Chapter 69: Accelerated Growth

Chapter 69: Accelerated Growth

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Gu Mo couldn't resist trying it out. At worst, he'd lose a single stalk of Water Spirit Rice. His spiritual field had a full acre of it, so losing a few stalks was completely acceptable.

Without hesitation, Gu Mo reached out, grasping the Water Spirit Rice before him, and began to slowly inject spiritual energy into it, pushing the flow of energy through the plant's meridians to accelerate its circulation.

"It really works!"

As the spiritual energy coursed faster through the plant's meridians, Gu Mo could clearly see the Water Spirit Rice growing at an accelerated pace. In just a quarter of an hour, the rice stalk before him had begun to sprout ears, while the other Water Spirit Rice in the field was still in the leaf-splitting stage.

Unbeknownst to Gu Mo, this experiment had led him to comprehend a new secret technique of spiritual botanists—Accelerated Growth.

With this secret technique, a spiritual botanist could stimulate the growth of spiritual plants, significantly speeding up their development. It was especially effective for spiritual plants that typically grew slowly.

However, while Accelerated Growth was powerful, mastering it wasn't easy. The most basic requirement was Plant Perception. After that, it required precise control over spiritual energy. The meridians of spiritual plants were not the same as a cultivator's own meridians; even the slightest mistake could destroy the plant's meridians entirely. Let alone pushing spiritual energy through them at an accelerated pace—this demanded an incredibly high level of control.

Fortunately, Gu Mo met these conditions perfectly. The spiritual energy within his body was refined from Solar Essence, making it extremely pure and easy to control. Additionally, his practice of the perfected Purification Technique had further enhanced his control over spiritual energy. This combination allowed him to successfully stimulate the flow of spiritual energy within the plant's meridians on his very first attempt.

By fulfilling these two criteria, Gu Mo had effectively achieved an entry-level mastery of the Accelerated Growth technique. But to perfect it required one more essential condition: the nature of the spiritual energy had to align with the plant.

For example, a cultivator practicing a fire-based technique couldn't apply Accelerated Growth to a water-attributed plant like Water Spirit Rice. Not only would it fail to accelerate growth, but it would likely destroy the plant.

In this regard, Gu Mo was also perfectly suited. His Five Elements were balanced, and his spiritual energy was pure, containing a trace of solar aura. The importance of the sun to plants was self-evident, and the spiritual energy infused with a hint of solar aura made it the most compatible energy for nurturing spiritual plants.

All these factors combined allowed Gu Mo to inadvertently grasp an advanced secret technique of spiritual botanists—Accelerated Growth.

It could be said that the moment Gu Mo comprehended this technique, he had truly become a spiritual botanist.

It took Gu Mo just over a month to become a true spiritual botanist—a speed that would shock anyone. However, Gu Mo himself was completely unaware of this achievement. After all, the inheritance from the Golden Core Elder didn't include the advanced secret technique of Accelerated Growth.

Still, Gu Mo felt that he was close to becoming a full-fledged spiritual botanist. He believed that once he successfully completed a spiritual plant fusion, he'd be there.

Grafting? That wouldn't be a problem for Gu Mo. In his previous life, he had personally practiced grafting fruit trees under his father's guidance. Of course, there were no fruit trees here, but he could experiment with Water Spirit Rice. With cultivation techniques at his disposal, grafting rice shouldn't pose any issues.

Since grafting required two different spiritual plants, Gu Mo considered his options. Besides Water Spirit Rice, his spiritual field also had Spirit Sunflowers, and then there were Sunflowers, Peashooters, and Potato Mines.

Gu Mo didn't dare to experiment with the latter three. If something went wrong and he lost one or two, it wouldn't be easy to recover. He was currently using all his Solar Essence to upgrade the Sunflowers, and losing a few plants would force him to pause their upgrades to replenish his supply.

Thus, Gu Mo's only options were Water Spirit Rice and Spirit Sunflowers, but these two plants were clearly incompatible for grafting—the difference between them was too great.

According to the inheritance from the Golden Core Elder, fusing two spiritual plants wasn't as simple as grafting them together. It required connecting their meridians and ensuring smooth circulation. Only then could the fusion be considered successful.

For different types of spiritual plants, the differences in their meridians were immense. The difficulty of connecting and integrating them was naturally high, and Gu Mo wasn't about to attempt a fusion with such a low success rate.

Gu Mo decided to fuse Water Spirit Rice with Spirit Jade Rice. Both were types of rice, and although their meridians might differ due to their grades, they were generally similar enough.

Having made up his mind, Gu Mo went to his junior brother's spiritual field next door and acquired a few stalks of Spirit Jade Rice.

With his fingers together, sharp Geng Metal Sword Qi extended from his fingertips. He sliced the Water Spirit Rice, which he had just accelerated, at a diagonal angle. Then, he cut the roots off the Spirit Jade Rice.

Placing the upper part of the Spirit Jade Rice onto the rootstock of the Water Spirit Rice, the cuts were so smooth and precise that there wasn't a single gap at the junction of the two plants.

"Minor Rejuvenation Technique!"

There was no need for any adhesive or binding. With just a Minor Rejuvenation Technique, the two plants fused seamlessly. It was no wonder that Spiritual Farming was the precursor profession to spiritual botanists—its techniques were still incredibly useful even after advancing to spiritual botany.

However, simply healing the cuts of the two plants wasn't true fusion. That was just a spiritual farming method. Now, it was time for the spiritual botanist to step in.

Activating Plant Perception, two images of broken meridian structures immediately appeared before Gu Mo. His next task was to fuse these two damaged meridian systems into one cohesive network and ensure they functioned properly.

"Alright, let's begin."

Taking a deep breath, Gu Mo injected spiritual energy into the plant and began constructing the meridian system. This task was significantly more difficult than accelerating the flow of spiritual energy through existing meridians.

Especially since the two plants didn't have identical meridian structures, Gu Mo had to create new meridian pathways and seal off some of the original ones.

As time passed, sweat began to bead on Gu Mo's forehead. Most spiritual botanists attempting this for the first time would use two low-grade, tier-one spiritual plants, but Gu Mo had directly chosen to fuse a high-grade, tier-one Water Spirit Rice with a low-grade, tier-one Spirit Jade Rice. The difficulty was far beyond that of fusing two low-grade plants.

But relying on his exquisite control over spiritual energy and his reserves that far exceeded those of cultivators at the same level, Gu Mo meticulously completed the fusion of the two plants' broken meridians.

"Phew—"

Once the meridians of the two plants were successfully fused and functioning smoothly, Gu Mo exhaled sharply. He realized that more than half of his spiritual energy had been depleted. If not for his deep reserves, this attempt might have ended in failure.

Fortunately, it was a success. Although not perfect, Gu Mo was already very satisfied. The roots of the high-grade Water Spirit Rice combined with the ears of the low-grade Spirit Jade Rice—Gu Mo was eager to see what quality of spiritual rice this fusion would eventually produce.

"Let's speed things up a bit." Gu Mo grasped the newly fused spiritual plant and began injecting spiritual energy, pushing the flow through its meridians to accelerate its growth.

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