After days of isolation, the Qingluo Wood Spirit eagerly shared all the accumulated feedback since their last exchange.
Years in the making, relying solely on the feedback from this single blade of grass, the accumulation of solidified spiritual resonance on Li Ye's interface had finally reached completion!
This was also the first third-tier trait he had acquired!
And beyond the [Tongtian] trait, it was the first one that could directly enhance himself!
Overjoyed, Li Ye immediately channeled a strand of mana to feed the Qingluo Wood Spirit.
Then he returned it to its main body, allowing it to recover and refine itself using the Verdant Spirit Light
and the Wood God True Flame.
This greatly boosted its foundation, and the little spirit, full of contentment, drifted into a deep sleep.
Only then did Li Ye begin to seriously study the enhancements brought by the [Adaptation] trait.
Its benefits to spiritual plants were self-evident almost perfectly mirroring the Qingluo Grass's characteristics!
However, how effective it truly was, and what scale was required to influence the environment, still needed to be tested.
If combined with other traits to develop specific plant species, it might even be possible to transform an environment on a large scale to either doom or uplift everything living within it, without them even noticing!
But such an undertaking would require immense effort, far from something that could be resolved quickly. Li Ye decided to leave that research for another time.
What intrigued him more at this moment was how this trait affected him personally.
"Adapt to the environment… or even make the environment adapt to me…"
Murmuring to himself, Li Ye began to feel that the surrounding spiritual energy was indeed interacting with him a little differently.
However, after years of careful cultivation, formation setups, and the influence of Qingluo Grass, Pingyang Mountain had long become a cultivation sanctuary perfectly suited to him.
Everything here was already harmonious and comfortable, so it was hard to notice the impact of the [Adaptation (Level 3)] trait right away.
But verifying it would be easy.
With a flicker of blue-violet light, Li Ye's figure flashed away, flying beyond the protective formation of Pingyang Mountain.
He entered the Blazing Hills, a region filled with underground fire veins. Without formations to moderate the energy, this place had always been dominated by fire-aligned spiritual energy, followed by earth and metal, while water and wood were the most heavily suppressed.
While such imbalance could affect Qi Refinement practitioners, it was something Foundation Establishment cultivators could normally handle with ease.
But handling it actively was one thing. Naturally adapting to it was another…
Li Ye deactivated his protective aura and immediately noticed the difference.
Though the ratio of elemental energy remained unchanged, the fire and metal energies, which would normally suppress his wood-aligned affinity, now had significantly less impact.
Even more impressive while he absorbed energy, some spiritual power converted, following the logic of the Five Elements. Though most were lost in the process, a small amount of fire-aligned energy transformed into wood-aligned energy and was absorbed by him.
The proportion was tiny but it proved that Li Ye could now restore his spiritual power in nearly any elemental environment.
And don't underestimate that small percentage in long-term cultivation, this meant a tangible increase in his overall speed and efficiency.
Moreover, in hostile environments that would normally suppress him, the actual impact on him would be far less than others might expect!
When faced with invasive foreign energies, his ability to adapt and neutralize them would also be dramatically improved, making him much less vulnerable to such sabotage.
Li Ye moved again, heading straight into a nearby fire vein tunnel.
He only ventured in a short distance, stopping once the erupting heat met the threshold he needed.
He wasn't here to train just to test the environment. Unless he reached the Golden Core stage, entering the deeper lava palace with his physical body was simply not an option!
As the searing flames surged around him, Li Ye observed the impact they had on his body his expression becoming both strange and delighted.
He raised a hand and released a streak of Verdant Spirit Light
, letting it travel through the blazing heat.
This light was born from the Wood God Art, a supporting secret art with divine properties, capable of resisting normal elemental suppression.
But under such intense fire-aligned conditions, it would usually still be weakened its spiritual power drained, its potency reduced, even slightly fueling the flames around it.
Yet now it was as if the Five Elements had reversed. As the light weaved through the fire, it absorbed some of the fire energy and converted it into spiritual benefit.
In the end, the suppression it endured was almost negligible!
Li Ye himself, who once struggled to endure such scorching conditions and required various techniques to resist them, now found the experience much more tolerable.
His strength could be fully unleashed unhindered by the environment.
Whoosh
The Verdant Spirit Light
swept through the fire, extinguishing a wave of flame before flying back into Li Ye's body, radiating brilliance.
With the test complete, Li Ye returned straight to Pingyang Mountain.
"This is practically a divine talent that can continue to grow over time…"
Still carrying a faint trace of heat, Li Ye murmured, his expression full of joy.
While this trait didn't provide flashy external effects, the support it offered was truly exceptional.
Li Ye's strength had quietly increased by at least twenty percent, all thanks to the [Adaptation] trait!
This trait was a third-tier effect and notably, it hadn't been obtained from a world-root-level existence like the Void Realm Tree.
This led to a compelling hypothesis…
Perhaps traits derived from ordinary spiritual plants only begin to enhance Li Ye personally once they reach the third tier.
And if all the spiritual resonance traits he had acquired so far which had yet to provide direct benefits to his own body could grant him such enhancements upon reaching tier three…
Then it might not be a matter of needing rare origins like wood spirits or heaven-and-earth roots at all.
In that case, even if he didn't acquire any new traits, simply elevating his existing ones could bring about a fundamental transformation in his magical abilities and divine powers!
"Especially wood spirits…"
A thoughtful glint flashed through Li Ye's eyes.
"This trait holds the power to awaken sentience within plants and trees truly miraculous. If that enhancement could be transferred to me… perhaps it could boost my affinity with flora, giving me a bonus talent for plant-based magic beyond what my spiritual roots allow…"
The [Adaptation] trait had opened a brand new door for him. There was no way he wouldn't start imagining the possibilities.
With his thoughts settled Li Ye immediately made his way to Dengjin Mountain.
The three plots of tier-two spiritual farmland on Pingyang Mountain were dedicated to cultivating Jade Cluster Fruits and Blood Amber Flowers, both essential to his cultivation progress. These had been nurtured for years, and despite being a tier lower, there was no chance he'd swap them out to make room for tier-three Qingxuan Rice.
However, the Blood-Melting Vines and Withered Bone Grass on Dengjin Mountain both poisonous plants were something he already had in abundance.
Li Ye had been planning to replace them with new spiritual plants anyway, to diversify his techniques and gather new trait possibilities.
Though tier-three spiritual plants were rare and valuable, he didn't place too much importance on spiritual rice specifically, so planting it on Dengjin Mountain wouldn't be a waste.
So he set up an array, forcefully concentrating the spiritual energy and soil essence from two plots of tier-two farmland and two more of tier-one.
Only then could he barely manage to create one stable plot of lower-tier tier-three farmland and even that wasn't entirely stable.
If he were planting anything other than spiritual rice, the energy likely wouldn't have been sufficient.
After repeated tests, he found that only 2,000 stalks of tier-three Qingxuan Rice could be grown in that single plot and it took five years to mature.
To this day, Li Ye hadn't received even a single feedback pulse of spiritual resonance from them let alone a solidified trait!
Originally, he had intended to mix this rice with tier-two Qingxuan Rice for daily consumption, hoping its tier-three properties would help accelerate his cultivation.
But now it seemed this modest plot of land might very well become the testing ground for his new theory!
Passing through the formation and stepping into the refined spiritual energy that wreathed the fields, Li Ye looked at the vibrant yellow-green seedlings.
He gently cupped a handful in his palm.
"Grow well, now… I can't approach this with the other plants for now, so my hopes rest with you to give me the answer…"
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