Repeated Trials

Just as he was feeling troubled.

Inside the Purple Mansion Floating Island, Ye Qin suddenly widened his eyes; he had witnessed another incredible phenomenon.

He saw a wisp of White Glow drifting along, accidentally brushing against the leaf of a small Dew Grass. The wisp of White Glow was immediately absorbed by the leaf. In that instant, the Dew Grass grew by a clearly visible margin.

This Dew Grass can also "eat" the White Glow?

And it can grow rapidly by absorbing it?!

Ye Qin was secretly startled. He continued to observe, and after a second wisp of White Glow was absorbed by the Dew Grass, he stood stunned for a long while before finally reaching this conclusion with absolute certainty.

The Dew Grass can grow on this barren floating island, provided it has something to eat.

He was astonished by this major discovery.

At the same time, he vaguely felt that this discovery could solve the problem of the insufficient quantity of Dew Grass. Even if he couldn't collect more from the mountain cliffs, he could cultivate them directly within this Purple Mansion.

Furthermore, he guessed where the one wisp out of the seven he had cultivated today had gone. Most likely, it had been accidentally "eaten" by these Dew Grass plants.

With this discovery, Ye Qin began to put in his full effort, carefully observing every step of the Dew Grass absorbing the White Glow.

Ye Qin was now sixteen years old. After several years of training as a Herb Gathering Apprentice and a herb-gathering student, as well as practicing the Sitting-in-Forgetfulness Sutra, his thinking was already quite meticulous; a small observation could not stump him.

He used these few Dew Grass plants to conduct a small cultivation experiment.

Step one: Take one of the Dew Grass plants from the floating island, consume it orally, and convert it into over seventy wisps of White Glow.

He had already completed this step.

Step two: Let the remaining four Dew Grass plants in the floating island absorb the White Glow and observe the changes in the plants.

The White Glow drifted aimlessly around the floating island and would not actively approach the Dew Grass. Occasionally, a wisp would bump into the grass, but that was purely accidental.

For some reason, Ye Qin could move the Dew Grass within the island, but he could not move the White Glow.

To make the Dew Grass successfully absorb the White Glow, Ye Qin drifted all over the floating island, desperately puffing and blowing to guide the White Glow toward the Dew Grass. Within the floating island, Ye Qin was merely a small ball of light; it was easy for him to grab the White Glow, but making it approach the Dew Grass was a high-difficulty maneuver.

Step three: Observe the results.

After a great deal of effort, he made the Dew Grass absorb all seventy-plus wisps of White Glow.

Ye Qin discovered that when the Dew Grass grew to a certain extent, it would stop growing and begin to rapidly bloom, bear fruit, and drop seeds. Then, the seeds would sprout, growing into a very small new Dew Grass, which would only continue to grow after absorbing the White Glow.

Step four: Repeat the experiment.

Ye Qin continued to consume the second, third, and so on... to see if there were any other changes after multiple repetitions. However, he would always leave at least one Dew Grass as a mother plant to produce seeds, ensuring the Dew Grass would not be completely wiped out.

After these repeated experiments, Ye Qin obtained a result that left him speechless: he could consume the Dew Grass directly, converting it into vital energy (White Glow) that entered the floating island through his meridians. The Dew Grass inside the island could then absorb the White Glow, bloom, produce seeds, and grow into a new Dew Grass. Moreover, the growth speed was astonishingly fast; as long as there was enough White Glow, it would grow in the blink of an eye.

This cycle continued indefinitely.

The final result was—five Dew Grass plants remained five Dew Grass plants; there were no more, and no less.

Ye Qin was stunned, speechless.

He had spent nearly five or six days conducting this cultivation experiment. The conclusion he finally reached made him want to jump off a cliff in frustration. He no longer held any hope of cultivating more Dew Grass.

Of course, there was not absolutely no way to get more Dew Grass.

That would require Ye Qin to take the seven wisps of vital energy he cultivated every day and, instead of absorbing them himself, let the Dew Grass absorb them all. In that case, after about ten days, one more Dew Grass would grow.

But could he do such a stupid thing?

His own cultivation speed was already slow enough. He ate this Dew Grass precisely to increase his cultivation speed. If he let the Dew Grass absorb the vital energy he cultivated instead of absorbing it himself, that would be putting the cart before the horse.

What would he do with so much Dew Grass? Sell it for money?

What Ye Qin wanted was not money, but to practice the Sitting-in-Forgetfulness Sutra: Sitting and Forgetting Selflessness, to make his little white ball of light grow stronger. The more energy the little ball of light had, the greater its influence on him.

Yet, facing this "failed" cultivation experiment, Ye Qin could only suffer in silence.

Ye Qin had one last doubt.

He had originally only collected one Dew Grass, so why were there five in the floating island after a year?

Ye Qin could be certain that it was definitely not the vital energy he cultivated that had been eaten by the initial Dew Grass to grow the extra four.

Because to grow four mature Dew Grass plants, the amount of White Glow required would be enormous—as much as two hundred and eighty wisps—and he could not possibly have gone so long without noticing anything.

A few days ago, he had been alerted immediately when just one wisp of White Glow disappeared, leading him to investigate. That was how he accidentally discovered the five Dew Grass plants growing in the crevices of the gray rocks of the floating island.

In other words, that initial Dew Grass must have "eaten" something else for some other reason to grow into the current five Dew Grass plants.

But what could be the reason?

The ball of light that Ye Qin had transformed into floated within the floating island, once again thinking bitterly. He knew this must be the most critical issue. Once this problem was solved, he would likely find a way to cultivate a large amount of Dew Grass.

His gaze repeatedly scanned the gray rocks where the Dew Grass grew, the crevices, and everything worth suspecting. The surroundings were all very ordinary gray rocks, with nothing particularly eye-catching. These gray rocks had looked like this since the moment the island was born.

Because the gray rocks were too hard, the roots of the Dew Grass only clung to the surface of the rocks to keep from falling over. There were also some fine, ordinary sand grains left on the ground, shiny, just like ordinary river sand.

Sand grains!?

When Ye Qin scanned the roots of the Dew Grass again, his gaze suddenly tightened.

These definitely did not belong to the floating island itself!

He remembered that when he dug up the Dew Grass, he had dug it up along with a large amount of soil around the roots. He hadn't expected that this soil and sand had been moved into the floating island along with the Dew Grass.

Ye Qin moved his divine sense, exited the Purple Mansion, and returned to reality.

A grain of sand had also been moved out of the floating island and into his hand in reality. He looked at it, took a grain, put it in his mouth, and bit it—crunch, it cracked. It was indeed just ordinary sand.

Why were these sand grains able to enter the floating island so freely?