Entering the pavilion, Ruel saw a massive, dimly lit room.
The walls and the floor were imprinted with cryptic symbols forming long sentences, making loops across the room.
These symbols were another form of a cultivation pathway, Formation masters.
They used symbols to incorporate and take help from the world, using it to do many things which couldn't even be dreamed of.
There were cultivation mats laid around everywhere on the ground, maintaining space between them.
Taking one of the mats for himself, Ruel sat on the ground while Sia stood just outside the building waiting for his results.
For safety and security reasons, only the cultivators who were in the Qi cultivation were allowed to enter the pavilion.
Looking around there were some more people except Ruel sitting beside him, meditating and waiting for their turns to come.
They didn't focus on him in any way but rather focused on fortifying their mentality for what was to come.
There was a sort of chamber just ahead of them.
The only thing separating the two parts of the room was just a wall.
There was a gate in the middle of the wall which opened when someone's turn had come, nobody could peer through the gate.
There was just darkness inside it.
It would have taken around an hour for Ruel's turn to come.
He knew from his memories that there were around four to five spirit stones in the chamber.
Closing his eyes, he began to meditate.
The process of forming the spiritual root was divided into two sections.
The first was to form the spiritual root.
It existed inside the aperture of every cultivator but it was present in an astral form.
Meaning it couldn't be interacted with.
The only way to connect it to the aperture and the material world was to provide it with spirit energy.
But how could cultivators focus on a particular part of their body?
And while focusing and guiding their mind inside the aperture, they also had to provide spirit energy.
That's where the root stones come into play.
They helped a cultivator by sending their consciousness inside the aperture, making it possible for them to form the roots.
But was it that easy to form a spiritual root?
No, all of this process had to be done within an incense stick's worth of time.
It was the hardest and only part of the process.
The person must provide it with a continuous flow of spiritual energy.
As spiritual energy was constantly provided, it became more complete.
Descending into the material world.
What would it mean to have a completely formed spiritual root?
It would mean that the person's body would be optimal for gathering spiritual energy, enabling them to cultivate faster.
This was also the first talent cap cultivators encountered and, in a way, created for themselves.
To form a complete spiritual root, only less than a thousand people have done this feat.
This number wasn't from the current cultivators who were alive, it was from the cultivators that had ever existed in this world.
From the start of the cultivation era to now, that was the number of people who accomplished this feat.
After a cultivator formed their roots, the second step was to provide it an affinity.
This meant giving it the affinity the person wanted, but even that wasn't easy.
To do this, you had to gather elemental particles from the surroundings.
You then had to converge them inside the root, binding them inside as you added more and more.
The more one integrated the elemental particles, the more their elemental affinity increased.
There was no cap on how many elemental particles one could integrate into the root.
They could even integrate more than a hundred percent, making it into a mutated element spirit root, increasing its power more than ever.
The spiritual roots were a boon on the cultivation path.
Without them, there won't be a path for anyone.
It was a gift humanity, as a species, had received from the world.
Yet everyone didn't get the same opportunity.
Such was the world.
It didn't value equality between all living beings, only power could turn everything over.
The path to supremacy was challenging and arduous.
In his previous life, Ruel had to deal with much more as he had a water affinity spirit root with a formation rate lower than fifty percent.
Yet he had reached a seat of power in the world, but even that wasn't enough to survive the cruel hardships he had coming his way.
This only specified his weakness.
He was weak.
He died because he was weak, but will it define his future? No.
He will break his past limits.
Opening his eyes, he looked through space.
A bell rang just as someone called his name.
Standing up from his lotus position, Ruel moved towards the door on the wall.
Taking a deep breath, he opened the door, and what was held inside surprised him even now.
He had seen many elemental stones many times in the past, but this scene left him without words.
There were elemental stones everywhere.
There were more than a hundred of them occupying every wall.
They contained an exorbitant amount of elemental particles inside them, helping in cultivating and comprehending abilities.
The elemental stones came in grades.
The ones around here were around second grade.
The higher the grade, the more expensive they were.
Sitting in this environment was one administrator and opposite to him, four other cultivators like Ruel, were sitting on some stone platforms.
They had a root stone in their hand while they were sweating profusely all over their body because of how hard they were concentrating.
Looking toward Ruel, the administrator said in an annoyed tone while preparing his root stone "Go sit on the free platform."
Charging it to the brim with his spiritual energy, he went towards Ruel, giving him the root stone and instructions on what to do.
Even though he knew about it all, Ruel listened to it with great attention.
"Good luck, kid."
Saying that he returned to his place, keeping an eye out on everyone present.
Sitting in a straight and comfortable position, Ruel touched the stone with the intent of going inside his aperture.
Just as he thought of this, a body manifested inside his aperture, glowing with radiant light.
But even that light looked small in front of the tree glowing in front of Ruel, its branches seemed so magnificent.
It just glowed with white light, but was transparent enough to see through if focused clearly.
Only desolate darkness surrounded Ruel and the spiritual root.
'Let's start'
Knowing he didn't have much time, Ruel started with the process of gathering spiritual energy from the surroundings.
Coalescing them firmly in his hand.
It took a significant amount of willpower to keep the energy inside the bounds of his hand, and he kept collecting this for so much time.
After some time, he formed it into a massive ball, around half the size of his own body.
'Now comes the hard part.'
Thinking of this, Ruel started to shape parts of the energy ball into strings, making them stretch inside the spiritual roots in a continuous flow.
This was the most challenging aspect of the process.
He had to make the energy continuously flow inside while maintaining a steady stream of it toward his hand.
He was multi-tasking right now, doing both tasks at the same time.
Others would have to wait and collect and then send it inside the root.
That was a long time taking process.
What Ruel wanted to achieve was ninety percent or above the completion rate.
A hundred percent could only be done by people far beyond his caliber.
True geniuses.
Ruel had come from the far future with plenty of knowledge and experience, but this wasn't a small feat to achieve.
He had to have a special constitution or a great opportunity to achieve the hundred mark.
Entirely focusing on the process, Ruel kept on giving energy to the tree.
It seemed like an endless well, with no end to its greed.
It kept on taking and taking, but then it suddenly started to gain color and seemed less transparent.
With that as a sign, Ruel kept on going…..
With a vague sense of time, Ruel knew he had around five more minutes left.
With the glow that the spiritual root was giving, it could be concluded to be around seventy percent completed!
A whole ten percent more than in his previous life! And he still had some time left.
Just as Ruel felt elated, elated at finally having the goal within his reach, the hope of achieving his goal and possibly going beyond it!
It all came crashing down when a familiar, dreadful voice crashed into his ears.
"So, is this how you puny cultivators fruitlessly attempt to grow stronger to oppose us? A futile, hilarious attempt! Hahahaha"
The deep voice said with a burst of haughty laughter as if mocking the very notion that an ant would even dream of rivaling its power.
A chill ran down Ruel's spine.
That voice, he had heard it before.
It was still fresh in his mind, like the fresh scars of his past.
It was the Demon Lord's voice!
Calming his panicking mind, Ruel tried to focus on keeping the flow of energy steady.
He was surprised and scared by what this damned voice was doing in his mind.
"Ah, so you will ignore me now?…. That's a bad thing to do, you know," he said while sneering at Ruel, with his eyes glowing with deep malice.
"Let me show you some ethics!" Just as he said that a big ray of red light hit Ruel.
His pupils dilated at what had happened and the aperture shook with the sudden damage he took.
Clearing his head, Ruel finally understood what had happened.
The damned demon was inside his body and had shaken his concentration with that one attack!
Looking at Ruel's expression, he gave a big laugh.
"Hahahaha" How does it feel to live with a stigma that you won't be able to wash?"
With a furious expression on his face, Ruel looked in the direction where the voice came from, he couldn't see the body but he felt it.
Only rage clouded his eyes at the moment.
"I will kill you! I will kill you! I will kill you!"
"You sick bastard, just you wait, this time I will personally kill you!" His voice trembled with the anger he was feeling.
Ruel had lost his opportunity.
This all happened in less than ten seconds, but to him, it had felt like an eternity.
This shouldn't have happened.
Ruel hadn't anticipated this.
He didn't know this could have happened.
"This is just the start human cultivator, you will see hell with what I will do in the future." said the demon lord while his sound faded in the background.