The Blue Stone Chronicle

A severe drought strikes Qingzhou in the Great Liang Kingdom. Lu Qing is fifteen, his parents are dead, and his sister has been traded away for two dou of millet. His spiritual roots are tested: four roots, impure and mixed. Yunmeng Valley takes him on as a menial outer-disciple, where he carries water eight times a day for half a spirit stone, and anyone can kick him around. Until he finds a warm stone bead in a collapsed grave in a mass burial ground. It feeds on souls. When something has just died and its soul has yet to disperse, the bead swallows it whole and returns pure spiritual power. It also lets out cultivation techniques, maps, and secrets that the dead left behind in their memories. From then on, Lu Qing learns the two most important words in the cultivation world: keep hidden. He stays hidden while carrying water, while being beaten, and while people trample him like grass. He stays hidden until he can strike back with a single slash and bury his tormentors in a poisonous marsh. So what if he has four spiritual roots? Most of the powerful people in this world were buried by his own hands.