The Spiritual Base

Aren placed his hand onto the transparent crystal as he had been instructed, it was surprisingly warm to the touch like it was something alive. Immediately after his palm touched the rough surface, the crystal blazed with light, just as it had done with the others.

Now that he was close, Aren could see that there was a small sphere of light in the centre of the crystal that was a different colour to the rest of it. In his case, the core was a vibrant green colour, and it was surrounded by a swirling mix of silver and blue light, both of which were saturated with a slight hint of scarlet.

"A wood seed with a mixed metal, water and fire roots. Not bad, although it's not the best, as long as you cultivate properly, it won't cause you any problems."

Aren broke out into a grin, he had been worried that he would somehow have been deemed worthless, or that some problems might have occurred. He did not know much about the spiritual base, which he knew to be the term for the spiritual seed and roots, but he had heard that if you had conflicting elements in your spiritual base, it could cause problems for your cultivation.

He bowed low to the examiner who chuckled and said, "Don't forget to come look for me if you need to, I'm known as Daoist Peaceful."

Aren straightened up and thanked Daoist Peaceful again before retreating back to wait with the rest of his group. Aren was the second last of his group to finish, the scrawny, nervous young man was still being tested so he went to wait with the three girls.

"Hey" someone called out to him, he turned and saw it was one of the three girls. She walked up to him, the other two following behind her, and smiled, "How did you do?"

Aren cleared his throat, "Not too bad, I got a wood seed and three element mixed roots."

"Haha!" The girl exclaimed loudly. Aren was startled and stumbled backwards slightly, staring at her confusedly, "I got a pure fire seed and pure wood roots! Don't be envious of me though, just blame your fate for being worse than mine. But you don't have to worry when I become a great and powerful immortal I'll come back and make sure to help you reach greatness." She then strode off triumphantly towards the first group of people, leaving Aren feeling confused and quite irritated.

Her friends glanced awkwardly at Aren, "Sorry about her," one of them said, "She always does stuff like this, she just likes showing off. Please don't be too angry with her." The other one nodded with a pleading expression on her face.

Aren hesitated and then sighed, "Its fine," he said. The two girls looked relieved and then they turned to see where their friend had gone.

"We should go and make sure she doesn't go and annoy everyone, see you." The two girls rushed off in the direction of their friend had gone, evidently concerned that she would do the same thing again and end up angering someone that she shouldn't have. Aren shook his head as he looked at the two girls hurrying away, he felt slightly sorry for them having to keep an eye on their friend like that. He was distracted from his thoughts a few moments later by the arrival of the nervous boy who had evidently just finished his examination.

Aren turned to him, "How did you do?" he asked.

The boy looked up at him and gave a half smile, "I- I got a mutated seed and mixed earth and fire roots."

Aren frowned slightly, "What do you mean by a mutated seed?"

"I, umm, I'm not too sure either. They said that it means it's an element that can't be measured by that crystal thing and that they'd have to do further tests to find out what element it is." The boy couldn't help but look worried as he said this.

"I'm sure it'll turn out fine." Aren tried to console him.

"Yeah, probably," said the young man looking slightly happier. He then turned and clasped his hands to Aren, bowing slightly, "My name's Jin, by the way, it's good to meet you, brother..."

"Aren," Aren replied, "It's good to meet you as well, I hope we'll get along."

They stood and watched the fourth group go up to get their spiritual base tested. In this group, there was one man who looked to be almost twenty, along with a young girl who seemed to be no older than twelve. All the time they had been waiting, the man had stood directly behind the young girl as if he were protecting her and when they had to go to different examiners, he kept on casting glances in the direction of the young girl as if worried something might happen to her whilst he wasn't around.

The assessment went smoothly, the only slight blip being the little girl who caused a stir among the examiners when her spiritual base was tested. Her examiner exclaimed in surprise when they saw her results and Aren heard them announce that she had a water seed and water roots. Although he didn't understand the significance of this, he presumed that this was something special due to the commotion it had caused.

Once the examination had finally finished, Deepheart once again moved to the front and addressed the waiting disciples, "Your spiritual bases have now all been assessed and you have all been deemed qualified to enter the sect. We shall now show you the way to your new living place and introduce you to the necessary facilities, but before we go, have any of you got any questions you wish to ask us?"

Aren could hear an undertone of impatience in Deepheart's voice and guessed that it would be best to save his questions until he found someone else to ask. Deepheart looked around and when no one seemed to be going to ask, he opened his mouth to speak.

"Umm, I have a question."

Aren looked around and saw that it was the little girl from the last group, the young man standing behind her again, a slightly nervous expression on his face.

"I come from a mortal family and so I don't really understand what you mean by 'spiritual base', could you explain it please?" The little girl asked, a naive, innocent smile on her face as she looked at Deepheart.

Deepheart stared at her blankly as if he couldn't believe that she had asked a question. For a moment it seemed like he wouldn't answer her, but then he smiled and said, "Of course, it is the duty of the senior generation to instruct their juniors." He seemed to take a moment to organise his thoughts then began to speak,

"The spiritual base is the collective term we use to describe the spiritual seed, spiritual roots and spiritual blooms, although you won't need to know about them until much later. The spiritual seed is something that everyone is born with and its element is set from birth, the spiritual roots grow from your spiritual seed from about the age of five and are usually fully developed between the ages of twelve and eighteen. Once a person's spiritual roots are fully established, they may begin cultivating."

Deepheart broke off for a moment and looked around at the listening crowd, even Aren who had heard some of these things before, was listening intently, being careful not to miss anything that might be important. "The element, or elements, that your spiritual seed and roots comprise off can affect many different things," Deepheart continued, "They can help one to cultivate faster but they can also cause many problems in certain circumstances. The best type of spiritual base is one where both the spiritual seed and its roots share a single common element, like you young lady." He looked at the little girl who had asked the question.

"This can greatly increase the speed of cultivation if you cultivate using a technique of the same element. The next best would be a seed with one element and then a root with an element that is complementary to the element in the seed, for example having a fire seed and wood roots.

Although this may not be as good as having a common element, it still provides an obvious bonus to your cultivation. As for having seeds or roots with mixed elements, they are worse than having a pure element, but if you cultivate correctly, they can still provide some bonus. The subject of having a mixed element spiritual base is much too complex to go through satisfactorily right now, but there a plenty of scriptures detailing it which you will have access to in the sect that you can read.

For now, just satisfy yourselves with this, since the time this peak was raised above the clouds, there has never been a spiritual base which prohibited a person from cultivating. Even if your spiritual base may not be as good as some other people's, hard work and perseverance can be used to help bridge the gap. Just because your spiritual base isn't as good, isn't an excuse to become complacent, you must always strive to bring out the best you can from yourself."

Deepheart, who had gotten rather excited towards the end of his speech, his eyes shining with enthusiasm as he spoke, sighed when he had finished and then asked again, "Any questions?"

This time nobody spoke and Deepheart signalled to the other four examiners who had been standing to the side while he spoke. They all waved their hands and Aren felt suddenly weightless as he was carried through the air to hover beside one of the examiners, "We shall now take you to where you will stay for during your time in the sect. There will a copy of the sect rules in your residences, you should look through that and familiarise yourself with the rules before you begin to cultivate."

Deepheart looked around at the fourteen youths hanging in the air, "This will be the last time we will see you all for quite a while, I hope you will all cultivate diligently and always uphold the glory of the sect."

With this Deepheart pulled out a magic treasure from his robes and flew up into the air, bringing along the three disciples who had been hanging beside him away with him. Then the rest of the seniors began to depart, the senior beside Aren pulled a sword out of a sheath he carried on his waist and threw it into the air where it hung motionless. The senior then jumped up onto the sword, Aren and another disciple floating along behind him, and began to move, slowly at first but quickly gathering speed, towards the edge of the forest.

Before he was whisked away, Aren looked around at the other disciples for one last time, he saw the scrawny boy, Jin, was not around and he assumed that he had been taken away by Deepheart when he left. The little girl and her protector were also absent, but the arrogant girl from earlier could be seen with her two friends hovering beside another one of the seniors.

As the senior on his flying sword left the clearing behind and soared above the tops of the towering trees, Aren felt again the wondrous feeling of flying. This time was even more exhilarating than earlier, the flying sword the senior was using travelled at a much faster speed than the cloud used by Daoist Ash. Aren made a promise to himself that he would procure a flying sword as quickly as possible.

After flying for only a short while, Aren saw the edge of the forest, where there were a collection of wooden huts and he assumed that that was where they would be living for now. Sure enough, the senior on the sword descended right in the middle of the little community and moved off back towards the forest, leaving the Aren and the other disciple to catch up.

Aren looked around curiously at the houses they saw as they hurried after the senior who strode away in front of them. They were all rather small but looked all the nicer because of it, and each had a small courtyard enclosed by a bamboo fence at the back.

Suddenly the senior in front of them stopped and beckoned to the other disciple who had been with Aren, he then pointed to a house to the right and said, "This will be your home for now." The disciple clasped his hands to the senior, bowing low, and then hurried off to investigate his new home, an excited smile on his face.

The senior then turned to look at Aren, "Your residence is a bit further on." he said in a slightly hoarse voice and then continued walking, leaving Aren to run after him again. They proceeded to walk through the entire little village, Aren running along behind the senior the entire way, and arrived at the edge of the forest.

The journey left Aren quite out of breath and cursing silently in his mind that it wasn't only 'a bit further', the senior then pointed to a house that was just beneath the eaves of the forest, "That will be your residence." he said.

Aren, although feeling slightly mistreated, bowed low to the senior and gave his thanks in a rather out of breath voice before walking, slightly unsteadily, towards his new home. The senior looked after Aren for a moment then took out his flying sword again and disappeared into the sky.

When Aren reached the front door of his little hut, he leaned against it to catch his breath, it took about half a minute for him to calm his breathing. He looked off in the direction that the senior had flown off in and cursed him in his mind again for making him run all that way when he could've easily brought him here at a much faster pace.

He then looked off at the forest, wondering where all the other disciples had been taken, he didn't really have much of a connection to any of them, but that boy Jin had been quite a good fellow. 'He could've been a good friend' Aren thought and sighed. He turned and looked at the door to his hut, 'Oh well, we'll probably meet again at some point' Aren thought and opened the door to his new home.