Becoming One, One Year

Time flowed on, and in the blink of an eye, a year had quietly passed.

Throughout that year, Xu Mengqing constantly tried to enter that state and merge himself into the Blue Silver Grass.

He tried to become one with the Blue Silver Grass, naturally absorbing the energy of heaven and earth to increase his cultivation speed.

He tried using his Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul to communicate with those specks of Blue Silver Grass light.

Closeness... joy...

As plant-type Spirit Beasts, Blue Silver Grass basically lacked true consciousness and the ability to think before becoming Blue Silver Kings, but they still possessed faint traces of thought.

It worked. Perhaps because he had planted these Blue Silver Grasses himself and often came to tend them, Xu Mengqing could sense that they held no resistance toward him. Instead, they felt very close to him.

But that was only a guess. He would need to verify it later at other areas where Blue Silver Grass grew in clusters.

Yet Xu Mengqing's attempt to truly merge into the energy network of this Eight Trigrams Array of Blue Silver Grass and cultivate with their strength did not go so smoothly.

Even if they trusted him and did not resist, he still had to match their frequency and rhythm.

At first, it was merely a stiff connection.

His Soul Power carried the rhythm of a human—swift, ordered, and imbued with obvious subjective will;

while the life fluctuations of the Blue Silver Grass carried the rhythm of the earth—slow, lingering, and almost unconsciously breathing in and out with heaven and earth.

One was fast and one slow, one strong and one weak; they were always utterly incompatible.

Several attempts ended with his Soul Power being gently repelled.

Xu Mengqing was not impatient. A year of tempering had already made his temperament much steadier. He took a deep breath and stopped forcefully driving his Soul Power. Instead, he drew it all in, leaving only the faintest, gentlest thread of Spiritual Power drifting quietly among the grass and trees.

He no longer thought of controlling them, nor did he think of borrowing their power.

He merely felt.

He felt the faint tremble of leaves beneath the passing breeze,

felt the water slowly flowing through the soil,

felt the warmth of sunlight falling upon the tips of the grass,

felt the life rhythm of the entire Blue Silver Grass colony, breathing and rising and falling as one.

No one knew how long passed before that trace of deliberateness in his heart quietly dissipated.

His breathing gradually synchronized with the swaying of the vegetation.

The pulse of his Soul Power slowly drew close to the earth's frequency.

At a certain instant—

"Buzz—"

An extremely faint tremor came from every direction.

Xu Mengqing's mind tightened.

He could clearly "see" countless pale-cyan specks of life interweaving into a net within the array, slowly flowing like a river of stars in the sky. And he himself was like a newly added star within that galaxy.

There was no abruptness, no rejection.

Naturally, they became one.

The spiritual energy between heaven and earth was no longer absorbed by him alone. Instead, it first flowed into the entire Blue Silver Grass formation, then gently and densely streamed through that invisible network into his limbs and bones.

The speed was actually several times greater than cultivating alone.

Xu Mengqing's heart stirred, yet he was not wildly overjoyed. He merely maintained that mysterious state and allowed his Soul Power to circulate naturally through his meridians. Had he succeeded?

That instant of realization made Xu Mengqing feel several degrees lighter.

That was right. He had succeeded.

Xu Mengqing could feel it. From the moment he truly merged with the Blue Silver Grass array veins, he clearly sensed that the entire great formation had undergone an earth-shattering change.

Previously, the Blue Silver Grass array had merely relied on the instincts of the vegetation and the foundation of its array patterns to operate loosely, almost unconsciously absorbing scant spiritual energy on its own, with no method or order to it. But now, the great formation was no longer cultivating aimlessly by itself. Instead, it was like it had found its core and backbone, infused with vibrant life and intelligence.

With Xu Mengqing as the array core, the entire Bagua Formation was instantly and completely activated. Pale-cyan life radiance surged wildly along the array-pattern veins, spreading through the leaves, stems, and roots of every Blue Silver Grass. Following the rhythm of his Soul Power, the great formation began actively and frantically absorbing the surrounding energy of heaven and earth. The speed at which spiritual energy gathered was more than ten times faster than before. The dense spiritual energy even condensed into a faint mist within the formation, endlessly nourishing his meridians and Martial Soul in return.

After a year of experiments and cultivation, Xu Mengqing's Soul Power Level had successfully broken through from level four to level six. Through his efforts, his physical strength had also reached the terrifying Earth tier.

Xu Mengqing did not possess any advanced techniques. Simply put, after undergoing high-intensity training, he recovered by devouring the life force of Blue Silver Grass. Of course, he did not seize a single Blue Silver Grass and devour it dry. He only absorbed a portion of the life force from each patch of Blue Silver Grass.

With that combination, the life force Xu Mengqing devoured could completely heal the damage within his body caused by high-intensity training. More importantly, he discovered that Blue Silver Grass possessed extraordinarily powerful life force.

The life force he devoured recovered very quickly, and after having their life force devoured, those Blue Silver Grasses instead became even more vigorous.

At first, he had worried that drawing upon the Blue Silver Grass's life force was somewhat immoral.

Now, the Blue Silver Grass told him: A little life force is nothing at all!

Xu Mengqing discovered that these Blue Silver Grasses did not seem to bear much resentment toward him. Rather than saying that Xu Mengqing devoured that life force, it would be more accurate to say that the Blue Silver Grass willingly gave it to him.

What Xu Mengqing did not know was that as he cultivated and experimented, a large amount of life force naturally flowed into his body. The life force he devoured was not much when distributed among each individual plant. Moreover, his Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul was also quietly undergoing Martial Soul Evolution.

In this world of Spirit Beasts, where bloodlines reigned supreme, Xu Mengqing's Martial Soul was far superior to the Blue Silver Grass in this small courtyard. It had already reached the level of a Quasi-Blue Silver King. What was wrong with a king asking for a little "blood"? It was not like they could not recover.

As the sun slowly rose,

Xu Mengqing slowly opened his eyes. A pale-cyan glow still lingered in their depths, while the faint Soul Power fluctuations surrounding him slowly circulated with his breathing before gradually dispersing into the air.

He slowly rose to his feet and stretched his body. A crisp series of soft cracks sounded from his bones. Rather than the soreness and stiffness that followed high-intensity training in the past, he was filled with an unprecedented sense of lightness and strength.

He lowered his head and looked at his palm. A Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul sprouted forth, bearing extremely faint golden patterns. This was the sign of Martial Soul Evolution—the bloodline power of a Quasi-Blue Silver King.

He could clearly feel that his connection with every Blue Silver Grass in this small courtyard had grown increasingly close. Even Blue Silver Grass thousands of miles away could convey faint thoughts of closeness. It was submission born of bloodline, the instinctive awe plant-type Spirit Beasts felt toward a king.

Thinking back on the tempering of that year, from their initial incompatibility to quietly sensing them, then finally becoming one, Xu Mengqing could not help feeling deeply moved.