchase slot because he had befriended a senior from Scarlet Cloud Academy while selling talismans. This senior happened to be working part-time as a customer service representative at Scarlet Cloud Academy's online flagship store and managed to arrange it internally.

Every elixir required corresponding usage instructions and a credibility endorsement.

In the Immortal Sect's ancient past, many cultivators suffered fates worse than death due to indiscriminately consuming elixirs.

Now, unless an elixir comes from a reputable pharmacy, no cultivator would dare consume one without instructions, a refining alchemist's signature, or a certificate of conformity.