Chapter 27: Mutated Plants and the Shocked Magic Apprentices
"Tch, with all that fuss, I thought he was something special! Turns out it’s just this? Treating us like lowly farmers?"
After Ajef walked away, a magic apprentice named Roger muttered under his breath while accelerating the growth of seeds.
"Right? And he even made us sign a Confidentiality Contract for this nonsense! It’s laughable—I wouldn’t even know how to explain it if I tried!"
Another apprentice chimed in with complaints.
"Keep your voices down! Do you want to get us all in trouble?" their group leader scolded.
"Yeah, yeah," Roger replied dismissively, his expression growing even more resentful.
At that moment, it wasn’t just Roger—most Wood Spirit Magic apprentices were simmering with frustration.
On one hand, they were stung by Eileen obtaining the Purple Snowwood Magic Wand.
On the other, this magic experiment made them feel underutilized—no, outright insulted!
After all, growth acceleration was just a basic Wood Spirit Magic spell. All it did was speed up a plant’s development—nothing more.
Its greatest value lay in cultivating Magic Plants with overly long growth cycles or, when combined with other spells, manipulating plants for combat.
But now, Ajef was having them use it to speed up crop growth? How was that any different from the backbreaking labor of lowly farmers digging in the dirt?
What kind of pathetic magic experiment was this?!
The apprentices seethed in silence, but Eileen, trailing behind Yu Sheng’an, looked visibly excited.
"Sir, are you trying to screen for the most excellent plants through rapid growth?" she asked eagerly.
If there was one thing she could call her greatest achievement in crop research over the years, it was her invention of the "Most Excellent Theory."
This was the conclusion she had reached after deep Meditation.
She believed that plants, like humans, varied in quality—some tall, some short, some robust, some weak.
Just as the children of mages inherently possessed stronger magical talent than those of commoners, she had to acknowledge the existence of hereditary advantages.
Thus, by selecting the best-performing seeds and cultivating them generation after generation, she was certain she could develop higher-yielding crops.
"Close, but this is called Directed Cultivation."
"Directed Cultivation?"
Eileen stiffened. That term perfectly encapsulated her life’s work in just two words.
At that moment, her eyes lit up as she gazed at Yu Sheng’an.
She was finally certain—she had met a true scholar!
"I can tell you’ve been researching this for a while. What results have you achieved?" Yu Sheng’an asked as he inspected the underground laboratory.
"Terrible. After extensive screening, I managed to increase yield by about 10% at best. But after two or three generations, the advantages disappear."
Eileen’s expression darkened. The vanishing advantages meant each generation of seeds required meticulous selection—far too costly to ever be practical for widespread use.
"This is perfectly normal. All plants have dominant and recessive genes. The plants you've cultivated in the lab through directed cultivation only express the dominant genes. But that doesn’t mean the recessive genes have disappeared. After two or three generations, as the plants undergo natural pollination, the traits will naturally separate," Yu Sheng'an remarked casually.
Eileen’s expression turned blank.
His words gave her the same bewildering sensation she had felt when first encountering magic—confused, uncomprehending, profound, and awestruck!
Yet the way he spoke so fluently and logically made her realize that Yu Sheng'an had an extraordinarily deep understanding of plants!
"My heavens, why has the Ghost Hand Gourd grown like this?"
Just then, a magic apprentice suddenly cried out in shock.
Before Eileen could even turn to look, exclamations erupted one after another in the laboratory.
"Look! The Black Grain I cultivated is oozing white liquid?"
"Mine too!"
"Ah! My Long Bean—it’s grown so long!"
The magic apprentices were going wild, shouting and exclaiming in disbelief!
As Wood Spirit Magic apprentices, they were quite familiar with all kinds of common plants.
At first, the plant growth process had seemed normal, but as they developed, things took a bizarre turn.
Some leaves spiraled unnaturally, while others sprouted strange sap.
But the most terrifying part was when the plants flowered and bore fruit.
The final results left them utterly dumbfounded, nearly biting their tongues in shock.
The Ghost Hand Gourd had become conjoined;
The Long Bean had grown longer than a person;
The Black Grain was secreting white liquid;
Almost every familiar plant had undergone horrifying mutations!
Roger, who had been complaining nonstop earlier, now found himself speechless.
His pupils dilated as he stared at the plants before him. This magic experiment had completely surpassed the limits of his imagination.
It wasn’t the eerie changes in the plants that frightened them—as Wood Spirit Magic apprentices, they had cultivated far stranger flora before.
What truly shocked them was that they hadn’t interfered with these crops at all!
They had merely accelerated their growth.
Yet the results had mutated so horrifically?!
How could they not be terrified?
Could it be the seeds?
But they had inspected them before cultivation—they were just ordinary crop seeds!
Fear stems from the unknown.
At this moment, all the magic apprentices turned their gazes toward Yu Sheng'an in unison.
They realized they had severely underestimated this mysterious figure.
Someone whom the God of Magic, Dandell, was willing to offend countless Archmages just to assign them here as assistants—was truly extraordinary!
After all, these plants had undergone distortions.
This was practically treading into divine territory!
"Silence! What’s all this panic? Have you forgotten what I said earlier? Record everything you see, observe, and feel. The rest is none of your concern," Yu Sheng'an scolded.
"Yes!"
Scattered responses echoed through the lab—not out of disrespect, but because everyone was utterly stunned.
Eileen, in particular, stared at Ajef with wide, trembling eyes, her hands shaking uncontrollably.
What she was witnessing completely overturned her understanding of "directed cultivation."
This means that Mr. Ajef has likely stumbled upon an entirely new direction of research.
From these mutated and twisted plants, it's clear that he is challenging divine authority, attempting to create entirely new species!
At this moment, Dorothea also realized that Yu Sheng'an was defying the gods' dominion.
After all, she was the granddaughter of Doman, the Child of the Forest—her insight was naturally keen.
Had her grandfather never told her what Ajef truly was?
She had been speculating and piecing together clues, but she never imagined Ajef could be this terrifying.
A seemingly simple magic experiment had completely overturned their understanding of plants!
Was he a god?
Was this the real reason he could mobilize all the Wood Spirit Magic apprentices of Felix?
Dorothea stared, her scalp tingling, at the plants before her—twisted and deformed without any magical interference. All her personal grievances, Daisova's coldness, her grandfather's sighs—everything was pushed to the back of her mind.
She realized she was witnessing history.
In the face of history, everything she had experienced was but fleeting dust, utterly insignificant!
The magic experiment finally concluded amidst a chorus of astonishment.
The magic apprentices finished their observation reports and left the underground laboratory one by one.
As they passed by Yu Sheng'an, not a single trace of mockery remained in their hearts.
Instead, they were filled with deep remorse and awe!
Ajef was a true scholar, one whose mastery of Wood Spirit Magic far surpassed the limits of their imagination.
He deserved their respect!
After leaving the Magic Forest, Dorothea rushed home in a frenzy. Panting, she burst into her grandfather's study, startling him with her urgency.
"Grandfather—!" she cried out.
But the rest of her words wouldn't come.
The Confidentiality Contract had firmly shackled her conscious thoughts.
The moment she tried to reveal anything, her mind would go blank, leaving her speechless.
Stammering for a while, she suddenly had a flash of inspiration and blurted out in a frantic, disjointed voice:
"Grandfather, you must participate in Ajef's magic experiment! Otherwise, you'll regret it for the rest of your life! Believe me, you understand—I-I-I can't say, there's a contract on me, but you must join! You absolutely must!"
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