It was four long days until the Exalted Cat and Slughorn exited the room. During that time, Harry idled around Slughorn's home, practicing some sword moves and making sure he was well rested in preparation for opening the 6th meridian. But one could only repeat those actions a limited number of times before getting bored. He even started reading random books off of Slughorn's shelves, which were all about various topics related to Alchemy. That was how Slughorn found him on the 4th day.
"Dr. Slughorn, Exalted Cat, you two finally came out."
"Yes, well, the old cat briefed me on everything that happened, and we were discussing your newfound ability. Magic Plant identification, how very strange. I've never heard of anything like it."
"I don't know either," Harry helplessly said.
"I know the old cat has already tested you, but to be honest, I have a hard time believing it. I simply have to see it for myself. Can you identify them?"
Slughorn pulled out a tray, holding dozens of transparent containers of preserved Magic Plants. As if a switch had been flipped, their names appeared in Harry's mind.
"Aximeg Flower, River Savory, Cave Anise, Ocean Pepper, Viper Parsley, …" Harry effortlessly rattled off all their names.
"Well done, well done," Slughorn exclaimed, and even began clapping. "Do you know why I chose this set of plants?"
"No, why?"
"Each of these plants has something about them makes them difficult to identify. For example, Aximeg Flower and Rivery Savory are not native to the Scarlet Phoenix Empire – in fact, you are the first person I've met to correctly identify either plant on their first try. Cave Anise and Ocean Peppers are plants that grow in very rare conditions – the first grows in the dark, usually found in caves, while the second grow at the bottom of the ocean, under tremendous pressure. They are both rare plants, very very difficult to find. This Viper Parsley is probably the most difficult to recognize of them all, as it is identical to Spring Parsley, which is a common plant used for cooking. Every year, many unfortunate people mix them up, often with fatal consequences, as Viper Parsley is poisonous. And the… "
Harry grew more and more impressed as Slughorn spoke. Though his ability helped him identify the plants and told him some basic information, it didn't give him any of the detailed information Slughorn was explaining. This sort of knowledge was only obtainable through years of study and practice. The fact Slughorn could remember all these properties showed he was a true Alchemist.
"In short, your ability must be supernatural. Not even the most skilled Alchemists or Herbologists could identify all of these as quickly as you. Anyways, let's try a few other things. Can you recognize this?" Slughorn brought out a petal that was half-pink, half-grey.
"No," Harry responded. When he looked at the petal, nothing came to mind, other than the obvious.
"What about this?" This time, Slughorn displayed an entire flower of pink and grey petals.
"Vibrant Ash Rose."
"What about these?" Slughorn asked, pulling a book out of one of his many bookshelves. He opened it to reveal pages and pages of detailed drawings of Magic Plants. Harry looked through, but couldn't recognize a single one.
After a number of experiments, they learned how Harry's ability worked. It didn't work when he saw pictures of the plants, nor could he recognize one off a description. Instead, it only worked when he saw the actual plant, and further, it had to be a sizable portion of it. For example, seeing just a single petal or a branch wasn't enough. He had to see the majority of the plant, or at least, enough for there to be some defining characteristics.
However, if he saw a portion of the plant, even if he couldn't get its name, he could learn some of its characteristics, which Slughorn always verified were correct.
Even stranger, it didn't work at all on plants that weren't Magic Plants. When Slughorn brought out random wildflowers, Harry was completely stumped. It was inconceivable that Harry could recognize the most obscure plants Slughorn grew, yet couldn't recognize common herbs used for cooking.
The strangest thing he discovered came near the end of Slughorn's testing session, after which Harry had been shown at least 200 Magic Plants. He realized he could perfectly recall the appearance and characteristics of every plant he had seen. They were always fresh in his mind, as if he had gained a photographic memory.
Yet, none of them were any closer to figuring out the source of this mysterious ability. While Slughorn appeared excited, Harry was far from it. If he were to have a mysterious ability, why couldn't it be something useful?
What good would identifying Magic Plants be? It wasn't like he wanted to become a gardener.
"Marvelous, marvelous," Slughorn kept exclaiming. "It's widely accepted that along the path of Alchemy, the first step is to master the identification of Magic Plants. Indeed, to get an Alchemy License, one must pass a series of tests, the first of which is Magic Plant Identification. It's a grueling examination, as one has to memorize the properties of thousands of Magic Plants to pass. Just this one exam weeds out 90% of the people who hope to become Alchemists. But for you, hah, this exam would be a walk in the park. If it weren't for my current situation, I'd lead you to take the exam right now."
Slughorn was lost in reminiscence for a while, then snapped back to attention.
"Anyways, I have no clue how you could have gotten this ability. As the Exalted Cat suggested, it could be due to a Magic Spirit, but, I think it's safe to say that you are a Spiritless cultivator. But even if you weren't, these sorts of abilities can only develop after the spirit has awakened. Perhaps we'll find out as we investigate this ability further. Along those lines, I was hoping you could do a favor for me."
"Of course," Harry immediately agreed. Since Slughorn had helped him so much in the past few months, he was more than willing to help Slughorn back.
"I am a collector at heart, you see, and over the decades, I've collected a number of interesting magical artifacts. For example, that mask you're wearing is one of them. Many of the odd trinkets you see laying around my house are also various items I've collected over the years. For all but two of my items, I know exactly what they are and how they function. One, of course, is that rock your mother left me."
"What's the other one?"
"The other one, well, it has a shocking origin, and even I don't know too much about it," Slughorn said mysteriously. "It's a wooden box that was passed onto me many decades ago. In some sense, it's similar to the Nameless Rock. It is indestructible and unopenable, of that, I am convinced. Even with my strength, there is nothing I can do. In fact, not even the Exalted Cat can open it."
"Really?" Harry perked up. The Exalted Cat loved to brag about its own strength. It could brag for hours, completely unrestrained. The next time, he could bring up this wooden box.
"Boy, what are you looking at me like that for?"
"Nothing, nothing," he said quickly.
"Anyways," Slughorn chuckled, "the wood is tough to the point of being unnatural. I have tried every imaginable method to open this box – smashing, cutting, burning, you name it, I guarantee I've tried it. Whether it's the strongest weapons or the hottest flames, none of them worked. I've even acquired some species of Magic Beasts, from rare termites to beavers to woodpeckers, but they were unable to do anything either. Besides, not only can I not open this box, I can't even identify the wood it's made of." Slughorn dramatically shook his head in pity.
"Dr. Slughorn, do you want me to identify the wood for you?"
"Exactly, my boy. Since it's just a piece of the tree, you probably won't get the name, but I hope your ability can learn some characteristics of it. At this point, I'd be ecstatic with even the smallest bit of progress."
Out of nowhere, a wooden box appeared on the table in between them. The box was a perfectly cut cube, so clearly manmade. It was just the right size to fit in a person's palm.
"It looks like a solid block of wood, but it is actually hollow. Listen," Slughorn said while shaking the box. Indeed, a rattling sound could be heard from inside the box.
"Anyways, do you recognize it?"
As Slughorn surmised, Harry wasn't able to determine the name of the wood, since it wasn't the full tree. But still, some information appeared in his mind.
"I don't know the name," he admitted, "but it's a type of willow. All I know is this - even among Profound Grade plants, it's among the most difficult to grow, and requires millennia to mature."
"By the way, what's the Profound Grade? Does that come after Earth Grade?"
But neither Slughorn nor the Exalted Cat seemed to have heard his question, and instead stared at the box in shock.
"A Profound Grade plant?" Slughorn stuttered. "This is actually… actually…"
His face paled as he stared at the block in his hand. Harry had never seen someone look so frightened. What was so special about the Profound Grade?
Slughorn finally calmed down, and looked back at Harry.
"That certainly explains a lot. Harry, my boy, it may have only been a slight effort on your part, but you've helped with an impossible mystery. For that, I must thank you."
"Dr. Slughorn, may I touch the box? I think the Nameless Seed wants me to touch it."
Inside his body, the Nameless Seed, which was dormant when he wasn't using it, had started trembling out of anticipation.
"Are you sure?" Slughorn asked skeptically. "This piece of wood is many centuries old, so it's probably dead by now. There can't be much Wood Qi left in it."
"I'm sure," Harry responded, so Slughorn passed the box to Harry. The moment his hand contacted the wood, the Nameless Seed woke up and started swallowing.
It was like a torrent of Qi entering his hand – Harry gasped from how much of it there was. There was far more than the Qi in the trees of the forest. It was like a surging river entering his body, like he was standing under a waterfall of Wood Qi.
Even though only one hand was contacting the box, it took less than a minute for him to absorb the equivalent of a Mulberry Tree.
After another minute, he did it again.
10 minutes later, the rush of incoming Wood Qi showed no signs of stopping.
As the Wood Qi continued to pour in and in, Harry's mouth fell wide open. This block of wood in front of him… how could there be so much Wood Qi in it? This was practically cheating!
What sort of level was the Profound Grade?
Again, he didn't complain, and instead prayed that the flow would never end. Every bit of Wood Qi he got here was one less tree he had to hug out in the woods.
Nearly 40 minutes later, Harry began to grow nervous. If Slughorn didn't have this miraculous block of wood, how much longer would he have spent in the Wyvern Woods?
It was over an hour until the flow abruptly stopped. The amount of Wood Qi in the Nameless Seed reached the brim. His body had gone through metamorphosis, his flesh was brimming with vitality, and every cell in his body was exuding energy and strength. Inside his body, the Nameless Seed hardened, as if it had turned into wood.
He instinctively knew that the First Minor Accomplishment was finished.
"I finished Strengthening Flesh! Do I start on Fire – what's wrong?" Harry asked when he saw Slughorn and the cat's expressions.
But they didn't respond, instead staring at the box in Harry's hand. For some reason, both Slughorn and the Exalted Cat appeared incredibly nervous, and Harry had never seen the cat nervous before.
"Boy, it's too early for you to know the details. But, if you want to preserve your life, you will never mention this block of wood or anything related to that rock to anyone, whether it be the seed or the Nameless Technique. Not a single soul. If others discovered that thing in your body in the morning, you would be dead by the afternoon."
"Yes, yes," Slughorn said hastily, his tone suddenly getting serious. "The Nameless Technique has provided you great strength, but it can also put your life in extreme danger. Harry, remember this, we do not live in a nice world. If you have a treasure, but not the strength to own it, there is no telling what others will do to get their hands on it."
"You probably don't realize just how precious that seed in your body is, and I don't blame you. I don't know if I can explain the magnitude of its value to you. In fact, I have difficult time believing it myself. But, no matter what happens, nobody else can know about it. Treasure it like you treasure your life."
"I won't tell anyone," Harry promised. "So, can I get started on Fire Qi now?"
"Yes, now that you've finished with Wood Qi, you should start absorbing Fire Qi. The amount of Fire Qi you'll need is the same as the amount of Wood Qi you have used. Hmm… old cat, you've been watching him this whole time, how much is it?"
"The seed in the boy's body is a bottomless pit. I watched him suck the Wood Qi out of 18 Mulberry Trees, 92 Redwood Balsa, 119 Greybark Cedar, 54 Ioclory, 42 Shield Beech, 21 Chilling Pines, …"
The Exalted Cat prattled on and on, an unending list of tree species coming out its mouth, until Harry's face turned red. He had long lost count, but the Exalted Cat seemed to have counted thousands of trees over dozens of species. Had he really absorbed that much Wood Qi?
"…75 bushes of White Holly, and that block of unknown willow."
Ironically, Slughorn looked at Harry like how one might stare at an extremely obese man.
"If we were to consider a Mulberry Tree as one unit, I would estimate it at 400 units."
"400!?" Harry blurted out.
"Right," the Exalted Cat nodded. "400. You got around 300 from all those trees in the forest, and around 100 from that block of willow. And there is still much more left in that block. You could have finished Strengthening Flesh by using just a fraction of this block of wood, actually."
Harry gulped as he looked at the object in his hand. He didn't doubt the cat, since the Wood Qi flooding into his body had practically been endless. Still, this was just a tiny piece of wood, cut off from the main tree for centuries. What must the original tree have been like?
"400 Mulberry Trees? Then for Fire Qi…" Slughorn shook his head. "Perhaps cultivating the Nameless Technique was a mistake. I never imagined the consumption to be this high. Even if we find enough Fire Qi, what about Earth Qi? Metal? Water? My boy, you have a long and tough road in front of you."
"For Fire Qi, could I just stand near a fire?"
"Boy, are you an idiot?" the Exalted Cat asked incredulously. "Can you get Wood Qi by standing in the forest?"
"Well, it might work, depending on the fire," Slughorn interjected. "If you were to just start a campfire or something, that wouldn't work. You need special and rare types of flames, which I don't have. But even if you had those fires, I don't know how you'd refine them. It seems like you need to be in contact with the Qi for the Nameless Seed to absorb it, and it's not like you can touch fire, can you? But, I do have these. Give them a try."
A vial of yellow berries appeared on the table. There were five of them, each the size of a Beast Core.
"The Yellow Ember Berries?" Harry recognized these from Slughorn's tests earlier.
"Yes, go ahead and use them," Slughorn handed the vial over. "It's best if you swallow these, probably, since fruits are meant to be consumed. But just warning you, they are very sour."
Harry picked up one of the Yellow Ember Berries, and popped it into his mouth. As Slughorn said, it was sour, extremely sour. It was practically a lemon. His face immediately puckered up.
Along with the sourness was heat. The heat wasn't hot enough to burn or be uncomfortable, rather, the temperature was soothing. As it traveled down his throat, the Nameless Seed began absorbing Fire Qi.
When the Nameless Seed absorbed Wood Qi, Harry could feel his flesh being remolded. Now, as the Nameless Seed absorbed Fire Qi, Harry could feel his blood being changed.
The Fire Qi entered his bloodstream, and slowly merged with a drop of his blood. That single drop of blood transformed, entering a heightened state. Harry could sense that there was an astonishing amount of power in it.
By the time the Fire Qi in that berry was absorbed, three tiny drops of blood had been changed. One by one, Harry swallowed the other berries, allowing the Nameless Seed to repeat the process.
"Dr. Slughorn, how much blood is in the human body?"
"For you, it should be about 5 liters. Enough to fill one of those containers," he pointed to his shelf. Seeing it, Harry groaned.
"What's wrong?"
"As the seed absorbed Fire Qi, I felt my blood changing. It was like the Fire Qi went right into my bloodstream. But each berry was only able to change a few drops, and the Nameless Technique said I had to condense a body's worth of blood."
Indeed, the amount of converted blood in his body was negligible. There wasn't even enough blood to fill the body of an ant.
"Just a couple drops?" Slughorn frowned. "Judging from the amount of Qi in 400 Mulberry Trees… compared to these small berries… you'd need around, let's see, 40,000 Yellow Ember Berries? 50,000?"
Harry wanted to cry. 50,000? Was this some sort of joke?
Where was he going to find that many berries? Even if he scoured the whole empire, he probably couldn't obtain 50,000 berries. And how long would it take him to eat them all?
"You wouldn't happen to have other sources of Fire Qi, would you?" Harry asked.
"I only have some Magic Plants. For obvious reasons, fire and plants don't really go together. Fruits like the Yellow Ember Berry are quite rare."
"What about Scarlet Flame Wolves? Their Beast Cores, I mean."
"Hmm… it depends on the Nameless Seed, I suppose. Their Beast Cores do contain Fire Qi, but I don't know if the seed can absorb it. Though at this point, I don't dare to underestimate its capabilities. It's worth a try."
"I'll try to get some when I go back to the Wyvern Woods then."
"Right. But keep in mind, the amount of Fire Qi in a Beast Core is not that much. Considering how much Wood Qi you refined, I wouldn't be surprised if you needed thousands of Ordinary Grade Beast Cores."
Harry's face fell at that thought. Unlike Wood Qi, it didn't seem like there would be a good way to find Fire Qi.
"Ah, I almost forgot. Here you go." With a wave of Slughorn's hand, the table was occupied by vials of Body Nourishing Pills.
"70 middle-quality pills, and 14 high-quality pills. This could get four people from the 1st to the 9th level of the Body Tempering Realm. But for you, well, it should be enough for the 5th to the 6th, and maybe halfway to the 7th.
Harry sighed. The Exalted Cat was right. Whether it was the Nameless Technique, or just regular cultivation, the amount of Qi he needed was way too high.
Grabbing a vial of 10 middle-quality pills, Harry opened it and poured all of the pills into his mouth.