Chapter 099

Chapter 099

This time, the demand for the herb was not large, so Su Ran sent the sketches and descriptions of the herb's growth environment drawn by Bai Xiaoyu to the relevant warriors. The next day, the delivery arrived.

Since the herb needed to maintain its vitality, the packaging this time contained a potted plant over a meter tall, with red and pink intertwined. The pot was as high as his shoulders, but the red gourd inside wasn't very tall. However, the pot itself occupied two-thirds of the height.

The bright red gourd, adorned with patterns and topped with a pink flower resembling a mouth, appeared before them. The gourd was rooted in the soil, indicating that the person who collected it had dug up the soil below to avoid damaging the herb's root system based on Bai Xiaoyu's instructions.

Bai Xiaoyu opened the delivery in the cultivation room. At this moment, besides the two eggs and the tiger curiously staring at the potted plant, the interns and assistants also gathered around.

One intern couldn't resist the curiosity and secretly touched the gourd, even poking the pink flower on top with his finger. Unexpectedly, the flower closed like a mouth and bit the intern's hand.

The intern was startled and quickly pulled his hand back, "Wow, this flower moves!"

Upon hearing this, the young and curious interns rushed over, all reaching out to gently poke the flower. The flower seemed to dislike their touch, dodging left and right, and tightly closing its petals, refusing to open again.

Seeing the group's fascination with the flower's behavior, Bai Xiaoyu had to intervene, "Alright, this is the herb. It tried once and found you weren't what it wanted. Now, if you want it to open, you'd have to be reborn as an egg. Otherwise, nothing will work."

The interns reluctantly stepped back, bombarding Bai Xiaoyu with questions as he cleaned the herb. They looked incredulously at the red gourd, now clean and with roots trailing beneath it.

Bai Xiaoyu placed the gourd into the cultivation compartment and covered the roots with a translucent medicinal mud made from the herb.

Everyone was dumbfounded by this series of actions.

Is he turning the cultivation compartment into a flower pot?

And isn't fertilization required for cultivation?

One intern suddenly looked at the one bitten by the flower with a strange expression and said incredulously, "Did this flower get pregnant with your child?"

His voice carried, and everyone heard clearly. Their expressions were shocked, their gazes shifting between the intern and the red gourd.

The intern felt a cold sweat break out on his back. He stared at the gourd, finding it increasingly eerie. If the gourd were carrying his child, it became strangely appealing.

Could this gourd be a rare plant-human hybrid in the galaxy?

He rubbed his hands, looking a bit shy, and muttered, "It's not impossible."

After all, they already had a child; they could sort things out later.

Bai Xiaoyu: "..."

Everyone: "..."

Bai Xiaoyu, both amused and exasperated, said, "What are you thinking? The flower just scraped some cells off your hand, not fertilized you. Besides, it's been avoiding you ever since it bit you."

The other interns burst out laughing, punching the embarrassed intern on the shoulder, "Snap out of it! Are you so desperate that you find a gourd attractive?"

After a while, the herb in the cultivation compartment seemed to adapt to its new environment, and the flower slowly reopened.

Bai Xiaoyu stood nearby, waiting until the flower fully bloomed. Then, he walked to the transparent container simulating a womb-like environment and picked up the palm-sized egg that had been dormant for twenty years.

The egg had already fully revived and had been cultivated in the same compartment as the herb for a few days without much growth. Today, it was moved back to the transparent container, which maintained its optimal state.

Carrying the egg to the herb's compartment, Bai Xiaoyu extended his mental power, forming a pair of transparent hands to hold the egg. He withdrew his hands, leaving the egg floating in mid-air.

The interns stopped their antics and gathered around, watching silently.

Bai Xiaoyu extended another strand of mental power, entering the eggshell and forming a membrane around the yolk. After preparing, he used another strand to split the eggshell in half, exposing the yolk.

The interns and assistants stared wide-eyed, stunned, as the yolk was extracted without hatching!

Ignoring their shock, Bai Xiaoyu carefully manipulated the yolk with his mental power, moving it above the herb. The pink flower below sensed something and slightly moved, opening wider as the yolk approached.

Bai Xiaoyu positioned the yolk within the flower's mouth, which immediately closed, wrapping the yolk entirely. The flower then trembled slightly, as if choking, before finally swallowing it with a gulp.

The stunned crowd snapped to attention, rushing over to surround the herb, staring at the pink flower. Did it... swallow it?!

The flower atop the red gourd quickly changed color, withered, and fell off. The opening where the flower had been gradually closed. Now, the herb looked like a whole red gourd, patterned and uncut.

Bai Xiaoyu's mental power still enveloped the yolk, guiding it into the herb's interior, where it landed in the center. As the yolk merged with the clear liquid inside, the previously cool gourd began to warm, adapting to the yolk's environment.

Bai Xiaoyu watched as the herb rapidly transformed within minutes, becoming indistinguishable from a normal egg in less than half an hour.

Finally breathing a sigh of relief, he withdrew his mental power.

He then cleaned the two halves of the eggshell, which had turned gray due to long-term dormancy. The black seal on the eggshell, now visible after the yolk's removal, completely disappeared.

Bai Xiaoyu collected the eggshell, intending to give it to the parents later. This was a step typically done after a normal hatching, but he did it early. This would be the smallest eggshell, smaller than the unhatched ones, though those would grow larger upon hatching.

He wondered if half the shell would be enough for the hatchling to gnaw on.

If not, it didn't matter, as the hatchling could gnaw on the gourd skin instead, which should taste better.

Considering the gourd's effects, it was indeed nourishing. He could help prepare a few medicines for the hatchling to try.

Looking back at the cultivation compartment, the originally red gourd, now fused with the yolk, had become a gourd-egg. The eggshell retained its red patterns, now with familiar black seal markings, looking both eerie and harmonious.

Having finished everything, Bai Xiaoyu turned to see everyone staring at him intently. He pointed to the transparent display screen above the cultivation compartment, "The egg is healthy and developing normally. Future lessons will include this type of egg as a case study. You can check the other data yourselves."

After handling this egg, the remaining dormant, weak, double-yolked, gray, and small-yolked eggs, as well as the jellyfish-like egg, could all develop normally.

Now that they had revived, they had absorbed enough nutrients in the cultivation compartments. The double-yolked egg was growing, and the others were slowly showing signs of improvement, with their shells becoming more vibrant.

Bai Xiaoyu checked all the eggs, except for the problematic ones, and finally looked at the egg with one round end and one square end, surprised.

Because the contents of this egg were bizarre. There were no abnormalities when he initially investigated it. Or perhaps, apart from its peculiar shape, all the data about the egg had been healthy, so he hadn't probed too deeply. After all, mental energy carried inherent aggressiveness, and during the initial cultivation phase of the egg, it was best to minimize intrusion.

Now, he was merely conducting a routine surface-level scan, but he didn't expect to find half an egg yolk combined with half a seed inside!

What... is going on?

He remembered that he definitely hadn't used the Selfless Symbiosis Grass on this egg. How did it end up with a seed? Moreover, the seed exposed a square base, which was mostly dark brown and about the size of a fist. Unlike the seeds from the Selfless Symbiosis Grass that embedded halfway into the yolk, this one was directly replaced by half of the yolk.

Bai Xiaoyu was also shocked by what he saw; it was like a plant and a human had combined to produce an egg.

Does this world have no reproductive barriers?

However, he quickly adjusted, as he had encountered similar situations before. Back then, he had seen humans and demons giving birth to half-demons, somewhat similar to half-orcs. The occurrence of plants becoming sentient and combining with humans to produce half-demons was extremely rare.

Could there be sentient plants in the interstellar world?

Bai Xiaoyu thought for a moment and called out to the system: "System, you should update the scroll."

Every time he encountered strange eggs, the system's scroll would update with relevant information.

System: "It has already been updated. Please check it, host."

Since the scroll occasionally contained new content, it wasn't suitable for interns and wasn't convenient to browse in front of many people. Therefore, he gave the system several thousand points and generated an online electronic version on his personal page.

He quickly opened the scroll and discovered that there were indeed plant people in the interstellar world. However, their numbers were minuscule compared to beast people, and the chances of them producing offspring with non-plant people were extremely low. Even if they could produce offspring, those leaning towards either side could hatch normally, but eggs like this one, which were intermediate, were very difficult to hatch.

This was because plant people don't lay eggs but seeds. The methods of cultivating eggs and seeds differ significantly. After all, most seeds are planted in the ground.

Bai Xiaoyu carefully examined the interior of the egg and found that half the yolk was developing normally and absorbing nutrients at an incredibly fast rate. However, the remaining half-seed showed no signs of activity. In fact, due to the rapid development of the yolk, the seed remained unchanged, and continuing this way would likely cause a tear at the junction.

Bai Xiaoyu withdrew his mental energy, patted the egg, and adjusted the nutrient supply to maintain the yolk's metabolism without allowing further growth. Before finding a solution, he couldn't let the yolk continue developing.

He continued to read through the information, searching for a method.

At this moment, the system, possibly after scanning these dormant eggs, suddenly spoke in Bai Xiaoyu's mind: "Host, hatching these rare species of eggs will double your bonus points. Please make efforts to hatch the eggs and earn more points."

Bai Xiaoyu keenly picked up on the system's choice of words. "These?"

System: "Not just this half-plant egg, but several dormant eggs are rare species. Due to their scarcity, interstellar breeders lack experience in handling them, leading to their dormancy. This half-plant egg would have been sent to dormancy if not for you."

Bai Xiaoyu immediately focused on the eggs with gray yolks and whites, the one with a grape-sized yolk, and the one with a yolk that resembled a jellyfish.

Based on the information provided by the system, these three peculiar eggs belonged to rare species.

After reviewing the system's information, Bai Xiaoyu found that the scroll lacked details on this aspect.

He went online to search for related information and discovered that rare species were few in number but diverse. There were thousands of subcategories alone. Previously, they were in a stage of free love, and many married the most numerous group, the beast people.

The offspring produced were predominantly inclined towards one side and could hatch normally. Over generations, they were indistinguishable from ordinary beast people except for carrying those genes.

However, since the contamination by dark matter from the insectoids, their numbers decreased even further, and their birth rates over hundreds or thousands of years were extremely low. To preserve their race, most chose internal mating partners and incubated their own eggs, preventing them from being outsourced. Finding the species of these eggs among those sent to breeding facilities was extremely challenging.

Bai Xiaoyu reviewed the parents' information, including the half-plant egg, and found no characteristics of rare species. The parents might have had rare species bloodlines in their ancestry, but over generations, these became very diluted. The anomalies in these eggs were likely due to reversion.

This was similar to Xiao Budian, who bypassed both parents' current genes and reverted directly to a white tiger.

Bai Xiaoyu contacted the parents, asking them to investigate their ancestral bloodlines.

Although the parents were a bit confused, they cooperated enthusiastically.

Bai Xiaoyu thought that once the parents sent the information, he could precisely identify the ancestral bloodlines of these eggs. However, he didn't consider that the countless generations of ancestors on both sides had mixed with rare species, accumulating a significant amount of mixed genes.

Looking at the information, each parent had mixed dozens of rare species' genes, some even over a hundred. As for which generation the eggs reverted to...

The system gloated, "Host, you can slowly guess."

Bai Xiaoyu: "Don't come out unless I call you."

System: "Host, you're so heartless."

After chasing away the system, Bai Xiaoyu looked at the information sent by the parents, feeling helpless. Guessing? Just thinking about it made his head hurt.

Hatching them directly would reveal the answer in two months when the embryos form.

Now, staring at this egg with a round top and a square bottom, if the seed needed to root in soil, wouldn't it be better to introduce some 'soil' inside the egg for it to root?

Unlike the medicinal mud used on the outer layer of previous eggs, only the mythical soil, Xi Rang, could work inside the egg.

But Xi Rang, the legendary soil used to mend the heavens, was impossible to find.

However, there was Xiao Xi Rang.

According to legend, after mending the heavens, the remaining bit scattered into five pieces, which turned into five seeds under the alternation of sun and moon, growing into five types of medicinal herbs with metal, wood, water, fire, and earth attributes.

These herbs would eventually bloom, producing flowers as light as clouds.

Combining the five attribute flowers and refining them would create a small piece of colorless, weightless Xi Rang.

Xiao Xi Rang doesn't scatter like ordinary soil and is suitable for planting anywhere.

This substance is exceedingly rare, and no one has ever collected all five attribute flowers. Bai Xiaoyu had only read about the various Xi Rang herbs and their flowers in books but had never seen a fully formed Xiao Xi Rang.

Even with only a fraction of the original Xi Rang's capabilities, it could grow any plant in the world.

A half-seed from a plant person is still a plant, so Xiao Xi Rang would certainly suffice.