Noah’s next experiment involved a plant.
It was not a particularly impressive subject, but that was why he chose it.
If psychic energy could be applied to living beings, he needed to understand what that meant before attempting anything involving a human body.
A plant was easier to observe, easier to compare with a control sample, and less likely to suffer serious consequences from an imperfect experiment.
He selected two similar seedlings from the garden.
One would remain untouched.
The other would be exposed to a carefully controlled amount of psychic energy.
He recorded their initial height, the condition of their leaves, and the amount of water each received.
He placed them in the same area so that they would receive similar light and temperature.
Then he sat beside the experimental seedling and began meditating.
He did not attempt to force growth.
He simply gathered a small amount of psychic energy and directed it toward the plant, maintaining the connection for a few seconds before stopping.
Nothing happened.
He repeated the exercise the next day.
Again, nothing obvious happened.
On the third day, he noticed that the plant’s leaves appeared slightly more upright than those of the control sample.
The difference was small enough that it could have been caused by ordinary variation.
He continued the experiment for another week.
By the end of the period, the two seedlings had grown at slightly different rates, but the difference was not consistent enough to establish that psychic energy had caused it.
Water distribution, root development, and minor environmental differences could all have contributed.
He needed a better experiment.
Still, the attempt had taught him something about the limits of his current abilities.
Applying psychic energy to a living organism was more difficult than moving an inanimate object.
His attention kept drifting toward the plant’s visible structure, while the energy itself seemed to encounter a complex pattern he could not easily interpret.
He did not understand the mechanism.
He would not pretend otherwise.
The system’s description had said that psychic energy could be applied to living beings, but it had not promised that every application would produce an immediate or beneficial effect.
Possibility was not competence.
Noah closed the notebook and looked at the seedlings.
He could imagine the implications if he eventually learned to use psychic energy for healing, physical reinforcement, or cultivation.
He could also imagine the consequences of attempting those things without sufficient knowledge.
He would not experiment on a person merely because the system’s description suggested that it was possible.
Consent would be necessary.
Understanding would be necessary.
And even then, he would need to proceed carefully.
Later that evening, he checked the Quiet Practice Archive.
The user count had increased again.
A few reported sensations they could not easily explain, but none provided enough information to establish a clear pattern.
Noah left the public instructions unchanged.
The method was doing what he had intended it to do: providing a repeatable practice that people could follow without his direct involvement.
He did not need to turn every practitioner into a psychic immediately.
If some users eventually developed the ability to sense and manipulate energy, that would be valuable.
If others benefited only through better concentration and discipline, the method would still have served a purpose.
The system, however, continued to register connected cultivation.
Noah wondered whether the collective contribution depended on the number of active users, their talent, or the depth of their cultivation.
The original description had mentioned all three, but he had no formula with which to calculate the effect.
He could not reverse-engineer a system by staring at its notifications.
He would need time.
He returned to meditation and practised moving a coin in a slow circle above his palm.
The coin rotated steadily.
Noah kept it suspended for nearly two minutes before lowering it.
A month earlier, he had struggled to move it at all.
The progress was measurable.
That was enough to keep him working.