Chapter 521 - 474: Chixia, Spirit Plant Garden

Chapter 521: Chapter 474: Chixia, Spirit Plant Garden

Stepping out of the pavilion, Chu Mu stopped and looked back, his expression somewhat dazed.

In the past, any unknown he had encountered—be it mysterious or terrifying—always had at least a faint trace he could follow. He could always figure out the general reason behind it.

This Half-human, Half-Flood Dragon, however, completely defied his understanding. In fact, it had completely overturned it!

"A Half-human, Half-Flood Dragon..."

Chu Mu murmured, deep confusion still etched between his brows.

Faced with a reality that so thoroughly subverted his knowledge, even heaven-defying wisdom would struggle to find any clues.

After a moment of thought, Chu Mu forcibly suppressed his many doubts. Regardless, her seeking him out had solved an urgent problem for him.

’At least, I don’t need to worry so much anymore.’

’With her miraculous nature as a Half-human, Half-Flood Dragon, she would be held in extremely high regard by the Chen Family, even without her status as a descendant of a Nascent Soul Great Power.’

’And by Refining Treasure for her, her status would clearly spare me a lot of trouble.’

Chu Mu leaped into the air, a crimson Tunneling Light streaking across the sky. It dipped into the island’s harbor before shooting up again. After crossing several islands in succession, he finally landed on Earth Demon Island.

Behind him, the Corpse Puppet and Wangcai landed one after another, following close behind.

’If I refined something like a Spirit Beast Bag or a Yin Puppet Bag, it would probably be much more convenient.’

Chu Mu glanced at the puppet and dog shadowing his every move, his brow furrowed slightly.

In the past, he’d only had Wangcai, and the Demon Beast didn’t follow him around constantly.

But now, a Tier Three Corpse Puppet and a Tier Three demon shadowed his every move like a pair of personal Protectors. It was far too conspicuous.

He mulled it over for a moment, but in the end, just as he had before, he had to shelve the idea for now.

’Storage Space is easy enough to refine. It just requires Spatial Attribute Spiritual Materials, which aren’t considered that rare for me anymore.’

’But mere Storage Space obviously can’t accommodate living beings like Wangcai, let alone a Tier Three creature.’

’If a Tier Three creature forced its way inside, the space is so fragile that the slightest fluctuation would likely cause it to shatter instantly.’

According to the Artifact Refining General Outline, refining a Spirit Beast Bag was equivalent to refining a "Big and Small Ruyi" treasure.

A hundred times the normal amount of Spatial Spiritual Materials had to be smelted down to create a space capable of holding living beings.

And that was just the most basic framework.

Next, an environment where a living creature could survive had to be constructed inside.

For a being like a Corpse Puppet, the ideal environment would naturally be a place filled with Yin Qi and malevolent spirits.

For a Demon Beast like Wangcai, the most basic requirement was obviously ample and dense Spiritual Qi to sustain its normal Cultivation and survival.

Constructing such an environment within it wasn’t as simple as just shattering a few Spirit Stones to release some Spiritual Qi.

Instead, rare and compatible Spiritual Materials had to be smelted into it to form a complete, self-sustaining cycle. For Spiritual Qi, for example, the Spirit Beast Bag would need to interface with the outside world.

The Artifact Refining General Outline also had a very simple analogy for items like the Spirit Beast Bag.

A Spirit Beast Bag is the equivalent of a crude, miniature Small World, one that exists by depending on the greater Cultivation Immortal World.

Only then could a Spirit Beast, or a Corpse Puppet for that matter, survive inside.

The difficulty involved in refining such an item naturally goes without saying.

’For me, while refining this Nascent Spirit-type Space Treasure would be difficult, it wouldn’t be insurmountable.’

’The only problem is that I don’t have enough resources.’

’Although I’ve gathered a massive amount of resources in my Storage Ring, most of it is just the basic Spiritual Materials I frequently use.’

’Only a very small portion could be considered rare.’

’Smelting the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower and refining the Blade Battle Puppet and this Corpse Puppet already consumed a huge portion of them. The rare items I have left are now few and far between.’

’It’s not like there’s no chance...’

Chu Mu murmured to himself, then smiled inexplicably.

’I still have a big business deal to attend to. That Fairy Qing Ling is quite the tycoon!’

He gazed in the direction of Celestial Spirit Island. As his thoughts turned, his figure flickered and, in the blink of an eye, vanished into the True Understanding Tower.

「Several months passed in the blink of an eye.」

A few months might seem insignificant, but for the Demon Suppression Islands, and indeed the entire Vast Sea Cultivation Immortal World, a profound transformation had quietly taken place.

In just a few short months, a majority of the hundred-plus Loose Cultivator Golden Core Cultivators in the Demon Suppression Islands had joined the Chen Family’s new, modified Merit Points system. They completed the transition from Demon Suppression and Demon Hunting to "Exorcism and Evil Hunting."

This terrifying force, one capable of upending the entire Vast Sea Cultivation Immortal World, had initially gathered for profit. In the end, the Chen Family used the pretext of Demon Suppression to once again rally them with incentives, bit by bit, and bring them back under control.

Of course, everyone has their own ambitions. While many were enticed and driven by the Chen Family, there were naturally those who were not.

All the ensuing disputes and disturbances played out one after another in the Demon Suppression Islands.

In the past, Chu Mu would not have been able to escape such turmoil. This time, however, a Half-human, Half-Flood Dragon and a single Lifebound Treasure had pulled him out of the chaos early, allowing him to leave the Demon Suppression Islands and remove himself from the situation almost entirely.

In early spring, during these chaotic times, Chixia—the central hub of the Vast Sea Cultivation Immortal World—was clearly depressed after years of bitter fighting. However, it still retained a measure of peace, and its overall order remained strict.

True Understanding Main Pavilion.

In the backyard Spirit Field of the True Understanding Main Pavilion. After many years, the large Spirit Field in the courtyard had been expanded significantly. It now covered dozens of acres; several surrounding shops had even been purchased and converted to make room for it.

Across the dozens of acres of Spirit Fields, countless Array Prohibition Patterns crisscrossed everywhere, shimmering with a faint light. They served various functions: Gathering Spirit, dispersing spirit, nurturing the Spirit Soil, Defense, protection...

In the center of the Spirit Field stood a ten-foot-tall altar covered in dense Array Prohibition Inscriptions. Their intricate lines intertwined, ultimately converging at its peak.

At the altar’s peak, a fist-sized Celestial Trace Crystal Stone was embedded. It resembled an active brain, serving as the central core of the entire Spirit Plant Garden.

And that was, in fact, the case.

Spirit Plant Puppets moved through every patch of the field like tireless Spirit Plant Cultivators, meticulously caring for every stalk of Spirit Medicine.

Each Spirit Plant Puppet was now completely different from before.

This difference was not merely external but lay more in the Spirit Plant Puppet’s internal core.

Each Spirit Plant Puppet had become an information hub.

Information on the Spiritual Plants’ species, their growth status, the fertility of the Spirit Soil, and more was all compiled via an interconnected system within the Puppet Cores. It was then recorded in the small Celestial Trace Crystal Stone at the heart of the Spirit Field.

Across dozens of acres of Spirit Fields and thousands of Spiritual Plants, every last bit of information could be clearly reviewed.

In a sense, the entire Spirit Plant Garden had now achieved a system akin to automated cultivation. Under this system, the dozens of Spirit Plant Puppets in the field had undoubtedly achieved a degree of self-improvement.

After all, puppets don’t make mistakes. For any Spiritual Plant that had ever been grown in this Spirit Plant Garden, its growth conditions and any problems that arose would have been recorded.

Through the calculations of the Celestial Trace Crystal Stone, a process similar to big data analysis would occur, enabling the Spirit Plant Puppets to cultivate each species of Spiritual Plant with ever-increasing refinement.

As Chu Mu strolled through the garden, his Divine Sense swept out to examine its entire operational framework. The concept of ’Refining Illusion into Truth’ from the Secret Realm seemed to reappear before his eyes.

Compared to that vast system of Refining Illusion into Truth, the Spirit Plant Garden system before him was still nascent, but it undoubtedly had taken on a rudimentary form.

The gap was large, but its nature was also quite clear.

The greatest difference was simply the amount of available knowledge and information.

Take this Spirit Plant Garden, for example. If it possessed detailed information on the growth and cultivation of every type of Spirit Medicine and Spiritual Plant within it, then this Spirit Plant Garden could, without a doubt, also achieve a degree of Refining Illusion into Truth.

The Spirit Medicine grown in the garden would grow exceptionally smoothly, and the success rate for cultivating high-age Spiritual Plants would reach a remarkably high level.

After a moment’s thought, Chu Mu didn’t dwell on it. This Spirit Plant Garden had always been a side project, something he worked on in his spare time. The recent modifications were just an experiment to test some of his whimsical ideas, hoping to learn by analogy and accumulate a deeper foundation of knowledge.

He glanced around, then took a step and floated lightly into the air. Within a few breaths, he landed in the stone pavilion nestled within a bamboo grove.

With a flick of his sleeve, several Jade Scrolls appeared, hovering before him.

With a flick of his fingertip, an isolation Array Prohibition materialized, enveloping the stone pavilion and sealing it off from the outside world.

Only then did he turn his attention to the Jade Scrolls before him.

Chu Mu’s brow furrowed, his expression still full of bewilderment.

Nearly half a year had passed since he agreed to the Refining Treasure commission in the Demon Suppression Islands.

Three months ago, once the Teleportation Array in the Demon Suppression Islands was repaired, he had used the Refining Treasure commission as a pretext to, with Qing Ling’s help, teleport back to Chixia and escape the islands’ chaos.

Although he had returned to Chixia, the work of Refining the Treasure obviously couldn’t be interrupted.

For half a year, he had spent most of his time, day and night, observing and studying the logic-defying Half-human, Half-Flood Dragon, but he still hadn’t understood a single thing.

’A human is a human, a Flood Dragon is a Flood Dragon. The two shouldn’t coexist, yet within Qing Ling, they existed in a perfectly natural harmony.’

’In her human form, she possessed a pure Immortal Dao Cultivation. In her Flood Dragon form, she was a pure-blooded Tier Three Flood Dragon.’

’With my level of Cultivation and understanding, I couldn’t detect the slightest clue, even when Qing Ling opened herself up completely for my observation.’

His only gain in half a year was that he had used the pretext of Refining a Treasure for Qing Ling to requisition a large number of Artifact Books related to Lifebound Treasures from the Chen Family’s Scripture Pavilion.

He had, at least, managed to come up with a few ideas for Qing Ling’s Lifebound Treasure.

’Forget it!’

Chu Mu took a deep breath, his gaze growing calm.

’If I couldn’t find any clues after half a year under "Spiritual Radiance Blessing," it just means the miraculous nature of this Half-human, Half-Flood Dragon is far beyond what my current Cultivation Realm can fathom.’

’Dwelling on it any further is pointless. It would just be a waste of time and energy.’

’I’d be better off using this time and energy to finish designing Qing Ling’s Lifebound Treasure, refine it, and get this major task out of the way.’

As his thoughts shifted, "Spiritual Radiance Blessing" silently descended. Chu Mu casually picked up one of the Jade Scrolls, sent his Divine Sense into it, and became completely, single-mindedly focused...

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