Xu Lian blessed land
Bao Xu Lian's will floated in the air. He was in a good mood.
In his hand was a round palm sized gu worm. It was a small gu worm, not much to look at.
He instilled essence and activated the gu to check its effect.
Pop!
The gu worm cracked open and revealed rows upon rows of small seeds inside of it. The seeds were about the size of a nail.
"Oh, seeds inside of seed. Intriguing." - Bao Xu Lian's eyes lit up.
This gu was refined by Bao Zhi with his Thousand Wish Perpetual Refinement method. Thus, the result was a seed inside a fruit, a gu that also held seeds.
He extracted them into his palm.
It was a handful of flat black seeds with a pointed end to them. They were soft and flexible to the touch.
"These are the Thousand Wish Tree's seeds?" - He wondered.
"If I can grow an entire forest of this gu producing tree. Within a few years, I could populate half the grotto with this plant. At that point, the first milestone of developing my immortal aperture would be taken care of by this tree type alone." - Bao Xu Lian calculated in his mind.
The development of immortal apertures were different from mortal apertures.
Aperture development started from the first step of gathering external resources. These materials would be used to establish mortal resource points that could produce mortal gu and mortal gu materials in the aperture.
The second step would be to elevate the resource points to immortal level and be able to feed the immortal gu. Bao Xu Lian didn't even have immortal gu at the moment.
After this, the next step in development was connecting the disjointed resource points into a coherent environment and making it self-sufficient.
The next level of aperture development after this was producing more resources than needed. This allows trading the surplus for more beneficial resources. Turning a quantity into quality. This was a level that established rank seven cultivators with blessed lands were at.
Beyond producing many immortal resources, was the natural refinement of immortal gu. This needed a vast foundation in dao marks and a long time to happen. Only rank eight grotto heavens had the chance to achieve this step.
At the next stage of immortal aperture development, millions of humans and variant humans would be raised inside and immortals would emerge among them.
The pinnacle was when the aperture could start producing lifespan gu. This was the final stage of immortal aperture development.
These stages were not independent. They were intimately linked together.
Each step was more difficult than the previous!
This last phase was where the Ancestral Grotto was at. The Lingering Mountains Grotto was similarly developed, but it could not produce lifespan gu, because it had annexed a fragment of the Immemorial Nine Heavens and has been extensively modified by the Revolving Mountains Formation.
Wood path was good at growth and aperture development. Unlike most other paths, it starts out weak but steadily accumulates foundation. But because it needed to work with living beings from the beginning, the bar was also raised for their initial development difficulty. They had to immediately fulfill the fundamental needs of the plant life.
This was the opposite of mortal wood path cultivation. Mortal wood path gu were easy to feed and nurture because they relied on the environment.
But an immortal had to create the environment!
Bao Xu Lian decided on the spot.
He marked out an undeveloped area and sprinkled the place with the seeds in hand.
Next, he activated a killer move. - Budding Trees, Flowering Fields!
This was a wood path killer move that directly caused plants to grow and advance their life cycle. This move depended on the life force of plants.
Bao Xu Lian's wood path attainment was not high, so it could not immediately produce the intended results.
But it did not matter to him. He wanted to know the effect of the Thousand Wish Tree's seed on the environment.
The seeds germinated and took root. They grew rapidly, branching outwards and upwards.
One hour, one day, three days!
The plants grew to a certain height and then curled up tendrils started to sprout.
The green stems grew leaves and then flowers bloomed.
Bao Xu Lian watched in awe.
The plants that he cultivated in his immortal aperture were mostly isolated from each other. They had no interaction with each other.
But these plants were growing together!
The tendrils were entwined together like a net, the leaves interlaced together!
The flowers were opened in full bloom. They were purple and yellow, fragrant and beautiful. They would be attracting bees and other insects, only if there were any.
Bao Xu Lian was dumbstruck.
For one, he expected an orchard of ash-barked, twisted-branched trees to emerge. Similar to the Thousand Wish Tree.
But these were clearly not Thousand Wish Trees. These were some herbaceous plants, without a hint of bark or branches!
"What is going on?" - He was baffled.
Bao Xu Lian landed to take a closer look.
He could not tell the different plants apart, they formed a single and interconnected entity.
"So a different plant emerged. It is already in the flowering phase. Why not see what it will produce?"
Budding Trees, Flowering Fields!
Bao Xu Lian's wood path killer move activated again.
The flowers closed up and withered away one after another.
Round and dark green fruits were growing in their place. They were swelling bigger and bigger as time went on!
Bao Xu Lian continued to use his killer move.
The fruits stopped their growth after they reached their final shape. They had a shiny, wrinkled surface with deep grooves on it. They were about one foot in diameter.
Bao Xu Lian plucked one to inspect it.
But just as he did, the fruit turned gray in his hand and crumbled to pieces. The plant trembled slightly, before returning to rest.
"What the...?" - Bao Xu Lian furrowed his brows, not understanding what just happened.
"Could it be the wood path killer move forced the plant to accelerate its life cycle and produce the fruit too early?" - He guessed.
Bao Xu Lian was not too disappointed. He was used to experimental failures.
Why not have a closer look?
Next, he tried to inspect another one without plucking it.
But just as he got close enough, his will was sucked inside without any warning. He tried to resist, but he has helpless.
Bao Xu Lian was alarmed!
His will suddenly found himself hovering in an empty green void.
"What is this place? What happened?" - He thought to himself in surprise and confusion.
Just as he did so, voices came from every direction like a distorted echo: "What? This place? I don't know. What are these voices? Voices? I don't know. Know. What's happening? Happening?" - The voices rang like a thousand bells, overlapping each.
Bao Xu Lian was confused, and almost in a panicked state. The voices were getting louder and louder the harder he tried to figure out what was going on. He felt like he would lose his mind.
By the end, it was an incomprehensible cacophony, preventing him from hearing even his own thoughts. He started to feel dizzy, as if he would lose consciousness at any moment.
But he soon realized that the voices were the reflections of his own thoughts.
As soon as he calmed down and cleared his mind of excess thoughts, the voices also abated.
After this, he focused on one single thought only.
"Where am I?"
Thoughts after thoughts arose again. He had difficulty managing their quantity.
He stopped again before trying again.
He slowly contemplated what he has seen and what he knew.
He discovered that these aren't voices, there were no sounds here.
These were thoughts! Thoughts produced by the plant.
This was the final clue that made him discover what this plant was.
It was called brain melon!
Brain melon had an extraordinary background. It was created by the progenitor of wood path, the rank nine expert, Genesis Lotus Immortal Venerable.
Similar to the rank six Heavenly Essence Treasure Imperial Lotus, only mortal versions were circulated, like the rank five Heavenly Essence Treasure King Lotus.
The real brain melon was an immortal plant. This was just a mortal version.
While the treasure lotus was incredible in its ability to produce essence, it was a very expensive gu to refine.
The brain melon's use was different, it could produce not immortal or primeval essence, but thoughts.
Thoughts were one of the pillars of wisdom path. Wills, thoughts and emotions.
"This plant can let me scheme and deduce!" - Bao Xu Lian was very satisfied as he realized he had just used the brain melon to deduce its origin.
This was an intoxicating feeling.
Wills could think and plan, but it would expend them over time. Thoughts on the other hand were simpler, one thought had a singular meaning. Colliding thoughts could produce new and different thought as a results. This was how wisdom path operated.
He started to get the hang of using brain melon, his thinking speed has accelerated by five-fold overall.
He tried deducing other matters too. He wanted to improve on one of his killer moves in his inheritance.
But it failed. He could not comprehend the core profundity no matter how hard he tried, as he was only a wood path master.
Wood path master attainment was only exceptional, one in a million among mortals. But it was the norm for rank six immortals like Bao Xu Lian.
Bao Xu Lian did not let the failure get to his heart and continued. He was entranced as he deduced one matter after another.
But soon he realized a problem.
"My will has produced too many thoughts. It is already depleted by more than half."
He thought of an even more pressing issue.
"But how do I get out?!"
After a long while, he has exhausted all his methods, but he was still inside the green void space.
"How long has it been..." - He could not tell.
"What a useless trash this plant is! I can't even take out my gains and return them to the main body." - He grumbled angrily. Almost as if mocking him, this only created more angry and desperate thoughts as a result.
Now only a sliver of his will was left. It was very weak, it would dissipate at any moment.
"Is. This. The. End?"
His will started to become fragmented. It gradually lost memories and the overall ability to think.
Woosh!
Bao Xu Lian's will abruptly found himself outside again.
He could not think of anything else, he hurried back to the main body to report before he would completely disappear.
Bao Xu Lian received the will. It entered his mind.
"Oh. What an unexpected gain! Brain melon." - He pieced together the remaining memories.
"It seems like if a will enters it, it has to expend itself to leave. That's a minor drawback I can deal with."
"I will have to invest more into this and grow more of it. The more I have, the better the deduction ability will be." - A satisfied smile appeared on Bao Xu Lian's face.
"What a good timing! With wisdom path abilities, I can face my internal and external threats better. I can prepare for the impending ninth earthly calamity, then the heavenly tribulation after that. I can also deduce my situation in the Ancestral Grotto." - He could already picture how he would use this to his advantage.
He continued to cultivate brain melon plants.
One step at a time, he approached his goal.
He realized, he will have to spend more and more time deducing and scheming in the future.
The brain melon plantation grew to an impressive size. Compared to the initial batch, this was already four times the size of that.
When he injected his will inside, it could think at a fifteen-times speed!
His wisdom path attainment was only at the ordinary level. Yet, all he needed to do was plant more and his capability in deduction would increase.
Of course, compared to a real wisdom path cultivator using an immortal killer move to deduce, this was nothing. Wisdom path cultivators could hold millions of thoughts simultaneously and calculate matters in the blink of an eye. But they also needed such abilities, as their killer moves were overly complicated and complex in comparison.
But for a wood path cultivator like Bao Xu Lian, this deduction ability was of great importance. And it could be developed even further with little cost!
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