The next series of tests Alex was going to perform were tests with 3 types of Spirit roots at once.

Unlike the tests using only two spirit roots, which could have a total of 21 different variations, using 3 spirit roots pushed that number up to 35. While that wasn’t that big an increase for him to worry about, the greater issue came with the actual number of tests he had to do.

Even without counting all the tests he was already skipping by not making his spirit roots weaker or stronger than they were or by changing his neutral root to add on, he was already doing 63 different tests for when just using 2 spirit roots.

One for cultivating with the first spirit root. One for cultivating with the second spirit root, and finally one for cultivating with both of the spirit roots.

Were he to do something similar with three spirit roots, he would need to perform 140 tests at the least. At 2 months per test, that would take him 240 months, which meant another 20 years of testing.

Testing 4 spirit roots would take 175 sessions at least, and 5 would take another 126 sessions. 6 would be what took the least of all but still at 42 sessions, and 7 would still take 7 sessions in total.

Alex already knew there would be times when he would have to redo a test, or use pills, or manipulate some of the spirit roots to see how that changed things. Not including the fact that he would also need to stop the tests at some point when he got close to breaking through to the next realm so he could focus on pushing the rest of his Origins higher, this was not a practical use of his time at all.

Even if millennia was nothing much to a cultivator, it mattered when he only had a few decades to do the test with his Yin spirit root, and possibly cultivate afterward to make any actual use of it.

As such, Alex had to manipulate the test in some way to lower how many he was going to do. After thinking briefly, he came upon an idea.

Instead of testing the spirit roots, he was now planning on testing the effects of the spirit roots instead.

Between the regular spirit roots, there were four ways they could affect each other. Those were Empower, Weaken, Control, and Ruin. Testing the spirit roots to form these combinations, so long as he got a general idea of how those interactions worked, he could get a decent idea of how any combination of spirit roots affected each other.

Metal would have to be removed from that test, however, since it was a Supreme root. That one he would have to test separately, but that was something Alex was okay with.

Between the Yin and Yang roots, they also affected the regular spirit roots in their own way, where they heavily or partially affected some elements, and showed indifference to the Wood element.

Those tests would have to be separated as well, but Alex was okay with that as well.

With all of that in mind, Alex started the test.

His first test included Water, Wood, and Earth roots.

Water and Wood roots affected each other by Empowering and Weakening each other.

Water and Earth roots affected each other by Ruining and Controlling each other.

And Wood and Earth roots affected each other by Controlling and Ruining each other.

Before Alex even started cultivating, he looked at those three combinations and considered the possible outcomes of his cultivation session based on how these roots would have reacted to each other were they elements.

"Water is the weakest here out of all the roots, followed by Wood, and then Earth. Water is being Controlled on one end by Earth, and Weakened on another end by Wood. As it’s receiving pushback from both sides, it will certainly be worse than before."

Alex couldn’t guess just how much worse it would be, but since it was a matter of being Controlled and Weakened, he guessed the amount would reduce by about half, if not a bit more.

"The Earth root is being Controlled on one end by Wood root, and is being Ruined on another end by Water root. While it is the strongest root, it cannot handle two different strong sources of worsening, so it might just have the highest drop."

Alex guessed it would be much worse than Water root as well, dropping nearly 80%.

"Finally, the Wood root is being Ruined by the Earth root, but at the same time, it is also being Empowered by the Water root. Since Ruin is much stronger than being Empowered, the Wood root’s score should also drop. However, it will drop the lowest. Probably around 20 to 30 percent."

Those were Alex’s guesses before he started the cultivation. Wood would come out the best. Water would come out in the middle. And Earth would come out the worst of all.

The combination of elements just had to be as such.

After thinking everything through, he filled the room with Wood treasures and started cultivating. At the end of the session, he received a score, which was worse than what Wood usually performed alone in this scenario, just as he had guessed.

Then he tried Water root next, and found it to be slightly worse than what he had guessed, but it was well within his range of expectations.

And finally, he tried the Earth root.

When his session was completed, Alex wondered why he even bothered at all. The numbers he received for cultivating with a root that was being negatively impacted by two different spirit roots were bound to have a bad result.

"Are people of this spirit root setup just doomed?" Alex wondered. Surely a majority of the people had this setup, so just to see how they would fare when cultivating normally, he cleared the room of all treasures and started cultivating with regular Qi.

To his genuine surprise, the scores were much better than expected.