Just as Fu Xian was looking at this transformation, suddenly, he saw his talisman split in two!
Another screen below started, the same procedure, blinking slightly, shimmering, until he finally saw a view!
…
"You have four roots, all except for wind. They are all mysterious roots, which is between 30% and 50% formed. The result is quite common.
If you want to cultivate, we offer cultivation arts:
Burning Flame Art, Evergreen Wood Art, Pure Water Art and Thick Earth Art, all the ones you can choose.
I saw that your two roots of earth and wood were a bit brighter, so I recommend you take one of them.
As per the rules, you can sign a contract to pay back the cost of the cultivation art, which is a hundred spirit stones, over the course of ten years.
If you're willing, sign here" the elderly man said, taking out a contract and showing it to him.
Fu Xian, seeing this scene, felt familiar. It seemed the previous one was just like this, starting around the time the boy was tested.
Scanning the memories, he realised his name was Ye Fan, a mortal born in a small Le Kingdom, where the peak was a fourth-grade national teacher. Apparently, the kingdom was based on clans and there were no sects, so all cultivators outside the family were generally rogue cultivators.
He knew most of these things because he worked as a servant in an Inn before he was kicked out. In the Inn, people would talk and say such things, even though Ye Fan didn't understand, yearning for the cultivation path, he kept them deep in his memories.
Ye Fan fortunately got tested to have roots and thereby would become a rogue cultivator. He had paid ten taels of silver to test his roots, and now he was offered this art.
He didn't think much about it and was about to choose the Thick Eart Art, after all, it sounded more impressive than the Evergreen Wood Art. Even though fire seemed even better, he listened to words of advice and chose one of the two.
But, just as he was about to choose, suddenly his thoughts whirred.
[Choose Wood. Earth might be better in defense, but with your power, no level of defense will help you. It's better to choose wood which is known to be the best entry into creation arts.]
The boy, seemingly unconsciously, decided to take the wood art at the last second, signing his name. He felt a small sensation in his heart, but somehow, he was calm and accepted it.
Then, as he wanted to leave, he suddenly had another thought.
[Ask if he has any job offering.] Fu Xian, who had said this, was a bit disappointed in this clone. Yiyuan could act on his own mostly, but this one required two interventions already.
The boy reacted and asked "Mr. Wan, do you… have any work position for me?" his words were unsure, but his thoughts made him ask regardless. But, as time passed, he seemed calmer and more regulated, even though the change was a bit slow.
Manager Wan, hearing this, looked at the boy and said nonchalantly "Just call me manager Wan. My Wan family does recruit spiritual farmers, but usually, they are at least at the third stage.
You can come here again in a month if you entered the path. If not, then just forget it."
The boy nodded, bowed and bid farewell, leaving the building.
The street outside was rather quiet, as it was the town centre. Mortals dared not act presumptuous here, and cultivators generally didn't visit the town centre, as it was the control centre of the whole town. Instead, they usually wandered around their streets and the small market to the east of the town.
Ye Fan left the town from the southern gate. Here, there were many more people, but generally, they looked poor and starved, moving around meekly.
He ignored them and headed all the way down to a little hut, at the end of the road. He was barely still in the range of the town, any further and he'd be in the slum.
There was no one home, his siblings died young and his parents died of sickness just last month. He had been trying to manage things, but he was young, barely ten, and couldn't take care of their field. Even when he was in the Inn, he made mistakes and was quickly dismissed.
On this day, he decisively took out his families' twenty year savings and went to test his spiritual root as if by instinct. Fortunately, it worked, else he'd be starving on the streets in a few weeks. There wasn't much food left in the hut.
Fu Xian, looking at this, was a bit disappointed, but he didn't feel it was weird.
How could every of his clone be born in a good life? In fact, in his understanding, one third of cultivators grew up into inheritance or close to inheritance (family, sect or other forces), one third grew up as rogue cultivator, and one third grew up in difficult or weird situations (demon territory, beast territory, or other places where growing up was difficult).
Although technically it sounded like there were an equal number, this was because the inheritance had a vast number of mortals under them, while there was a vaster number of mortals, most didn't get tested, and generally, people in weird places were more likely to awaken suddenly than anyone else, or feel spiritual power on their own, something the other two won't be able to do.
So, even though there should be an imbalance, looking at reality, it was this way.
These three aren't strict classes and there is movement between each other.
Anyway, Fu Xian expected that a clone or two would be bad, but he hoped the bad one would appear at the end. Now it appeared in the middle, so there's still a chance the third one is going to be a bad seed!
Still, thinking about it, he didn't hesitate too long with helping this boy. No matter what, he was a clone and a part of his blood, power and soul!
Thinking of this, he willed another 10% of his origin, transferring a bit of his knowledge.
He chose one of his creation arts: spiritual farming!
Although he mainly cultivated talisman, talisman making was very exhausting on the soul. So instead, he looked for other arts that didn't exhaust the soul.
Of all the creation arts, he chose spiritual planting as his first secondary creation art, after all, it also mainly relied on wood spiritual power, which he had a lot!
Planting, as an art, is classified differently under the creation arts. The common creation arts of Smithing, Alchemy, Weaving, Formation and Talisman fall under the category of "Crafting Dao", which is to refine existing materials.
Planting is one of the few arts that fall under the category of "Growing Dao", which grow natural materials. Although there are fewer growing professions, there are many more growing professionals than crafters, since spiritual planting is known to be the easiest to start. Not to mention that their importance is the largest among all creation arts.
Naturally Fu Xian, who understood its importance, learned the art in-depth to the stage of foundation building, so he could easily impart his knowledge of the qi refining perfection stage spiritual planting.
A light appeared and Fu Xian saw something else this time – there was no inspiration, but he saw that the boy's cultivation of the wood art became a lot easier.
This time he understood it right away. After all, planting knowledge converted into talent will basically be a talent for every planting oriented art, technique and spell, as well as improved perception and understanding of things related to it.
Although Fu Xian didn't know the specifics, he could guess this far.
How far this talent would go and how much influence it would have later on weren't things he knew at this moment, nor did he care too deeply.
To be honest, he hadn't wanted to waste his last 10% expendable origin on this, but this was the only way to ensure a safe start, else this clone might've been wasted and never even enter the middle stage, at least it would take forever to reach this.
He'd rather just pay this time and make the next clone wait. If that clone was also in a bad situation, then he was just too unlucky!