’If this developnt continues, won’t I ultimately beco a colony of fungi capable of transforming into terrifying biochemical weapons, able to attack external enemies?’
Li Chengyi felt sowhat conflicted, yet also harbored a faint sense of anxiety.
The path he was now treading was uncharted territory, and no one knew what lay deep within or what might occur.
No one knew.
No one had told him that while he practiced martial arts and pursued the "Evil Flower" Imprint, forcefully raising it a great deal might lead to what impact.
Currently, the common Floral Dress had little effect on him, the slight increases it produced were far less useful than the Flower Language Technique when dealing with a variety of enemies with strange abilities.
With a gentle swipe of his hand, threads of death energy ignited in his palm, swiftly consuming the black fungus before his eyes.
Death energy was the most suitable tool for clearing out these nurous and tenacious living things.
As death energy spread, a layer of ice ford on the door and windows due to the cold it brought.
Withdrawing his hand, Li Chengyi took a deep breath, feeling the terrifying transformation that was as if he were shedding his old body for a new one.
’Next, I should proceed with the following steps... I shouldn’t delay returning for too long, otherwise the unforeseen blind spots will accumulate difficulty... That could bring quite troubleso complications.’
He decided to use all his efforts to improve himself while here.
This was his primary objective for coming to Midlane.
Imdiately, he tidied up his clothes briefly and left the quiet room. Following the evolution, it was ti to choose a new tenth primary flower.
But before making that choice, there was another matter he needed to attend to.
Inside the botanical garden.
Liu Mingyang, responsible for managing the garden, bowed his head and reported the current status of the flowers to Li Chengyi.
’The Ziwei Flower, Wisteria Flowers, Gladiolus, Phalaenopsis, Sunflowers, and other flower zones have all been set up, but it’s inconvenient to collect clusters of Feilian Grass. Even though it’s the blooming season now, because of the small size and lack of ornantal value, there’s little demand for them, be it for viewing or as dicine, so there’s hardly any for sale. We can only collect them from Wanmu Mountain...’
"Five out of the ten kinds of flowers here co from Wanmu Mountain, cut the chatter, and tell how much we’ve got so far?" Li Chengyi cut him off, sowhat impatient.
Shadow Flash, a skill from the Shadow Dragon Bloodline, was quite useful, and this stimulated his desire to enhance the Shadow Dragon Bloodline to its Ultimate Form as soon as possible.
Therefore, as soon as he beca a Yin God, he spent a large sum to establish a botanical garden and simultaneously started to buy land to try growing Feilian Grass.
Because he had already completed the collection and evolution of three different variations of Flowers Qi, it was extrely difficult to find new variants of Feilian Grass in the Earth-Moon region.
However, the situation here was different. Different environnts and soils ant the Feilian Grass here was inherently different from those in the Earth-Moon region.
To Li Chengyi at this mont, even the common plants here were considered variants.
The problem he faced now was the scarcity of plants on the Black Soil Plains. The viruses spread by the red-eyed wild n left the land desolate, leaving almost no herb or grass able to survive here.
Only Wanmu Mountain, due to the natural Blood Essence emitted by Yao Xiangyu’s faction, had vast expanses of flourishing vegetation.
From this perspective, Li Chengyi actually desired to collaborate with Yao Xiangyu’s faction.
However, circumstances were too chaotic there, and since they were inherently opposed to Shaoyin Country, he had no alternative but to give up the idea.
In essence, had he not initially gone to Xinng Town, he most likely would have headed to Wanmu Mountain first.
That place was best suited for him.
"So how much of the stock have we collected now?" Li Chengyi asked.
"...this... the rchants we bought from before.... said they wouldn’t sell at the original price.... they’re asking for a forty percent increase," said Liu Mingyang, hesitantly.
"Give it to them," Li Chengyi said casually.
The price of Feilian Grass was exorbitantly high here, with the journey of ordinary martial practitioners being slow; this ant that he had only gathered a little of the flower seeds so far, with the evolutionary progress reaching just 13%, far from the 100% target.
"Yes..." Liu Mingyang wanted to say more but hesitated.
"What are you trying to say?"
"Your subordinate is wondering, why doesn’t my lord go directly to Wanmu Mountain? If it’s just the Fringe Lands, there are no significant safety issues, and with my lord’s speed, you should be able to return quickly."
"...Indeed... But for just Feilian Grass, if the seeds we have now are sown and they grow well, we could see flowers and fruits in just over a year; there’s no need to risk going to Wanmu Mountain."
That was Li Chengyi’s genuine thought; unless one has the capital, one shouldn’t mingle in dangerous areas, and one should never take unnecessary risks—that was his motto.
Even though greater risks could an greater rewards, he already had sufficient speed of progress and didn’t need to take special risks.
Luck is sothing to add a finishing touch, not sothing to rely on.
"I was shortsighted," Liu Mingyang apologized.
"No matter," replied Li Chengyi. If it hadn’t been for the fact that all the variants of Feilian Grass in the Earth-Moon region had been exhausted, he would have moved on to the next evolution.
The limitations of Flowers Qi spurred the idea of cultivating his own variants. The vast difference in the flow of ti between Midlane and Earth-Moon seed to offer the possibility of achieving such goals.
Feilian Grass was typically a biennial or perennial plant. Depending on the specific subtype, their lifespan varied, with Feilian Grass being a unique branch among them.
If he cultivated a biennial flower species for variation and was successful, he could complete a cycle of Flowers Qi absorption within two years.
Seeing Li Chengyi deep in thought, Liu Mingyang quietly went down to contact the flower rchants.
With Li Chengyi at the forefront, along with Da Xiong, and Chen Jiahan, they collected the flowers needed for the botanical garden extensively, purchasing black soil purified by True Qi, forming a vertical industrial chain within Quling Mansion.
The flower rchants were one link in this chain; originally they dealt in dicinal herbs, but now, due to the large-scale demand from Li Chengyi’s botanical garden and the generous spending, they quickly turned a substantial profit and established a system within the city.
Just over ten minutes after Liu Mingyang went down, a procession of farrs with woven bamboo baskets on their backs quickly arrived at the botanical garden’s periter. They placed the baskets uniformly on the steps in front of the botanical garden’s entrance, with Liu Mingyang in tow, instructing the botanical garden’s martial artist guards to maintain order.
The baskets were opened one by one, revealing purple-red Feilian Grass that looked like nurous small spikes clumped together.
Compared to those on Earth-Moon, the Feilian Grass here had a darker hue, closer to black.
Furthermore, to prevent damage on the way, these flowers were wrapped in a special tough hide, with a hard tal flowerpot on the outside to withstand impacts.
Liu Mingyang swiftly issued silver notes to the lead rchant, who still had bandages on his head.
A pot of flowers cost two hundred and twenty taels; that was the purchase price. There were over a hundred pots here, totaling twenty-two thousand taels of Silver Coin. This price included the cost of hiring martial artist guards.
Included the toils and dangers of a two-year round trip.
Plus, the cost sharing among the entire team of over a hundred people, and the profit-sharing with the middlen who facilitated connections.
For common people, for ordinary martial artists, rely making a trip to Wanmu Mountain was already a dangerous affair, let alone going in to look for flowers.
Therefore, Li Chengyi didn’t oppose the flower rchants raising their prices; had he not been worried about drawing attention, he would even have considered raising the price tenfold.
After paying, pot by pot, the plants were moved into the plant nursery’s hall, awaiting inspection by the gardeners.
Whoosh.
A shadow fell and transford into the tall figure of Li Chengyi, dressed in black.
"I’ll do the inspection myself," he instructed indifferently.
"Yes," several gardeners stepped back in succession.
As he looked at the pots of flowers before him, a sense of anticipation rose in Li Chengyi’s heart.
Finally... finally he could evolve the Shadow Dragon Bloodline.
It had been a long ti since he had managed to upgrade his own bloodline. This ti, having arrived in Midlane and discovered new Feilian Grass, perhaps he could elevate the Shadow Dragon Bloodline, which had reached the common level, to a higher tier.
Approaching slowly, Li Chengyi waved his hand to remove all protective fur, bent down, and reached out to gently touch the first pot’s purple-red flowers.
Those spiky little flowers, like little fuzzy children’s toys, trembled and wobbled, looking extraordinarily cute.
There were only three tiny flowers in the entire pot, each no bigger than a peach pit, making it difficult to absorb much Fragrance.
Judging by appearances, this variety was much more malnourished than those at Earth-Moon and Silent Store.
’Co on... a new evolution... a new bloodline...’
As Li Chengyi’s fingers drew near and gently touched the purple, spiky petals,
Hiss.
In that instant, a refreshing Fragrance surged into his fingertips.
’It’s possible!!’ Although it looked like the common variety of Feilian Grass, its essence was different; it was a variant!
Suddenly, Li Chengyi felt a weight lifted from his heart; he’d feared it wouldn’t be a variant, which would have turned hope into disappointnt once again.
Having confird that the Fragrance could be absorbed and the evolution progressing, he quickly started touching the pots, absorbing Fragrance one after another.
It wasn’t until the eighty-ninth pot that he finally reached 100% of the Floral Dress.
’Done!’ He stood up, contentedly eyeing the next pots.
"There are no issues. Take them down for transplanting, and make sure to collect the seeds for breeding variants. They can be used for experints with True Qi and dicine."
"Yes," the gardeners hurriedly complied; the Fifth Yin God had offered them a monthly salary of over a thousand Silver Coins not to idle around all day.
After collecting the Fragrance, next up was Evil Thoughts.
Evil Thoughts cannot be stored and can only be gathered into the main flower cell after the Fragrance is complete, hence they must be collected and used imdiately.
But by now, Li Chengyi was quite experienced; collecting Evil Thoughts here was far easier than in Earth-Moon.
"Tell the folks at Tian Ju Pavilion that I am going out of the city to gather so training materials," he said casually, instructing Liu Mingyang to deliver the ssage, while he himself leapt up with a Shadow Flash out of the plant nursery, tapped the ground with the tip of his shoe, and soared toward the city outskirts.
His terrifying speed of several kiloters per second ant he, a martial artist of his caliber, rarely bothered with pomp and ceremony.
For distances you can cross with a stride, to have people carry you slowly in a sedan chair for over ten minutes is pure idleness.
Hence, experts of a certain level almost always co and go from cities on their own. After all, because of their swift speed, ordinary people mostly can’t react in ti and can’t even see them.
Just as ordinary people can’t see bullets fired in flight, it’s the sa principle.
The highest speed a bullet reaches when fired is rely the speed of sound, and it decelerates quickly due to air resistance.
Even at this speed, ordinary people cannot see it clearly, let alone the Blood Essence Martial Artists who often reach several tis the speed of sound.
Over ten minutes later, Li Chengyi abruptly ca to a halt; the surroundings were now a vast wasteland,
This place was already the borderlands between Shaoyin Country and Tushan Country.
Although it was still the Black Soil Plains, there were clearly boundary markers standing on the ground here.
Every few kiloters, there would be a black stone stele, five ters high, planted in the ground, engraved with the marker’s number, the specific location and na, as well as the year it was erected.
"What cos around goes around. Tushan..." Li Chengyi looked toward the plains beyond the boundary marker, a faint smile spreading across his face.
Whoosh!
In an instant, he beca a shadow darting into Tushan Country’s territory.
The black soil rapidly receded beneath him, and from ti to ti, he passed by withered black trees on both sides.
The strong wind brushed against his face, and the airflow diverted around his Blood Essence like streaming water.
The deeper he went into Tushan Country, the sooner a square fort built from a mix of black soil and black rock appeared in front of Li Chengyi.
The fort’s four corners each featured a tower serving as lookout and archery posts.
The entire fort was filled with Midlane’s unique style, which was grandeur.
The martial artists here were all endowed with enormous strength and astonishing endurance, and they could easily scale walls and leap thirty feet high; naturally, the military fortifications they built also fully reflected powerful manpower.
This small temporary stronghold in front of Li Chengyi stood forty ters high and nearly a hundred ters wide.
"This will suffice."
Li Chengyi ripped off his black robe, revealing the robust and towering muscles on his upper body. With a body temperature reaching over eighty degrees, he was spotted by the martial artists inside the fort the mont he stopped.
True Qi Martial Practitioners and Blood Essence Martial Artists both have a perceptive range far beyond ordinary humans. This place, nearly three to four hundred ters from the fort and being an open, black plain, naturally made it easy to detect any activity.
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