The discovery that the Spirit apple tree was sentient was rather interesting to Lin Mu. He tried to test out some things with the Spirit Apple tree and learned more about it.
The first thing he learned was that it didn't like spirit herbs getting close to it. It wasn't just the wood spirit tulip, but some spirit herb that Lin Mu placed near the Spirit apple tree would get either smashed into the ground or pushed away.
Though there was also a rule to that. The Spirit apple tree only responded if there were spirit herbs that were either newly harvested or still had enough vitality to be considered 'alive'.
"Hmm… so basically it doesn't want competition from other spirit herbs?" Lin Mu guessed.
"That does seem understandable. Even normal trees in nature will reject other plants that grow near them and will try to suppress their growth if not kill them. They usually do this by covering the area with their trees or sucking out the nutrients from the soil." Xukong replied.
"Could be possible. But doesn't this also mean that the spirit apple tree thinks other spirit herbs and plants can grow in this place?" Lin Mu realized.
"That… might just be possible. It didn't work when you last tried planting spirit herbs here, right?" Xukong said.
"Yes, the soil would just push out the spirit herb or the seed, whatever I planted. The Sleepscape would oppose the changes I made. Only the Graves of my parents and the spirit stone vein were freely taken in by it." Lin Mu spoke.
"If it took the both of them, then it means there is a certain level of sentience to it. It can listen to you, but only in certain conditions it seems like." Xukong stated.
"Hmm, then we need to figure out what those conditions are." Lin Mu replied.
"Well, the first test can be done right away, after all you have a test subject right here." Xukong pointed to the Spirit Wood Tulip.
Lin Mu smiled and went to grab the Spirit wood tulip. He then brought it some distance away from the Spirit apple tree and dug a hole in the ground. Unlike what normally happened, the hole didn't fill up automatically and he could finish digging a sufficiently deep hole.
"Here goes nothing…" Lin Mu muttered as he placed the Wood Spirit tulip in the hole.
~creep~
The roots of the Wood Spirit tulip moved again, but didn't attack Lin Mu this time. Instead, they withdrew into its body and then drilled into the ground. At first it was slow, but then, as if it had found something good, it started to rapidly grow.
"Whoa!" Lin Mu exclaimed as the Wood Spirit tulip started to change.
The two leaves on top that were wilted, became healthy looking and the bent stalk became straight again. The stalk then started to grow upwards as more leaves sprouted on it.
One, two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty two!
Only after the number of leaves reached thirty two and the stalk became a meter tall did the Wood Spirit Tulip stop growing.
Lin Mu furrowed his brows and checked the Wood Spirit tulip with his spirit sense.
"So it broke thorough… its equivalent to a Nascent soul realm being now." Lin Mu said after sensing the spirit Qi fluctuations.
~rustle~
The leaves of the Wood Spirit tulip peacefully swayed in the air and it looked to be happy. Lin Mu carefully extended his hand and touched the Wood Spirit tulip.
"Huh, it actually doesn't attack now." Lin Mu said with surprise.
"It has probably found a steady source of spirit Qi from the soil." Xukong spoke.
"Oh yes, the spirit source vein! It is probably providing it with spirit Qi that caused this breakthrough." Lin Mu realized.
"This should have accelerated its growth by at least a coupled hundred years." Xukong reckoned.
"Maybe. The one that the author of that book saw only had ten leaves. But it also had a flower." Lin Mu replied.
"Hmm… perhaps the flower's growth depends on something else." Xukong guessed.
"Hopefully it grows. Though.. Now that we know this works, let's try with other herbs too." Lin Mu stated.
"Go on," Xukong prodded.
Lin Mu took some of the recently harvested spirit herbs and seeds that still had a lot of vitality and tried to plant them. While he was able to make a hole in the soil, the planted spirit herbs and seeds were pushed out by the Sleepscape's soil.
~Sigh~
"This doesn't work." Lin Mu said, feeling a bit disappointed.
"Well, this is another learning point. Now we know not just any live spirit herb or seed will work." Xukong replied.
"Mm… perhaps only those that are sentient like the Wood Spirit tulip can be grown here." Lin Mu guessed.
"You'll have to find another such spirit herb to confirm that point." Xukong stated.
"Yes, we are near the Great Southern forest, so we have the best chance of finding one. I'll ask the elders of the Noon Grass sect to see if they have any clues." Lin Mu said.
"That will make it a bit easier." Xukong agreed.
Having learned these new things, Lin Mu felt good and finished sorting all the items before putting them back into the ring. It was safe to say, Lin Mu had enough fortune right now to build an entire sect on his own if he ever needed.
Not only did he have the direct cultivation resources like spirit stones and other materials, be he also had a substantial number of cultivation techniques and various Qi skills.
He even had auxiliary cultivation knowledge like alchemical pill refinement records, formation creation records and the weapon forging records.
While Lin Mu had no intention of making a sect and neither had he really thought about it, he wouldn't be averse to doing something like that in the future. Though he didn't know if putting down roots and settling was something for him, since he wanted to explore and learn about the many worlds.
The universe was vast and he had many worlds to walk on…
