Chapter 120: Failed Attempt!

Ethan took a slow breath and focused on the rare fruits sitting in front of him.

He carefully selected the fruits he had decided to use for his first experiment, taking only a few from the batch of twelve before storing the rest safely inside his dungeon. There was no reason to risk the entire batch when he still didn’t know how the process would react to these particular fruits. The ordinary apple had worked, but these were rare fruits with properties he had never encountered before, so it was better to experiment cautiously.

Once the remaining fruits were safely stored away, Ethan picked up the first purple fruit.

He had decided to call it a Purplelet, mostly because he couldn’t keep calling it the purple fruit forever. Its deep purple skin had already made the name feel natural to him, and somehow, Purplelet sounded much better than whatever complicated name the academy or empire might have given it.

Now it was time for the main process.

The excitement in his eyes returned almost immediately.

This was what he had been waiting for.

He had already proven that he could transform an ordinary fruit into a spiritual fruit, but these were different.

These were rare fruits.

If Rin was right about their value, then successfully infusing them with spiritual energy could produce spiritual fruits worth several times what the original fruits were worth.

Ethan took a slow breath.

His excitement faded into concentration as he prepared himself. He needed to channel his spiritual energy into the fruits.

Ethan turned the fruit over in his hand before settling himself down.

The process should have been simple.

At least, that was what he had expected.

He had already done this once before with the ordinary apple. He knew the basic method. He needed to channel his spiritual energy into the fruit, allowing the energy to gradually seep through its flesh until the fruit became infused with enough spiritual energy to transform into a spiritual fruit.

There was nothing particularly complicated about what he had done before.

So Ethan closed his eyes and began.

He gathered the spiritual energy within his body and slowly guided it toward his hand.

A faint sensation of warmth spread through his palm as the energy moved through his spiritual pathways, gathering around the Purplelet he was holding.

Ethan carefully directed the energy toward the fruit.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

His brows knitted together.

He tried again.

This time, he concentrated even harder, carefully pushing the spiritual energy forward and attempting to guide it through the fruit’s outer layer.

Still nothing.

The energy reached the surface and simply seemed to stop.

It wasn’t that Ethan couldn’t produce enough energy.

He could feel it flowing through him perfectly well.

The problem was the fruit itself.

It was rejecting him.

Ethan opened his eyes and stared at the Purplelet.

"What?"

He tried again.

He gathered more spiritual energy, directing it toward the fruit with greater force this time.

The energy pressed against the Purplelet’s surface, but instead of penetrating it the way it had with the apple, it seemed to be pushed away.

Ethan frowned.

"Come on..."

He tried again.

And again.

Each attempt ended the same way.

His spiritual energy simply wouldn’t penetrate the fruit.

The Purplelet remained exactly as it had been before, its deep purple skin still smooth and untouched, with none of the faint glow that had appeared when he infused the ordinary apple.

Ethan refused to give up.

He continued trying, adjusting the amount of energy he used and changing the way he directed it. Sometimes he tried slowly feeding the energy into the fruit, while other times he attempted to push it through more forcefully.

Nothing worked.

Minutes passed.

The concentration required to keep channeling his spiritual energy began to take its toll, and eventually beads of sweat appeared across Ethan’s forehead.

He wiped one away with the back of his hand before trying again.

Still nothing.

The Purplelet remained stubbornly unchanged.

Ethan finally lowered his hand.

A frustrated sigh escaped him.

"Seriously?"

He stared at the fruit in disbelief.

Not only was this thing difficult to find, but now that he had finally managed to get his hands on it, it was refusing to cooperate with him.

The process that hadn’t been particularly difficult when he had first experimented with the ordinary apple had suddenly become a huge problem.

Ethan couldn’t understand it.

He had followed the same basic method.

He was using his own spiritual energy.

He had successfully infused a fruit before.

So why wasn’t it working this time?

He let out another sigh before lifting the Purplelet again.

Instead of immediately attempting to channel more energy into it, Ethan began examining the fruit carefully.

He turned it slowly in his hand, studying its surface from different angles.

Its unusual purple skin caught the light inside his dungeon, revealing the faint silver patterns that naturally ran across it. He traced his thumb lightly over one of the strange markings, his eyes narrowing as he thought.

What was different?

Why had the apple accepted his energy so easily while this fruit seemed determined to reject every bit of it?

Ethan rotated the Purplelet again, paying closer attention this time.

He examined its shape.

Its skin.

The strange patterns.

The stem.

The texture.

He thought back to everything he had done with the apple and compared it to what he was doing now.

He had already tried channeling it several times, and every single attempt had ended the same way. His energy would reach the surface, but instead of sinking into the fruit like it had with the apples, it would simply stop there, as though an invisible barrier was preventing it from getting any further.

That was when he noticed something strange about the Purplelet and his eyes narrowed.

He stared at it for another moment before realization began to form.

His expression slowly changed.

Then he clicked his tongue in approval.