Chapter 51: A Step to Heaven II

Conveniently, Edwin arrived less than half an hour later to collect her.

Joe asked before Simon could turn the evening back toward food.

Edwin listened, then glanced at Simon.

"'Immortal seedling'?"

Simon raised both hands. "I didn't invent it."

"No. You merely repeat it confidently."

Joe almost smiled.

"What does a Spiritual Root actually do?"

Edwin took the empty chair beside Mira.

"It makes a cultivation road available that most people can never walk."

"Immortal cultivation?"

"Eventually, perhaps. Don't confuse having access to a road with reaching its destination."

That sounded much more useful than the market stories.

"So, a Root doesn't make someone powerful."

"No."

"Does it make them better at martial cultivation?"

Edwin considered the wording.

"Not necessarily."

Joe noticed the qualification.

Before he could ask about it, Edwin continued.

"You should understand the relationship first. Spirituality is not something only rooted people possess. Every genuine martial practitioner has some degree of it. Without that, sensing and guiding Blood Energy would be extremely difficult."

Joe frowned slightly.

"Then what's different about a Spiritual Root?"

"That is where my explanation becomes less certain. A Root is something additional. Every person capable of eventually following the higher road can first cultivate as a martial practitioner, but most martial practitioners will never possess a Root."

Joe leaned back.

Every so-called immortal seedling could begin as a martial seedling.

The reverse was not true.

That relationship immediately interested him more than the terminology.

Perhaps the Root was not something completely independent of spirituality. Maybe during development—before birth, or around it—spirituality reaching some unknown threshold caused the body to form something additional.

That would explain the direction of the relationship.

Joe had almost no evidence.

A theory being attractive did not make it true.

He kept it to himself.

"What about the families funding rooted children?" he asked.

Edwin smiled slightly.

"You've been listening to the markets."

"The same part repeats too often to be entirely invented."

"Fair."

The Black family had supported several rooted children over the years. Francis had done the same. Other established families occasionally competed for them when circumstances justified it.

Sometimes the support meant medicine.

Sometimes training.

Sometimes employment or education.

Occasionally, years later, it could lead to marriage with a suitable branch of the family.

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Simon frowned.

"Even if they aren't strong?"

Edwin looked at him.

"A Spiritual Root is not a martial realm."

"Then why spend so much on someone who might never become powerful?"

"Because not every investment is made for immediate fighting strength."

Edwin folded his hands over the table.

"If I want another capable martial practitioner, it is often cheaper to find someone already talented at martial cultivation and support him directly. A rooted person can require far more investment before the part that makes him unusual becomes useful."

Joe understood the implication.

"The family is paying for the future road."

"Possibly."

"And for the family line."

Mira sighed softly. "You always make these conversations sound colder than they are."

Joe looked at her. "Is it wrong?"

"No."

Edwin answered for her.

"Families pay attention when a bloodline produces unusual talent. Nobody can guarantee that a child of a rooted parent will also be rooted. If it were that simple, every old family would have solved the problem generations ago. But neither do families believe ancestry is meaningless."

"So, support can create loyalty. Employment keeps the person nearby. Marriage might bring the bloodline closer."

"When everyone involved is older, and when the arrangement makes sense, yes."

Simon frowned.

"So, some rooted people get years of medicine and still never become important."

"Of course."

"That seems wasteful."

"Large families survive partly because they can afford several investments that fail."

Mira smiled. "Father complains every time one does."

"I complain when our judgment was poor."

"You complain afterward."

"That is usually when poor judgment becomes visible."

Joe thought again about the famous child.

"Then why did that family leave for the state capital instead of being supported here?"

Edwin's expression became more serious.

"The test was unusually good."

Joe immediately caught the distinction.

"Not all Roots are equal."

"No."

"What makes one better?"

"That is farther into the subject than you need tonight."

Joe gave him a look.

Edwin ignored it.

"What matters is that most positive tests do not cause the state capital to rearrange itself around a child. Blackwood can handle ordinary cases. Families here may invest if they see enough value."

"But this one wasn't ordinary."

"No."

"Was that why the vision was so obvious?"

"Likely. Stronger cases tend to be harder to miss."

Joe remembered the ridiculous versions about flowers and glowing windows.

Even exaggerated stories might have begun with something genuinely larger than normal.

"What else changes when the case is stronger?"

Edwin paused.

"Occasionally, a child's spirituality is strong enough that it affects martial cultivation before the child can consciously do anything with spirituality itself."

Joe straightened slightly.

"How?"

"Passively."

Edwin tapped the table.

"They still cultivate Blood Energy. They cannot simply reach out and manipulate spirituality. But Blood Energy seems to respond more naturally to them. Circulation is easier to stabilize. Control develops unusually quickly. Techniques that require fine manipulation come to them with less struggle."

"A natural martial genius."

"Usually."

That made the guard screening stories more interesting.

"So those children are difficult to miss even if the birth vision was."

"Exactly. If a child from some remote village begins cultivating and handles Blood Energy in a way experienced teachers find abnormal, someone eventually asks questions."

"And the less exceptional Roots?"

"Can remain hidden for years."

That distinction settled neatly into place.

A Root did not necessarily improve ordinary martial cultivation at all.

The especially valuable cases could.

Those people announced themselves twice—once through whatever happened around birth, and again when they touched Blood Energy.

Joe returned to the famous child.

"What happened after the family left?"

Edwin shook his head.

"Nothing I trust enough to repeat."

"Even you don't know?"

"I know enough to know which stories are probably nonsense."

Mira smiled.

"The state capital has better testing," Edwin continued. "Better inheritances. More resources. People whose decisions matter far beyond Blackwood. Once the child attracted attention at that level, the interesting part of the story stopped happening here."

Simon leaned against the wall.

"Grandmother would call it a step to heaven."

Mira smiled. "Mine says the same thing."

Joe looked out toward the courtyard.

Late-autumn sunlight had turned the upper wall amber, while the lower stones had already fallen into shadow.

A step to heaven.

Probably exaggerated.

People liked turning rare opportunities into destiny once they knew the ending.

Still, something significant had happened.

One birth.

One test.

An entire family leaving Blackwood behind.

Joe turned back.

"Are immortals actually common?"

Edwin smiled.

"So that's what you really wanted to ask."

"Obviously."

There was no reason to pretend otherwise.

Joe had already died once. He lived in a world where Blood Energy strengthened flesh, supernatural contracts recorded agreements, and strange artifacts reacted to things he could not see.

If people claimed there was a road beyond ordinary martial cultivation, possibly toward enormously extended life, Joe was going to pay attention.

"Common?" Edwin said. "No."

"Have you seen one?"

"No."

"Do you know someone who has?"

Edwin thought about it.

"I know people who claim they know someone who has."

Simon laughed.

Joe said, "That deteriorated quickly."

"It should."

"But you believe higher cultivation is real."

"I know there are cultivation paths beyond the martial road. I know Spiritual Roots are connected to them. Whether every person Blackwood calls an immortal would use that word for himself is another question."

Joe appreciated the distinction.

"What does a rooted person do first?"

"First?"

Edwin stood.

"He becomes a martial artist."

Joe waited for more.

Edwin smiled.

"The rest is a longer conversation."

For now, that was enough.

The Spiritual Root was not power.

It was permission to pursue something most people never could.

Martial cultivation remained necessary, but for a rooted person it was apparently not always the destination.

Some rooted children never became important at all.

Some attracted local families.

And occasionally one appeared whose potential made Blackwood itself too small.

Joe remembered the information.

He remembered the possibility of immortality more.