Song shook his head "No, father. The court, regardless of how great it is, is small. I've read the records you hid when I was just a child. For real cultivators, our country is in a wilderness region with scarce resources. Even the strongest forces in this wilderness are ants that can be found everywhere in the great world.
That was the arrogance of the traveller that wrote the log as he crossed this wilderness. This log was probably spread among all nearby countries, father, do you really want your son to enter a court such as this?
Elder brother never liked the court, yet he entered anyways because he respected your wishes and because it also aligned with his own wishes for the future, but I have never been like this, there is no need to talk about this any longer."
Yu Liang sighed and nodded.
Seeing that there was no rejection on his face, Song knew that like any normal person, his father, too, was ambitious at heart and only stopped after knowing his own talent. In fact, the talent of anyone in the country is bad – the highest figures are only foundation builders! Even if they get a good talent, if he isn't offered to the upper sect, the fall of the royal family wouldn't be far off.
Yu Song smiled again and said "I had just gained enlightenment in my study. Let Li'er and Ling'er learn there from now on. Sages are rare and it will be unlikely that anyone else in this country can give birth to a sage for the next century, but it's fine as long as they enhance their wisdom at this age and become more successful. Their spiritual roots are also still growing, it might help them too."
Spiritual roots are split into one to five, the greater five elements such as gold, water, wood, fire and earth. The smaller five elements that are the most common mutations are ice, thunder, wind, yin and yang. Then there are special roots that are too rare to be listed among them.
Every person can have up to five roots, whether it's through mutation or normal roots. Ice roots are a combination of water and wood roots, so they count as two.
Beyond the number of roots that define which element one is close towards since birth, there is also the length, width and brightness of the root, which ultimately decides the quality from low low, low middle, low high, low top, and so on. The highest is top top.
As for the rare heaven and earth roots, they naturally don't exist. Roots themselves don't have the qualifications to call themselves heavenly, of course in lower worlds, they are still called like that. After top top roots, the next best cultivation qualifications are spiritual bodies, comprehension and innate talent.
In fact, the three influence each other greatly, one's spiritual body can have the effect of enhancing comprehension, or the innate talent might do the same.
Compared to the roots, every human's comprehension starts at middle low, innate talents start at high-low and spiritual bodies start at top-low. There's no other reason, they are simply as rare and as good as roots of the same grade.
Only a person with top-top talents in all four categories can be called a great genius, but there are no such people born. The highest one can be born as is to have one top-low, at least that is the limit for humans. Other races have different standards. As one cultivates and reaches higher stages, every qualification one is born with will at least rise three realms. Meaning the most talented person will have their top-low talent upgraded to top-top.
How useful that is, Yu Song didn't know. He only had a basic understanding which he derived from the rules of the world he could comprehend right away. It's not that he is a great talent that can communicate with heaven and earth – basic knowledge can be derived simply by comprehending the laws that swirl around, and knowledge that is spread among every person is the easiest to derive.
'Hmm, based on this, either my comprehension is at least high grade or I have an innate talent… the second is more likely, if I had great comprehension, I would've succeed further in my past live. It's likely that my innate talent already manifested in my enthusiasm of classics in my past life and only became stronger after I crossed…'
As for why he didn't think it was a spiritual body – naturally it's because this was the second easiest to detect for cultivators, and there would be many phenomena accompanying him, especially during his enlightenment. Only after he recited 'Namo Amituofo' did the energy from his enlightenment take form and became much stronger than he could create on his own.
'I wonder what my innate talent is? It is very likely a manifestation of emotion or the mind… haha, I created my own maxim without considering this, but I might truly have a pure heart… no, rather, it should be a heart of classics or the mind of a scholar.
Alas, talented people try to understand their own talents while untalented people try to enhance their talents. In fact, besides the four qualifications, the fifth would be the will of each person, a strong will could make an untalented person relentless in their hard work, which compensates for their poor talent.
Our region is too low, but in other regions, even a talent like father should be able to cultivate to the foundation building stage as long as he persists in his cultivation. A person that can have an unyielding will that refuses to be satisfied with any stage might drive them higher – but such a person but be very boring.'
It's not that Yu Song wasn't ambitious. Simply the arrogance of a person to reach such great heights only because they're unsatisfied makes them unsympathetic in his eyes. It would be one thing if one had such a will for a reason, and once this reason is fulfilled, they would continue because of newfound talent that they gained as they advanced.
But, being unsatisfied with every stage, such a person wouldn't know their limit and would cause harm to all those around them. 'Even if such a person exists, the karma they bear for all the harm they cause along the way won't be easy to wash off.'
Karma, or cause and effect, aren't as easy to understand, especially on higher stages. Yu Song deeply believed that the common understanding he often read in novels, which is that one only needs a small cause to create a large effect, would be wrong. A sentence such as 'repaying a grievance ten times' is simply impossible to work in his eyes.
If they make you suffer, then you can make them suffer just as much, but making a person suffer ten times, that's not repaying, that's simply abusing the situation for their own gain.
'Heaven and earth isn't so partial to allow this, hmph!' Regardless of how the truth was with karma, Yu Song wasn't so far in his studies that he knew, as a person on the path of a sage, he had every right to interpret things the way he wanted as long as they had a logical foundation.
Yu Song was a strict believe of 'Eye for Eye and Tooth for Tooth'. This in itself would explain an equal exchange of grievances – even if one added interest, an interest rate that goes beyond double the initial amount is simply debtor shark behaviour!
Yu Song remembered that he was still talking with his father at the moment. He had always been a person that thought numerous things while doing one thing, even though he paid no attention just now, his subconsciousness talked with his father as if nothing ever happened.