[NR] First Look At How The Flower Works - Chapter 716

Jason leaned up against his fence, mouth set in a frown as he watched the, ugh, mirrored jade blossoms. ‘I really need to figure out if I can at least get people to abbreviate the name.’ Though Jason admits to himself that part of his dislike of the name is that it reminds him of some unpleasant aspects from his last life.

Cultivators just love their long descriptive names. Jason can’t even claim to be beyond it himself. Whatever the case, these plants were wrong.

It had taken him some time, but Jason nailed it down. They can’t grow in NeoRealm proper or his portable planter because they’re incomplete. The Deep Wilds were supporting the plants in a similar manner to how he had heard that Dream supported its own unrealistic nonsense.

While anything is possible, only what is actually possible is going to transition to elsewhere. The Deep Wilds simply kept more towards what was possible within NeoRealm than other halfway realms and similar such flights of fancy. Or rather, the regions connected to NeoRealm proper were. Jason did not doubt that if you went far enough, you would find completely alien natural laws.

Of course, this isn’t the first herb discovered with this sort of properly. In fact, it would be more appropriate to say this was the norm. After all, there was a reason stuff retrieved from the Deep Wilds was seen as one-offs. It is only those things found close to the edge that match closely enough to make the transition.

Jason closed his eyes, he was likely about to make a name for himself. While this exact problem wasn’t common in his last life. A similar issue involving herbs and animals found in ancient ruins was common enough. More to the point, those herbs out of time were generally accompanied by alchemy recipes, which made people highly motivated when it came to figuring out how to raise the herbs.

So while there was a bit of hubris, Jason figured he has an alright chance of fixing the plant. However! The key would not be creating a cultivar that could grow in NeoRealm. That was the easy step, replicated many times over both here and in his last life.

After all, plants Want to grow. Keeping the plants in NeoRealm as much as possible over a few generations should be enough. Or rather, seeing which plants survive the extended exposure to NeoRealm proper and culling the rest would do it.

There was one catch. Not in how easy it would be, because it is just that simple. Rather, the catch was in making sure the plant kept the beneficial properties it had and didn’t develop any nasty side effects.

The mirrored jade blossom had the property of taking the place of regular herbs and reversing whether you could easily make a pill or potion. Both such effects, when you get down to it, are odd. There are reasons that to recover Qi you use one type of herb and to recover Mana you use another. There are reasons that despite the many recipes and herbs, Mana tends to make potions while Qi tends to form pills.

For the blossom to break the rules? It meant something in them was also broken and Jason would need to make sure that in “fixing” them so they grow in NeoRealm. He doesn’t also “fix” those quirks.

First step? Isolate the reason they work and figure out how to test for it without paying someone to make a batch of pills and a batch of potions.

Jason smirked as he began testing the entire plant. While it was the blossom that held the beneficial properties, sometimes the actual source could be elsewhere. Like how the clover he just examined gathered power in the leaves, and sent it to the flower.

With a grown plant cupped in his hands, Jason extends his Energy. He does this ever so gently until any part brushes up against the plant. Soon his hands are full of Energy, with a rough carve out for the flower.

Test 1 complete. The plant was self contained and didn’t project anything. Jason steadies himself and draws away his Energy, only to extend the thinnest of probes. This bit of Energy coming directly from his core, still more delicate than he can make himself, though it is closer now.

Jason begins at the roots, literally poking around with the probe. All to get a feel for anything. Then the stem and leaves. Except as he expected, only the stem had anything and even that was near the blossoms, this particular plant having two flowers.

From the get go, Jason knew there wouldn’t be any powers to be found. Or rather, the alchemist who first worked out the basic use of the plant had told him so. Still, he had to try and not because he thought the alchemist might have missed something.

That alchemist was one of the nearby settlements best at analyzing the oddities that come out of the Deep Wilds. Rather, in knowing there wouldn’t be anything, Jason used this as a chance to calibrate his own senses for such a thing. Though he would have a ton of chances going forward as this was likely one of the reasons the plant didn’t grow in NeoRealm.

That left the blossoms. Which, with a few pokes begin to reveal their secrets. Though Jason doubts many besides him or a proper alchemist would get far in analyzing them.

Within both flowers there is a delicate balance. It isn’t Energy, which was Jason’s first suspicion. Energy would make sense as it could turn into either Mana or Qi as needed, except that resulting power wouldn’t be unique in any way and so produce normal pills and potions.

Besides, while free floating Energy is easy to convert, this wouldn’t be free floating. Rather, the Energy would be bound to the structure of the plant in a similar, if less power, way to how Jason’s own Energy is bound up in his core. The effort to convert into one or the other would not be worth it.