Minimum Values and further bonuses (L5R rules board)

A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.

A player, 11 October 2007

I have searched the rules forum and checked the Comprehensive Rules and was looking for clarification on this matter.

If personality A has a chi 2 and equips his clan armour (giving him a minimum chi of 5). He then gets an item which grants +2C, do his chi become:

a) 7, 5 from the armour and a further 2 from the item. b) 5, 2 base + 2 from item is less than minimum and is so increased to 5. c) Some other amount I can't figure out.

Thanks for your help and sorry if this is obvious but there has been some confusion on the matter in my playgroup.