Mushrooms have another advantage: they grow much faster than ordinary plants. There is no need to wait for a half-year growth cycle, and with Smith's cooperation, the experiment quickly yielded results.
The answer was yes, but further improvements were still necessary. Pamela had introduced a common mushroom strain, namely the shiitake mushroom that people often eat. Shiller's main consideration was that this type of mushroom looked more approachable, and even if there were some shape mutations, they wouldn't be too unsightly.
But he clearly underestimated the range of mutations a mushroom could undergo. The grown mushrooms could be mistaken for grenades by the unknowing.
The entire shiitake mushroom was no longer a flat, round shape, but rather towered in an oval form with countless terrifying dark purple bulges. Even Chinese people, upon seeing it, wouldn't first consider whether this thing was edible.
Indeed, appearance is a big issue; if it looks too ugly, even if it is claimed to be a life-extending herb, it may provoke public skepticism, and clinical trials would be difficult to conduct.
After numerous experiments by Smith, he found that the resulting mushroom mutation mainly depended on the core substrate used for cultivation—meaning the nature of the demons and ghosts' corpses likely determined the resulting mushroom's appearance.
Wu Gui Niangniang was a purple-haired zombie, and naturally, the mushrooms that grew were black and purple, looking quite terrifying. They later tried a creature spirit's corpse, and the resulting mushrooms were golden, much more pleasing to the eye.
Shiller mulled it over. Chi You was also a tribal leader, and according to Ying Long, wasn't too unsightly, although he had horns on his head and looked somewhat different from modern humans. But mushrooms have a different aesthetic than humans; as long as they don't completely deter people's appetite, it should be fine.
After discovering that this was feasible, SWORD brought in more samples for Smith to experiment with. They eventually found that mushrooms grown from ordinary humanoid and spirit creature corpses were quite normal. Shiller and his team were less fortunate, having picked a millennia-old zombie to start with—no matter how they cultivated, corpses of such demons wouldn't yield anything that appeared edible.
As for the effects of the mushrooms, they also bore some relation to the core substrate; if the corpse was flesh and blood, and then infused with some energy, the mushrooms could inherit and preserve this energy well. They could enhance human magical affinity. Taken internally, they could slightly improve immunity, but the topical effect was better, with scar removal being the most effective use—they could almost completely restore any scar.
If the corpse itself was an energy entity formed by the condensation of a spirit creature, akin to a compressed version of a Demon God, the cultivation and growth of mushrooms were extremely challenging, and the survival rate was very low. Yet the effects were the best, able to truly achieve the goal of extending human lifespans.
As for the zombies, the mushrooms grown from them were poisonous—heavy twitching in mild cases, and unconsciousness or worse in severe cases. Visibly, if the quantity were large enough, they could be used as poison.
However, some toxic mushrooms were useful, such as those that could relieve pain, induce sleep, or even maintain a state of low energy hibernation without causing bodily harm, and without any addictive properties. They could replace many sedatives.
These mushrooms could, more or less, change human magical affinity, but enhancing magical affinity didn't mean one could immediately learn magic. If the core magic talent remained unchanged, active use was still impossible; it only increased the passive acceptance of magic, at least making it so teleportation portals no longer caused dizziness.
After so many experiments, SWORD probably had a good idea of what to expect, but Chi You was, after all, not on the same level as those lower demons and ghosts, and in the end, they would have to rely on actual results.
Then came the final issue that needed to be addressed: where to place Chi You after his removal. Open-air placement was certainly not an option. SWORD envisioned that although it wouldn't be buried as deeply as before, it would still be placed within a mountain, with multiple safeguards to ensure safety.
Strange thought this method was good, but when facing Zhengxian, he still hesitated, and it wasn't until after being pressed several times that Zhengxian realized, the blueprints were fine, but they couldn't be built.
After so many days of planning and designing in the village, Strange finally understood how troublesome this matter was.
Firstly, there was the need to build a road, and not just any road, but one that connected all three villages—it was truly a miraculous celestial road, but certainly, the mages couldn't build it.
It's not that they weren't capable, but the process was just too complicated. There were places where you could simply demolish a house and instantly walk through, but the villagers weren't willing, and what could be done, forcefully demolish the houses?
It wasn't just a matter of demolishing houses to clear a path that was unacceptable; passing by the side of a house was also refused, and it wasn't just about houses—passing by a field or even a certain tree was forbidden because it was ancestral, and such a route would disrupt the feng shui.
There were also those who thought building roads was a good thing, but it had to pass precisely through a certain part of their property, or else they wouldn't allow it to be built.
The road alignment map was finally cobbled together somehow, and although it could be built regardless of the cost of materials or labor, there was more than just one road to build. There were labs to construct, greenhouses to erect, and factories to establish; it wasn't possible to be so indifferent to costs for each of these.
Wong frequently went to coordinate with the village chiefs, but even the chiefs were troubled. The residents of these villages were just ordinary people, not saints.
In the absence of education over many generations and with a static lifestyle, most believed that if you wanted to make them wealthy, why not just give them money directly? If they lacked some resources, why not just provide those materials? What was the point of all this fuss and bother?
In the end, it led to unanimous opposition, yet they were also unwilling to give up the supplies provided by the mages, one day asking for this and the next day for that.
These three villages weren't large in area, didn't have a huge population, and moreover, were quite far apart with significant elevation differences, making construction already difficult. With each person making a demand, the work just couldn't get done.
Strange had been wearing out his lips for the past few days, but essentially there was no progress. Mages weren't very good at this kind of thing, so aside from barely managing to build a road, nothing else was accomplished.
Although Strange was becoming impatient, after all, these three villages were his teacher's hometown, he still reminded Zhengxian to not be too aggressive in his approach and to consider the feelings of the villagers when starting work.
Zhengxian had thought Strange was hesitating because there was some major issue, but to see that it was just this, he waved his hand and said nothing, leaving Strange puzzled about how he intended to solve the problem.
Unexpectedly, in less than a week, the villagers were all won over, and everyone clapped to welcome the construction team's arrival.
And in this construction crew, there were no powerful mutants or mages to be seen; they were mostly ordinary people using common machinery, nothing that seemed high-tech, but they managed to hollow out an entire mountain at a speed that Strange found unimaginable.
This left the watching mages dumbstruck. Speedrun, huh? Are you the mage, or am I?
I must admit, the entire process has an aesthetic of order that mages don't possess. For instance, if mages wanted to destroy a mountaintop, they could use magic to blast it, but they couldn't control where the debris would fall afterward.
Of course, they could use spatial magic to make clean cuts, which would indeed be crisp and efficient, but basically, except for the Grand Mage, no one can achieve such precision. Even given a blueprint accurate to the micrometer, most Grand Mages wouldn't be able to handle that level of detail.
But these ordinary workers don't have the formidable powers that mages do, a single worker can't even lift a large stone, but first, they set up scaffolding, install directional explosives, and perfectly collect and remove every piece of shattered debris. Then another group comes in to check the soil quality, continuing to build the scaffold.
After clearing the surface, they bring in heavy machinery; someone is responsible for observation, someone else for inspection, another starts the machines, and someone takes care of the finishing touches, each knowing exactly what to do, fully aware of the purpose of their actions, the potential consequences, and collectively taking responsibility for the outcome.
Observing a work process like this is the ultimate enjoyment of orderly beauty because it feels like witnessing how over millions of years, the people of this land have constructed such a splendid civilization.
At first, it was only the younger mages idling by to watch, but then the Grand Mages came too. They have spent much longer in seclusion, further away from human society, and so are more easily astonished.
In the end, The Ancient One came back too. Just like hundreds of years ago, she stood on the frigid, windswept ridge, watching one after another, the ordinary people small as ants in her field of view, shouldering and calling out to each other, as if in a freeze-frame of time, they built a great civilization with the grit held tight in each person's hand and the footprints stamped beneath their feet, a civilization not even the divine power of gods could match.
Strange looked at his mentor and saw a different glow in The Ancient One's eyes. Through that light, he seemed to see how, hundreds of years ago, a State Preceptor in exquisite garments stood on a mist-shrouded High Tower, watching the rise and fall of a magnificent dynasty.
Back then, she stood with civil and military officials behind her, and before her stretched an immense dragon, amidst thick clouds, its breath full of the damp, cold moisture of wood.
The "Wen" was placed on the altar, inscribed with ancient texts that were unreadable to the people, followed by a downpour that heralded another year of harvest.
"Only I and god exist, without me there is no god..." The Ancient One sighed softly.
A deep voice responded to her, "You are the first to threaten me in the 'Wen,' and you will be the last."
"People are almost forgetting you," The Ancient One said calmly, as though stating a fact. "But they will never forget their desire for rain."
"Most people only want rain and a good harvest, not war," said Ying Long. "That's why we are still here, while Chi You can only lie there."
"It is indeed most people who determine the destiny of the gods," The Ancient One said. "History has proven me right; only those that people believe in are gods, only what people desire are miracles, apart from that, there is nothing else."
Strange didn't understand Chinese, but he felt like he could interpret what they were talking about, because whenever his teacher spoke her mother tongue in this tone, it was always about lamenting beings or gods swallowed up by the long river of history.
"They are so insignificant, yet they are adept at creating greatness," The Ancient One said. "They have built civilizations with their own hands, nurtured gods, spread across the world, enduring without end, as if the earth and sky exist just for them."
"But that's not the reason you threatened me in the 'Wen,'" the other voice said.
"But you still made it rain, didn't you?"
"It wasn't for you that I did."
"There is no rain in this world that does not fall for me, for all living beings. If there were, we'd find another Rain God."
"Do you think you represent all beings?"
"I live for that very reason."
"Egomaniac."
Ying Long snorted but didn't speak further. After a while, he said, "What do you think Chi You would think if he knew someone was growing mushrooms on him?"
"All I know is that if it were members of the Xuanyuan or Shennong clans, they would be pleased because they were once among the people, they too lived for the masses, knowing what they wanted most."
"But Chi You isn't that way, Chi You only wanted victory," Ying Long sighed. "Those who have defied heaven throughout history are no different."
"Have they decided what to do with the mushrooms grown from Chi You?" The Ancient One suddenly turned to ask Strange.
Strange shook his head and said, "They haven't specified the details, but I heard they might want to make them into a vaccine."
"I heard mushrooms grow more easily in damp places?"
As The Ancient One spoke, her gaze shifted to Ying Long, who stared back at her and said, "What are you looking at me for?"
"What do you think of how I wrote the 'Wen'?"
"Are you threatening me again?!"