After nearly a decade of starting the various tests, Alex finally completed testing all of his singular roots.

The Supreme Metal root and the Supreme Yang root had given him similar results as the Supreme Yin root. The Metal root got almost the same numbers as the Yin root, and while the Yang root got slightly higher numbers, Alex could associate that with his body more than anything, making it certain that on its own, it would likely not be that big of a difference.

After those tests, Alex moved on to the next series of tests where he would now test multiple spirit roots at once. Seeing how one spirit root’s quality affected the other one was the main reason why he had thought of doing all of these tests in the first place. He wanted to see the effects many spirit roots would have on a body at once, and what that would do to their Unity.

Everything that came before was merely him preparing for what came henceforth. Now came the real test.

That was not to mean that everything beforehand was a waste. In fact, quite the opposite. Those tests themselves were now a baseline for every test he was going to do moving forward.

And to start off, Alex went in the same order as last time.

Alex destroyed all of his spirit roots around his dantian, leaving behind just the Water root and the Wood root. These would be the two roots he worked with to begin with.

According to the natural law of elemental interaction between the 5 elements, Water and Wood were not as destructive toward each other as, say, Fire and Water were. Water empowered Wood energy when it could, and Wood weakened Water energy when it could.

The same was likely the case with spirit roots as well, so Alex started cultivating as it was.

At his current setup, where his roots were about equal, Alex found the results to be... mediocre at best. While it was much better than a single spirit root setup, likely because he now had two separate roots to filter the Qi that came into his body and wasn’t as burdened as a single one was, it wasn’t that much better.

Alex had more or less expected that, and he had only done it in the first place to gain the results he did. Having something to compare the results with would be necessary, which was the sole reason for this.

Next, Alex cultivated with the same setup of spirit roots, but this time with Water treasures around him to cultivate. This would allow him to properly understand the effects of the Wood root on the Water root.

Just as Alex thought it would, the results of his cultivation were suddenly worse than before.

At the lowest, where using only Water root had gotten him 458 points, he had now received 322 points.

At the highest, where using only the Water root had gotten him 1222 points, he had now received 1026.

And finally, what had once been an average of 755 was now 594.

The drop in his cultivation speed was big enough that Alex finally fully understood something he had only been told was the truth. Spirit roots did affect each other very clearly.

Alex reversed the test. This time, testing his Wood root in the presence of a Water root by flooding his room with wood treasures. He cultivated with it, and immediately he noticed an improvement so great that he nearly wondered if this was the same Wood root.

Since Water empowered Wood, Water root helped the Wood root become stronger as well, making the cultivation speed faster than the previous times.

Just by checking the previous average score where his Wood root had received 764, he now received 801.

"Hmm... not as much improvement in this direction as there was damage in the other," Alex thought as he considered the result.

This was all so familiar to him as an Alchemist that his mind kept giving him the answer as to what would happen if he were to change them in any way. However, because he didn’t know whether the changes would be real or not, he had to check every one of them to make sure that he wasn’t deluding himself into thinking they were the same.

Even if they were, he would have to go through all the tests to get an idea of just how much better they were.

"Improving the Water root here wouldn’t make the Wood root perform as well, would it? The strength will overwhelm the Wood root, making it perform much worse."

Alex hypothesized an idea and tested it. 2 months later, his thoughts came true. The result of this test was that his Wood root had grown weaker.

"Going the other way around, if I were to weaken the Water root instead, it will make the Wood root better."

It did, but not by much at all.

It was easy to understand at that point that the two roots didn’t exist individually. Around a dantian, they constantly affected one another.

While a strong Water root made a Wood root stronger, it at the same time forced the Wood root to take on a greater stress to weaken it in return. When the Water root became stronger, the Wood root had to exert more effort, in return not being able to do much in the way of cultivation.

When the Water root became weaker, while it still made the Wood root somewhat stronger, it also freed the Wood root to be able to do more for his cultivation. That improved his result much more.

Alex reversed the test to now test his Water root, and whether he made the Wood root stronger or weaker, it would almost always weaken the Water root by some amount.

That resulted in the Water root never giving him the cultivation speed it did when it was just alone.

Finally, there was one last test left for him to perform.

Alex filled the room with both elemental treasures and began cultivating with both energies at once to see how his current setup of spirit roots would react to the current environment.