The next few days I continued to continuously cultivate like a madman. I did nothing aside from executing the two techniques and making more and more strands of qi fuse with my leaves. Not like I had a lot of options, aside from basking in the sun or pondering there isn’t a whole lot what plants can do, but even with this in mind the amount of motivation I had was really something else.

They often say that a desperate person can bring the greatest results…

seems like that was true. After 10 more days (I can differentiate day and night because my photosynthesis) I already came close to completing the first level of the earth realm.

My excitement rose by the day. Soon, soon I would be able to see something else aside from the darkness of my mind, the tattered manual and the ugly blue massage that would go away no matter what I tried.

Soon!

Just as I was motivating myself again there was something that was different. I didn’t really know what it was, but my instincts as a plant told me that it was dangerous. And don’t even dare to question if plants have instincts!

Anyway, I got nervous. This was the first time anything like this happened and I had no idea how to deal with this situation. Something was wrong and I didn’t know what It was. Incredibly really vexing, knowing that something happens but not knowing what it is! Now I know how trees must feel when they are about to be cut!

It wasn’t the best opportunity to argue about a tree’s personal feelings though, so I quickly dropped the topic and furiously thought how to get out of my strange situation.

As a plant, there wasn’t a lot of things I could do against predators, but luckily, I’m no normal plant anymore! So I did the only thing I could and began executing the internal control technique, gathering mana at highspeed.

The strands of mana that I had gathered over the past weeks separated from my ‘flesh’ and gathered at a single point. More and more strands fused into a single point inside my body, concentrating the energy.

I knew that once I used up this mana all my work of weeks would be gone, but right now that didn’t matter! I had to survive and this was the only way how I could!

After I had mobilized about two thirds of the qi inside my body I manipulated the ball of qi and made it go towards the direction my instincts told me. Something was there and I could somehow feel that it wasn’t a good thing!

Finally, I once again manipulated the concentrated qi and made it explode outside my body. I couldn’t actually see what it looked like, but I imagined it like a beam of light that pulverized whatever was out there.

That’s what you get for provoking me ya bastard!

The Immortal looked down onto the small plant of grass and couldn’t help but be astonished over the amount of qi that was stored inside the body. This was the first time he had seen weed with this amount of qi inside of it.

Of course, there were a lot of plants that could absorb qi from the surroundings. They were called treasure plants and were used to prepare food that helped humans with their cultivation. But this plants were extremely rare and in most cases didn’t look like something you can just pick up on the street randomly. He had never heard of a treasure plant in form of weed (/grass)!

But this was already as far as his curiosity went.

So, this weed is a treasure plant. A little bit special, but he had no need for treasure plants and no interest in growing them either. He should just leave it here and let it grow further.

With these thoughts, the Immortal already thought of going on, but just as he was about to continue his steps, something moved. Of course, it wasn’t the plant itself, even treasure plants usually couldn’t move themselves, but inside the plant he could see the plant’s qi suddenly gathering together in one place before exploding out of the plant.

He was to shocked to doge the blue beam that shot at him, but it didn’t matter as it slammed into the qi barrier he always had set up around himself. The beam dissipated without even doing any damage to the barrier, but the Immortal was still shocked out of his wits.

“This thing is intelligent?!”

This was the conclusion he immediately reached. Treasure plants could absorb qi and store it, but they had no way to control it. There were a few exceptions, but these were incredible rare plants and usually had the power of an immortal like himself. Only with this amount of qi were they able to develop some intelligence as qi slowly changed their bodies and allowed them to create an own consciousness.

The plant in front of his was obviously neither rare, nor powerful, but it still had the ability to control qi. Suddenly stumbling across such an oddity it was only normal that the Immortal was astonished. Soon another thought crossed his mind.

‘Right now it hasn’t even reached the first grade of the earth realm in cultivation…. If it’s intelligent, would it be cable of speech via qi?’

He was curious.

If his thoughts proved to be right this little grass plant in front of him was something utterly earthshaking.

‘An intelligent plant…. A new, third race??!’

If this plant was truly intelligent from birth, then this would most likely mean that there could be others like it and this would lead to a new race of intelligent beings in the world!

Currently there were two races that shared the world with each other.

The humans

And the demons.

There is no need to explain the human race, but demons were nothing else but the offspring of animals that cultivated. Their ancestors once reached the heaven realm and gained intelligence, intelligence that they passed down on their offspring.

There were two characteristics that set demons apart from humans:

One was their body. Their physical appearance had two forms. A human and a beast form. The beast form directly reflected their ancestor’s, fishes, tigers and even dragons. Their human form still retained some of the beast forms characteristics such as tails or horns, but other than these small things it looked just like a human’s.

This was also why humans regarded themselves to be the epilog of creation. Since any race would take their physical appearance upon reaching the heaven realm and becoming an immortal.

But these things weren’t important right now. Right now, in front of the Immortal there was something that potentially could become another intelligent race.

The third race!

He decided to test it out.

Did it succeed?

I couldn’t say for sure, but my instincts somehow told me that my attack didn’t work out as it should have had.

Damn resilient bastard.

What was I supposed to do now? Even if I used the remaining qi inside my body it wouldn’t change anything. If two thirds of my qi couldn’t harm my mysterious opponent, the remaining one third wouldn’t change anything on that.

So was I fated to die?

Damn my time on this world was short for sure. Well, let’s hope that they won’t fuck up my reincarnation yet again…. But nah, they will probably do it anyway.

I was kind of calm. I’m gonna die, what’s of it? It’s not the first time and all of this was a mistake in the first place. I’m just gonna be reborn again, with a bit luck I will be a potato…. Yea my life is sure dark.

This are my thoughts as I bravely looked into death’s face…..

….

But where the heck is this face??? How long does it take to god damn kill a bit of grass hm???

I wanted to scream at my opponent tell him to finally kill this weed and stop waste time. But then… suddenly a lot of qi started to flow into me.

I was shocked at first, but then I realized that I would explode soon if I didn’t control this qi.

SO this is your plan hm? Making me explode with this bit of qi?!

I chuckled. This guy was underestimating me. This amount of qi was still something I could handle with my current mastery over the internal control technique. And with a bit luck I might actually reach the student level once I absorbed this!

Let’s see if I can give you an unpleasant surprise, bastard!

Immediately I took control of the abundant qi and executed the internal control technique, fusing the strands of qi into my body.

One strand

10 strands

50 strands

100 strands.

I absorbed almost half of the qi when I suddenly noticed something change within my body. My qi went into motion and underwent some strange changes inside my leaves.

Previously it had only been stored inside my leaves, it wasn’t really a part of my body yet. I had absorbed it into my body, but once I used it up I would have to once again go through all the work of absorbing it. It was inside my body, but not yet something that belonged me.

But I immediately realized that this had now changed. The qi changed my flesh and created containers for qi inside of it. From now on I wouldn’t have to use my breathing technique and internal technique to fill my body with mana. These qi-containers inside my body would automatically absorb mana from the surroundings until they were filled up.

Of course, they wouldn’t change their size and if I wanted to store more qi and reach the second level of the earth realm I would need to once again cultivate by using the two techniques. The new mana would then stretch the containers and gradually enlarge them, so that I can store more qi inside of them.

It was actually quite simple.

But that wasn’t important right now, I could sort these things out later. Right now the most pressing thing was my mysterious enemy and now that I had reached the student level, I could use my qi to see my surroundings.

I channeled the qi from the containers and controlled it according to the method recorded in the manual. The qi changed its form and seeped out of my body. Instantly it spread out to over an area of about 30 meters around me and finally I could see what was going on.

I was actually growing right on a path surrounded by fields and crops. Well this was pretty much what I imagines anyway so I wasn’t too surprised. What surprised me was my ‘mysterious enemy’.

It was a human….

Well at least this was what he seemed to be. His physique was a 20 odd years old male one, but through my ‘qi-vision’ I was able to detect a huge quantity of qi flowing within him.

Is this really a human? The amount of qi inside of this person was about 2000 times the amount within me!

I was astonished, but this ‘human’ didn’t seem to be hostile towards me. Instead he was staring at me with surprised, but interested eyes and muttered some words.

I should try talk with him.

I once again manipulated my qi and used it to talk to this strange person.

“Excuse me, could you please stop staring at me?”. I asked. Don’t blame me for this idiotic approach and being unpolite, I was nervous!

The person in front of me suddenly smiled brightly, his eyes glittering. Also using qi, he answered.

“I’m extremely sorry for this inconvenience, I wasn’t aware that you had consciousness. Please pardon my impoliteness.”

…. Toooo fucking polite…..

I almost had to puke (metaphor guys I know plants can’t puke) at his overly polite wording. Is this guy a snob????

I still replied normally though.

“Oh… ok it’s not that problematic….”, I felt awkward.

“Oh I’m relieved. Nice to meet you, I’m the Immortal”

…..

The Immortal?! Seriously that guy should think of another name. I understand that he doesn’t want to give his real name to some random stranger plant, but couldn’t he at least choose one that wouldn’t sound ridiculous?

Seriously If I called him like this wouldn’t it make me seem ridiculous?

Well ok… if he decided to play this way, I shall go along. A ridiculous name hm?

I secretly smiled.

“…..well nice to meet you to, I’m Weed….”

…..

Don’t blame me, I like this pun!