After fully assimilating his memories, Wang Hao began to analyze his own cultivation status.

His cultivation technique was a standard, run-of-the-mill manual: the Evergreen Art, a Wood-attribute technique.

He possessed Five Spiritual Roots. In theory, this meant he could practice techniques of any attribute, including multi-attribute ones. Having all five elements meant he theoretically had the potential to learn any of the “Hundred Arts of Cultivation.”

Or so one might think.

Potential requires talent. Possessing the corresponding Spiritual Roots was merely the foundation; it only answered the question of whether one could learn something. Actually mastering it was an entirely different matter.

Wang Yanzhao had once offered him a dual-attribute technique. Unfortunately, the body’s previous owner was a fool and refused it. Based on the original owner’s limited understanding, however, he knew that if a multi-spiritual root cultivator practiced a corresponding multi-attribute technique, their cultivation speed could increase—sometimes reaching several times that of a single-attribute technique.

Gathering his thoughts, Wang Hao began to practice according to the original owner’s memories, closing his eyes to cultivate. A warm current flowed from his Dantian, circulating through his meridians in a complete cycle.

As the technique operated, Wang Hao sensed the surrounding spiritual energy slowly being drawn into his body, causing his spiritual power to increase slightly.

Through internal introspection, he observed his Dantian surrounded by a thin layer of green mist. However, intertwined with this green mist were faint wisps of red, yellow, blue, and brown.

Wang Hao frowned slightly.

According to the original owner’s knowledge, the green represented Wood-attribute spiritual energy. The other colors naturally represented the remaining four attributes. This situation was normal. As a Five Spiritual Root cultivator, he passively absorbed all five elemental energies. This didn’t hinder his cultivation directly, but it significantly affected the purity of his spiritual power.

The reason Heavenly Spiritual Root cultivators faced almost no bottlenecks in breakthroughs was precisely because their roots were single-attribute. They only absorbed one type of spiritual energy, resulting in exceptionally pure spiritual power.

If one were to visualize this using a game interface, cultivation is the process of continuously expanding the capacity of the Dantian and meridians. Let’s set the spiritual power capacity limit for a stage at 100. Once you reach 100, you can break through. But this spiritual power must correspond to the technique you practice.

For a Wood-attribute Heavenly Spiritual Root, once the Wood-attribute spiritual power value reaches 100/100, a breakthrough is possible. For single-attribute spiritual roots, this is easy—a natural progression.

However, for multi-spiritual root cultivators, other attribute energies are inevitably present within their bodies. The Dantian’s capacity limit is fixed. Even if other attributes occupy just a tiny bit of space, the attribute you are cultivating can never reach 100% capacity naturally.

The more Spiritual Roots one has, the more miscellaneous attributes are absorbed, leading to more impure spiritual power. For example, a Dual Spiritual Root might only achieve 99/100 purity, a Triple Spiritual Root 98/100, while Wang Hao’s Five Spiritual Roots could only manage around 96/100.

For multi-spiritual root cultivators seeking breakthroughs, the two most common methods were:

First, cultivating in places with denser spiritual energy, frantically absorbing it to meet the pressure requirements for a breakthrough.

In modern terms, this is compression. How do you fit 110 milliliters of air into a 100-milliliter bottle? You increase the pressure! With more spiritual energy forced into the Dantian, even if it’s not 100% pure, the sheer density can meet the requirement equivalent to a single attribute reaching 100.

The second method was taking pills. This followed the same principle as the first: temporarily increasing the density and quality of spiritual energy within the Dantian in a short burst, allowing a single attribute to meet the breakthrough threshold.

Wang Hao’s difficulty lay in needing even greater pressure. If a Dual Spiritual Root cultivator needed one pill to break through, he might need four. This created another problem: his Dantian and meridians might not withstand such pressure and could rupture.

To address this, some ingenious multi-spiritual root cultivators created multi-attribute techniques.

Wang Hao speculated that if expressed digitally, for a dual-attribute technique, the progression bar might become 50+50. As long as both attribute energies reached 50 each, a breakthrough was possible. For five attributes, it would be 20+20+20+20+20. This was likely why multi-spiritual root cultivators practicing multi-attribute techniques were faster than those practicing single-attribute ones.

This led Wang Hao to another question: If a Dual Spiritual Root cultivator practicing a dual-attribute technique only needed to reach 50+50 to break through, wouldn’t they be faster than a Heavenly Spiritual Root? After all, when cultivating, one could absorb multiple attributes simultaneously; there was no need to refine one attribute to 50 first before starting the next.

Clearly not.

According to the original host’s memories, Heavenly Spiritual Root cultivators often reached Qi Refining Perfection and broke through to Foundation Establishment before age twenty.

Dual Spiritual Roots usually took until after thirty-five; Triple Spiritual Roots until fifty or sixty; many Quadruple Spiritual Roots only reached Qi Refining Perfection in their eighties or nineties. Five Spiritual Roots were even worse—many might never achieve perfection before their lifespan ended at around 120 years.

Wang Yanzhao, who practiced a dual-attribute technique, was a prime example. He had Fire and Wood Dual Spiritual Roots and had achieved Qi Refining Perfection at thirty-eight this year.

But that couldn’t be taken at face value. Wang Yanzhao had been delayed by emotional matters in his youth. He also practiced alchemy, which similarly took time away from cultivation. He had reached the eighth layer of Qi Refining by age twenty—faster than an average Dual Spiritual Root cultivator—but still slower than a Heavenly Spiritual Root.

If he hadn’t practiced alchemy and had focused solely on cultivation, he probably would have been even faster.

Wang Hao’s eyes lit up. This meant that practicing a corresponding multi-attribute technique wouldn’t be much slower than a Heavenly Spiritual Root’s speed.

Suddenly excited, Wang Hao stopped circulating his energy. He opened the computer in his mind and began creating diagrams.

Hah! Making charts feels great.

Hypothesis 1: All cultivators have the same total rate of absorbing external spiritual energy.

If each person’s channel for receiving spiritual energy is likened to a pipe, then everyone’s pipe should have the same cross-sectional area. However, Heavenly Spiritual Roots have only one type of spiritual root and can utilize the entire pipe’s capacity for one element. Multi-spiritual root cultivators must share this pipe among multiple roots.

Hypothesis 2: The speed at which multi-spiritual root cultivators absorb single-attribute spiritual energy is inversely related to their number of spiritual roots.

A large water pipe appeared on the screen.

A Single (Heavenly) Spiritual Root owns the entire pipe.

A Dual Spiritual Root must split the pipe into two.

…A Five Spiritual Root splits it into five parts.

If everyone practiced single-attribute techniques:

A Heavenly Spiritual Root starts cultivating at age five and reaches Qi Refining Perfection by twenty—taking fifteen years.

A Dual Spiritual Root takes between thirty-five to forty years—roughly thirty to thirty-five years total.

A Triple Spiritual Root takes forty-five to fifty-five years.

Considering the bottlenecks for multi-spiritual roots:

A Heavenly Spiritual Root’s cultivation speed is roughly twice that of a Dual Spiritual Root.

Three times that of a Triple Spiritual Root.

And over five times that of a Five Spiritual Root.

Factoring in Wang Yanzhao’s example with his dual-attribute technique…

This hypothesis held water.

In other words, if Wang Hao could open all five “water pipes” corresponding to his five roots, his flow rate would be equal to that of a Heavenly Spiritual Root.

But since he currently practiced the Wood-attribute Evergreen Art, he could only open one Wood-attribute “pipe.”

Thus, his cultivation speed was only one-fifth of theirs.

“I must get my hands on that dual-attribute technique Wang Yanzhao has! That way, my cultivation speed will double—faster than even Triple Spiritual Root cultivators! If it takes fifteen years for a Heavenly Spiritual Root to reach Qi Refining Perfection, I would need thirty-seven and a half years.”

“I’m only eighteen now. Even if bottlenecks delay me by several years, I could still build my foundation before sixty!”

“Moreover, I’m already at the third layer of Qi Refining! There is great hope for achieving it before fifty!”

Wang Hao clenched his fist firmly.

It wasn’t easy, but he finally saw hope for Foundation Establishment!

Otherwise, with his aptitude—and without infinite pills like Old Demon Han—he would likely grow old and die without ever building his foundation.

Of course, there must be limitations. Otherwise, wouldn’t everyone just practice corresponding multi-attribute techniques and rival Heavenly Spiritual Roots?

There should be conflicts, given how the five elements generate and restrain each other.

Take Fire-Water Dual Spiritual Roots, for instance:

Simultaneously refining Fire and Water attribute energies within your Dantian…

Water extinguishes fire; water evaporates upon meeting fire.

Add a little chemistry knowledge—water decomposes into hydrogen and oxygen at high temperatures—and boom, your Dantian might just explode.