1928 The Unknown Seed

Now that the Snow Glass Pear was successfully planted, Lin Mu decided to move on to the second seed he had.

"Senior, I want you to take a look at this seed." Lin Mu took out the reward that he had gotten from Crown Princess Shang.

"Oh?" Xukong got closer and looked at the seed which was resting on a small pillow inside a box.

"I got this as a reward, but have no idea what it is. Even Crown Princess Shang was unable to determine that and couldn't grow it." Lin Mu informed.

"Hmm… it is rather normal looking on the surface," Xukong said as he scanned the seed with his own senses.

From the outside, it was impossible to determine what kind of seed it was. There were far too many seeds that looked the same, and as such finding out what they were would be a game of roulette.

Xukong analyzed the seed for over five minutes but was unable to come up with an answer.

"Is there a problem, Senior?" Lin Mu questioned thinking of the worst.

He wondered if the seed had long since died and would never be able to grow.

"Yes… while the seed does have life in it, I don't know what it is. It's unlike anything I've seen… or rather, it feels like a mix of several things. Hard to determine its true identity." Xukong spoke up.

"Mix of things? A hybrid?" Lin Mu questioned.

"Not necessarily. There's always a chance that it is an entirely different kind of plant, and merely has a Qi signature that makes it seem like it's a hybrid. After all, there are an uncountable number of plants in the universe. And that number only keeps on changing. One can't expect to know all of them.

"That is true." Lin Mu nodded his head.

Even knowing all the plants in a single world itself was a challenge that Immortals would have a hard time overcoming.

Lin Mu had read about competitions between herbalists who competed on who knew how many world's worth of plants.

If one knew one or two worlds worth of plants, it was already a big achievement. But considering the scope of the universe that had an infinite number of worlds, which could also have an infinite number of plants, things became exponentially difficult to compute.

"Well, there is one way to figure out what this seed is," Xukong spoke up.

"And what is that?" Lin Mu asked.

"You've just done it," Xukong replied. "Simply plant it and see if the Sleepscape accepts it. That way we'll have eliminated at least a few possibilities." He explained.

"Ah yeah. I'm looking for sentient plants anyway, and if it doesn't grow and is rejected by the Sleepscape, it doesn't matter what it is in the end, regardless." Lin Mu nodded his head. "Plus Crown Princess Shang has tested various methods of nurturing on it, and none of them worked. Which means I don't need to worry about setting up some unique array either." 

With that said, Lin Mu directly dug a spot and dropped the unknown seed inside it. And once he covered it up, he watched it with anticipation.

A minute passed, and Lin Mu held his breath. This was the point at which the ground would tremble and eject the seed.

'No change yet… I'll wait more.' Lin Mu thought and waited.

Another minute passed, and there was still no change.

"I'll wait for a while more, just to be sure." Lin Mu didn't want to get his hopes up for nothing.

Lin Mu waited for an entire ten minutes, after which there was still no change in the ground.

"Looks like it has accepted it." Xukong was the one to break the silence. "The Sleepscape accepts it as a sentient plant." 

~phew~

Lin Mu let out the breath he was holding and felt much better. 

"It hasn't sprouted though." Lin Mu said, seeing the flat ground. 

Unlike the Snow Glass Pear Seed, which had sprouted right away, this unknown seed was taking much longer.

"Hmm… Perhaps it needs a bit of a nudge?" Xukong suggested.

Hearing this, Lin Mu had an idea. 

"Little Shrubby, can you see if your Wood Immortal Qi works on this?" Lin Mu asked the beast.

"Okay! I'll try." Little Shrubby quickly appeared next to him and released a mass of Wood Elemental Immortal Qi.

~shua~

The Wood Elemental Immortal Qi flowed into the spot on the ground where Lin Mu was pointing. It successfully entered the ground, and Lin Mu could tell that the unknown seed had fully absorbed the Wood Elemental Immortal Qi.

"It absorbed it, so that looks like a good sign," Lin Mu muttered.

They waited for a minute, but there was still no change.

"Do I give it more?" Little Shrubby asked.

"Yeah, let's see if it needs more." Lin Mu replied.

~shua~

Little Shrubby injected more Wood Elemental Immortal Qi into the ground, while Lin Mu observed it being absorbed by the unknown seed.

"Still no reaction." Xukong spoke.

The second dose of Qi was not enough for the seed either.

"Hmm…" Lin Mu furrowed his brows as he calculated his options. "Inject as much wood elemental immortal Qi as you can, Little Shrubby. We'll see how much it can eat." He stated.

"Alright! If it can eat this much, it must have some really good fruits!" Little Shrubby said and opened his mouth.

~HUMM~

Wood Elemental Immortal Qi flowed out from his Dantian and entered his meridians before gathering at his mouth. The gaseous Qi coalesced into a ball and continued to grow. More and more wood elemental Immortal Qi was gathered until the ball had grown to a size of a meter.

The ball might just be a meter in size, but the amount of Qi contained within it was several times larger than that. It was just that Little Shrubby had condensed it greatly.

A few more minutes later, the ball had grown even more and had taken on a viscous look!