After eating some fragrant and delicious spiritual rice porridge, Little Yu Xin set off for enlightenment class. The spiritual rice had been grown and cooked by Liu Hua herself. It was delicious, fragrant, and contained spiritual energy.
Spiritual energy was the essence of the world, present everywhere yet incredibly precious. It was not easy to absorb energy directly from the environment, but it was much easier to digest the spiritual energy from cooked food like rice.
Even though Little Yu Xin couldn't yet absorb spiritual energy for cultivation, the energy within the rice could still nourish him and improve his health.
Little Yu Xin was already much taller and more intelligent than his peers in the enlightenment class, whose parents weren't spiritual planters or couldn't afford spiritual rice.
After eating his fill and saying goodbye to his parents, he left the house with a bag as small as his stature. There were storage artifacts like storage pouches and rings in this world, but one had to be at least a cultivator to use them.
Whenever Little Yu Xin saw his parents pull large, heavy things from their storage pouches, he couldn't help but feel jealous.
He was still thinking about this when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned his head and was startled to find a boy a head taller than himself, his young face looking as if he were about to do something sneaky.
Caught in the act by Little Yu Xin, the boy looked like he'd been discovered doing something bad. He couldn't help but lower his head and say sullenly,
"How come every time I try to sneak up to scare you, you sense it?"
Yu Xin looked at him as if he were an idiot. The boy was quite large and burly for a five-year-old. Perhaps all his energy went to his muscles, which was why he asked such a question. With his big body and heavy steps, each footfall made a low thud; it would have been weird not to sense him.
His name was Jiang Dali; both his parents were body cultivators working for a mercenary guild in nearby Flame City. They had even named him Jiang Dali, meaning "Great Strength."
His parents had a good relationship with Little Yu Xin's parents. He often stayed at Yu Xin's home and ate with him when his parents were away on long missions.
Seeing that Little Yu Xin wasn't speaking, Jiang Dali decided to move on. He tightly hugged his friend, saying,
"Happy fifth birthday, bro!"
He almost choked Little Yu Xin and didn't put him down as he continued,
"And good luck on the assessment today. I hope we both have good spiritual roots."
Only then did he realize Little Yu Xin was choking, and he quickly put him down, apologizing. Little Yu Xin caught his breath before speaking.
"You have to learn to control your strength, or you'll definitely cause trouble. And good luck to you, too, for the assessment."
The assessment only happened on the 24th day of the first month every year. It was just a coincidence that it fell on his birthday. Jiang Dali's birthday had already passed on the 10th day of the previous month; he had simply been waiting for the unified spiritual root assessment.
Just then, the sound of a bell chimed from afar. It continued to jingle rapidly, growing closer until a large carriage drawn by two brown spiritual horses was revealed. Made of spiritual wood, it might not have been luxurious, but it was an elegant and sturdy carriage. The coachman was a kind-faced old man, his face full of wrinkles.
He was an earth-element cultivator at the third layer of Qi Refining. He had only reached the third layer in his old age because he possessed an inferior-grade earth spiritual root. The Qin Dynasty did not recognize cultivators with an inferior spiritual root, considering it innately flawed.
The old man was still in the early stage of Qi Refining, partly because of his flawed spiritual root and partly because he was not recognized as a cultivator or citizen by the Qin court, leaving him with almost no resources.
The kind-faced old man smiled at the two children.
"Good morning, little ones. Happy birthday, Little Xin'er. I hope you have a good spiritual root."
The two children immediately bowed in thanks.
"Good morning, Sir. Thank you for your blessing."
Then the old man got down from the carriage and opened the door for them. The two boys quickly climbed inside.
Even though Flame City and Ox Horn Village were considered part of the southern central region, close to the hot and humid south, it was still quite cold this time of year, especially in the mornings. Inside the carriage, however, it was warm and toasty.
The carriage was probably equipped with a first-rank, low-grade fire-element formation, as had been mentioned in enlightenment class. All things were graded from first to ninth rank according to their power or the realm of their creator, as defined by the Qin court, with further divisions into low, medium, and high grade.
For example, Yu Xin's father, Yu Jin, was at Qi Refining level 9 and had enough comprehension and experience to craft talismans using his full strength without breaking the talisman jade, making him a first-rank, high-grade talisman maker. If he chose to make a talisman using only Qi Refining level 3 spiritual power, it would produce a first-rank, low-grade jade talisman.
Inside the carriage, it was quite noisy with the sounds of various children chattering:
"Are you nervous about the assessment?"
"Of course I am!I'm afraid I'll start crying if I don't at least have a low-grade spiritual root."
"Yeah,not being considered a citizen by the Qin court is scary."
"I,for one, am not afraid. I believe I will have a top-grade spiritual root, and my parents will get me all the toys I want. They already said so, so they can't go back on their word."
And in this noisy environment, the carriage sped off toward Flame City.