Chapter 227-1: Virtual Seed, Real Root (1) |
The idea took root in his mind.
Ashen Sigil decided to give it a try and see what differences there really were between Monster World and reality in terms of how the world operated.
Sitting back down at his desk, he began to browse the Green Wood race’s inheritance information.
When they connected to Starnet back then, in order to preserve their data, the Green Wood race uploaded a large number of historical materials and inheritance information to the Starnet database.
It contained detailed records of natural technology.
After identity authentication, the inheritance information was listed before Ashen Sigil.
[Plant Guidance]
Inheritance technology introduction: Establish a spiritual connection with plants to control their growth speed and form, usable for rapidly cultivating spiritual plants or repairing damaged plants.
[Waterflow Guidance]
[Windwhisper Art]
Inheritance technology introduction: Interact with atmospheric energy by imitating the sound of natural wind to control local airflow, used to adjust climate or dispel pollution.
[Ecological Weaving]
Inheritance technology introduction: Combine the characteristics of different plants to create entirely new hybrid species with special functions, such as luminescence or air purification.
Natural material synthesis, energy seed cultivation, natural rune inscription, green plant ecological network construction, climate balancing… beyond functional technologies, the ‘arts’ category in the inheritance information was the focus of Ashen Sigil’s reading.
In this category were recorded various powerful abilities used by the Green Wood ancestors.
They were also the core technologies for harnessing nature.
In today’s era, even with detailed technical data, people of their generation could no longer master such abilities.
This was mainly due to two factors.
The first factor was the decline of life strength.
Here, life strength referred to an individual’s affinity with natural energy, the strength of their spiritual power, and the body’s capacity to bear energy.
The forefathers were innately endowed with high level life strength and could easily absorb and control spiritual energy.
But performing arts required strong spiritual power to guide energy. The modern Green Wood race generally had weak spiritual power and could not complete complex energy control.
The content in the database described in detail a series of effects brought by the decline of life strength.
The second factor was environmental influence.
If individual life is the carrier that bears energy, then the free energy in the air is the core power for performing natural arts, an inexhaustible energy source.
Energy exists in air, soil, water sources, and living organisms. It is the bridge connecting the individual with nature.
But Earth is a world of weak spiritual energy. The energy in the air, or in other words the spiritual-energy content, is extremely low.
Early industrialization, environmental pollution, and the destruction of natural ecology left a large number of pollutant particles in the air. The combination of thin spiritual energy and pollution led to an insufficient energy source for the arts, unable to support complex energy control.
The explanation for this factor in the inheritance information was that each art needed to reach a certain capability threshold to start.
For the performance of a natural art, a forefather would release 1 point of spiritual power to trace the trajectory for drawing in elements, and the content of the art could be generated in the next second.
On Earth, however, to perform the same art required releasing 100 points of spiritual power and then beginning to load a progress bar.
The so-called progress bar referred to the time for the free elements in the air to converge.
In a thin, weak-spiritual-energy world, the speed of energy convergence was extremely slow.
During this period, one also had to continuously release spiritual power to maintain the framework of the art to ensure the energy kept gathering according to one’s intent.
Often, before the art could be fully outlined, the practitioner would collapse from exhaustion.
Ashen Sigil found a video in the database titled: Experimental Test of the Natural Art ‘Growth Guidance.’
He clicked the video. The timestamp in the upper right corner was from 120 years ago.
In the footage, a Green Wood man was bare-chested with various soft tubes inserted into his body.
In front of the man sat a flowerpot in which a sprout of Green-Glow Grass had been planted.
Before the experiment began, an elder came before the camera.
“Today we are conducting a rather important experiment, a practical test of Growth Guidance. Our previous tests all failed because the casting time was too long. This time we have decided to proceed in another way… Growth Guidance is one of the most basic natural arts in the Green Wood inheritance. Our ancestors could perform it with ease, maturing a plant in just a moment. But as the environment and life strength declined, this art has become extremely difficult…”
As he spoke, the elder turned and pointed to the man, continuing.
“This is our experimenter. He has relatively high affinity for spiritual energy within the race and is one of the few who can still perceive faint spiritual energy. To ensure he can maintain the operation of the art’s framework during the experiment, we built this energy-assist system for him.”
The camera cut to the soft tubes on the man’s body as the scholar explained:
“These tubes will deliver purified natural energy to him, including functions such as replenishment for spiritual-power consumption and spiritual stimulation, ensuring our experiment can be completed smoothly.”
After the introduction ended, the experiment formally began.
In the video, the experimenter raised both hands toward the Green-Glow Grass. A faint green light shimmered in his hands.
The image froze there.
Ashen Sigil summoned the progress bar and was immediately startled.
He then decisively dragged the video to the end.
At the end of the footage, the Green-Glow Grass placed before the experimenter had successfully grown by 3.3 centimeters.
Cheers erupted in the laboratory.
Closing the video, Ashen Sigil fell silent.
In order to determine the length of time needed to release a natural art on Earth, the elder generation of the Green Wood race had conducted this experiment.
A very ordinary, basic natural art ultimately took 5 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes, and 29 seconds to complete.
In other words, what the forefathers could do with a simple clap of the hands would require people of their generation to wait 5 and a half days.
And that was with complete equipment support.
How could a normal person of the Green Wood race go without sleep for five days just to release an art once.
This was only the most basic natural art recorded in the inheritance.
If the difficulty were raised, then even with all kinds of complete equipment support, the practitioner would have to stake their lifespan.
One could put it this way: the inheritance of the Green Wood race had been severed.
Continuing to browse the database, Ashen Sigil really did find a lifespan-staking technology: the Cangyuan Forbidden Art.
This technology could be called the Green Wood race’s nuclear weapon.
It referred to providing complete energy-supply equipment, letting a chosen member of the Green Wood race lie flat in a device shaped like a game pod, accumulate art energy, and await release.
This process required as long as 30 years of preparation, followed by the release of the Green Wood race’s battle-type art: Boundless Forest Cangyuan.
The effect was to generate a super forest covered with greenery at the target location, and the vegetation would destroy everything within the target range.
Every 27 years, five members of the Green Wood race would be selected to lie in life-support devices and become carriers of the forbidden art.
Yet the art now called a forbidden art did not even count as the Green Wood race’s peak combat technology according to historical records.
The Green Wood race had never doubted history precisely because the series of powerful technologies that had been passed down were enough to prove that the Green Wood race had once enjoyed glory.
As things stood, their development of the ancestral inheritance was less than 1 percent.
They could only use technological means to assist in release. Many high-end natural arts, if performed once, represented the life’s effort of a racial member willing to sacrifice themselves.
After reading this part of the materials, Ashen Sigil felt emotional.
This was exactly why their generation felt a sense of disjunction with history.
The glorious past was like a bubble.
To seek revival was easier said than done.
Their generation had basically given up on developing the ancestral inherited technologies and had turned to follow the Lunar Eclipse race in climbing the ladder of technology.
They wanted to combine mechanical technology with natural technology and blaze a brand-new path for the future.
The countless experimental videos in the database filled Ashen Sigil with sorrow.
The elder generation had once tried. Their eventual choice to give up was not because they were unwilling to continue, but a helpless compromise with reality.
In the end, Ashen Sigil opened the natural arts category and began selecting.
His gaze then locked onto Growth Guidance.
Although this art was basic, it contained the most primitive connection between the Green Wood race and nature.
Opening the detailed information for the art, he began to study.