The Fivefold Confluence Root had been waiting in the Foundation files pending section for a time since the second year.
He found it after the AESs third-test interpretation showed that the Foundation attempt would need a catalyst with three specific properties: it had to be able to absorb from five paths at the same time it had to have a special structure with many strands that were synchronized naturally and it had to be able to integrate with the cultivation environment at the final stage of the attempt. All three properties were necessary.
He went through the sects list of plants one by one checking each one against these properties. Six plants met the two requirements but five of them failed the third one. The Fivefold Confluence Root was the one that met all three requirements. It only grew in one place in the sect territory: the inner layer of the Hollow, where the special formation of the Hollows interior provided a compressed cultivation environment. It did not grow else. The book about plants said that the root needed specific conditions to grow: the Qi had to be compressed twenty times during the development period it had to absorb from all five elemental streams at the same time and in balanced proportions and it had to have the special formation geometry of the Hollows inner chamber to direct the absorption in a balanced pattern. These conditions only existed in the Hollows layer. The root could not be grown else. It grew where it grew, inside a sealed space behind a formation lock that needed simultaneous five-path output to open.
He found this out in his year and made a note of it in the Foundation files pending section. Then he kept getting ready. The schedule for getting the root was fixed by the Hollows opening cycle. Everything between finding the root and getting it was preparation work that took up the next two and a half years.
On the morning of the day before the Hollow opened he read the book about plants for the fifth time.
The fifth time he read the book was not to learn something. He had already memorized the book by the time he read it. The fifth time was to turn what he had memorized into a plan. The steps he would take when something was going to happen in thirteen days not just at some point in the future.
He would find the Fivefold Confluence Root in the Hollows chamber in the southeastern part of the cultivation formation substrate. When it was ready it would have five filaments coming out of a central core arranged in a pentagonal symmetry that the formations balanced absorption geometry produced during development. The color of the strands would be deep green changing to black at the tips. This color showed that the strand structure had accumulated a lot of energy from the peak-compression cultivation. The color gradient would be across all five strands. If the gradient was not even it would mean that one or more streams had been stronger during growth, which would make the strand synchronization worse. He needed a gradient.
The Clearwater Sects construction specification said that the chambers cultivation formation was designed to keep the five-stream absorption balanced. The gradient should be even. Another cultivators account of the five-color light that could be seen through the partially-activated access array confirmed that the formation was working at full capacity across all five streams. Full capacity meant absorption. Even gradient.
He would check the signature first before physically approaching the root to confirm its identity. He would use the Soul Path component to read the five-path absorption.
To harvest the root he would use a cutting tool that was isolated from the formation and make a clean cut at the base of the central core. He would not make a cut or pull the root. He had been practicing the cutting motion in his room for two weeks. Had the tool in his kit bag.
He would transfer the root to a preservation container within six hours of cutting it. He had the container in his kit bag. It was charged and sealed and had been tested fifteen times. He had added a note from the book about plants to the protocol: if the root was absorbing energy at a high rate right after cutting he would have to wait a few extra seconds before sealing the container.
He closed the book. Put it back in the restricted section.
He spent the morning of the day before the Hollow opened on the last thing he needed to prepare: the final test of the preservation container.
He had run the opening-and-sealing sequence fifteen times as practice. He had run it on a container to confirm that the sequence was automatic and did not need him to think about it during the interior period. The last time he had run the test was two weeks ago. The twelfth day before the Hollow opened was the day he could find a problem with the containers internal formation before the Hollow when he would not be able to get a replacement.
He took the container out of his kit bag. Ran through the full protocol: opening sequence, internal formation check, registration step timing test, compression seal application, formation deactivation, seal release, opening sequence. The containers internal formation produced the pattern at each step. The registration step completed in twelve seconds, which was within the time.
He sealed the container again with its preservation charge and put it back in his kit bag. The test did not find any problems. He wrote a note in his notebook: preservation container test completed day twelve before Hollow all indicators correct.
He read two records about the Hollow that afternoon.
One was from another cultivator who had been to the Hollow before: reading, focusing on the inner chamber this time. The author of the account had not reached the layer but had talked to someone who had reached the access formation and could not open the lock. The second cultivator described a formation gate set into the environments inner wall and a chamber with unusual ambient light. Five colors blended together showing that all five elemental ambient streams were active and the formation was working at full capacity.
This meant that the root had been growing continuously through the Hollow cycle absorbing from all five streams in balanced proportions. He updated his plan: he was very confident that he would get the root.
The second record was from the Clearwater Sects construction document, which he read for the time. The access formation needed output across all five cultivation paths, which he could provide. The chambers cultivation formation was designed to keep the five-stream absorption pattern going indefinitely without external maintenance using the Hollows compressed ambient Qi as its input. It was a system that had been running for two hundred years on the Hollows compression energy.
The Clearwater Sect had built a space that needed a five-path cultivator to access. It contained the one plant that a five-path Foundation attempt required. The design was intentional. Many things were organized around the same point. He thought about this in the reading room considering the Hollows inner layer, the eleven-stone arrangement, the five-hundred-year enrollment record and the institutional monitoring account. All of them pointed to the fact that a Five-Root cultivator was in this compound at this time.
This was something to think about after he had reached the Foundation level. He closed the document.
Darius confirmed that he had gotten the day-one token that evening.
He came to the hall with the compound inventory slate and set it down after checking the shelf.
"I got the token " he said. "Day-one independent queue entry, secondary market channel, forty-seven percent above face value. I got it on the day of the market window when forty percent of the supply was still available."
"It is within our budget."
"Four inner sect cultivators have tokens for this cycle. Two got them on the day and they are both Core Formation based on the registration records. One got a token on the day and one on the fifth day."
He thought about this. Core Formation cultivators in the Hollows queue meant that there would be strong cultivation presences in the middle layer throughout the interior period. They were not competing for the resource. Core Formation cultivators at that stage did not need the Fivefold Confluence Root.. Their presence in the middle layers higher-density resource sections would require the boring layer to run at its tightest calibration throughout the interior period. He had been running the calibration for three weeks as part of the pre-Hollow maintenance mode.
"The boring layer will be fine " he said.
Darius made a note on the slate. He looked at the kit bag, where it sat at the edge of the corner. Just a quick look to check that it was where it was supposed to be. "I checked the kit bag this morning " he said.
"I checked it yesterday " he replied.
Darius did not explain why he had checked it again. He did not need to explain it. "Thirteen days " he said.
"Thirteen days " Ren said.
Darius went back to his evening round. Ren went back, to his maintenance session.
He thought about the kit bag review that evening. It was not something he did every day. Dariuss job did not usually involve kit bag reviews. This was something. He wrote about it in his compound notebook before he went to sleep.
— ◆ —
He remembered the day he found out about the Hollow. It was the place where he could get the Fivefold Confluence Root. He had figured this out in one afternoon during his second year. He had used the AESs third-test interpretation to find the properties. Then he used the catalog to narrow down the options. The catalog had a lot of entries. Four hundred and twelve.. He was able to filter them down to just one. The Fivefold Confluence Root.
The catalog did not say much about how to grow it.. He did find out that it grew in the Hollows inner layer. He had noted this down in his Foundation file. Put the catalog away. He still had two and a half years to go before he could get the root. He was not worried. He was sure he could get it. The root was in the layer and he could get to the inner layer. He just had to wait for the time.
— ◆ —
That afternoon he thought about the five-color ambient light he had read about. The light had five colors that were all present at the same time. He had read about this five times. Each time he noticed the same thing. The word "simultaneously" and "blending without mixing". The colors corresponded to the five streams. If all five colors were present it meant that all five streams were there too. The Clearwater Sect had built a chamber that could balance all five streams. The root had been growing in this environment. He was confident that he could get the root.
He added a note to his compound notebook. The Clearwater Sect had designed the chamber for people like him. The formation lock and the roots growth conditions were a match. This was not an accident. It was a design feature. He wondered why the Clearwater Sect had built it this way.
He looked at his production records notebook. He had started it fifteen months ago. It had forty-three entries. He read the entry and the last entry. The first entry was about a demonstration batch. The last entry was about a refinement batch. The technique had come a way. Not just the quality,. Also the relationships and the information channel. The first entry and the last entry were about things even though they had the same name.
He put the notebook back in his kit bag. There were twenty-two days to go before the Hollow.
The morning he updated his mystery files. He made sure that each file was correctly cross-referenced, to the files. He checked the sequence of the investigations. Mystery A came first Mystery D, then Mystery C, then Mystery B and finally Mystery E. The sequence made sense. He closed all the files. Put the compound notebook in his kit bag. There were twelve days to go.