My scan informs me that the most convincing way to approach this is with the real hesitation I feel. To be both honest with myself and him.

“I’m not doing this completely out of the goodness of my heart.”

This answer is common sense to him, but is different from what I usually tell myself.

“I need people I can really, truly rely on.

“Currently, I have quite a few people who I can trust, but aren’t that strong right now. And likely will take a while before they will become strong.

“On the other hand, there are people I know that are strong and have good connections, but I can’t fully trust.”

He nods in understanding, as this is pretty typical. The people you can trust and hang around are usually around your same strength level. Typically, this doesn’t change (except in rare situations).

“I have many people I want to help, but I can’t do it all myself. I need your help to cover the areas I can’t.”

His eyes narrow at this, seeing the true ask.

I can see the air has been changing around him as we speak. Shedding the discouragement and uncertainty that had come from his circumstances, revealing a deeper side of him I hadn’t seen or expected.

There are some things that a normal scan won’t reveal about a person. I guess this is one of them.

A question rings out from him.

“And what would that entail?”

“Supporting me and having my back, if I get bullied by someone that you or your family can handle. Anyone that would put your family at risk, I wouldn’t expect you to go up against.”

“And?”

He clearly expects more. As this is the baseline for such relationships.

“… Look. I honestly just want an ally. Someone that I can actually trust and look out for me. While I do the same for them. A true relationship. Not one just based out of benefits, but actually caring about one another.”

I take a breath to continue, as he looks skeptical and disappointed at my clearly naïve words.

So, I clarify.

“I’m not expecting this to happen immediately. You’ll just have to see through my actions that I want what’s best for you and your family. I hope with time, you can feel the same towards me. But I want to at least say it, so you can know where my mind is.”

It’s at this point, that I expected him to say something somewhat sarcastic or disbelieving. Because that’s definitely the type of face he has on right now.

But he just stares at me. Not a hostile one, but a judging and weighing one.

He’s truly considering what I’m saying.

And then he surprises me with a question, that is more of a statement.

“You’ll be helping me with figuring out the three generations from the creator.”

He says it in a direct, curt manner.

More akin to stating terms in an ultimatum.

This is a test.

If I was a young master, this would be a slap in the face to my status. Most would snap at this form of address.

Every relationship here has a hierarchy. But the way I described what I wanted was not in that form.

It was as equals.

He’s doing this to see how I truly view this relationship.

And just as I strain my scan to perceive as much as I can in a situation, I bet he is doing the same with his senses as a Merchant. Weighing this relationship.

Luckily for me, I come from a world and a culture where this is basically expected. That people should be treated as equals.

There’s no faking necessary for this.

I give a genuine smile, acknowledging that he’s taking me seriously. That I might actually be able to find an equal of sorts here.

“Of course. That’s what allies do.”

He blinks in surprise, not expecting such a natural response. He goes a little further, cautiously.

“… And my daughter. She is going to die if I can’t figure out a better treatment for her. You’ll help with that as well?”

“I’ll go even further. When you introduce me, I’ll heal her so she’s cured.”

“How do you know you can heal her? You already know what she has?”

I shake my head. Though I am lying on this one.

“No. Let me show you what I mean. Could you hold out your hand?”

Warily, he does so. To which I quickly heal his hand.

Going further than even that by healing him of every injury… and then upgrading his spirit root.

I try something on him I discovered while I was desperately trying to heal myself during and after my fight in the jungle.

Optimization.

Combining my healing aura and my healing cultivation abilities lets me cover every base within a person’s spirit root. While there are still some areas can be improved, it should bring a person to the highest spirit root level I can (using that method).

In terms of myself, I have much farther to go than just what I can do for others, as my body is constantly improving on a deeper level. Mostly because of being influenced by my healing constitution, as well as everything else.

There’s a question that I could ask myself for all this, though.

Why do this much for him?

If I’m truly going to rely on him, then I need to buff them as much as is possible. Also, the scan is practically confirming at every step how important this relationship is.

I’m really relying on the idea that I can trust the scan. Though I’m a little too deep at this point to not be trus…

…

…

Woah.

…

That’s a high spirit root.

After healing him, I can see that he has a 3 Orchid Heaven spirit root.

That means he can cultivate 4000x faster than the average cultivator.

… and he hasn’t even used the Heavenly Spirit Roots yet. Which would increase his spirit roots even further.

… or cultivated with the Orb of Unfathomable Depths, allowing him to cultivate thousands of times faster. And will give him strength of one tier higher.

I’m actually a little scared now. He’ll definitely soar past me in a second.

If this doesn’t work in the future, I’m screwed.

Spiritual Roots:

Cultivation Speed:

Ranking

Type

Grade

People

No Talent/Cursed/Crippled Cultivation

Demi-Humans, Gong (Pre-Healing)

Low Talent

Rose Man

1

James Delinion (Pre-Healing)

1/10,000x

2

Majority of People

1/1,000

3

1/100

4

1/10x

Ordinary

5

James Delinion (Post-First Self Healing), Majority of Cultivators

1x

6

James Delinion (Pre-Exam), Lin (Pre-Healing))

2x

7

5x

8

Gong (Current)

10x

9

15x

Above Average

Peony Earth

1

Majority of Demi Human Cultivators (Fully Healed)

25x

2

AI (Pre-Healing)

50x

3

75x

4

James Delinion (Exam)

100x

Rare Genius

5

250x

6

Lin (Current)

500x

7

Mei Lin ((Merchant Kid/New Sister) - Current)

750x

8

1000x

9

1250x

Extremely Rare Genius

Orchid Heaven

1

Ai (Current)

2000x

2

James Delinion (Current)

3000x

3

Xing Hu (merchant father- Post-Optimization)

4000x

Powerful and Rare Genius

4

7500x

5

Da Xia (Young demi human necromancer girl – Current)

10,000x

6

20,000x

Heaven Defying Genius

7

50,000x

8

100,000x

9

200,000x

Transcendent Genius (stories)

Jade Flower Void

1,000,000x