The two walked together along the narrow path from the village toward the white slope to the north. To any bystander it would have looked like idle chatter between new companions. In truth Han Li was asking and Wan Xiaoshan was answering, and Han Li was harvesting every word.
With a few artless questions he let the boy pour out all he knew, delighted to have found so attentive a listener. Much of it was common knowledge among cultivators, yet entirely new to Han Li.
"Cultivation is divided by realms," Wan Xiaoshan said proudly, as if reciting a clan lesson. "Three great stages — the Lower, Middle, and Upper Realms."
He counted on his fingers. "The Lower has five layers: Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, and Deity Transformation. The Middle has three: Void Refinement, Body Integration, and Great Ascension. The Upper has only one gate left, Tribulation Transcendence. Pass it and you ascend to the Immortal Realm, to live as long as heaven and earth."
"That is only how it is spoken of," the boy added, deflating. "To say it is easy. To do it is as distant as stars. Even at the summit of the Lower Realm — Deity Transformation — not a single person in the entire Kingdom of Yue has achieved it, so far as I have heard. Those at Nascent Soul can be counted on one hand. Only a few old monsters of deep fortune have reached that height."
"What of lifespan?" Han Li prompted gently.
Wan Xiaoshan's eyes brightened. This was his favorite marvel.
"It is bound to realm. Each great breakthrough more than doubles your years! Mortals who live to a hundred are already rare and celebrated. But a cultivator who attains Foundation Establishment will live past two hundred as a matter of course. If you are fortunate enough to form a Golden Core, four or five hundred years can be expected. And if — by heaven-defying luck — you condense a Nascent Soul, then congratulations!"
He smacked his lips with envy. "A thousandth birthday would not be impossible! Ten times the life of a common man!"
Han Li kept his face composed, but inwardly he was stunned. He had guessed cultivators lived longer, had felt the slow vitality of his own Art of Eternal Youth, but a thousand years struck him as absurd. A thousand-year turtle, he thought before catching himself.
If Nascent Soul granted a millennium, what of Deity Transformation and beyond? He could not help probing.
Wan Xiaoshan spread his hands. "Who knows? Perhaps they live even longer. Perhaps they never die? It is said that one who truly reaches Deity Transformation and cultivates it to perfection must leave this world for a higher space, a higher world. What that space is, no one knows. No one has ever returned to tell us."
No one returned, Han Li mused, yet we have names for those higher realms. How were they named if none came back? The doubt lodged like a thorn, but he knew not to press this guileless youth, who would only guess. He let it sink to ponder later.
Beyond realms, Han Li drew a broader map of Yue.
About other kingdoms the boy knew little, but about Yue he spoke with native fluency.
"Within Yue there are seven great cultivation sects," he said. "Masked Moon Sect, Yellow Maple Valley, Spirit Beast Mountain, Clear Void Sect, Saber Transformation Dock, Heavenly Threshold Fort, and Giant Sword Sect. Masked Moon is strongest, Spirit Beast Mountain just behind; the other five are roughly equal, none weak enough to be despised, none strong enough to dominate."
If the sects were the great trees that hold up Yue's cultivation sky, then cultivation clans were vines entwined about them — drawing support, offering loyalty, needing the shelter of those trunks to survive.
Here his voice dropped conspiratorially. "Every aged cultivation family — its ancestor was once a disciple of those sects. We are all continuations of their blood!"
"Why?" Han Li asked.
"Because of spiritual roots!" Wan Xiaoshan declared.
Most cultivators could not explain precisely what a spiritual root was, he said, but one iron rule was known to all: without a spiritual root, do not dream of cultivating. You could not even sense spiritual qi, let alone refine it into magic power.
Yet those born with roots were vanishingly rare — one in ten thousand, perhaps one in tens of thousands. And of those, only a sliver ever stepped onto the path. Most lived and died as common folk, never found, because root-bearers were scattered like needles in a desert of straw.
Nor was having a root sufficient. Roots differed greatly in quality.
Spiritual roots were classed by the five phases — metal, wood, water, fire, earth. Most bearers carried a tangle of four or five attributes. They could sense qi, but their cultivation was pitiable; at best they pushed the basic five-phase exercises of Qi Refining to the third or fourth layer, then halted forever, with no hope of Foundation Establishment in this life.
Thus those with four or five attributes were called "pseudo spiritual roots," set apart from those with two or three attributes, whose progress was far quicker — the "true spiritual roots."
Those with a single, pure attribute were called "heavenly roots" — heaven's favorites. A heavenly root cultivated two or three times faster than an ordinary one, and at the peak of Foundation Establishment faced no bottleneck to Core Formation at all; they could form a Golden Core as naturally as a river reaches the sea.
If speed made others envious, this freedom from the bottleneck made them grind their teeth until they might spit blood. Among ten Qi Refining cultivators, perhaps one, aided by a Foundation Establishment Pill, entered Foundation Establishment; among a hundred at Foundation Establishment, not one might succeed in forming a Core. So stark was the gap that the existence of heavenly roots seemed heaven's own injustice. Hence whenever a heavenly root appeared, sects fought madly to claim him — a future Core Formation pillar secured in advance. But heavenly roots were mythically rare, one every few hundred years.
More common, though still rare, were mutations beyond the five phases — "mutated spiritual roots," appearing every twenty or thirty years. A mutated root formed when two or three phase attributes blended and sublimated: metal and water into lightning, earth and water into ice, with others such as darkness and wind. A mutated root did not grant exemption from the Core Formation bottleneck, yet its speed was no less than a heavenly root's, and with a matching art such cultivators often became astonishing fighters, able to meet three or four ordinary peers alone. Thus they too were warmly welcomed.
In earlier times, the boy went on, not only heavenly and mutated roots but even ordinary true roots were hard to find. How could sects test every child in the mortal world? Out of ten thousand, perhaps one had a root; of five or six with roots, perhaps one was true. Small sects once dwindled to a handful, near severing their inheritance.
At last some thoughtful men discovered the key: spiritual roots appear far more readily within a shared bloodline. If one parent bore a root, a child had a one-in-four chance; if both parents bore roots, the chance was far greater — it would not be strange for every child to possess one.
This electrified the cultivation world. Many young disciples were sent by elders to marry and raise families in the mortal world, returning only after children were born. When disciples were needed, sects then chose directly from their own families, and the proportion of true roots rose dramatically. The crisis eased.
Though incidence among ordinary mortals stayed low, the total number of root-bearers grew generation by generation. Families where spiritual blood ran strong produced heirs with roots without cease, and over time they branched into the cultivation clans of today. These clans might lack the deepest arts, yet they possessed plenty of shallow formulas, and gradually became outer branches of the sects, retaining a measure of independence. In short, behind every clan stood a sect that none dared slight.
Wan Xiaoshan had not spoken so happily before another in a long time. To be heard with such rapt attention loosened his tongue entirely. Eager to impress this older brother who listened so well, he poured out all he knew without suspicion, even showing off a little.
Han Li listened with genuine pleasure, slipping in an occasional casual question to keep the youth talking. Pity that the misty slope lay not far from the village. After only a few hours' walk, they arrived before the veil of fog.
So short a journey left Han Li quietly frustrated. He had not heard nearly enough, and felt a fleeting wish to turn back and walk the road again. But that was impossible. He could only watch as the chattering Wan Xiaoshan at last fell silent, eyes shining with excitement upon the rolling white mist ahead.