So What If I Have No Spiritual Root? You Can't Beat Me at Your Own Games

At the Spirit-Testing Stele, everyone lit up. Golden roots, wood roots, Heavenly Spiritual Roots, their light blazed brilliantly. Only I stood before the stele, and it stayed dark. "Useless! You dare cultivate immortality without a spiritual root?" I smiled and said nothing. You can play your game of geniuses. I'll play my game as an ordinary mortal. Five hundred years later, some of you had ascended, while others had fallen. Only I was still seated beside the chessboard, watching all you so-called geniuses walk into the traps I'd laid, one by one. So what if I don't have a spiritual root? You can't outplay me, no matter how hard you try.