Pollination was the final step left to fate for ordinary rice farmers.
But for Zhou Xuan, it was the most crucial part of his plan, and the one that best reflected his will.
Rice panicles were long clusters of tiny flowers growing from the tops of the stalks. To ordinary people, the male and female flowers were jumbled together and difficult to tell apart.
But Zhou Xuan was now a cultivator in the Qi Refining Realm. Though his spiritual sense was weak, his eyesight and control over his body had long since surpassed those of ordinary people.
For him, extracting pollen smaller than a grain of rice was a simple matter.
He extended a finger. A wisp of barely perceptible Spiritual Energy curled around its tip as he gently brushed the rice panicles in the third row, where the Mortal Rice Grain grew.
In an instant, countless tiny pale-yellow particles were drawn from the stamens by that wisp of Spiritual Energy. They gathered into a small, visible cloud of yellow pollen, hovering obediently at his fingertip.
After collecting enough pollen from ordinary rice, Zhou Xuan turned his gaze to the two rows of wildly growing Mutated Spirit Rice.
He stepped closer and carefully studied the gray-black flowers, which looked like grotesque mouths.
The flowers were indeed several times larger than those of ordinary rice, brimming with an uncanny vitality.
But when Zhou Xuan swept them with his spiritual sense, the corners of his mouth lifted despite himself.
"So that's how it is!" A surge of delight welled up inside him.
Most of the pistils on the Mutated Spirit Rice flowers had developed normally. In fact, they were even sturdier than those of ordinary rice, and seemed to yearn for pollen.
But eight or nine out of ten of their stamens