Meanwhile, Mu Zixiao turned around and headed behind the teaching building to find Elder Luo.
Having the students temporarily settled by the puppet possessed by Weike was not actually part of Mu Zixiao’s planned arrangements but rather a last resort.
After all, as someone with mild social anxiety, she hadn’t yet fully overcome her psychological pressure. So when her master finished speaking and told her to go pick people, she remained motionless, tinkering and studying on her own.
These past few days, Mu Zixiao had been in a state of utter chaos.
While researching the screening of spiritual plant seeds, she couldn’t help but wish she could go back to the day she discussed things with her master in Tianquan Hall and give herself a hard slap in the face.
She deeply suspected that her intelligence and emotional quotient, based on her current body and the functioning of this brain, were operating at less than one percent of their former capacity.
Especially after making progress in her cultivation over the past few days, her mind seemed to have become clearer. Looking back on her grand pronouncements about agriculture, she wanted to find a pile of dirt and bury herself. Excelling in theoretical knowledge didn’t necessarily translate to practical experience. Although she could push computation and analysis to their limits, when it came to the hands-on stage, her progress was surprisingly slow.
Mu Zixiao realized the arrogance that had emerged after restoring Weike’s normal operations—something her previously highly rational self had never experienced.
With this deeper understanding, Mu Zixiao’s state of mind improved accordingly, and her cultivation actually advanced further, faintly approaching the Great Perfection realm.
But what Mu Zixiao wanted most wasn’t to raise her cultivation level but to solve the problem at hand.
She specifically went to Tianquan Hall to confide her troubles to Shi Junxi, and her aloof master practically rolled his eyes at her.
Because this situation—where she benefited from her cultivation progress yet still complained about slow research progress—would likely make other cultivators of her generation want to hit her if they heard about it.
Although Shi Junxi appeared indifferent, the very next day he thoughtfully sent Elder Luo from the Hundred Herbs Garden to help.
Elder Luo was the manager of the sect’s Hundred Herbs Garden. Usually, he looked down on disciples with an arrogant and disdainful gaze. However, after listening to Mu Zixiao’s theoretical knowledge and inspecting the research progress at the base, he packed his bags and moved into the Fenghuang Peak Agricultural Talent Training Base that same day.
To share Elder Luo’s workload, Mu Zixiao had only gone to the outer sect yesterday to find suitable people.
After doing some mental preparation in front of Elder Luo’s chamber door, Mu Zixiao was just about to knock when the door opened.
Elder Luo’s name was Luo Yin. Although he held the title of elder and was the manager of the Hundred Herbs Garden—a position often associated with an old man—he was actually a somewhat handsome young man with graying hair, fox-like eyes, a pipe in his mouth, and an always nonchalant expression.
From their first meeting, Mu Zixiao had labeled him with four words: refined scoundrel.
Seeing Mu Zixiao, Luo Yin raised the corners of his mouth, took a puff of his pipe, and exhaled layers of smoke. “What, have the Yushu seeds succeeded?”
Mu Zixiao often felt thankful to heaven and earth that at least the words from his mouth were serious.
Yushu was actually the bean plant commonly eaten by later generations. However, in this world, there were few edible bean plants in the mortal realm, and their cultivation was limited. Instead, in the cultivation world, bean-type immortal herbs were called Yushu.
In the cultivation world, Yushu—or beans—had relatively higher yields compared to other immortal herbs and were easy to mass-produce, making them an important material for Cultivators to make Fasting Pills.
However, most cultivators practice inedia, so the demand for fasting pills isn’t particularly high, and no one specifically cultivates jade beans.
Jade beans are also graded; high-grade jade beans not only beautify and nourish the skin when consumed but also serve as excellent medicinal herbs for healing and nourishment.
But jade beans cannot directly become beans of the Mortal Realm.
This is based on common knowledge in the cultivation world: spiritual plants can only survive in soil infused with Spiritual Energy. The lands of the mortal world are scarce in Spiritual Energy, making it impossible to cultivate spiritual plants.
The top priority of recent research has been hybridization—how to breed hybrid beans that can be cultivated on mortal land.
Based on Weike’s data analysis, Mu Zixiao specifically selected usable bean varieties from the Mortal Realm and resilient jade bean varieties from the cultivation world to conduct high-efficiency computational experiments.
Choosing legumes as the variety was also the optimal result derived from data analysis.
Because her reasoning was based on knowledge from her previous world: soybeans have rhizobia, which do not deplete nitrogen in the soil and may even increase it.
Mu Zixiao deduced that beans in the cultivation world also have rhizobia-like structures.
“Halfway there, but today confirmed my idea: jade beans don’t deplete Spiritual Energy in the soil and may even increase it.”
Luo Yin’s eyes lit up, and his hand trembled slightly as he set down his pipe. “They can increase Spiritual Energy!”
“Yes.” Faced with Luo Yin’s disbelief, Mu Zixiao calmly affirmed.
Although further research revealed no connection between nitrogen and Spiritual Energy, it was still a major discovery.
Luo Yin instantly became energized, as if injected with adrenaline. “Increasing Spiritual Energy, Mu Zixiao, do you realize what this means?”
Mu Zixiao pondered for a moment. In her mind, beans in the Mortal Realm served as excellent crop rotations, while in the cultivation world, they likely offered more possibilities for restoring the land’s spiritual power.
But the key was how to develop varieties better suited for both regions…
“If they truly increase Spiritual Energy and we can boost yields, cultivators will no longer rely entirely on Spiritual Veins and Spirit Stones for cultivation.”
Mu Zixiao responded with an “Oh.” “So once production catches up, people won’t have to practice inedia anymore. They can eat more vegetables, and cultivation will become smoother.”
Luo Yin was momentarily speechless at such a simple summary. “That’s roughly the idea.”