"My spiritual roots?"
Shino had just digested the information he had received from his mother. The history of the planet had really surprised him but still left him with more question.
"How did the seven saints learn how to cultivate?" If you think about it, out of all the people in this entire planet, how were they the only one to find out the secret's of cultivation?
It was quite confusing but he was even more confused by this spiritual roots thing.
"Yes Shino, your spiritual roots. You see, everyone is born with an innate spiritual root, which determines the speed of their absorption of the heaven's energ," she replied to his previous question.
"Spiritual roots are divided into 9 levels. With 1 being the weakest of roots, 9 being the most powerful. If you are born with weak spiritual roots, your cultivation journey will be incomparably slow compared to other people."
That only made Shino more confused. Why did you need spiritual roots to cultivate? It didn't make any sense. Was everyone born with spiritual roots? If so does that mean that everyone could cultivate?
"And was this spiritual root only unique to the inhabitants of this world? Would this explain why cultivation was nonexistent in his other world?"
He wanted to so ask this question to his mother. But at the same time, he did not want to expose himself in any way until he had some power in this new world. Luckily his mother was going to explain his question for him.
"Everyone is born with spiritual roots. It is deep within the soul, but sometimes people might be born with sealed spiritual roots, which makes them unable to cultivate."
"Ohhhh, that makes way more sense. But does that mean that the people on this planet are born with different souls compared to the people of earth?" Shino still had some questions, but for now, his initial confusion was cleared.
Seeing the confusion clear up on Shino's face. Alice Azeroth turned to her husband signaling for him to hand him an object he was holding in his hand.
"This is a spiritual root testing device." His mother said showing a weird object to Shino.
Shino could see the weird testing device on his mother's hand. It was sphere-like in shape and pure black in color.
"We will be using this to test the level of your spiritual roots." Alice Azeroth continued. "All I want you to do is just put your hand on the device like this."
Shino watched as his mother put her hand on the device making it turn white for a couple of seconds before taking her hand off making it turn black again. "The longer you can make the device shine white, the higher your spiritual roots are."
"It's not that complicated. In fact whoever made up this method is quite a genius." Shino thought. He was a little hesitant on putting his hands on this weird device that scanned his soul.
Alice seeing the hesitance on her son's face, tried to comfort him. "It won't bite Shino, just put your hand on it, nothing will happen."
Taking a deep breath, Shino closed his eyes before putting his hands on the sphere.
"Gasp!!!!!"
The deep gasp surprised Shino, but realization dawned on him as he opened his eyes. The sphere had not turned white, not even for a sec. The sphere remained its plain, old black colour.
"That doesn't make any sense!!! Why isn't it turning white?" Shino was still not able to register what was going on.
"Honey try again, maybe there's something wrong with the device?"
Shino put his hands back on the device, praying with all his might that the sphere would turn white. But he was disappointed to see that the sphere remained its colour.
Dropping his eyes with resignation, he tried his best to not let any emotion get to him. But his entire life's goal was to cultivate, and now he was being told by the stupid testing device that he could not cultivate.
"I'm sorry mommy, I don't know why I can't cultivate?"
Alice was so distraught to see her little angel cry like that. She promised in her heart that she would do anything to protect him, even if he couldn't cultivate.
"Don't worry about it, honey. Doesn't matter if you can cultivate or not. Your mommy and daddy will protect so don't feel bad about anything...Okay. You can stop crying."
"Sniff...Sniff...Yes, mommy. I'll stop crying now." Even with his genius IQ, Shino could not stop the tears from flowing. His entire dream had gone out the window just like that. The only thing he was thankful for right now, were his parents.
"Okay...good Shino. You know what you can go to your room for now. I and your daddy are going to plan something special for you to do tomorrow."
"Yes, mommy." Shino nodded as he walked out of the parlor to his room.
"Alice, don't feel too bad for him. He still has us, and even if he cannot cultivate I want to see who would dare to touch the son of I, Duke Azeroth."
Back at Shino's place, Shino was still having a hard time processing what just happened. His entire fate had just seemed to be dictated by a giant black ball. Or sphere to be exact.
He was going a little insane inside, but he didn't show it.
"Sigh...My road to cultivation has now been dictated to be nonexistent. My chance given to me by a being so powerful had been sucked down the drain just like that. How could I have been so careless? I should have at least guaranteed that I would be able to cultivate in this new world."
"If only my stupid eyes would just activate. I would have more assurance."
"Wait!!!" Realization just dawned upon him. His mother had told him that spiritual roots would help a person absorb the powers of heaven to cultivate. But didn't he do that a couple years ago with his eyes?
"WOOOOOOO!!!!!"
"I, Shino Azeroth's path is not over yet. With my eye, I can control every energy. I will reach the apex of this world...NO...I will reach the apex of this universe. Nothing will hinder my path to greatness.