Chapter 52: The Higher You Go, The Harder You Fall
Translator: Sparrow_ Editor: Sparrow_, Yuui
Chang Luo City had too many locations for testing spirit roots, and the cheapest only required a fee of 100 gold coins. Being wary of false test results, Mo Wuji decided on the Xing Han Spirit Opening Tower.
After some inquiries, Mo Wuji found out that the Xing Han Spirit Opening Tower was one of the top tier spirit opening towers. Its accuracy rate for testing one’s spirit roots was a perfect 100%. Originally, Mo Wuji was worried that his spiritual roots may be of poor quality, and that it would be better to take the test on the sly. However, when he reached Xing Han Spirit Opening Tower, he knew that he was overthinking.
Just by standing at outside of the Xing Han Spirit Opening Tower for a few minutes, Mo Wuji saw up to a hundred people enter and leave the premises. With such a high volume of human traffic, who would notice him?
Mo Wuji walked into the Spirit Opening Tower and was welcomed by a large signboard. The signboard had two arrows, the left one pointing to “spirit root testing”, and the right one pointing to “opening of spirit channels”.
Taking a left turn, Mo Wuji quickly arrived at a window which had a sign below it that wrote “Pay 700 gold coins for the testing of spirit roots”. He handed over the fee, and obtained a card numbered 3121.
There were many people coming to get their spiritual roots tested, and all Mo Wuji had to do was to follow behind the others. He walked up to the third floor, which had a large hall with over a hundred people seated within it. Due to the gigantic size of the hall, even with a hundred people in it, there still seemed to be much extra space left.
At the corner of the hall, there was a metal door that was closed shut. When Mo Wuji entered, one person walked out from that door, and following the reporting of a number, another went in.
Within half a minute, the previous person exited the door, and the person with the next number entered.
Mo Wuji waited for approximately an hour before his name was called; he then entered the room anxiously.
If nothing went wrong, and the test results still indicated that he did not have spiritual roots, then he probably would not have spiritual roots for the rest of his life.
After entering the room, Mo Wuji saw a crystal pillar that was much more transparent and clear than those within Cheng Yu Spirit Opening Tower. Not only was it clearer, its height was also much greater than the Cheng Yu Spirit Opening Tower. By his estimates, it was at least 4.5 to 5 metres tall.
Beside the crystal pillar sat a middle aged woman. Upon seeing Mo Wuji enter, she said emotionlessly, “Stand up there.”
Mo Wuji took the test once before, and already possessed experience about the whole process. He immediately stood on the spirit roots test platform.
The next moment, a bright blue light shot up to the sky, exceeding the top edge of the crystal pillar.
In an instant, this blue light disappeared, and the pillar reverted to its original state.
“What’s going on?” The female tester suddenly stood up, walking towards the crystal pillar with a look of suspicion. She touched the pillar all over for a good period of time.
Sometime later, she still did not know what had happened, and could only tell Mo Wuji, “You, come down. You’ll retake the test awhile later.”
Mo Wuji initially got stunned by the blue light that shot into the sky. What followed was a tingling sensation on his scalp. He had saw Yan’Er’s spirit roots test before. Hers was a streak of green light which did not even reach the top of the pillar, and she was determined to have Supreme Spirit Roots.
But Yan’Er’s green light remained at the pillar all the way until she stepped down from it.
That warm green light was something that Mo Wuji was unable to forget even up till that point in time.
What was the issue with him? After that streak of blue light shot to the sky, it disappeared completely. Moreover, this sort of brilliance was highly disruptive, totally different from the warmth from Yan’Er’s light.
“Stand up there again.” Seeing that Mo Wuji was in a daze, the tester shouted once more.
Mo Wuji hurriedly stood up onto the pillar. A moment later, he saw that the pillar had some faint specks of blue light that flashed a few times, before the pillar returned to its original state.
The middle aged woman furrowed her eyebrows, and was not very satisfied with the results, pushing for Mo Wuji to take the test again for the third time. It was still the same. A few bits of blue light sparkled for a moment before disappearing.
“Low quality mortal roots, there’s no possibility for you to open your spirit channels. You may leave now.” The middle aged woman finally confirmed the results of the test. The blinding brilliance of blue light from the first try must have been a glitch with the crystal pillar.
The crystal pillar rarely had any issues, but it wasn’t that there were none. It almost caused her to think that some kind of genius was in her presence, wasting the time spent on three tests.
Mo Wuji was devastated, walking out of the room with his head held low. It seemed like the meridians that he opened belonged to the meridian network, not the spirit channel network. If they were spirit channels, he would already have spirit roots.
But what exactly happened with the blue light for the first test? Something must be wrong. His test at Cheng Yu Spirit Opening Tower only yielded a few grey sparkles. However it was blue light flashing this time. Perhaps this had something to do with the lightning source within him?
Now that he had a cultivation technique, no matter what the result, he would go back to start cultivating first. If he really could not cultivate, then he would find a way to learn martial arts.
There was another person that Mo Wuji could not forget: Yan’Er.
Besides his parents, this was the only person he had met that would rather remain hungry and thirsty so that he may have a better life.
Every time he thought of Yan’Er, Mo Wuji would become furious at the woman that took her away.
…
At Tian Luo Hotel, Mo Wuji stepped into a room, closing the door, and taking out <Basics of Cultivation> immediately.
“It is a fallacy that spiritual energy appeared after heaven and earth was created. Spiritual energy was created together with the universe. Those born without it, are called mortals. Mortals of my generation, compressed and trained spiritual energy, and achieved longevity…”
The introduction was already so grand, which made Mo Wuji look forward to what lay ahead.
When he saw the terms “compress and train spiritual energy” and “first through the Earth Vein”, he was stunned. He had no idea how to do it. If he could not even do this, how would he carry on cultivating. Cultivation really required the guidance of a master, Mo Wuji sighed in his heart before quickly taking out <Introduction to Spirit Channels>. Finally, he found what Earth Vein referred to. The first step was to let spiritual energy flow through a spirit channel called the Earth Vein, then circulate it through the whole spirit channel network.
Mo Wuji had already opened three spirit channels, but unfortunately no matter how hard he tried, he could not absorb any natural spiritual energy and pass it through any of his meridians.
Could it be that this was the end? No. Mo Wuji was not satisfied and wanted to try the spiritual energy circulation again.
Continuously working at it for three to four hours, Mo Wuji’s legs became numb from the prolonged sitting.
“Bang, bang!” Just as he was about to lose all hope, two loud knocks on the door were heard.
Mo Wuji angrily threw the <Immortal Mortal Technique> to one side, and yanked the door open. At the door, was a rather familiar woman clothed in black. The woman had a perfect figure and she was stunningly beautiful. Mo Wuji did not care how pretty this woman was, immediately shouting, “Do you know that it is bad manners to knock on a guest’s door as you wish? If I were sleeping with a woman inside, would you want to come in to take a look?”
The woman in black was taken aback for a moment by Mo Wuji’s boundless rage. Coincidentally her gaze landed on the <Immortal Mortal Technique> that Mo Wuji threw to one side. Even though that was actually the <Basics of Cultivation>, but the words <Immortal Mortal Technique> were larger.
“I’m really sorry for disrupting your training. I was the previous guest who stayed in this suite…”
Once the woman in black finished speaking, Mo Wuji suddenly recalled that he brushed shoulders with a woman while entering the suite. Wasn’t this that woman?
If it were not for her checking out of the room last minute, he would not have a place to stay at. Mo Wuji suppressed his anger, and forcibly apologised, “I’m terribly sorry. I was just on a short fuse because something went wrong with my training. Didn’t you check out already? Why are you still here?”
Mo Wuji’s words were simply boastful lies. In reality he did not even manage to start his cultivation, so how could he have faced any problem during it?