"Because of my spirit roots?" Pearl asked, his eyes narrowing in disbelief. "How is that possible? How can my Unity or whatever it is become worse when I have 2 Supreme Roots now? Shouldn't it get better?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Alex said. "My Unity improved the more my spirit roots improved, so they definitely do affect it. Maybe your Wood root improving did something?"

As soon as Alex said that, a puzzle piece fell into a puzzle that was still in the dark recesses of his mind. He didn't know what it was that he had figured out, but he had figured out something.

"Supreme Wood root," he said, gathering his thoughts. "You had a Supreme Metal root before, and the Wood root was so poor that you could basically consider it absent. But when you improved it, made it reach the Supreme grade, it impacted your Metal root."

"My roots are clashing?" Pearl asked.

"That must be it," Alex said. "If the roots are anything like the regular elements, then Wood root is the absolute worst root you could have to support the Metal root."

Pearl stared blankly, waiting for Alex to explain further.

Alex raised three fingers. "Let's just take Metal and Wood energy for example. Depending on their strength, there are 3 scenarios, you see. Either the Wood energy is stronger, the Metal energy is stronger, or they are both equally strong."

"If the Wood energy is stronger, it will ruin the Metal energy. Depending on how strong the Metal energy is, there might be nothing left of the Wood energy by the end."

"If the Metal energy is stronger, it will use itself to heavily suppress the Wood energy. Depending on how strong the Wood energy is, most of the Metal energy will be used up in suppressing the Wood energy."

"And finally, if they are equal, they will work against each other, resulting in everything being so much worse than they started. If Unity is dependent on any of that, then the same might be happening to your roots. The Wood and Metal roots are working against each other to ruin everything."

Pearl was at a loss for words for a long time. His eyes wandered aimlessly as he thought about what Alex just told him.

"What can I do then?" he asked, trying to find hope.

Alex didn't have an answer just then. "There's no way to undo your current roots, so you'll have to stick to it for some time. The only working solution I can imagine for now is that you will have to take in a new root. But that is quite dangerous, to the point that I don't even know where to start."

"I see," Pearl said, his eyes dropping. "So there's nothing I can do right now, huh?"

"I'll try to think of something."

Alex couldn't make any promises though. He was still so far away from being able to test the circumstances that made someone's Unity strong. Until then, he didn't want to do anything at all.

Pearl could only agree. He left the room a few minutes later, going to spend the next week with his grandmothers and other family members. Since he was going to go away for a long time, he needed to say those goodbyes.

Alex let him be and quickly fell into some thought.

He wondered how much of normal elemental interaction played into Unity. If it was anywhere close to being the same, it would make things a lot easier. He would have to still test it thoroughly, but at least he wouldn't have to go in blind.

He thought about Pearl's situation again, wondering about the 20% drop in cultivation efficiency. "Why just 20 percent?"

That struck him as odd. For two Supreme roots that were fully against each other, he would've expected Unity to drop by so much that cultivation became a drag.

'Maybe spirit root and Qi really aren't all that matter. Body and Soul matter just as much too,' Alex thought, but it still felt odd that it would only be such a small drop. Shouldn't it be higher?

His face scrunched up suddenly in consideration. If the Wood and Metal root were the only roots Pearl had, then they surely might've brought on a massive drop.

But he didn't.

Weak as it was compared to the two roots, Pearl still had a Yang root. That was all that mattered.

The 7 elements interacted very differently than the 5 elements.

The Yin and Yang elements either simply empowered the effect of an element or weakened it. They didn't suppress it or ruin it. The rate at which they affected was also dependent on the elements themselves.

Yang empowered Fire very easily, and Metal with some resistance.

Yin empowered Water very easily, and Earth with some resistance.

Wood was untouched.

'If the theory still works, then Pearl's Metal root is coming out slightly better because of the presence of the Yang root, thus allowing it to come out victorious in the clash against the Wood root that was untouched.'

'That's why Pearl's cultivation speed hasn't dropped as much as it should have.'

Alex began wondering if it mattered whether or not which came out on top. If instead of the Metal root, the Wood root came out on top, would it still have provided Pearl with the same level of Unity, especially considering Pearl's cultivation technique used Metal Qi.

'Such a confusing topic, and I can't answer any of it without actual experiments,' he thought. 'For now, it's better to keep it untouched. I'll see what comes of it later.'

Alex quickly collected his thoughts and pushed it to the back of his mind where he would pull it out from in the future to resume his studies. For now, he let it be.

He spent the next few days by himself, until Pearl returned 6 days later along with Bai Jingshen. Then, Alex called Scarlet and Whisker out, gathering them in the hall.

"It's time to leave for the Phoenix continent. We'll teleport to the Sun's Talon realm from there tomorrow."

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