Walking out of his room, Muyu saw neither his mother nor grandpa, assuming they were busy in the grove or in seclusion, he didn’t pay further attention and walked into the backyard of their courtyard.
The backyard was an open garden with plants laid out casually, no further thought put into them.
"Grandpa said that this garden is just a storage room for the plants he had gained over the last years and that their planting conditions aren’t optimal for growth, so learning from them here would be better than entering the Verdant Grove and simply learn how to manage the garden."
He followed his advice and walked forward to inspect the environment around the plants first.
A rose bush was cornered left and right by trees, which would have usually impacted its growth. But in this scenario, the rose vines had partially climbed up the trees, transforming from a bush into something similar to a fence, blocking the path forward.
The roses were red but not strikingly so, its leaves weren’t many and the earth beneath them was a bit dry. It wasn’t a particularly bad situation, but not very good either.
Engrossed in checking the rose, he didn’t realise it, but at one point, he saw faint light emerging from the rose bush at different points.
His eyes widened slightly as he observed them deeper—
Faint lines and circles formed around the rose vines, leaves and petals, in different yet similar patterns. These lines weren’t magical, they only highlighted the given structure of the plant.
Thick lines flowed through the main body of the vine, circles formed at the stump of the branch, and dots littered across the whole body, which was the position of all its thorns.
The further he observed this vast formation of lines, circles and dots, the more he seemed to comprehend something. Yet at the same time, he also felt a deep exhaustion washing over him.
Minutes later, when he mapped out two whole vines, his vision had become blurry and a dizziness spread in his mind, upon which he stopped and took a deep breath to calm down.
Opening his eyes again, his vision was normal once more, but the exhaustion didn’t disappear.
"This... is this what an Inscription looks like in the natural state?" he asked hesitantly, having just observed something that confused him to no limit.
He hadn’t seen natural inscriptions previously. This was something entirely new, and he realised through this that the mastery of talismans and planting was even more difficult than he imagined.
"Constructing a talisman from this natural inscription, I’m far from that. Just observing them exhausts me so deeply, trying to comprehend them deeply and re-apply them might have a negative effect.
But... it seems I’ve found a way to increase my comprehension of talismans."
His perception was born through his proficiency in his talisman. Even though the talismans weren’t related, having increased his own perception, he could vaguely see the inscriptions of nature.
"If I could find the natural inscriptions that make up my Cleansing Talisman, I might be able to compare the talisman inscription and natural inscriptions, learning them together and increasing the speed and depth of my comprehension.
Using this, I’ve also found a way I can assist my planting."
This perception, grown through his proficiency in talisman, something a planting master of much higher talent required hard work to acquire, allowed him to observe the natural inscriptions and thereby state of the plant.
He raised a vine branch with fewer leaves and a branch with more leaves, activating his vision once more and observing them deeply to understand their difference.
His perception gradually deepened—the former branch had a thick circle at its stump, several dots all over it, and a line flowing through it smoothly. On the other hand, the latter had a thick line flowing through it, the circle at its stump was also strong, but it had less dots.
Seeing this, a thought emerged and he reached out, about to do something—
But just then, he stopped himself.
Instead of rapidly jumping to conclusions, he decided to observe it once more.
His eyes wandered from the tip of the vine to its stump, and then further down the vine body, trying to discern the reason for their different development.
Yet the more he observed, the more he thought that the dots were the only difference. The lines might be slightly differently shaped, but that shouldn’t be the origin for the difference in leaves.
Just then, when he was about to reach his conclusion, he saw something else.
The same vine, body, two different branches with vastly different number of leaves, why was that?
When he observed the vine body, he realised something:
The vine body had several long lines flowing through it, but beneath and hidden around the body, there were various smaller lines that stretched and moved through it.
Following them, he saw that the vine with many leaves was at an intersection with more leaves, while the vine branch with less leaves was at a spot with less lines.
"These... if one compares it with the human body, could it be that the long lines are meridians, while the small vines are vessels? So this vine branch with less vessels will inevitably grow less ’hair’? The deeper explanation should be different, but I can work with this one.
In that case, the solution of this problem is to allow more of these lines to emerge."
Muyu analysed deeply and once he reached his conclusion, he was quite sure of it.
He walked aside and thought of all the planting spells he learned:
Wood Nourishing Spell, Rain Cloud Spell, Earth Enriching Spell, Wind Gathering Spell and Fire Sun Spell.
Each spell contributed to planting in different ways. Water, Earth, Wind and Fire seemed self-explanatory. Plants needed all four elements to grow, so they should be about externally creating a growth environment for the plant.
What about the Wood Nourishing Spell?
A light blinked in Muyu’s mind as he waved his hands and spoke in an ancient mysterious language—
"Wood Nourishing Spell, Nourish!"
Green power gathered in his hands and was directed at the vine branch’s stump, right at the spot where the thin lines were supposed to intersect.
In his vision, he saw something astounding.
The green power entered the vine body and formed thin green lines shaped exactly like the vessels present, their only difference in colour.
But when they emerged, other lines around the stump automatically gathered around and an intersection of vessels was formed.
In an instant, he saw the main line of the vine branch thicken, while some of the dots showed signs of falling off.
His eyes widened and a smile spread on his face—
Talismans and Planting—Combined!