Chapter 47: Red Thorn
Under the chilly moonlight, a massacre commenced. Soon, the giant wolf that exuded a purple luster slaughtered all the alien insects.
After the massacre, Dong Hai, Su Jin, and Lin Yuan departed, leaving behind a ground filled with insect corpses for the Redbud Guards to clean up.
At that moment, an unassuming black crow was standing on a tree branch quietly and watching the insect corpses scattered throughout the ground.
The crow’s eyes betrayed its ruthlessness and viciousness, as well as traces of disdain.
After standing quietly for a moment, the black crow flew straight for the dimensional rift with a burst of speed.
...
When Lin Yuan returned, he realized he had obtained another Willpower Rune.
Aren’t Willpower Runes very difficult to obtain? Why does it seem like I am able to obtain them easily? Is it because I am too smart? Lin Yuan ridiculed in his heart.
Lin Yuan comprehended this Willpower Rune while witnessing the alien insects getting slaughtered. The slaughterfest represented destruction, but it brought hope to Xia Region’s people.
Destruction and hope were always contradicting or intersecting with each other. However, in different circumstances, hope and destruction had a different significance.
This Willpower Rune represented hope that was released during the massacre, and it was a true offense-type rune.
As for the Source Seed, Lin Yuan didn’t use it immediately after returning. Instead, he spent quite a fair amount of money on the Star Web to purchase Source Seed-related books.
Unfortunately, he realized that all those books were only giving simple introductions. They introduced the Source Seed as a kind of source-type item but only briefly mentioned its usage.
There might be plenty of active dimensional rifts and many dimensional rifts that had been sealed and destroyed, but among all sorts of source-type items, there were only two Source Seeds had ever been obtained.
The owner of the other Source Seed mentioned that one drop of fresh blood was enough to form a contract with the Source Seed. Afterward, they should bury the Source Seed in energy ores and just wait quietly for it to germinate.
Not long after, because the person who had obtained the Source Seed had only been an ordinary person, he had perished during a calamitous Class 3 dimensional rift.
As such, the research on Source Seeds had reached an end. The research result determined that Source Seeds were considered weaker among the source-type items.
Otherwise, no matter how many merits and contributions Lin Yuan’s parents, Uncle Li, or Auntie Zhang had wouldn’t matter. It would be impossible for them to exchange for the only remaining Source Seed.
After reading all the books on Source Seeds, Lin Yuan had a greater understanding of his Source Seed.
Concurrently, Lin Yuan also decided to form a contract with the Source Seed. He took out the wrinkly Source Seed and observed it, feeling that it was nothing special.
While observing the ordinary-looking Source Seed, Lin Yuan suddenly caught a glimpse of four hearts that were boiling with warmth.
Lin Yuan made a cut on his finger and squeezed out a drop of fresh blood. The drop landed on the Source Seed, and he noticed that the seed absorbed it at breakneck speed. At the same time, he realized that the bloodline contract between him and the Source Seed had already formed!
Since the contract was formed, Lin Yuan decided to stop the bleeding. However, before he could do that, another drop of blood fell on the Source Seed.
Just as Lin Yuan was preparing to wipe off the blood, he discovered that the Source Seed had completely absorbed the drop of blood.
Surprisingly, Lin Yuan felt that his connection with the Source Seed had deepened. Thus, he simply allowed his blood to drip onto the Source Seed.
After six drops of blood, Lin Yuan could vaguely feel the Source Seed’s emotional state. It was now emitting a desire for its contractor’s blood.
Naturally, Lin Yuan that the Source Seed-related books he had purchased on the Star Web had discrepancies. Logically speaking, the books’ authors must have taken reference from the previous contractor’s experience of dripping one drop of blood on the Source Seed and the fact that he had sensed that his connection had stopped.
Lin Yuan could sense the Source Seed’s desire. Thus, he bit on his hand, opening up the wound, and a surging flow of blood bespattered the Source Seed, which fearlessly absorbed the blood.
After one minute of continuous blood loss, and when Lin Yuan felt a spell of dizziness, the Source Seed finally stopped its wanton absorption.
Lin Yuan swiftly used his Jasmine Lily to heal himself. The Jasmine Lily’s Heal ability might not be able to immediately heal Lin Yuan’s wound, but in just a few seconds, the bleeding had stopped.
An Elite X Jasmine Lily was already considered a full-fledged healing-type fey.
Lin Yuan took a closer look at the Source Seed and noticed that it was gradually shedding off the hard scab on its surface. The layer of hard scab was now soft and dark red in color.
The dark-red scab was withdrawn inside the Source Seed, and its front grew out soft sprouts that were around 3cm in height.
At that moment, Lin Yuan could clearly feel that the Source Seed was waiting for his instruction to decide on its evolution direction and form.
Lin Yuan had already made a plan regarding the Source Seed’s evolution direction, so he immediately instructed, “You will follow the carnivorous plants’ path, and your two soft sprouts will grow into a mouth!”
Lin Yuan would first nurture the Source Seed into a predator plant and then evolve it toward the other directions.
After receiving Lin Yuan’s instructions, the Source Seed’s soft sprouts went through a drastic transformation and turned into two cylinder-shaped stems that were 40cm in height.
The stem’s center was like a stomach sack, and when Lin Yuan touched it, it felt like it was hollow. The top of the stems were two red-colored multiflora roses.
Lin Yuan took a closer look at the flowers. Although they might be like simple multiflora roses, their petals had sharp barbs. The moment the petals were rolled open, a saw-toothed mouth appeared.
Lin Yuan never expected that a single command would allow the Source Seed to evolve a completed predator organ. Truth be told, it seemed like the Source Seed was as weak as stated in the books. However, Lin Yuan felt that the Source Seed was exceptionally strong, and it wasn’t even at normal-grade yet!
In addition, Lin Yuan even speculated that a Normal offense-type fey, such as the Gray Fur Hound, wouldn’t be the Source Seed’s match and would become its food source instead.
Lin Yuan channeled the spirit qi into the Source Seed, but it didn’t absorb the channeled spirit qi to his surprise.
It seemed like the information was correct, and the only method to evolve the Source Seed was through energy absorption.
As a combat-class plant, Lin Yuan wasn’t going to allow the Source Seed to be absorbing energy from the soil as the main source of energy. If the plant was too reliant on the soil, it would suffer more restrictions in combat.
Currently, the Source Seed could consume food to increase its energy and allow itself to evolve. As such, it didn’t have to rely on its roots to absorb energy.
Lin Yuan was planning to make the roots undergo a different transformation. He wouldn’t forbid the roots to absorb energy from the soil. He would make the roots less reliant on absorbing energy from the soil and turn it into a method instead.
For example, he would allow the Source Seed to instantly absorb the soil’s energy to recuperate its body or enhance the roots’ defensive ability.
Of course, these were all ideas that Lin Yuan had just thought of. As for the exact evolution path, Lin Yuan would make a careful decision after evolving it to bronze-grade and choosing its exclusive skill.
Lin Yuan looked at the Source Seed and decided to give it a name—Red Thorn!