Mutated Plants and Astonished Magic Apprentices

"Tsk, he made such a huge fuss that I thought he was something special! Who would have thought it would be this? Does he take us for lowly farmers?"

After Asheff had gone far away, a Magic Apprentice named Rogier grumbled as he stimulated the seeds' growth.

"Exactly! And he made us sign a confidentiality Contract over this, acting all serious about it! It's ridiculous. I'm almost too embarrassed to say it!"

Another Magic Apprentice joined in the complaints.

"Keep your voices down. If he hears us, we'll all be in trouble!" the group leader scolded.

"Got it, got it."

Rogier answered casually, but the displeasure on his face only deepened.

At that moment, it was not just Rogier. Most of the Wood Spirit Magic Apprentices were holding back their anger.

On one hand, they had been provoked by Erin receiving the Purple Snow Wood Wand.

On the other hand, this magical experiment made them feel as if their talents were being wasted—or rather, insulted! Growth stimulation was merely a basic Wood Spirit spell. It only accelerated plant growth and had no other purpose.

Its greatest value lay in cultivating magical plants with excessively long growth cycles, or controlling plants in battle through combinations of spells.

Yet Asheff was having them use growth stimulation to speed up crop growth. How was that any different from being lowly farmers digging for food in the dirt? What kind of damn magical experiment was this?

The Magic Apprentices dared not voice their anger, but Erin, who followed behind Yu Sheng'an, showed a trace of excitement.

"My lord, are you planning to use rapid growth to select the best plants?" Erin asked eagerly.

What had been her greatest achievement in crop research over the years? It was the "Best Excellence Theory" she had invented.

It was a principle she had finally grasped after much painstaking thought.

She believed that plants, like people, came in all shapes and qualities. Some were superior, while others were inferior.

Just as children born to mages possessed greater magical talent than commoners.

One had to admit that bloodline advantages existed.

Therefore, if the best-growing plant seeds were selected and cultivated generation after generation, crops with higher yields could surely be produced.

"More or less, but this is called Directed Breeding."

"Directed Breeding?"

Erin trembled all over. That term almost perfectly explained her greatest research achievement! At that moment, her eyes lit up as she looked at Yu Sheng'an.

She finally knew that she had encountered a true scholar! "It seems you've been researching this for quite some time. What results have you achieved?"

Yu Sheng'an asked as he inspected the Underground Laboratory.

"Very poor ones. I spent a long time selecting them and only managed to raise the yield per mu by ten percent at most. But after the descendants of those seeds reproduced for two or three generations, their advantages disappeared."

Erin's face darkened. Once their advantages vanished, every generation of seeds had to undergo careful selection all over again. The cost was far too high to be widely adopted.

"That's normal. Every plant has dominant and recessive genes. The plants you breed through Directed Breeding in the laboratory are simply expressing their dominant genes. But that doesn't mean the recessive genes have disappeared. After two or three generations, once the plants pollinate freely, their traits will naturally separate again," Yu Sheng'an said casually.

Erin's expression turned blank.

Yu Sheng'an's words gave her the same feeling she had experienced when she first encountered Magic—confusion, bewilderment, profundity, and awe! Yet the ease with which he spoke, and the clear logic of his words, made her realize that Yu Sheng'an possessed an extraordinarily deep understanding of plants! "My God, why has the Ghost Hand Melon grown into this?"

Just then, a Magic Apprentice suddenly cried out.

Before Erin could look over, startled cries erupted throughout the laboratory.

"Look! The Black Grain I-I-I stimulated is producing white liquid?"

"M-Mine too!"

"Ah—my Long Horn Beans have grown so long!"

The Magic Apprentices went crazy, shouting one after another!

As Wood Spirit Magic Apprentices, they were quite familiar with all kinds of common plants.

Everything had seemed perfectly normal when they first began stimulating the plants' growth, but as they kept growing, something went wrong.

Some leaves growing in spirals would have been one thing, but some branches and leaves were actually secreting sap? Even more horrifying was what happened when the plants flowered and bore fruit.

The final products left them dumbfounded, nearly biting off their tongues.

Ghost Hand Melons had become conjoined melons.

Long beans had grown longer than people.

Black Grain was producing white liquid.

Nearly every familiar plant had undergone terrifying mutations!

Rogier, who had complained endlessly before, could no longer utter another complaint.

His pupils dilated as he stared at the plants before him. This magical experiment had completely surpassed the limits of his imagination.

It was not that the strange changes in the plants had frightened them. As Wood Spirit Magic Apprentices, they had cultivated even stranger plants before.

What truly shocked them was that they had not interfered with these crops at all?! They had merely stimulated their growth.

Yet such horrifying changes had occurred?! How could they not be terrified? Could there have been something wrong with the seeds?

But they had clearly inspected the seeds before cultivation. They were just ordinary crop seeds, weren't they?

Fear came from the unknown.

At that moment, every Magic Apprentice turned to look at Yu Sheng'an.

They realized that they had underestimated this mysterious being.

Someone who could make the Magic God Dendall offend a whole group of Archmages just to assign them to assist with an experiment was indeed extraordinary! After all, these plants had already become distorted.

This was almost equivalent to touching upon the domain of the gods! "Silence! What are you panicking for? Have you forgotten what I said before? Record everything you see, observe, and feel. The rest has nothing to do with you."

Yu Sheng'an rebuked them.

"Yes!"

Scattered responses echoed through the laboratory. It was not that they disrespected Yu Sheng'an, but that everyone had been utterly stunned.

Erin stared at Asheff in disbelief, her pupils trembling and her hands shaking.

What she saw before her completely overturned her understanding of "Directed Breeding."

This meant that Mr. Asheff had likely already discovered an entirely new direction for research.

From these mutated and distorted plants alone, it was clear that he was challenging the authority of the gods, attempting to create entirely new species!

At that moment, Dorothy also realized that Yu Sheng'an was challenging Divine Authority.

After all, she was the granddaughter of Doman, the Son of the Forest. Naturally, she had some insight.

Her Grandpa had never told her who Asheff was. She had constantly speculated and tried to make connections, but she had never imagined that Asheff would be so terrifying.

A seemingly simple magical experiment had utterly overturned everything they thought they knew about plants!

Was he a god?

Was this the true reason he could mobilize all of Felix's Wood Spirit Magic Apprentices?

Dorothy stared at the twisted, deformed plants that had received no magical interference, her scalp tingling. All thoughts of romance, Desova's coldness, and her Grandpa's sighs were thrown to the back of her mind.

She realized that she was witnessing history.

Before history, everything she had experienced was no more than duckweed and dust, not worth mentioning! The magical experiment ultimately ended amid waves of astonishment.

After writing their observation reports, the Magic Apprentices left the Underground Laboratory one by one.

As they passed Yu Sheng'an, none of them could summon even the slightest trace of mockery.

Instead, every one of them felt deep guilt and shock! Asheff was a true scholar, a scholar whose mastery of Wood Spirit Magic far exceeded the limits of their imagination.

He deserved respect! After leaving the Magic Forest, Dorothy raced home. Panting heavily, she burst through the door to her Grandpa's study and shouted under his dissatisfied, astonished gaze, "Grandpa..."

She could not say the rest.

The confidentiality Contract tightly sealed her subjective awareness.

Whenever she tried to reveal anything, her mind went blank, and she did not know how to speak.

She stammered for a long while before inspiration suddenly struck. In an urgent, incoherent voice, she cried, "Grandpa, you have to take part in Asheff's magical experiment! Otherwise, you'll regret it for the rest of your life! Believe me, you understand. I-I-I can't say it. I have a Contract on me. You have to participate! You have to!"