Xe Dian felt her body shift... and woke fully.
Blinking wearily, she felt a blanket fall off as she moved on a... chair?
A distant 'BANG' made her focus. "THE FIGHT!"
An absent voice answered her concerns. "Not really much of a fight."
She blinked... Right, the strange boy and his mystery guards. She felt her body relax slightly as she looked down at the blanket. "Is this yours?"
He nodded. "Sister Quan saw that your stress from battle and the shock from all that Soul Water trying to heal you was making you go into something like a healing trance. Drinking more of the..."
The blue hair child paused. "Point is, your body badly needed sleep. She's the one who gave you the blanket."
...And she HADN'T woken up when a stranger got that close? She clearly HAD been out of it. "Well, I'm still grateful. How goes the battle?"
Brother Adam pointed towards the distance. "The wolves are dead, and your Sect brothers and sisters are receiving lessons from my people on how to dismantle the bodies. Well, the ones mostly intact. As for the Vine Lion, that's still going on over that way."
...The black armored fighters had clearly drawn the fight much further away from the defensive caravan, and even from this distance she could see shapes dodging and random bright lights. "How... How long was I asleep?"
The boy shrugged. "An hour or two? Honestly, the fight would be over already if my people were allowed to fight without restrictions." He glared at... was he STILL drinking tea!?
...He took another sip. "Bluhgh. Anyway, that lion is one of the first Spirit Beasts I've seen in a long time that is part plant. My guards are trying to either subdue it for examination, or kill it with as little damage as possible... Meh, whatever keeps them busy."
She watched him flinch after another sip... and pour out the drink into a nearby hole. One presumably formed from the past samples. Huh.
She stood up. "Right. Rest or no, I need to get my people organized."
The boy nodded, even as he began to make another cup of test tea. "Take your time, there are no other Spirit Beasts for several miles and that test subject won't cause you problems."
Larger Sects sure looked at the world differently, huh?
Over the next two hours, she got things sorted. Thankfully her younger Brother and Sister Sect members were distracted by the nice, high level guest Cultivators teaching them how to harvest the Beast Cores, edible flesh, and craftable components from the (MANY) wolf carcasses... not having these wide-eyed, fresh face younglings underfoot was a massive relief, honestly.
The merchant clients were all VERY happy to not be consumed and lost to the wilderness, but it took time to dismantle the defences, recover what merchandise could be salvaged from the frantic defense building, and try to settle the beasts of burden.
Yeah, the Serpent Horses were NOT happy... getting them to calm down enough to hook back up to the carriages took hours alone!
By the time the caravan was prepared to move, she found her young Sect fellows had finished their impromptu class and was being led through some meditation exercises by a young looking lady. "Hey, thanks for taking care of my people. I'm Xe Dian."
She smiled and shook her hand. "Sister Xiao Quan. It's lovely to meet you. I'm sure Brother Adam mentioned me."
Right, blanket lady. From her spiritual senses, she wasn't even at the Xiantian Realm yet... possibly a younger member on a quest like her own ducklings were. "A pleasure. I can't thank you or your people enough for helping our people out of a dire situation."
Sister Quan chuckled. "If you want to settle the score easily enough, could you introduce me to your clients? Our team has been traveling in the wilderness for a while, and we need ALL KINDS of supplies and some such." Gesturing at one of the piles of wolf pelts, she grinned. "Hopefully they may wish to buy some of these materials as well."
Sister Dian snorted. "Well, hope away. The whole time I was trying to wrangle the group together I kept getting requests to talk to your people... if for no other reason, than to buy the fresh meat. We've been eating dried rations and travel bread for weeks now."
Sister Quan got... an odd look in her eye. "Interesting... tell me, would you say they were willing to be taste testers for some fresh but odd food Adam's been growing?"
She blinked. "What?" Hang on. "This isn't like the tea thing, is it? I won't have my people or those under my guard be experimented on."
Yes, that was a shifty look. "No? Only Adam eats the poisoned stuff. No, we have a whole lot of odd fruit, strange herbs, and unusual vegetables... a LOT. Other than the high spiritual energy levels, they are completely safe to consume."
Her eyes narrowed. "Then what is the catch?"
Sister Quan slumped. "The taste. Ranges from bland, to super spicy, to sour, to... anything. I've been using our guards to help us study and categorize stuff, but... but there is just so much to check! Most of it isn't enjoyable to eat, no matter HOW good for cultivation it may be."
Hmm. "No odd side effects?"
The other woman snorts. "LOTS of odd side effects, but those are easy to detect and we have Brother Adam eat those. He also eats the poisoned ones and the more strange stuff, like the fruits made of fire or water."
What?
Seeing her expression, Sister Quan pulled an... apple? Or an odd mango? It looked like blue glass. "This is one of our more valuable discoveries when we examined our produce. No official name yet, although Adam's disciple calls them 'Wapples' since they are water apples. Feels like gelatine or jelly, turns into liquid water when warmed up in the mouth."
She looked at the thing. "Adam had to eat it first, because we have a similar fruit that looks almost the same and is made of some sort of acid." She frowned. "He still eats the acid ones. Says they are 'tingly'." An eye roll. "Boys."
Sister Dian blinked. "May I?"
Accepting the Apple, she examined it. Slightly cool, an almost rubbery texture when squeezed... no 'leaking' to the touch. A cautious bite... almost instantly her mouth was full of crisp, clean water... with maybe a hint of fresh apple taste to it. Very lovely!
Her mind raced.
A plant (bush, tree, or otherwise) that could produce these? A harvest of potable portable preservable water? SHE wouldn't mind having a few on hand, and the caravan would surely see the benefit.
Moreover, something was off about it.
She nibbled near her last bite mark... and her mouth filled with water again.
This water was... sort of compressed. Not physically, it almost stored itself in a twisted way inside itself... one bite was MORE than one mouth full of water. "This is amazing!"
The other woman nodded happily. "It may be one of the more normal results of Adam's gardening, but I think it has the most potential for trade!" The woman glanced to the side and whispered. "So, willing to help me meet a few people?"
Storing the rest of this... 'Wapple' in her own storage ring, she nodded. "Alright. And... you say the other types of food are less... interesting?" A nod. "Then I am willing to have a minor amount of taste testing. But only if they volunteer. And I must observe it all."
The fact that she herself knew some techniques to determine if food was safe to eat? Well, no reason to tell anybody. Trust but verify, after all... the safety of her people was paramount.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam was trying to be patient.
Sure, he and Rockette MIGHT have redirected an attack or two, and MAYBE used some Momentum Redirection through his Domain to alter a few vine attack trajectories... but he mostly stayed out of the fight.
Sitting here.
Wasting damn time and poisoning himself.
Yes, he could just rip the lion's head off. Or drain it of energy, causing its body to die from shock. Or move at high speed and crush the damn thing.
But his guards had asked to help out, and so he would just... nudge things a bit.
After all, even though his guards were very powerful, normal Spirit Beasts battles had consequences. Deaths were near zero probability here, they WERE professionals after all, but with a beast this strong? Major injuries were expected.
Not that Adam would tolerate it.
Another 'nudge' gave one of the guards time to dodge, her form a near shadow as she carefully retaliated. Capture or 'clean kill' were both far harder than just wiping a monster from existence, after all.
He himself was trying to focus on the tea thing.
It had developed into a little hobby at this point, the taste testing and such. Something that didn't require thinking about, and was achievable while flying backwards during travel. Not like he could do much experimentation or tinkering... but only minor wind redirection was needed to ensure safe tea drinking conditions while moving away from scary swamp land.
Right now though? He was using the tea drinking to help distract himself.
For some reason, just letting other people fight? NOT jumping in, slapping stuff around? Way harder than he expected.
Adam forced himself to move slowly as he measured more dried leaves.
Had he always been one to just... leap at everything?
...Yeah, probably.
He sensed a younger man from the merchant group move close. "Young Master?"
Blink. Right, he did sort of show up and save everyone. Respect still caught him off guard though. "Yes?"
The young man was older than Adam and Sister Quan... but his attitude made it difficult to consider the guy as an adult. "I overheard your female companion mention that you were interested in trading for odd plants." He moved a wooden box onto the tea table.
As the case opened, he saw a grid of small wooden dividers... and a number of oddly shaped seeds. Cubes, spirals, and more... with colors of all types!
The man grinned. "I may have a bit of a personal collection. Told my wife they'd be useful some day."
Adam grinned as he placed the smoking cup to the side. "Tell me more."
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam over paid.
Adam over paid by a LOT.
He knew it. The merchant knew it. The guards and little Tianshi inside Rockette knew it. Sister Quan didn't know it yet, but she would find out at some point and Adam KNEW he would get some rants.
It didn't matter.
NONE of that mattered.
Rockette had over a hundred new seed samples, and they were genetically AMAZING.
Because the man wasn't a farmer. He sold advanced, very expensive ovens. Custom designed with rare materials to ensure better results. Bulky, annoying to move, yet powerful and well built.
Adam bought ten of those too. And yes, he knew he would get a rant about that at some point, even if Rockette had already installed them in the Crystal Caverns.
Anyway, back to the point: This man did not buy and sell plants or seeds or saplings.
It really, truly was his personal collection. One his wife nagged him about, one that he treasured, one that he spent far too much money constructing and way too long searching for new items to include.
A labor of love, to the point where even with the extreme prices being offered... the man refused to sell the entire case. It had taken convincing, money, and offering a few rare seeds produced by the Soil Grid Gardens... and in the end, Adam only got one of each seed.
But for Adam? One seed was enough.
Adam had gone to one of the wagons, paid to be a passenger, then zoned out as he meditated. To the point where Rockette had to handle moving people in and out of the Caverns, and ensuring Sister Quan could access the funds and deposit whatever she was buying.
Adam however, was focusing within.
Rare plants are sometimes considered the lifeblood of Sects, a reproducing treasure that requires far less work than rearing Spirit Beasts, and far safer to boot. Some of the more rare trees or bushes were protected so tightly outsiders weren't sure if they even existed.
Seeds in general however, are cheap. Dirt cheap.
The reason why? Near impossible to grow.
Every plant needs certain things to flourish. Specific temperature ranges, humidity levels, soil moisture content, mineral content, shade patterns... even one being off could kill the more delicate greenery.
But conceptual plants? A billion times more complicated.
Sometimes this plant would need to be grown near a particular metal. Or be burned to ash at a specific moment in the growth cycle. Or eaten an unknown number of times.
Worse, what if a seed needs to be planted in a place full of hate? Or in the corpse of some other, older plant? This was a conceptual plane after all, it was entirely possible that the length of the planter's name might affect the result somehow.
It was why this man's seed collection had so many samples of each one, and why he was (reluctantly) willing to sell ANY of them: a cultivator needed dozens of each seed sample to ensure at least a few may grow to some extent.
And if it was a rare plant? Hundreds, maybe thousands of seeds... still might not be enough.
Adam watched a new cavern inside his Martial Spirit form, filled with a duplicate Soil Grid. His energy levels plummeted, then Rockette's excess stores began to fall... as he substituted power to ensure speed of completion.
Because this whole cavern, so large in scope and so distant in scale?
This was JUST for experimenting with one. Single. Seed.
His body slowly grinned a demonic smile as he forced more and more Soil Grids into new caves, uncaring about the enormous energy expenditure as he required the Soil samples to duplicate far faster than the default rate.
It wasn't a waste. After 'Research' finishes the various tests, these growth chambers can be sterilized and used again. Before, he was allowing Rockette to use a single garden for the various tests mostly because the test materials were generic stuff from the Sect or the wild.
Nothing neat. Nothing cool.
As he made a few dedicated caves to continue to grow the many successful food combinations already discovered by his people, Adam winced. Right, maybe that was TOO much of an energy expenditure.
He would have to make do with only seven Soil Grid Growth Caves.
For now.
Eyes sparkling, Adam ignored the world as seven massive fields of potential began to be planted with duplicated seed samples.
Seeds from a personal collection.
Seeds so rare, so impossible to grow, that Sects didn't bother to sell them or search them out... but belonging to plants so amazing, these worthless products cost a fortune to gather.
No wonder that dude's wife was pissed at him. It was like spending your retirement funds to buy moon rocks or paint chips from famous houses. A niche item collected by a strange fanatic.
Adam watched those so called 'worthless' seeds be duplicated and planted into soil types ranging from the mundane to the impossible. ONE of them would work. Probably.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Tianshi was watching her Master move the Soil Grid Garden... then make six more. "Huh."
Mr. Whiskers suddenly focused on one of the screens Rockette had set up. She blinked. "That one? Uh... Rockette?"
Ding!
Huh. It was a spiritual herb seed called the 'Elven Forest'. Rockette of course recorded all the details that the gushing merchant had mentioned over each sample, but this was an odd one.
It would theoretically grow deep underground, unseen by anyone... then in one night, become a dense tropical forest. All the roots were just part of this one plant, and the deeper an intruder would investigate the more valuable the materials within would be.
And the more dangerous.
The thing basically devoured plants in the area for samples, and produced a massive habitat for nearby animals and people. Their waste and byproducts from hunts or whatever would become nutrients for the forest itself. Due to the nature of the forest, and how it promoted harmony through subtle chemical means through pollination, most people considered it a harmless wonder.
Until someone tried to attack it.
Cut down a few trees? Nothing happened. The unused lumber would vanish into the forest as an additional food source.
Try to catch it on fire? The forest becomes a death trap. Safe water becomes deadly just before being drunk or gathered. Massive branches would fall on targets with unusual accuracy. Unseen pits would open. Footing became hazardous.
Wandering people would vanish.
It created the myth of secret elves hiding away from society, defending their home from any who didn't respect the trees... though if that was true or not, it was impossible to say.
Tianshi watched the 'Elven Forest' seeds being planted... and glanced concerned at the ones sinking into the more scary looking Soil Squares. "That... isn't going to make a haunted woods, is it?"
...There was no 'Ding'. Which was slightly concerning.
Another seed in a different cavern was suddenly being planted, drawing the concerned girl away from her thoughts. "Ooh! That seed is glowing! What does THAT one do?"
Ding!
...It grew a perfectly normal tree.
Upside down.
Roots up in the air, leaves under the dirt. The roots absorbed wind and air and stuff, the leaves acted like compost. Normally farmers would plant near the thing because the soil was healthier nearby.
...That was a bit boring. It didn't even have a fun name... just the 'Compost Tree'.
Lame.
Ooh! That seed has tiny wiggly bits on it! Neat!
AWW! Why did Rockette change the display screen? Go back to the wiggly plant!
