"From what I know of Alchemy, it doesn't seem to have any specific element-based techniques, so it's understandable why Ma Rong didn't teach you about Spiritual Roots and left them for me."
The metal plate that Wen Cheng had put up on the wall had started to glow as 5 distinct colors started appearing on it in a circular shape in 5 different places.
On the top center was a circle with a red light on it. To the right, a little lower was a circle with blue light coming off of it. On the bottom right was another circle with green light coming off of it. On the bottom left was a circle with a brown light coming off of it. And finally, a little lower to the top left was another circle with Golden yellow light coming off of it.
At the center of the bigger circle that had lines connecting it to the other 5 circles. Inside the big circle was a drawing or a carving of a palm. At the center of the palm was another small rectangular cutout.
"This is a formation plate used to find a disciple's spiritual roots. Take a spirit stone and put it in that slot. After that place your palm along with the diagram and wait for the formation to do its work."
Wen Cheng stepped aside for Alex to move to the front and do what he was just told to. Alex walked to the front and was about to do what he was told, but he stopped. "Umm… Master, I don't have a spirit stone. Can I get one?" He was embarrassed even asking for one, but he had to since he had sent all of his to his bank account.
"You don't have a single spirit stone? I thought you alchemists were supposed to be rich." Wen Cheng was surprised but he still took out a spirit stone for him.
"You are going to have to sell your pills here if you want to do anything here. Unlike the Hong Wu sect, we don't do transactions in contribution points. Everything here is done through actual money. So if you don't have any spirit stones, you might as well not be here."
Alex took that advice to heart and took the spirit stone Wen Cheng gave him. He then inserted it into the slot and placed his palm on top of it.
"Alright, it's going to send a bunch of Qi into your body, don't try to stop it. Once it is in, use your cultivation method to allow it to coarse through your meridians. Once it is done, it will come back to the metal plate and light it up depending on what your spiritual roots are."
Wen Cheng started advising him on what to do. Alex then prepared himself, waiting for the Qi to come in. The Qi started to flow slowly into him and picked up in intensity as time went on. It started pooling along his palm waiting for him to use his cultivation method to take it in.
'Wait, if I use my cultivation method, won't I fall asleep?' He started getting worried. There hadn't been a single time when he had cultivated and not fallen asleep. He racked his brain to try and think of any other way, but couldn't.
'Whatever, here it goes.' He closed his eyes and started breathing slowly, waiting for his cultivation method to kick in. He fully expected his consciousness to vanish, but it didn't. For some reason, for the first time, he could finally cultivate without falling asleep.
'What is going on?' he wondered. This was a very unique situation he was in, but he instead ignored the situation, for now, to focus on the Qi moving into his body.
The Qi started to move along his body at a steady speed. The Qi went around his body through the meridians in his body. Alex used spiritual sense to look at the Qi moving along his body and was surprised.
For the first time, he properly saw the seven-colored light properly, instead of it being just a glimpse. The lights weren't very bright, but they were there. And they were all coming from his meridian.
'7 colors'… 5 of those colors are the same color as the one in the metal board. Wait for a second, is the meridian my spiritual root?' he was surprised. He had wondered what a spiritual root was, but never got a proper answer from anywhere on the Internet.
'Do people not know about them since they don't have a spiritual sense yet?' he wondered.
The Qi moved through his entire body and returned back to his palm in exactly 1 minute, and by this time, all of the Qi had shrunken in size by more than half and instead gotten more viscous as well as vigorous. They had also gained a slight yellow color to them. His Sun God's Divine Yang body had converted the Qi to Yang Qi.
<Sun God's Divine Yang Body increasing cultivation speed by 500%>
<Starry sky Qi Absorption method's Night bonus increasing cultivation speed by 200%>
<Obtained 200 Qi>
<Obtained 4382 Qi>
He had gained a lot of Qi from the spirit stones, yet the Qi wasn't in his control, so it left his body and entered the metal plate. Wen Cheng came forward and looked at the metal plate.
"You can remove your hand now," he said and waited for Alex to get back.
Alex did as his master said and stopped using his cultivation method. He got back to where his master was standing and looked at the metal plate as well.
It took a while for the metal plate to process the result, so Wen Cheng took the time to explain how it worked.
"The metal plate will take your Qi and use it to look for your spiritual roots. Depending on your elemental alignment, the board will light up to show your spiritual root. Depending on which light shines, we can tell what your spiritual roots are. Oh, look. It's starting."
Wen Cheng stopped talking as the board started lighting up. Slowly, under both of their eyes, all 5 of the circles started lighting up at the same time.
They were very dim at first but slowly increased with intensity as time passed.