NOVEL NEXT Chapter 403 - Mystical Mushroom
With the campsite set up, Jason spent a decent chunk of time relaxing as Lily hopped around the area. It wasn't the most exciting of places, but reminded her somewhat of her original home. Though the grass was way taller. In fact, some of the taller clumps of the stuff even extended above Jason's head. Most of it though tended to be around knee to waist high.
The grass itself doesn't actually look all that different and if Jason had to guess, the rabbit plains had a certain external pressure keeping the grass short. Lily on the other hand is having a fun time gnawing down the tall stalks of grass and chomping on them as she bounces around. She even starts to figure out how to hop around on the tops of the more sturdy grasses. Though that mostly involves putting all of her Energy into her feet and even then the grass would start to bend over if she stayed in one place long enough.
This does give Jason some ideas on how to replicate it. Because sure, he likely wouldn't be able to do it on grass that isn't being kept well trimmed, but on such grass or low lying vegetation he could probably use this to move without leaving a trail. An interesting idea that generally requires either specialized magic or high tier Qi manipulation.
Though these thoughts knocked him out of his state of relaxation, something that disappointed him. In the end it was bound to happen, but every moment of peaceful fun was worth its weight in gold to him. Not like the gold coins had any inherent value in the first place.
His new world had taken a few nasty turns before the current way things worked. Or didn't work as the case may be. Things definitely weren't perfect, but at least people had realized that the key to a happy life was moderation. So while the fact that gold coins in NeoRealm had no actual backing irl, people had managed to live with it. People just agreed that the gold had value and life went on.
These musings bring him back to his current situation and he looks over at his portable planter. The plants inside are looking a little worse for wear. Some had ripe fruit still hanging on, but overall Jason had missed a harvest cycle on everything. Even the Bloody Lingzhi had gotten outside of its useful stage of growth, having turned woody and much of the medicinal value turned into growth already.
One of the mushrooms however stands out. While as large as the others, its outer layer still has that springy texture and Jason can feel a great amount of power coming from it. The mushroom was still a normal bloody lingzhi, but it had managed to break through its own bottleneck of sorts. Not in a literal sense like a person hitting level ten, but metaphorically close.
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After all, even the longest lived trees have a finite lifespan and yet you always hear about thousand year ginseng or what have you. To exceed their natural lifespan requires a shift to their core being, going from a normal plant, to a mystical herb. At first this doesn't mean much, the plant will just start to use the mystical powers around it instead of passively allowing it to flow around. Over time though, if the area it is in has a high enough density of that power, the herb will absorb more than it can use and so the medical effects become more pronounced.
Thus the plant survives beyond what should be the end of its life and grows in power. With enough power density the plant can even gain a soul of its own. Though the idea of a thousand year old ginseng will generally not be literally true. Rather, by growing the plant in a more power dense region, a plant will be able to absorb more in a year than a year's worth. Useful for people trying to purposefully grow these kinds of plants. Though the whole soul thing needs actual time to pass as it involves the power that the plant has processed and not just that which is stored.
Of course Jason isn't too impressed with the bloody lingzhi. Sure, it has managed to pass through that bottleneck, but it was already halfway there having already been a Qi based plant. Still somewhat surprising though as like all of his plants, it wasn't actually what he would call a mystical herb. Sure, the lingzhi stored Qi in its body, but it wasn't actually processing the stuff. This was basically the difference between a wood bucket holding water and a tree absorbing it to live.
This change did mean one thing for Jason and his planter. He needed to cut back on his harvesting to an extent. If the bloody lingzhi was able to do this, then the others might also manage it. Though as Jason thinks about it, he realizes part of the reason the lingzhi managed this transformation might have to do with the fact that they had just been around numerous blood sacrifices.
In fact, this was quite likely the source of the change. After all, the planter and Jason's Roaming Loam ability both pull in the power from around him as he travels. With that many blood sacrifices going down and him having gotten so close to them, it was inevitable that some of it managed to filter into the plants.
Though this thought caused Jason a spike of panic that caused him to go over everything from the top of the plants to the bottom of the planter with a fine toothed comb. Because it wasn't just blood in the air. The Abyss had made itself known.
As luck would have it though, Jason didn't find a single speck of abyssal corruption. Sure, he had figured that it would be quite unlikely since both the planter and his ability come from the System, but better safe than sorry.