Seed of Dao

Thank-you note?

"What actually happened?" Ye Chen couldn't help but mutter when witnessing his body had returned to normal.

His experience just now was truly beyond his imagination, and he couldn't understand it at all. But he remembered, all the previous things started from the black seed that suddenly entered his forehead.

"That necklace..." Ye Chen immediately checked his chest and didn't find the small black seed, only the string made of leather remained.

"Did it really enter my forehead?"

Ye Chen wasn't sure, and began to examine himself using his spiritual consciousness. Until finally he found that the seed that previously entered his forehead was still there, floating in the middle of his forehead, right between both his eyebrows.

Its size was slightly larger than before, and its shape became perfectly round. Although it was still pitch black, faintly Ye Chen realized he had a connection with it.

Then he tried to look deeper, and once again his soul appeared in that strange room.

Looking around and finding that it was indeed the same place, a ten square meter space with gray walls and black earth, Ye Chen finally became certain that his soul could indeed enter the black seed in his forehead anytime.

Looking back at the mysterious small tree standing in the middle of the room, Ye Chen looked at it for a long time with mixed feelings.

But as he stared at the small tree, two beams of golden light suddenly came out from the small tree and directly shot toward his forehead!

"What—!" Ye Chen didn't even have time to react before the two golden rays entered his forehead.

WHOOSH!

Very large information directly flooded his brain! Ye Chen screamed soundlessly, his soul body trembling violently. But different from when touching the tree's leaf before, this time the incoming information wasn't brutal, more like water flowing slowly.

Several moments later, the golden light faded, and Ye Chen panted. His head felt bloated from being filled with two types of very extensive knowledge.

The first was knowledge about alchemy. Names of spiritual herbs, ways to process and refine pills, ingredient combinations, all basic information about alchemy flowed into his head.

But what was strange was, although the information had entered his brain, Ye Chen felt he could only understand a small part. Maybe about ten percent. The rest was still covered in fog, as if waiting to be opened in the future.

"Is my memory not strong enough to receive all this information?" Ye Chen muttered with a pale face.

But although only ten percent, the knowledge he understood was already very extensive. Names of hundreds of spiritual herbs, dozens of types of pills for qi refinement cultivators, all of that was now in his head.

And the second was a cultivation technique.

Five Elements Return to Origin (Guiyuan Gong).

The technique's name sounded clearly in his head. Different from alchemy knowledge, he could fully understand this cultivation technique, from qi refinement first level to grand qi perfection.

What most shocked him was the explanation at the beginning of the technique: Guiyuan Gong didn't require a specific spiritual root. All five elements could be trained with this technique.

Ye Chen's eyes opened wide. Didn't require a specific spiritual root?

Ye Chen remembered, when he looked for information in the market before, he heard that to cultivate immortality, one must have a spiritual root matching the cultivation technique being trained. Water techniques could only be trained by those with water spiritual roots, and so on.

As for Ye Chen, he didn't know what his spiritual root was. He also didn't know how to check it. But he was sure he had a spiritual root, because he could practice cultivation.

All this time, he was always hesitant to practice other formulas he obtained. But now, with this Guiyuan Gong, he didn't need to worry anymore!

Carefully, Ye Chen touched one of the tree's black leaves with his consciousness, and returned to his physical body.

---

When Ye Chen opened his eyes in the inn room, he immediately examined the knowledge he had just received.

From the ten percent of alchemy knowledge he could understand, Ye Chen finally learned the names of pills he hadn't known all this time.

The seven white pills were Vitality Pills, healing pills for qi refinement cultivators. The four blue pills were Qi Gathering Pills, pills that increased qi absorption speed. The four red pills were Blood Burst Pills, pills that increased strength by burning blood.

As for the herbs he had, Green Qi Grass, Spiritual Ginseng Root, Blue Lotus Leaves, all were ingredients for making Qi Gathering Pills. But still missing the main ingredient.

"If only I could plant and care for them myself..." Ye Chen muttered, then suddenly fell silent.

The space inside the seed!

If the small tree could grow inside the space, couldn't spiritual herbs also grow?

Without waiting any longer, Ye Chen immediately sent his soul back into the space, while bringing several herb seeds in his hand.

Moments later, he appeared beside the small tree. Carefully, he began planting those seeds in the soil about half a meter from the tree, close enough to be easily monitored.

But as soon as those seeds were planted—

HISSS!

The spiritual energy inside the seeds was immediately sucked out very quickly! Even before having time to germinate, those seeds had become dry and withered, losing all their vitality.

"What?!" Ye Chen was shocked and hurriedly pulled out those seeds.

But it was too late, the seeds were dead, no longer had any life aura at all.

"Damn it!" Ye Chen gritted his teeth with frustration.

He lost several valuable seeds just for a foolish experiment!

But then, he realized something. The spiritual energy absorbed from the seeds earlier was now floating in the air in the form of thin mist that was almost invisible and slowly flowing toward the small tree.

"So this tree absorbs spiritual energy from everything too close to it..."

Ye Chen retreated several steps, looking at the small tree with a complicated gaze. This tree seemed to have its own territory, the area around it that must not be disturbed.

"Then what if I plant farther away?"

Carefully, Ye Chen walked away from the small tree, about five meters, then tried to plant seeds again.

This time, the seeds didn't immediately wither. The spiritual energy inside them remained stable.

Ye Chen waited tensely, observing the seed he had just planted. And then, he saw something extraordinary.

The seed began to germinate!

With naked eyes, he could see small sprouts emerging from the soil, growing slowly but surely. In less than an hour, the sprout had grown to finger height!

"This..." Ye Chen was shocked.

The soil outside the small tree's territory apparently had opposite properties—instead of absorbing energy, this soil actually accelerated growth!

As if the small tree's territory was a forbidden area that absorbed everything, while the soil outside was blessed land.

"Amazing..." Ye Chen muttered with sparkling eyes.

Quickly, he began making a small garden about five meters from the small tree, and planted all the herb seeds he had. Ten spirit stones he placed around the garden as an additional spiritual energy source.

After finishing, Ye Chen stepped back and looked at his small garden with satisfaction. Those herbs were growing rapidly, far faster than in the outside world.

With an herb garden that could grow this fast, he didn't need to worry about lacking ingredients to make pills anymore!

Ye Chen smiled widely, then carefully returned to his physical body.

Now, he had two important things to learn: Guiyuan Gong and alchemy knowledge. And with the herb garden inside the seed space, he now had capital to become an alchemist!

"Alright," Ye Chen muttered while sitting cross-legged. "Let's start from Guiyuan Gong first..."