Chapter 95: Mysterious-Class Spiritual Root

“Absolutely true. I possess a peerless art called Seeing People with Uncanny Accuracy. One glance is enough for me to tell that your younger brother has a spirit-grade spiritual root.” Qingxi spoke with shameless ease, not even slightly embarrassed.

Dukang froze, finding Qingxi unexpectedly amusing.

Did such a supreme art truly exist in this world?

Still, upon hearing that his younger brother had the bearing of a spirit-grade talent, Dukang was overjoyed. Holding little Duan's hand, he led Qingxi and Linfeng into the city lord's mansion's library.

As a family with a heritage spanning more than a hundred years, the mansion's library did not contain any peerless arts, but it did house more than a thousand martial techniques.

Qingxi looked at the ancient books on the shelves, his smile utterly sincere.

With the scanning and reading functions fully activated, the contents of those thousand-odd techniques were all copied and stored in the system space.

After excluding the portions duplicated in the Spirit-Origin Sect's library, a total of three hundred new techniques were added.

As a result, the number of peerless arts the system could deduce increased by five.

Among them was a black-iron peerless art called Earth Escape, which made Qingxi's eyes light up.

He had even been considering tunneling straight through the ground, but now there was no need for such a commotion.

Grinding his teeth, he spent several hundred strands of the five elements' origin to deduce the complete version of Earth Escape, then spent another two hundred and fifty strands of five elements' origin to instantly comprehend it to the highest realm.

Continuing to wander for a while longer, Qingxi found an unoccupied place and used the black-iron peerless art Earth Escape. Encased in a strange force, his body descended into the earth with a whoosh.

He experienced something most peculiar.

The soil around him seemed to have turned into water, parting automatically to either side as he sank.

After he passed through, the earth closed in again of its own accord, leaving no trace behind.

Before long, Qingxi reached a depth of more than forty meters underground.

“Ah!”

Suddenly, his feet found nothing beneath them, and he dropped onto a patch of cool, damp stone.

He himself was unharmed, but the stone cracked under the impact of his hardened body.

Qingxi quickly scanned the surroundings and discovered an underground river channel, only a few meters high and wide, though its length was impossible to judge as it twisted and wound onward.

From deeper within the karst caverns, the sound of flowing water could still be heard.

This stretch of the underground river contained no water, nor was it dark.

Ahead of him lay a massive stone formation like a coiling dragon, distributed along the subterranean channel. It stood half a person tall, its surface covered in patterns, and it radiated a soft, moonlike glow.

This was the tiny earth vein detected by the system.

The surrounding spiritual energy was very thin, because it had all been sealed within the vein.

Qingxi observed the earth vein up close and quickly obtained detailed results.

Type: Heavenly and earthly treasure
Name: Tiny earth vein, also known as a spiritual vein
Note: Originally a seal left behind by a mighty expert. After ten thousand years of gestation, it became a tiny earth vein. If the seal is removed, it will continuously release spiritual energy outward. Once stabilized, the spiritual energy concentration within a radius of three hundred meters will increase to twice its original level.

As Qingxi placed his hand on the tiny earth vein, he immediately sensed the vast power within, as though facing a top-tier powerhouse.

“Ding. A seal within has persisted for ten thousand years. Would you like to unlock it by converting source energy?”

After receiving the system's prompt, Qingxi asked about it for a moment and confirmed that breaking the seal would not cause damage before beginning the conversion.

The formation that had imprisoned the core of the earth vein thus steadily turned into the five elements' origin under the system's conversion.

What delighted Qingxi was that the source energy converted from the earth vein's seal contained all five elements—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—and each existed in exactly the same amount.

When the seal was broken, he obtained a total of fifteen thousand strands of five elements' origin, with three thousand strands of each type.

“Ding. Detected a sufficient amount of source energy to meet the conditions for spiritual root advancement. Advance now?”

Qingxi ignored the system assistant's prompt and instead noticed that, with the seal broken, the tiny earth vein was continuously releasing attribute-less spiritual energy outward. In a very short time, this stretch of underground river was brimming with it.

But Qingxi paid no mind. Following the scan results, he went to the head of the earth vein and took up his Cold Light Sword to begin excavating.

A moment later, he dug out a white jade stone the size of a fist. Within it was abundant spiritual energy, and the sensation it gave him was no less than the total qi sea of a perfected Qi Refinement cultivator.

“Ding. Detected a lower-grade natural spirit stone!”

The system assistant's prompt rang out with perfect timing.

Qingxi's eyes lit up.

He was all too familiar with the term spirit stone.

In the cultivation world, spirit stones were the common currency, divided into lower, middle, and upper grades.

Every earth vein could produce natural spirit stones.

Taking spirit stones away would not affect the earth vein.

The small earth vein of the Spirit-Origin Sect had also once yielded many natural spirit stones, though that was already centuries ago, and the spirit stones mined back then had likely long since been used up.

Qingxi studied the spirit stone and discovered that inside it was actually a thumb-sized spiritual marrow, formed from the solidification of ten-thousand-year spirit milk. It was worth many times more than a lower-grade spirit stone.

“Found a treasure!”

Qingxi quickly put the spirit stone into the system space.

Ten-thousand-year spirit milk was extremely precious, but it was not something he could use at present.

After scanning the surroundings and confirming safety, Qingxi took a deep breath and said, “Little Pipi, advance my spiritual root!”

“Ding. Spiritual root advancement begins.”

The system began gathering the source energy within the space, taking ten thousand strands of each type and transforming them into a vast force that poured into Qingxi's limbs and bones.

This time, Qingxi clearly felt the changes in his body, as if countless dragons were surging through him, even producing the roar of raging waves striking the shore.

It was not until a full minute later that the sensation rapidly faded.

“Congratulations, Host. Your spiritual root has advanced to the mystic grade, granting you the bearing of a king. You have taken another solid step on the road to becoming a great figure in the cultivation world.” Little Pipi's prompt was as timely as ever.

Qingxi discovered that his strength, reflexes, comprehension, and so on had all improved noticeably as well.

This was the benefit brought by the advancement of his spiritual root.

More importantly, when he checked his cultivation, he discovered that he had already broken through to the middle stage of the innate realm.

“This... this is too fast, isn't it?”

For this unexpected delight, Qingxi felt it had arrived just in time.

Earlier, when his spiritual root had advanced from ordinary to spirit grade, his cultivation had broken through from the thirtieth level of Qi Refinement to the perfected level.

This time, advancing from spirit grade to mystic grade seemed only to raise his cultivation by a single minor realm, but the innate realm was different from the Qi Refinement realm.

The innate realm had only four minor stages, and each advancement doubled the capacity of the qi sea.

In terms of effect, it was even stronger than advancing three minor stages in the Qi Refinement realm.

“That is because the higher the spiritual root grade, the more five elements' origin is required. Each time you advance a grade, the increase to your own cultivation is enormous.”

The system assistant's prompt never failed to appear.

Hearing this, Qingxi laughed. “So that's how it is. That means every time I advance my spiritual root in the future, my cultivation can also rise. That's simply marvelous.”

Little Pipi said leisurely, “Naturally. Otherwise, why would I keep urging the Host to advance the spiritual root first? After all, it is comprehensive in every respect. As the saying goes, trust the system and gain immortality!”

Qingxi curled his lip. “More narcissistic than I am. Watch out for a lightning strike...”

“Boom!”

Before he could finish, the entire ground suddenly trembled, letting out a thunderous roar, as though countless bolts of lightning had struck the earth, majestic and terrifying.