As long as the Ten Thousand Races connected the Profound Yellow Grain with Lady Nuwa, they would cling to the belief that it was better to be safe than sorry. No one would dare covet the Profound Yellow Grain again.
As the saying went, no one dared offend a Sage's dignity.
And sheltered beneath that dignity, Jiang Yuan—the true creator of the Profound Yellow Grain—would never appear in the Ten Thousand Races' line of sight. His safety would be all but guaranteed.
It was a perfect plan. The only problem was that it undeniably involved taking advantage of the Holy Mother, a grave offense. Though she would not blame him, Jiang Yuan still needed to beg her pardon.
When it came to showing the proper attitude, Jiang Yuan never disappointed.
"Holy Mother above, allow your unworthy descendant Yuan to report..."
Kneeling before the Holy Mother's statue, Jiang Yuan laid out his entire plan without holding anything back, hoping to earn her forgiveness.
It was only a formality. Jiang Yuan never expected the Holy Mother to hear him.
But to his utter astonishment, as soon as his voice fell, the Holy Mother's statue—which had never shown a divine sign since the Human Race migrated to the East Sea Coast—actually responded to him.
"Uh..."
Staring at the statue blazing with light, Jiang Yuan was utterly dumbfounded. He could not understand what he had done to deserve a response from Lady Nuwa herself.
After all, Lady Nuwa was currently in seclusion, consolidating her Sage's Dao Fruit. That was why she had never responded to the Human Race.
And Jiang Yuan had stirred her from her seclusion with just a few words.
If word of this got out, it would not be just the Human Race that was shaken. The entire Primordial World would be in an uproar, wondering what he had said to cause such a stir.
What had Jiang Yuan said? Nothing much. He had simply explained what he had just done. It had taken a little cleverness, but hardly great wisdom. Surely it was not enough to rouse a Sage.
As he wondered, Jiang Yuan suddenly felt a gaze fall upon him. He looked up instinctively and saw that Lady Nuwa's will had somehow manifested.
She had a human torso and a serpent's tail, a serene face, and eyes brimming with compassion. She was exactly as the Human Race's inherited memories portrayed the Holy Mother.
"Your unworthy descendant Yuan pays his respects to the Holy Mother!"
Jiang Yuan quickly lowered his eyes and bowed in formal obeisance.
"So it was you. No wonder you managed to rouse me."
After Jiang Yuan bowed his head, he heard Lady Nuwa say in sudden understanding. From her tone, it seemed she knew who he was.
Jiang Yuan could hear that Lady Nuwa seemed familiar with him. He was curious how the Holy Mother knew of him.
But though he was curious, he did not dare ask. He simply kept his head bowed and listened quietly for Lady Nuwa's instructions.
As for Lady Nuwa seeing through his origins, that was impossible. With the Jade Plate of Creation on him, even the Heavenly Dao could not see that anything was amiss, let alone Lady Nuwa.
No matter who looked at him, Jiang Yuan was simply a native of the Human Race—perhaps an exceptional one, but nothing out of the ordinary.
"You are quite impressive. The method you used to cultivate the Profound Yellow Grain gave me new insight and deepened my understanding of the Path of Creation."
Lady Nuwa did not explain how she knew about Jiang Yuan. Instead, she explained what had roused her. The Path of Creation had broadened, startling her awake from seclusion and bringing her divine manifestation here.
The Path of Creation was Lady Nuwa's primary Dao. She could sense even the slightest change related to it.
When Jiang Yuan had been experimenting earlier, he had cultivated more than just the Profound Yellow Grain. Since he was experimenting anyway, he had figured he might as well try a few other things.
So he selected a pile of spirit herbs and cultivated them alongside Foxtail Grass, to see whether he could produce any new varieties.
And sure enough, after all that tinkering, Jiang Yuan had come up with quite a few new varieties, such as higher-yielding, more potent star anise trees, Fennel Trees, Pepper Trees, and others.
They were not as valuable as the Profound Yellow Grain, but that did not mean they were useless.
On the contrary, as commonly used remedies for baleful qi, their demand would only grow as more cooking methods spread.
Under those circumstances, growing them would be quite profitable and could increase the Human Race's income.
Of course, none of that was the point for Lady Nuwa. What mattered was that Jiang Yuan's method of cultivating them had shown her new possibilities for the Path of Creation.
It turned out that new species could come into being not only through direct creation. Through selective breeding, one race could evolve into another over a long span of time.
Direct creation was the beginning of the Path of Creation: bringing something from nothing. Directed evolution, meanwhile, involved the Dao's continued unfolding, branching from one into many.
Only by combining the two could the Path of Creation be complete. The Path of Creation Lady Nuwa had previously comprehended was precisely the power to bring something from nothing.
Jiang Yuan's selective-breeding method had shown her how the Path of Creation could unfold, branching from one into many. It had deepened her comprehension of the Dao.
The Great Path had widened, opening up a broader road ahead. Even though Lady Nuwa was in seclusion, she had been so startled that she manifested herself at once, eager to see who had brought her such a delightful surprise.
Do not think Lady Nuwa was making a fuss over nothing, or that Jiang Yuan's selective-breeding method was simple. Anything related to the Path of Creation was no small matter.
Take Lady Nuwa's creation of humanity, for example.
In the eyes of the Human Race, it was the greatest feat imaginable. But in the eyes of the mighty beings of the Primordial World, creating a race was something anyone could do with ease. Why should that alone have made Lady Nuwa a Sage?
In truth, it was not enough. Creating the Human Race alone could not make Lady Nuwa a Sage. What truly made her one was the new method of reproduction that emerged after the Human Race came into being.
Before the Human Race appeared, living beings in the Primordial World did not reproduce through the union of yin and yang. Instead, they directly divided off a portion of their source essence, combined it with the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth, and thereby brought forth offspring.
The offspring born this way were, at the very least, Innate Living Beings.
But after the Human Race came into being, the way of reproduction in the Primordial World changed. Instead of dividing off their source essence, living beings began to reproduce through the union of yin and yang, carrying their offspring within the mother's body.
This made it easier to bear offspring, though the drawback was obvious: over generations, their bloodlines could easily deteriorate.
Whatever else one could say, it was a revolution. It gave Lady Nuwa mastery over the most important branch of the Path of Creation—the Great Path of Procreation.
It was by relying on this authority, along with the Merit brought by revolutionizing reproduction, that Lady Nuwa merged with the Grandmist Purple Qi and attained Sagehood.
All this was only to explain that the birth of the Human Race, though seemingly a small matter, had brought about tremendous change and directly helped Lady Nuwa become a Sage.
Likewise, though Jiang Yuan's cultivation method seemed simple, it had pointed to another possibility within the Path of Creation: directed evolution.
Perhaps it could not compare to the Great Path of Procreation, but the two overlapped in many ways. Delving deeper into it could not only strengthen the Great Path of Procreation, but also give rise to another path to the Dao.