Chapter 398 - 395: Mumu Is a Little Scared

Chapter 398: Chapter 395: Mumu Is a Little Scared

When Qin XiaXia descended from the sky, he didn’t land directly in the bustling market, but instead jumped straight to the entrance of the supermarket.

The supermarket’s selection certainly wasn’t as varied as it used to be, but it was well-stocked with all the essentials.

It was now noon, with the sun high in the sky—the time of day that offered the greatest sense of security. The supermarket wasn’t as crowded as the market, but a steady stream of people still flowed in and out of the entrance.

Certain non-perishable, sealed foods were now rationed, with purchases limited by ID card and a fixed weekly quota for each person.

It wasn’t a matter of supply shortages. While the strain on resources had indeed surged, Hua Country had been preparing for this for so long that there would certainly be no issues in the near future.

The reasoning was simple: without these measures, many people would hoard supplies, endlessly hauling them home like diligent worker ants.

In a relatively safe place like Qingzhen, a good number of people were still out and about. It was said that other cities had even introduced community procurement services to keep people off the streets, making it easier for the military to respond during a sudden crisis.

Qin Xiaoxia waited a short while before Doudou returned, carrying his pea bag. Gou Dandan was right behind, a large sack of beef dangling from its beak. A single glance told you it weighed no less than ten pounds, though whether it was brisket was anyone’s guess.

"Big Bro, we’re done shopping. Let’s go back!"

With its beak full, Gou Dandan couldn’t speak, but it bobbed its head eagerly, showing its impatience to get going.

The best food it had ever tasted was either cooked by Xiao Lili or bought ready-made from the market. It had also endured its fair share of Doudou’s disastrous cooking. So when it suddenly got a taste of Su Su’s stew—a dish even Qin Xiaoxia considered the work of a master chef—it was utterly blown away.

Drool was now spilling from the edges of its beak, its salivation more like a husky’s than a bird’s.

"Alright, let’s go."

He headed back with Doudou and the others at a leisurely pace, not deliberately rushing, his mind occupied with other matters.

His consciousness expanded along with his thoughts and Perception, drifting outward to feel the changes in the environment, to sense the flow of water and the breath of the wind.

The consciousness of the Mother of the World was strange. In many respects, it displayed a love for nature and all living things, brimming with a divine maternity, and it certainly didn’t lack a boundless wisdom.

She could sense the essence of all things in the world. And though She normally couldn’t express Herself, Qin Xiaoxia often felt that the world’s consciousness understood the tumultuous emotions of all living creatures. It was just that the Mother of the World’s thoughts were different from a human’s; Her musings were destined to be unfathomable.

And yet, in some respects, Qin Xiaoxia felt he could perceive a sliver of the world’s emotions. For example, despite being deeply affected by the collision of worlds, its Power of the World drained and weakened, when faced with the colossal Kaslopa, it seemed to feel like someone facing a delicious dessert they couldn’t resist nibbling, even if that dessert was heavy and huge enough to crush them to death.

This was Kaslopa, after all. The part of it visible just by looking up at the sky was already immeasurably larger than Earth’s domain. It wasn’t just the incalculable, terrifying Demons on it; the world itself, constantly pressing in, brought the threat of annihilation to Earth.

One could only say that the Mother of the World was either incredibly nonchalant or that She truly had faith in the strength of the creatures that inhabited Her world.

...

Back in the Secret Realm, Jilian’s massive form was still lying there, taking a nap. For an Ancient Species of unknown age, patience was a necessary virtue.

In truth, Jilian never got bored, because the two little ones, Ai You and Axi, were now, strictly speaking, extensions of herself.

They often flitted about playfully within the Secret Realm, sometimes even flying off to other Secret Realms and distant corners of Earth to observe.

Previously, Jilian’s main body had only ever assumed one position on the water’s surface within the Secret Realm: lying face down. Jilian herself didn’t mind.

But if she were to lie on her back or her side, her pair of magnificent peaks would be exposed, creating a rather unseemly sight.

Things were much better now. Jilian had used strands of her own hair, combined with her Magic Power, to weave a top and bottom to cover herself. While still quite revealing in proportion to her size, they provided sufficient modesty.

"Let’s go, let’s go! To the kitchen!"

The moment they entered the Secret Realm, Doudou, no longer holding back, hopped onto Gou Dandan’s back without a word. Clutching the two bags of ingredients, they bolted into the Secret Place’s main building, making a beeline for the kitchen.

Qin Xiaoxia, however, did not move. Having witnessed how the natural world outside had become almost unnaturally vibrant in just a few short days, he was left with a strange, indescribable feeling.

It brought a deeper realization: even for him, Master Sage, the great pioneer now globally recognized as humanity’s most intelligent, his understanding of his own world—especially of its consciousness—was still incredibly shallow.

Qin Xiaoxia glanced toward the Crystal Forest. The glow of Magic Power there hadn’t faded in three days. He had been there himself until today, when a delivery of statistical data files from the World Alliance had called him to the tower.

At the edge of the Crystal Forest, Mumu’s massive body of Thorns stood motionless, continuously emitting a blue-green Magic Power.

Surrounding it were a dozen or so huge, specially placed Crystal Pillars, each one intricately engraved with dense Magic Patterns.

Mumu’s Magic Power flowed into these Crystal Pillars, causing the Magic Patterns upon them to flicker endlessly. Refracted by the crystal, the light made the entire area shimmer brilliantly.

At the center of this Magic Pattern Array were several Sound Transmission Flowers, still in their seedling stage.

These magical flowers had not yet undergone the most critical part of their life cycle: the breeding stage. Only after producing seeds could the mother plant be considered a true Sound Transmission Flower.

The Sound Transmission Flower was, in a way, a freakishly powerful Magical Plant. The communication between it and its seeds was virtually instantaneous, ignoring distance. On a world as large as Earth, at least, one could use its ability from the North to the South Pole with no perceptible delay.

The Dawn Association’s research into human Spiritual Power also provided analogous insights in the field of the Sound Transmission Flower.

In the early days, having Mumu cultivate a stronger Sound Transmission Flower had indeed been impossible. But back then, Dawn’s research into Spiritual Power hadn’t been deep enough, and while a Tree Shepherd’s Magic Power was miraculous, its knowledge was still constrained by cognitive limitations.

Even now, despite continuously channeling its Magic Power, Mumu still had enough strength left to speak. It knew Qin Xiaoxia had arrived.

"Master, the process of creating Sound Transmission Flower seeds is indeed one of soul-splitting. Furthermore, they don’t begin gestating seeds from scratch when they reach the breeding stage; this rule is already in effect when the parent plant is itself still a seed."

Qin Xiaoxia thought for a moment, comparing this with some knowledge he had recently acquired.

"So, you’re saying the very process of a seed growing into a Sound Transmission Flower means it’s simultaneously gestating its own future seeds?"

"Master, to be precise, it’s the soul, or rather the Soul Nature of the future seeds. Yes, the Silent Knight Order’s term ’Soul Nature’ is more appropriate, as no independent will has been formed."

One of Mumu’s thorny branches emitted a more intense magical radiance, showering the Technique Array with it as if sprinkling water.

SWOOSH~

The dozen or so Sound Transmission Flower seedlings within the array emitted a wave of joyous emotion, twisting their stems as they absorbed the Tree Shepherd’s Magic Power.

"Interacting with the human scientists every day has helped me understand why I could never before cultivate a reusable variety of Sound Transmission Flower seed."

’Holy crap, that’s some incredible progress!’

Qin Xiaoxia’s spirits soared at this news. On second thought, however, the Tree Shepherds had been cultivating Sound Transmission Flowers for an unknowably long time; they must have tried to improve them before. Oftentimes, all that was missing was a small nudge, a new way of thinking.

"Go on."

Qin Xiaoxia was an unorthodox researcher at heart and was deeply interested in this subject.

"Yes, Master. As you’ve said before, all living things desire to propagate, and the Sound Transmission Flower is one of the cleverest of them all!"

Coming from a Tree Shepherd, this statement gave Qin Xiaoxia pause. He subconsciously glanced from the seedlings in the Technique Array to the mature flowers swaying in the wind in the vast flowerbeds in the distance.

’The cleverest?’ Thinking it over, he began to understand.

Mumu didn’t let its master ponder for long, immediately continuing with its next sentence.

"The desire for propagation is a universal trait among living things. Humans and many other creatures, for example, mate to pass on their genes and rely on the strength of their communities to ward off danger."

"The Sound Transmission Flower, however, lacks the strength to achieve this goal on its own. Instead, it relies on the protection of more powerful beings, such as us Tree Shepherds—a type of Elf—to achieve its purpose."

This was consistent with what Qin Xiaoxia was thinking.

Any rational being who understood the value of the Sound Transmission Flower wouldn’t destroy them. On the contrary, they would do everything in their power to increase their numbers.

"Furthermore, due to its unique characteristic of being simultaneously symbiotic and split from a single soul, the next generation of the Sound Transmission Flower carries a relatively rich amount of soul information. This is the hereditary link that sustains their magical abilities."

"However, they are inherently weak Magical Plants, and this remains true even after many generations of cultivation by Tree Shepherds."

"What the human scientists call Quantum Entanglement, in the Sound Transmission Flower, manifests as the transmission of Soul Nature’s Spiritual Power. But precisely because the plant is inherently weak, the mother plant’s Soul Power can only be released once to reproduce the information it receives."

’A release of Soul Power?’

Recalling how the Sound Transmission Flower could vividly mimic even the sender’s physical actions, he figured it was meant to perfectly reflect the messenger’s state of mind.

"My previous idea was to cultivate a Sound Transmission Flower that possessed Magic Power. That way, its strength wouldn’t wither after a single transmission. Unfortunately, I was never successful."

"But the scientists’ perspective broadened my horizons. Is it possible, at the micro-level, for the Sound Transmission Flower’s spiritual manifestation to not rely on its own energy, but instead borrow from an external source, like Magic Power or a device?"

As Mumu spoke, Qin Xiaoxia’s heart began to race. This was the crucial point, the very heart of the matter. In fact, he might have already found the answer.

He didn’t wait for Mumu to finish, blurting out the next part himself.

"Human technology can’t yet reach the realms of the soul and spirit, but with the Association’s research into Magic Pattern Arrays, it shouldn’t be difficult to achieve this!"

Moreover, his thoughts had already gone further than Mumu’s. While the Tree Shepherd’s perspective had broadened, it was still focused on cultivating plants. Qin Xiaoxia, on the other hand, was thinking about a much more refined application.

"If we can use the Sound Transmission Flower—or better yet, the Sound Transmission Flower Seeds—as a blueprint to replace the release of entangled photons in the Quantum Realm... or if we could instead stimulate the Soul Nature of the seeds to release their internal photons, and then use various carriers or devices to display the information... then true quantum communication would no longer be an unattainable fantasy!"

Qin Xiaoxia’s voice was tinged with excitement. Not only would this have an immeasurable impact on technology, but it would also provide a theoretical foundation for some of the miraculous Reaction Techniques he had envisioned.

"If this works, then my thought-form projections, smuggling a Thought Body across... they wouldn’t be impossible anymore! If we deepen research on the Dream Lizard along these lines, could I achieve dream-leaping, dream-smuggling? As long as the Demon Eye, as long as Pipi, as long as *any* existence can carry my Magic Power to another world, even a single trace... No, that’s not quite right. It needs to be perfected and refined. Communication via Reaction Techniques with other worlds might be poor, or even completely ineffective. Wait, I could do it like this... It’s highly possible, highly possible!!"

The more Qin Xiaoxia thought, the more excited he became, his words spilling out in a torrent. His gaze darted between the inside of the Technique Array and the Magic Mirror hanging in the Secret Realm’s sky.

Mumu, for its part, had still been thinking about the Sound Transmission Flower’s function in a more conventional, static way. Now, it couldn’t understand a single word its master was saying.

The Magic Power around its master fluctuated wildly with his emotions. Although no Magic Power actually leaked out, the sheer feeling of it was enough to make Mumu recall its past terror.

Its master, in this state, was a little frightening...

PS: First Chapter for Wednesday.