Visually, Bai Lian's body appeared unchanged after the evolution. However, she was definitely not the same white lotus as before.
Coursing through her body was phoenix blood. To withstand the heat, her body had evolved to become heat resistance. Every cell wall in her body was many times stronger than before. Her restoration abilities had also greatly improved.
The stem that held the flower portion of her body above the water had become extremely flexible and durable. Although she was still rooted to the bottom of the lake, Bai Lian was capable of manipulating her vine-like stem, gaining mobility that she had never possessed in this life. She was also capable of moving her petals and leaves.
The sensors on her body now included pain receptors, giving Bai Lian a better idea of the damage taken by her body. Pain was a factor that could help a plant undergo evolution. Afterall, evolution was a product of a plant's intense desire to grow stronger and live. However, if the plant is unable to withstand the pain, it will perish instead.
The once in a million years rarity of cultivating plants could be attributed to the lack of desire to become stronger. Due to their natural instincts, most plants spend their lives peacefully growing, and quite accepting of their ending, feeling no remorse towards their cruel demise even if they were to be eaten or refined into a pill.
Memories from a past life are the trigger for the determination towards survival necessary for the formation of a cultivating plant. However, a soul recalling its past life memories was a rare miracle that could only be brought upon by a twist in fate.
Bai Lian felt quite ecstatic to be capable of cultivating, perhaps the greatest wish of her past self. 'To think I'd be able to cultivate as a plant, but not as a human.'
It was quite ironic. It was rare for a human to be completely incapable of cultivating if there was no issues with their body, yet she could not cultivate in her previous life. It was even rarer for a plant to be able to cultivate, but here she was now, drawing in the qi around her and circulating it through her white lotus body.
After a couple days of cultivating, Bai Lian became a rank 3 spirit warrior. The spirit master levels, ascending in strength, were spirit warrior, spirit grand warrior, spirit grandmaster, spirit lord, spirit overlord, spirit king, spirit emperor, spirit sage, and spirit saint. After advancing through the spirit saint levels, one would enter the ranks of the immortal cultivators. Each spirit master level had 9 ranks within before an advancement could be made.
To test out her combat abilities, Bai Lian set her aim on the spirit beasts in the lake. Utilizing the 6 visuary receptors along her stem, she decided on a lone spirit lake trout that had the strength of a rank 2 spirit warrior. Quite the obvious decision since there weren't any other spirit beasts near her.
Bai Lian carefully collected water qi into a ball along her stem. She fired the ball towards the fish. Swiftly, the trout dodged the water ball that slowly maneuvered itself over.
'I really can't put in much force with this body of mine.' Witnessing the pathetic attack she had just released, she really couldn't help but smile mockingly at herself. Of course, only Bai Lian would know she had a mocking smile. Anyone else would see an ordinary white lotus.
A human spirit warrior would usually utilize their arm to thrust a ball of qi towards their target. Bai Lian could not do the same unless she planned on submerging the flower portion of her body into the lake before lunging it towards the fish in order to fling the water ball.
The idea was quite ridiculous since she couldn't move her stem that fast, especially underwater. Also, such crude motions would surely damage her flower. As a lady, she couldn't help but care for her appearances. Whenever her flower emerged above the lake, she would carefully arrange her petals according to her sense of aesthetics. 'Gifted with such beauty in this life, it would be a huge crime for me to ruin it!' Except for Bai Lian herself, it was unlikely for anyone to see her so-called 'great beauty' differently from the other white lotuses.
Although the attack was pathetic, the spirit lake trout was still alerted. Scanning the waters around, it could not figure out who had sent the water ball. The fish could not sense any lifeforms in the waters around it.
When a spirit beast or human sense for living prescences, their brains would naturally disclude the plants around, deeming them as posing no threat. Throughout the passage of time, plants were never seen as a possible predator. They were only cautioned against when deemed poisonous.
Unable to find its attacker, the spirit lake trout decided to flee. Regardless of the perpetrator's strength, an invisible enemy was much scarier than a visible one.
Realizing her shortcoming, Bai Lian decided to train her body to become faster, amd more flexible. Launching a spirit ball, one of the most basic attacks for a spirit master, would require her to either reach a higher level of cultivation or be capable of using her body to supplement the thrusting force.
She decided to split her days between cultivating, and body exercises. To exercise her petals and leaves, she would move them in circular motions, either emphasizing on speed or doing her best to make a larger circle in order to improve her flexibility. For her stem, she would have her stem maneuver her flower in a circular motion, putting emphasis on speed, as though it were running laps.
Since her body exercises appeared quite conspicuous, she would do them whenever there were no spirit beasts near the lake, disregarding those within the lake. Relying on the signals from the other plants, she would exercise her body whenever she could, feeling a stronger body as a foundation would benefit her cultivation.
Whenever she received signals of nearby spirit beasts, she would cultivate or rest. To rest, she would submerge herself, laying at the bottom of the lake.
Unlike humans, all plants were cooperative with each other. They all possess the innate ability to send signals to one another. All plants have several visual and hearing receptors. These receptors have developed to automatically send what they perceive to the plant itself and any plant nearby. The other plants in the area would automatically relay the information to any plants near it that did not receive the initial signal. This automatic signalling ability developed a large information network across all the plants in an area. Despite their ability to relay information to one another, plants were very unsociable and it was rare for a plant to manually send a signal.
Due to this innate ability, plants developed the ability to naturally process much more information than any other species. Unfortunately, their ability to act on the information were quite lacking.