by Gore, A. P.
Then what was correct answer?
Rubbing his chin, he stepped forward and placed his palm on the stone tablet. Another question appeared in his mind.
Question: Identify below herbs from the garden.
Three String Silk Tree.
Five Colored Sunflower.
Two Headed Snake Plant.
. . .
There was a list of ten plants, and when he looked around, he saw hundreds of herbs swaying in the breeze.
Squinting, Wei stared at the garden that contained at least a thousand different plants.
Damn! He didn’t know a single one of them. How was he supposed to identify these plants?
Could the system help?
In another chamber, Sun Nuan had also reached level two, and she was quickly moving through the plants in the herb garden. For this test, she had studied the Basic Compendium of Herbs and Alchemy for the last six months, and yet she was finding it difficult to identify the last two herbs, and this was only the second level.
The Alchemy Comprehension Tower had six levels, and the first five had a fixed pattern. In the first level, one had to recite a pill formula. The second level was for identification of low-tier Bronze Grade level herbs. The third level was for herb extraction method. The fourth level tested herb grafting methods, and one had to use other herbs to graft a Silver Grade herb. It was the most difficult test in the dream environment, because they had no access to any external equipment. The testee had to use the roots of one of the strongest herbs present and graft using them. It was by far the most difficult process, and almost everyone failed here. The fifth level was the hardest one, where one would have to concoct a pill in a dream environment, and one had to have high level alchemy knowledge.
No one in the last thousand years had passed level five, so no one knew what lay after that. With every level, one obtained a reward. For the first level, it was herb ingredients. For the second level, it was a low-tier Bronze Grade pill formula. For the third level, a high-tier Silver Grade pill formula, and from the fourth level, a blue-colored elder presented an appropriate reward to the contestant. No one knew about the fifth or sixth level rewards. They were unknown. In the last thousand years, only one prodigy had passed the fourth level and obtained a Gold Grade cauldron. He became famous in the State of Zin. Soon, he’d ascended to the Martial Realm.
Anyway, it was a dream. She was here for the pill formula she could get from the third level. If she got a pill formula for the Barrier Breaking Pill, her royal family would be supportive of her going forward.
In the heart of the Alchemy Comprehension Tower, an ethereal man with blue skin and clothes watched the hundred trial takers going through the examination. He was the tool spirit of the spirit artifact. This was his job, to test the young talents of the Mortal Realm and wait for the one who would be sent to the Martial Plane of Alchemy, but for the last hundred thousand years none had appeared, so he just had to keep waiting for the special one to arrive.
Even in this batch of seedlings, there was no one. Only a few had passed the second level.
Sighing loudly, he focused his attention on a youth in sky blue robe who had passed level two in half the time it required one incense stick to burn. Now it was his turn to determine the extraction method of a high-tier Silver Grade plant.
The sky blue-robed youth stepped into the trial chamber and placed his hand on the stone tablet, and then he thought of the answer in a thousandth of the time it took a normal human to breathe.
How could he be this fast?
The blue-skinned man checked the question and then the answer. It was perfect. Every line of the thousand-line answer was like a textbook. This was one of the toughest levels every trial taker had to go through. Although people had great memories, no one in qi Refinement Realm layer six could produce the answer this fast. It was as if he had a cultivation of . . .
Squinting, he stared at the young man who had appeared on the fourth level. It was an herb grafting trial, and the herbs were high-tier Silver Grade herbs.
Could he do it?
Chapter 25
Dream Space
Li Wei vanished from the herb garden and then reappeared in a thirty-square-foot area where a small patch of herbs grew together. It had similar vibe to the previous areas he had been. But this time there were only five hundred herbs, and most of them exuded a heavy scent that jumbled up his senses. With his improved body cultivation, smells affected him a lot. In fact, it felt like an assault on his nose.
Suddenly his gaze fell on the Three Fragrant Tea Plant growing in the corner of the herb garden. It had been used in a tea creation ceremony by his senior brother, and it had three different tastes associated with it. Sweet at the tip of the tongue, sour at the middle, and mellow at the end. Everyone disliked it when they first tasted it, but once it reached the end of tongue, a heavenly flavor would burst that eased one’s soul. It was just awesome.
There was one another thing that attracted his attention: a high-quality Qi Stone was embedded into a stone tablet. Maybe it was to help trial testers replenish their qi, but Wei didn’t need that as he hadn’t used any qi energy so far.
It was too bad the plant grew in this separate space and he had no access to his pouch. He couldn’t even smell the herb, as other nasty smells overpowered its mellow fragrance.
Ignoring the various scents, he walked through the patch of grass and placed his hand on the cold stone tablet. Warmth rushed to his heart. This level he had to do grafting. But first he had to identify two herbs that he wanted to graft.
He arched his brows when he read through the question. So far, he’d had to do basic things like identify herbs, give answers, etc. With the help of the system, he had passed through the first three levels easily. The system housed every word from the Basic Compendium of Herbs and Alchemy, so whatever question the stone tablet threw at him, he answered it correctly. On the fourth level, he again had to identify a bunch of herbs. It was a boring job. First, he had to access the information in the system and then look for the herb himself. If the system could just work with his eyes and identify the herbs itself, it would have been super fast.
Sighing dejectedly, he searched for the first herb.
Dragon’s Breath
A picture and a bunch of information appeared in his mind with the system tag.
System: Dragon’s Breath
High-tier Silver Grade
Found in a place with high yang energy density, it was given a dragon’s name because its shape is like a fire-breathing dragon.
Identification Symbols: Pale yellow color. Smells like burned leather.
Properties: Poisonous if eaten raw. Used in many low-tier Gold Grade recipes as a catalyst to balance yin energy herbs.
Extraction method . . .
Wei opened his eyes, and his divine sense spread like a hollow around him and enveloped the whole herb garden. The garden had a thousand different herbs raising next to each other, but with his divine sense he could detect every single movement, smell, and patterns on their leaves.
“There it is.” His gaze dashed to the far-right corner where a pale yellow plant grew. It really did smell like burned shoes. After identifying the herb, he quickly plucked it per the method mentioned in the Basic Compendium of Herbs and Alchemy and placed it next to the stone tablet.
Like this, he collected the two herbs that were required for grafting: Dragon’s Breath and Cat’s Paw. What strange name. In this trial he had to graft a Dragon’s Essence Plant, an herb grafted by mixing two herbs together, and there was a method written in the Basic Compendium of Herbs and Alchemy for two compatible herbs.
When he summoned that page from the system, a bunch of text appeared that mentioned the process of combining a Thunder Apple Tree and a Lightning Colored Flower. These two were low-tier Bronze Grade herbs and could be combined with the simple method of Stabilizing Grafting. Every herb or plant had some root veins that helped them absorb heaven and earth essence energy. These
root veins decided the compatibility of herbs. The simplest criteria were attributes. Both of these herbs were thunder attributed, so they could be grafted to produce Thunder Apple Flower, a high-tier Bronze Grade herb used in thunder-based pills.
To graft these two, one had to cut their root veins and combine the two parts by stabilizing their root veins on each other. One could use a Three Staged Flexible Rope to tie them together, or some external device.
Wei was supposed to use the same method for grafting the Dragon’s Breath and Cat’s Paw to graft a Dragon’s Essence Plant, a high-tier Silver Grade herb.
Sweat poured down his forehead when he realized he would need access to thread to tie these two plants together. After entering this place, he had lost access to his pouch. In fact, he couldn’t even touch his own clothes. It was like he had entered some kind of dream space, a special space where one could be master of their own dream and enjoy anything they wished.
Wait, was this a dream space?
Chapter 26
Impossible Level
Sun Nuan finished reciting the herb extraction process after an hour. If one had memorized it, it was easy to recite, but it was a thousand lines of recitation, so one had to be very good at the reciting process.
When she appeared in the next level of the test, she sat cross-legged on the patch of grass and closed her eyes to meditate. Spending an hour on the third level had taken a toll on her mind, and she needed to rest and recuperate. Although everyone had said it was tough, she’d underestimated it and almost forgot a line in the middle.
After twenty minutes of meditation, she regained her peak status and then decided to give her best to the test.
Taking a deep breath, she headed for the stone tablet. A question popped in her mind as soon as she placed her hand on the stone tablet. As expected, she had to identify two herbs from the thousand herbs growing in the garden, and then graft those using other herb roots.
Dragon’s Breath
Cat’s Paw
Once identified, she had to use the Stabilization Grafting method to create a Dragon’s Essence Plant as a final product.
A thick film of sweat formed over her forehead when she glanced at the names of the plant. The first plant, Dragon’s Paw, was an easy pick, but Cat’s Paw was a tough pick as she didn’t remember all the details from the Basic Compendium of Herbs and Alchemy.
Identifying them wasn’t the tough step, though. Grafting them was. If she’d had access to ropes and some equipment to detect the correct root vein it could be easy, but here she had to find the root vein using her eyes and then use the roots of other plants as rope to stabilize the roots of these two herbs.
It was going to be tough. Almost impossible.
Excited, Li Wei looked around for hints of this being a dream space.
“Rope,” he shouted inside his mind, hoping for a rope to appear out of thin air. But nothing happened. Everything remained the same. Herbs swayed on invisible air, and the heavy scent of the herbs kept assaulting his senses.
Was this a dream space or not?
Maybe not. Maybe it was an illusion array or formation. It had to be an illusion array or formation, but even if it was, how was he supposed to use it for his knowledge? Without a rope, he couldn’t graft the plants.
No, he couldn’t give up. When he was stranded in a secret realm for ten years, he didn’t give up. Instead, he made use of the things he’d had access to. One time he’d even used vines to tie up trees to make a wooden bridge to cross a river flowing beneath. All of that was done when he had no precious memories of his past.
There had to be something he could use. If this was a test, it couldn’t be an unpassable test.
What could he use from his surroundings?
There was nothing else but a thousand different herbs, and he didn’t know at least half of them. In fact, half of them were not present in the Basic Compendium of Herbs and Alchemy at all.
Wait. If this was a grafting test, why did the artifact spirit give them a thousand different herbs to choose from? One reason could be that this test was an identification and grafting test, but that made little sense. There was nothing else that could be used from here.
Except for other herbs. There had to be something in the herbs present in the Basic Compendium of Herbs and Alchemy that he could use.
In fact, this test was for improvising with the things one had.
Sitting cross-legged, he enveloped every single herb with his divine sense and started going through them using the Basic Compendium of Herbs and Alchemy. There had to be something that would help him with this test.
There had to be something he could improvise on.
The tool spirit floated in the heart of the Alchemy Comprehension Tower and watched every contestant with wary eyes. Another year, and no promising prodigy. Only fifteen young people had reached level four, and none looked about to pass the test.
But he couldn’t blame them altogether. It was a tough trial. Sometimes he wished his late master had designed an easier test to allow more contestants to pass it.
No, he was thinking about it wrong. This was a test of perseverance as well as knowledge. If one wanted to clear it, he or she should have a sharp mind. Otherwise, clearing this test was impossible. When his master designed this level’s test, he’d included three herbs that could be used as stabilizing ingredients: a vine that was strong, a vine that was flexible, and a vine that was soft. The contestant had to use a vine based on the circumstances. To graft a root, one had to identify the root vein and then judge its flexibility to choose between stabilizing ingredients. So far, people always chose the most extreme of those, but they didn’t realize they could mix and match as needed.
That’s why in the last thousand years no one had passed this test, and looking at the bunch of idiots in the current batch, none seemed capable enough this time either.
What a shame. If only he could send someone to the Alchemy Plane . . .
Suddenly his eyes shone and his gaze focused on one trial chamber. It was the chamber where the sky blue dressed young man was performing the grafting process.
“What in the world is he doing?”
The young man was pulling herbs out and throwing them aside like a madman.
Had he gone crazy?
The tool spirit watched in horror and was about to intervene when he saw the young man pulling out a vine with soft roots.
Did he get the trick?
No, the idiot continued uprooting plants, and the tool spirit couldn’t wait anymore. These all were precious herbs grown by his master, and they’d taken so much time to grow, and this young man was uprooting them like they meant nothing.
“Stop there.” He appeared in the fourth level trial chamber where the young man was pulling a Bristled Roots Herb from the ground.
“What do you want?” The young man stopped and glared at tool spirit.
“How could you destroy my master’s herbs? You’re courting death.” The spirit tool flicked his sleeves and a wind blade blasted from his hand, targeting the insolent young man’s hands. It only had enough power to wound a layer six qi Refinement Realm cultivator. That should be enough to warn the young man.
The young man raised his arm like a shield and took the attack head on. Wind blades pierced in his hand, but they couldn’t move deeper. After inflicting a shallow wound, the wind blades vanished.
“You—” The spirit tool watched as the young man’s wounds healed at rapid speed. “How could you defend against my blades?”
“Are you stupid?” The young man growled; his face twisted with pain. “You can’t hurt a trial taker. I know the rules, and a tool spirit is not supposed to interfere in a trial.”
The tool spirit felt guilty. This was indeed true. He wasn’t supposed to interfere in the trial, but upon seeing his master’s herbs being destroyed, he had no choice but to interfere.
“And as I understand, there’s no rule that prevents me from unearthing these herbs. Is there?�
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The tool spirit felt awkward, guilt rushing to his throat. There was no such rule to prevent one from uprooting herbs. In fact, trial takers were supposed to dig up three plants to pass this trial, but they were supposed to decide by understanding the stem and the part of the herb growing above the ground. This was brutality. A crime against alchemy.
“There is none right? You’re overstepping your boundaries. So, get lost. I promise I won’t dig up any more herbs unless it’s required.”
The spirit tool watched the young man studying a Bristled Root Herb carefully and vanished from the spot. Indeed, he had made a big mistake.
Chapter 27
Improvisation
Li Wei’s eyes shone when he spotted an herb that had flexible roots like an array brush. Out of curiosity, he stretched them and checked their tenacity. They had excellent tenacity and would be great material for making array carving brushes. The herb had soft, bristle-like tiny roots and even smelled like baked sweet potato, not like the rotten smell of brushes made from beast hairs.
“This would make an excellent array carving brush.” Murmuring, he placed it aside. He had pulled it out in frustration from the fourth trial ground, but at least it wasn’t a total loss.
Yes, he was frustrated to the limit.
Even after wracking his brain for an hour, he still hadn’t found a solution to his grafting problem, and the mixture of intense smells was driving him nuts.
So, he’d started uprooting all the herbs to find the worst smelling plant and smash it into a powder. In less than ten minutes, he had pulled hundreds of herbs from the ground. In less than ten minutes, he had changed from a handsome young man to a beggar with soil splattered all over his face.
A sudden idea popped up in his mind when his gaze fell on the mound of herbs he had uprooted. There was a Blood Sucking Beast Plant in the herb mound, and now he had the makings of an array brush.