1082 Picking Mushrooms

Alex couldn't wait to take all of the mushrooms that were there. There were hundreds of them scattered around the tree and even further around the forest which was giving him an incredible sense of happiness.

Now, even if he hadn't improved the ingredients itself, he could still make a pill that could most likely bring forth the pill clouds.

"I should be leaving quick, so I can't waste my time anymore," he thought and grabbed the closest mushroom to pick it. However, just as he grabbed it, the mushroom suddenly turned murky white in color and adopted patches of yellow and black all over it.

Alex stepped backward in surprise. "What the hell?" he thought. "Why did it suddenly change color?"

He understood that the mushroom could copy energy from other ingredients, but that should have been it right? Could it copy from a cultivator as well after coming into contact with them?

"The color doesn't make any sense though," he thought. "My Qi has no elemental attribute to it. Or is it actually taking the Yin and Yang energy that is mixed into my Qi separately? Can it even do that?"

The information on the uses of the pill had nothing about it, so Alex went on to look at the rest of the information it had.

More accurately, the way to pick it without ruining it.

"Oh, I see," he thought with a blank look on his face. As unique as the mushroom was, the way to pick it was also equally unique.

First of all, you were absolutely not allowed to touch it by hand, even less using your Qi. You needed to use items that did not have any sort of energy in them.

Artifacts were out of the list of things you could use as they mostly contained Qi. Instead, you could use normal tools, especially ones created by mortals using metals that weren't affected by Qi.

As long as you could use something that was not affected by any Qi or the 7 elements, you were fine. As for after actually picking it, there was less threat as the mushroom went dormant unless kept around something that had a lot of energy.

Alex frowned a little. 'Do I even have anything like that?' he wondered. The answer was obviously no.

He couldn't use his hands or Qi as they were affected by the yin and yang in his body, and similarly, Midnight couldn't be used as well as it was affected by yin as well.

There was no tool with him he could really use, but thankfully, he didn't need tools.

His hand moved as the dao of cutting took over it. At the same time, he manipulated space to use it alongside the Dao of space to make a small separation of space that moved along, separating the other things in its path.

The distance Alex could send this wasn't very high, and it also took more out of him mentally due to having to use two dao together, instead of one after another.

However, doing that helped him correctly cut the mushroom by its stem and he now had a pure white mushroom.

Alex hesitated to grab it in fear that he might ruin it again, but what use was that fear when the Alchemy God's knowledge had told him it would not?

He grabbed the now cut-off mushroom and looked at it. "Truly world-defying," he thought. He wondered what sort of energy structure an ingredient of this type must have, so he used his Dao to check the energy composition in the mushroom.

Alex's eyes opened wide in shock when he learned the answer.

Nothing. The was no energy in there that he could check.

His brows raised in shock, but the shock wasn't there because the mushroom didn't have any energy in it. That could never be true after all. Everything in this world had energy, this one just wasn't one of the 7 elemental energies he could easily check.

However, there weren't that many things with this sort of lack of energy types. In fact, he could name only 3 other ones, and with the addition of this mushroom, the list had grown to 4.

"The Three Demonic Plants," he thought as his eyes became the widest they had in a very long time. "I found another descendant of the Three Demonic Plants."

Alex was sure of it. This made his discovery here even more worth it.

"I wonder which one of the four shares a common ancestor," he thought. Since there were 4 of them, there had to be a common thread for at least two of them.

The four plants he was talking about were obviously the Spirit Cleansing Lily, the Divine Devil's fruit, the World Defying Mushroom, and finally, the seed of the World Tree."

'They do share the word 'world' in them, so maybe that's the one,' Alex thought. He looked at the mushroom in his hand with awe on his face that had grown even more now.

"Oh no, I should probably keep you," he thought and stored the mushroom in a separate storage bag. As it was now, he didn't dare keep them in the same place as the other ingredients which was his storage ring.

Alex cut off a few more of the mushrooms and stored them as well. "Sigh, it's going to take a while," he thought. "I hope I make it in time."

He cut off some more and stored them as well. After doing this for a while, he stopped at one point as he held the mushroom in his hands.

"Will it ruin with just being in my hand?" he wondered. Since he had to use Qi to put it in and out of the storage bag, he wondered if that would affect it at all.

A minute passed, but nothing changed at all. He was safe with keeping the mushroom as after it was separated from its roots, it wasn't as harsh to the surrounding.

"My palms must not be releasing that much Qi," he thought and looked at his own hands. His vision changed slightly as his Demon Eyes worked to show him barely any black and yellow colors moving in his arm.

'There's not much here,' he thought. Even the surrounding didn't have much energy, which was most likely why it thrived here.

Right then, they sensed someone coming closer and quickly turned around to look at who it was.

"Brother Alex, what are you doing here? You should be leaving," the man said.

"Oh, hey harry," Alex said. "Yeah, I should be leaving. Just give me a few minutes."

Alex saw the green, blue, and dull brown colors floating around Harry and was worried that he would affect the mushroom with his presence.

"What are you even doing here?" Harry asked. "Are you picking those mushrooms, brother Alex?"

"Yes, that is what I'm doing," Alex said.

"Let me help you," Harry said and moved forward but Alex stopped him.

"I will do it on my own," Alex said.

"Okay then," Harry said. "Ah right, how're your ingredients coming along? I hope you're taking our competition seriously. I will be angry if you weren't."

"No, I'm doing my share of the task," Alex said. He wasn't picking any mushrooms at the moment as he couldn't show his cutting dao or his space dao.

"Ah, great then," Harry said. "Finish this quickly, I'll go out and wait for you."

Harry started to leave, but Alex spoke quickly. "Wait, there's something I have to ask you," he said.

"Oh? What is it brother Alex?" Harry asked.

"Actually, I'm still a bit confused about the Composition and Structure you were telling me about beforehand. Do you think you can teach me some more about it once we leave?" he asked.

"Oh sure," Harry said. "Anything you want, brother Alex. But we really should be leaving soon."

Alex nodded. Then, he attacked.

Harry didn't realize when Alex moved, only when he struck. His chest felt a sudden pain from the strike and in the next instance, he was nowhere near where he was in the forest.

He was somewhere on the other side of the river outside the forest and Alex was with him, his hand still in contact with his chest.

Harry fell back in pain and struggled to stand up straight with the incredible amount of pain his face showed. "What the hell, brother Alex? Why did you attack me?" he asked.

"I was trying to kill you, but it seems you are stronger than you appear to be," Alex said as he brought out midnight. He was sad that he couldn't use his blood aura, but that might have alerted him to his intentions.

That and he had to get away from the mushroom before the fight broke out so he didn't affect the mushrooms by the aura around him.

"Kill me? But why?" Harry asked with a frustrated look on his face. "I thought of you as my brother."

"Stop the act," Alex said. "Who are you exactly? An assassin? Are you friends with the Jade-Faced Assassin?"

Harry's eyes shined slightly when he heard the information, but his face never gave away the pained expression. "What? No, I'm Harry," he said. "Have you gone mad, brother Alex?"

"You fell for my question," Alex said. "It was I who taught Harry, not the other way around. You can drop the act, you've been found out."

Harry's pained face suddenly disappeared as he stood straight with a smirk on his face. He spread his arms wide as if in surrender.

"Congratulations, you got me."