Chapter 80: Poison Empress

"If the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up!" Wei Yuning muttered to himself.

He set aside his gloomy mood and chatted with Xu Ye for a while longer, casually giving him a bottle of Moon Zhi seasoning as well.

Elder Xu Ye left satisfied.

Wei Yuning no longer felt sleepy, so he simply sat up and began cultivating.

The mass of spiritual Qi in his body had already condensed to its limit, unable to progress any further. Both his physical Foundation Establishment and his divine sense Foundation Establishment had reached their peak; only the final step remained before he could enter the Heartbeat stage.

At the first sign of sprouting, the heart stirs accordingly—this is the Heartbeat.

The manifestation of spiritual Qi in the Heartbeat stage is its complete transformation into spiritual liquid. However, this is merely an outward appearance.

The key to transforming spiritual Qi into spiritual liquid lies in the compatibility between the cultivator's spiritual seed and their body.

The Heartbeat is the initial manifestation of the spiritual seed sprouting. As for what the spiritual seed ultimately becomes, it varies from person to person.

For human cultivators, the most common spiritual seed is the lotus seed, which is related to the fact that most human cultivators' Dao methods are largely similar.

Advancing from the Foundation Establishment stage to the Heartbeat stage is extremely important for a cultivator.

During the Foundation Establishment stage, for divine sense cultivators, the manifestation of spiritual power in the body is merely spiritual Qi vortexes of various properties, with little difference between them.

After reaching the Heartbeat stage, depending on different cultivators' realizations, the spiritual liquid transformed from spiritual Qi will form different types of heart springs. Compared to spiritual Qi vortexes, heart springs provide a much greater boost to techniques. Different types of heart springs also have their own unique attack techniques.

For example, Hong Zhi's spiritual root is of the water element, and his heart spring is of the ice element, a mutated branch of water. Yun Yan, also of the water element, instead formed a heart spring of the cold mist element.

One has sharp attack power, the other has balanced offense and defense. Starting from the Heartbeat stage, the two began to diverge in their Dao directions.

Wei Yuning had not yet decided what kind of heart spring to form. However, his spiritual root was of the wood element, so he could only seek a suitable one within the pure wood element or its branches.

A night of cultivation passed. Apart from his spiritual Qi vortexes becoming more condensed, there was no progress whatsoever.

Morning arrived, and Wei Yuning went to the herb garden as usual to catch some bugs.

Compared to the Hundred Flower Garden, which was about a hundred mu in size, the herb garden's area was over a hundred times larger. Most of the land on Pill Peak was used for growing spiritual herbs.

Although Wei Yuning had been at the Pill Room for less than half a year, his reputation was considerable. Most of both the menial disciples and Foundation Establishment disciples recognized him. Conversely, Wei Yuning was familiar with very few people.

Carrying a long-handled golden silkworm silk net specially custom-ordered from the Artifact Refining Room, he greeted fellow disciples he knew and those he didn't along the way, eventually arriving at a Floating Flower Grass plantation.

The growth of Floating Flower Grass required consuming large amounts of spiritual Qi, so beneath it there must be a spirit stone mineral vein.

In this area, the mineral vein was very close to the surface. Across a stretch thirty meters wide and several hundred meters long grew sparse Floating Flower Grass.

Floating Flower Grass looked somewhat like lotus leaves—slender stalks with large round leaves growing parallel to the ground. At first glance, it resembled duckweed floating in midair. Mature Floating Flower Grass had purple leaves. From the center of the leaf, a cluster of tiny deep-purple petals would first grow, and finally a bunch of ginger-yellow fruits would form.

Moon Zhi bugs liked to stay near the roots of Floating Flower Grass, but they did not feed on its nutrients. They only fed on the nutrients of other spiritual herbs' stamens.

His understanding of Moon Zhi habits was now second only to Steward Hong Le's, so naturally he would no longer use his original clumsy method to catch bugs. He scanned his surroundings, and seeing no other disciples nearby, Wei Yuning took out a clay pot.

Inside the clay pot was a mixture of herbivorous spirit beast dung, spiritual spring water, and a small amount of soil.

In Wei Yuning's Small Cosmos Pouch and storage ring, there was a considerable quantity of this mixture. Compared to the silt at the bottom of Spirit Lake, this was a more effective soil for plant growth, and could be considered the second-generation improved version of the casting material for Wei Yuning's innate Entanglement Art.

Among cultivators, Wei Yuning was probably the only one who used dung as a casting material.

The clay pot contained plant seeds, and Wei Yuning's choice was the Poison Empress. Its petals resembled a peony in shape, but were about ten times larger. Moreover, its fragrance was extremely rich, making it one of the Moon Zhi's favorite spiritual herbs.

A single Poison Empress attracted Moon Zhi bugs as effectively as a dozen or so other spiritual herbs.

Under the effect of the wood-element spiritual root cultivator's innate technique "Plant Growth Art," the Poison Empress completed its entire growth cycle within a few minutes.

This process was fairly ordinary for Wei Yuning, but to other wood-element spiritual root cultivators of similar cultivation, it was nothing short of a miracle.

Wei Yuning's secret lay in that unreliable golden giant pine visualization object. Under normal circumstances, it had no presence at all, but whenever Wei Yuning used the Plant Growth Art, it would come over to help, without fail.

Perhaps because they were both plants and inherently understood each other, its assistance was particularly efficient.

Making plants grow actually did not consume much spiritual power, but making a plant flower and fruit, completing the next transmission of life, required a geometric increase in spiritual Qi consumption. Even a Golden Core stage patriarch would likely have to expend considerable effort.

Aside from Wei Yuning, probably only an earth immortal with a wood-element spiritual root could accomplish this process with ease.

The mature Poison Empress emitted an alluring fragrance. Soon, three Moon Zhi bugs crawled out from the soil and quickly crawled into the flower along the stalk.

Seeing the bugs enter the target position, Wei Yuning extended his long-handled golden silkworm silk net, placed it over the flower, then made a little noise. Swish, swish, swish—the three bugs jumped into the net.

He retracted the net, released the smallest bug, and put the remaining two into a jade bottle.

Moon Zhi were rather dim creatures. They did not learn from their lessons and continued to climb onto the Poison Empress one after another. This was also because Floating Flower Grass consumed large amounts of spiritual Qi, so such alluring spiritual herbs would not appear in its vicinity.

If the Moon Zhi bugs went to forage in other herb gardens, there would be no way to determine which spiritual herb the bugs would end up on.

After repeating this three times, he had harvested a total of ten bugs. The Poison Empress had also lost its vitality—its leaves were yellow and withered, the flower had lost its luster, the stamen no longer emitted fragrance, and its medicinal properties had nearly vanished entirely.

However, Wei Yuning did not throw the Poison Empress away. Instead, he dug open the soil in the clay pot and picked a round, pitch-black fruit from its root, the process resembling digging up sweet potatoes.

The petals and branches of the Poison Empress were important materials for making Detoxification Pills, while its black root-stem fruit was a hallucinogenic type of poison.

This poison also had a pleasant-sounding name, called "Crimson Dream."

However, from Wei Yuning's perspective, this was an out-and-out narcotic. There were plenty of such things on Earth.

The stamen's spiritual Qi that the Moon Zhi fed on would not affect the medicinal properties of the poison root-stem below. This was also why Wei Yuning chose to use the Poison Empress to attract Moon Zhi.

After all, the seeds of the Poison Empress were not cheap, and the poison root-stem perfectly compensated for the loss.