False prodigies were invincible among their peers and could defeat those above their level.
True prodigies cultivated to a level several tiers beyond the former in the same amount of time-or less-and slapped them dead.
Within Huang Longshi's memories, vast as an unfathomable sea, Hong Yuan found an art that suited his requirements.
The "Five Elements Spirit-Nurturing Art."
This art originated from True Lord Five Aggregates, a mighty Void Refinement practitioner of the True Spirit World, and could take its practitioner as far as Spirit Transformation Perfection. The entire art revolved around one word: stability. It sought not achievement, but freedom from error, with not a trace of rashness or imbalance to be found.
Even someone with inferior spiritual roots could cultivate to the ninth level of Qi Refining without disaster or mishap, provided they worked diligently at this art. There was absolutely no danger of cultivation deviation.
The only question was whether their lifespan would suffice.
Though the human body possessed all five elements, the spiritual roots it nurtured always favored some over others.
Among the lower-level cultivators of the Cultivation World, nearly everyone began with their own spiritual-root affinities, apart from rogue cultivators who truly could not find a suitable method. Someone whose water spiritual root was superior would not stubbornly insist on practicing a fire art.
The most unusual feature of the Five Elements Spirit-Nurturing Art was that it distributed one's cultivation across the body's five elements.
Nor was that distribution equal.
Instead, it perfectly followed the way of heaven, diminishing the surplus to replenish the deficient. If one's fire affinity was weak, it received a larger share, while the shares allotted to the other elements decreased accordingly.
This led to a particular situation.
Even someone with the finest spiritual roots would need over two hundred years