In the administrative hall of the Han Xu Sect, a scribe named Chen Bo was having a remarkably unremarkable day.
He sat at his desk, the same desk he'd occupied for the past eight years, recording the same information he recorded every testing season. Name. Age. Origin village. Root quality. Assignment. The information flowed from Elder Qin's testing courtyard to his brush to the sect's permanent records with the smooth efficiency of water flowing downhill.
White root. Mortal grade. Outer sect.
His brush moved across paper, characters forming with the practiced ease of repetition. Each stroke identical to the stroke before it, each name joining the thousands of other names that had passed through his hands over the years.
Most of these applicants would wash out within a year. Lack of dedication. Lack of resources. Lack of that indefinable quality that separated those who merely possessed spiritual roots from those who actually became cultivators.
But that wasn't his concern. His concern was recording. Making sure the sect's records were accurate, complete, comprehensive. Someone else decided what happened to these names afterward.
Grey root. Inferior mortal grade. Labor corps.
He dipped his brush in ink, continued writing. The rhythm was soothing. Meditative, even. Some cultivators sought enlightenment through combat or alchemy or formation study. Chen Bo found his in the simple act of recording truth, of transforming spoken words into permanent text.
A messenger arrived, carrying the latest batch of results from the testing courtyard. Chen Bo accepted the papers without looking up, integrated them into his workflow, continued writing.
White root. White root. Green root. White root.
The pattern was always the same. The distribution followed predictable curves that he'd long since internalized. Most white. Some grey. Occasional green. Rare blue.
He'd been doing this long enough to notice the anomalies. The years when the distribution shifted slightly. The testing days when more exceptional talents appeared than statistical probability suggested should exist. The patterns within patterns that most people missed because they only saw individual results rather than the aggregate.
This year seemed typical so far. Perhaps slightly below average in terms of quality, but nothing remarkable.
Blue root. Earth grade, peak superior quality. Inner sect, elder sponsorship.
His brush paused.
Peak superior quality. That was unusual. Not unprecedented, but unusual enough to warrant attention. He made a notation in the margin of his record book, a small mark that would allow him to find this entry quickly later if anyone asked about exceptional talents from this year's intake.
The name was... he checked the paper again. Feng Chen. From Silver River City. Seventeen years old.
Chen Bo committed the name to memory, then continued working. Exceptional or not, the record still needed to be made. The information still needed to flow from testing to archive.
He worked for perhaps another hour, filling page after page with names and results, before another messenger arrived.
This one looked uncertain. Hesitant.
"Yes?" Chen Bo asked, not looking up from his writing.
"There's... there's a situation in the courtyard."
"What kind of situation?"
"Elder Qin has been standing in the same position for several minutes. Not moving. Not speaking. Just... standing."
Chen Bo's brush paused mid-stroke. In eight years of recording testing results, he'd never heard of Elder Qin doing anything that could be described as unusual. The man was professional to the point of being mechanical.
"Is someone injured?"
"No. Nothing like that. Just... the testing stopped. And no one knows why."
Chen Bo set down his brush, stood, and followed the messenger toward the courtyard.
Something that could make Elder Qin pause was worth observing.
Li Zhiwei's hands were still pressed against the Testing Stone.
He'd been standing like this for long enough that his arms had begun to ache slightly. Not pain, exactly. Just the beginning awareness that muscles were being held in an unnatural position for longer than comfortable.
The stone was warm under his palms. That same slight elevation above ambient temperature, as if it contained captured sunlight.
But nothing was happening.
No light. No glow. No sensation of energy moving through his arms or body or any of the things that the awakened described feeling.
Just warmth. Just crystal. Just waiting.
The courtyard had been silent at first. The expectant silence of people waiting for the inevitable result. But that silence had stretched, grown uncomfortable, transformed into something else.
Now people were shifting. Whispering. Uncertain what they were witnessing.
Li Zhiwei kept his hands on the stone because Elder Qin hadn't told him to remove them yet. The elder stood beside the pedestal, scroll in hand, but his brush hadn't moved. He was staring at the Testing Stone with an expression that Li Zhiwei couldn't quite read.
Not confusion. Not concern. Something else.
Finally, Elder Qin spoke.
"Remove your hands."
Li Zhiwei lifted his palms away from the crystal.
The stone remained dark. No light emerging slowly. No glow waiting to manifest. Just the same pale blue crystal it had been before he touched it.
Elder Qin stared at the stone for another long moment.
Then he did something unusual. He placed his own hand on the Testing Stone's surface.
Immediately, the crystal blazed with light. Not the white or blue or green of spiritual roots being measured, but a different quality of radiance. Steady. Diagnostic. The light of the stone itself responding to the touch of someone who knew how to query its function rather than its judgment.
The light faded after a few breaths.
Elder Qin removed his hand, his expression still unreadable.
"Place your hands on the stone again," he said to Li Zhiwei.
Li Zhiwei did as instructed. Both palms flat against the crystal.
Nothing.
The courtyard's whispers grew louder.
Elder Qin placed his hand beside Li Zhiwei's on the stone's surface.
Light bloomed immediately. That same diagnostic radiance, flowing around Elder Qin's hand. But where Li Zhiwei's palms touched the crystal, the light stopped. Couldn't pass. As if his hands were creating barriers, zones where the stone's response simply ceased to function.
Elder Qin's eyebrows drew together fractionally.
He removed his hand. Made a gesture that Li Zhiwei should do the same.
"Step back," the elder said.
Li Zhiwei stepped away from the Testing Stone.
Elder Qin studied him for a long moment. Not with hostility. Not with pity. Just study, the way one might examine something that didn't fit expected categories.
"Your name."
"Li Zhiwei."
"Origin?"
"Willow Creek Village."
Elder Qin made notations on his scroll, though his writing was slower than it had been for previous applicants.
"The Testing Stone shows no response," he said finally. "This indicates absence of spiritual roots."
He paused.
"However."
That single word made the courtyard go completely silent.
"The stone's lack of response was... unusual. Typically, when measuring someone without roots, the stone remains inert. With you, it actively rejected measurement."
Elder Qin's expression shifted into something that might have been curiosity.
"I've been conducting these testings for forty years. I've never seen the stone behave this way."
He made another notation on his scroll.
"The result is still rejection. You possess no spiritual roots by any standard measurement. But I'm noting the anomaly in your record."
Elder Qin looked at Li Zhiwei directly.
"That notation means nothing for your immediate future. You're still rejected. Still ineligible for sect acceptance. But it means someone, at some point, may look at this record and wonder what caused the anomaly."
He gestured toward the gate.
"You're dismissed. Next applicant."
Li Zhiwei stood there for a moment, processing.
Rejected. That part was clear. No spiritual roots. No cultivation potential. The same verdict that farmer boy before him had received.
But the Testing Stone had behaved differently. Elder Qin had noticed. Had recorded it.
That meant something. Or it meant nothing. Hard to tell which.
Li Zhiwei bowed to Elder Qin, turned, and walked toward the gate.
Behind him, the whispers erupted.
"What was that..."
"Stone rejected measurement?"
"Never seen Elder Qin look confused before..."
"But still no roots, so what does it matter..."
Li Zhiwei walked through the gate and found himself on the same road he'd walked that morning. The same packed earth. The same stones embedded in the path. Everything unchanged except now he knew.
No spiritual roots.
Rejection.
Return to the village. Return to farming. The future he'd always expected, now confirmed.
He started walking.
Chen Bo had arrived at the courtyard in time to witness the unusual testing. He'd watched Elder Qin's diagnostic check. Watched the stone's strange behavior. Watched the applicant being dismissed despite the anomaly.
Now he returned to his desk with new information to record.
He found the entry for Li Zhiwei, added the standard notation for rejection, then paused.
Elder Qin's message had included a specific instruction: Note the anomaly. Flag for potential review.
Chen Bo created a special mark in the margin. A small symbol that indicated this record was unusual, that someone with appropriate authority should examine it more carefully.
Then he returned to his regular work. The testing was continuing. More names. More results. More records to maintain.
White root. White root. Grey root. White root.
The pattern resumed. The anomaly was noted and filed. The system continued functioning.
Chen Bo's brush moved across paper, characters forming with practiced ease, transforming chaos into order, uncertainty into permanent finishin
Li Zhiwei walked for perhaps half an hour before stopping.
Not because he was tired. The walk back to Willow Creek Village would take several hours, but he was accustomed to walking. His body could manage the distance without difficulty.
He stopped because he needed to think, and walking while thinking was different from walking while processing.
The Testing Stone had rejected measurement.
That was what Elder Qin had said. Not just failed to find spiritual roots. Actively rejected the attempt to measure.
What did that mean?
Possibility one: nothing. The stone was old. Sometimes old things malfunctioned. The rejection was coincidence or error, and the underlying truth remained unchanged. He had no spiritual roots.
Possibility two: something. The stone had detected something unusual that didn't fit its measurement parameters. Not spiritual roots, exactly, but something else. Something the stone wasn't designed to recognize.
Possibility three: something broken. Not in the stone. In him. His body was somehow wrong in a way that prevented normal measurement. The stone functioned perfectly. He was the malfunction.
Li Zhiwei sat down at the roadside and considered these possibilities.
If possibility one was true, then nothing changed. He was rootless. Talentless. Destined for farming and mortality and the same life generations of his family had lived.
If possibility two was true, then... what? He possessed something the Testing Stone couldn't measure. But that didn't mean he could cultivate. Didn't mean he could harness Qi or advance through realms or escape the limitations of mortal existence. Just meant he was unusual in some way that might never matter.
If possibility three was true, then he was worse than talentless. He was defective. And defective had no path forward at all.
He sat there for a long time, watching the road, thinking.
Eventually, he stood up and resumed walking.
Regardless of which possibility was true, he still had to return to Willow Creek Village. Still had to tell Aunt Han what happened. Still had to finish preparing that field for spring planting.
The rest could wait.
Or the rest would never matter at all.
Either way, the field needed work.
---
In a room high above the testing courtyard, where sect records were kept under lock and seal, an old woman sat reading.
She was ancient. How ancient, no one quite remembered. She'd been the sect's Record Keeper for longer than anyone currently living could recall. Some said she'd held the position for over two centuries. Others claimed even longer.
Her name was Keeper Shen, though most people simply called her Keeper.
Her role was simple: read every unusual notation made during testing seasons, determine if any warranted deeper investigation, and report findings to the sect leadership.
Most years, nothing warranted investigation. Unusual results were usually just statistical noise. Anomalies that looked interesting on paper but revealed nothing meaningful upon examination.
This year, she'd found several notations that caught her attention.
One was Feng Chen, the peak superior quality blue root. Those always warranted tracking. Exceptional talents either became pillars of the sect or disasters. Both outcomes required monitoring.
Another was Li Zhiwei, the applicant whose result had made Elder Qin pause.
Keeper Shen read the notation carefully.
"Testing Stone actively rejected measurement. Applicant possesses no spiritual roots by standard metrics. However, the stone's behavior was unprecedented in forty years of Elder Qin's testing experience. Recommend review if anomalous cases are being studied."
She set the paper down and stared at it for a long moment.
Then she picked up her brush and made her own notation on the record.
"Flag: Observe. Do not recruit. Do not contact. Simply observe. If the anomaly matters, it will reveal itself naturally. If it doesn't, no resources wasted."
She filed the record in a special section reserved for cases that required passive monitoring.
Then she moved on to the next unusual notation.
Her work continued. As it had for decades. As it would for decades more, unless death finally claimed her before she finished her duties.
Recording. Observing. Noting patterns that most people missed because they only saw individual results rather than the aggregate.
The system functioned. Information flowed. Truth was preserved.
And somewhere on a road leading back to a small farming village, Li Zhiwei walked home carrying knowledge that was simultaneously definitive and uncertain.
No spiritual roots.
But something strange enough to make a forty-year veteran pause.
What that meant, time would reveal.
Or time would bury it alongside all the other anomalies that never amounted to anything.
Either way, the field still needed finishing.