678: Hypothesis Fails, Special Spiritual Grafting Method Discovered!
Locke summoned a Full Moon Growth, reflecting the collective consciousness resonance of these Dune People, and amplified and focused it onto one person through magic. Locke looked at the Dune Person on the rock, and found… he showed no changes.
Locke timely injected a Holy Spring Nectar Potion, diluted a thousand times, into the Dune Person's body via moonlight, which prevented him from dying.
Locke said, "I miscalculated. My hypothesis about collective consciousness resonance evolution was immediately disproven. I captured the telepathic echoes of these Dune People and indeed could capture their survival-based needs, projecting these thoughts onto this Dune Person, but it failed."
"There was absolutely no change. This indicates that my previous hypothesis was incorrect."
Locke was unconcerned by this; proposing a hypothesis inherently involves immediate self-refutation.
Even if his use of Full Moon Growth had successfully accelerated the Dune Person's evolution just now, he would still need to confirm whether another group of Dune People without the Stone Spirit faith would also exhibit similar evolution.
Locke pondered, "My idea just now was indeed a bit outrageous. If one wants to evolve, they can evolve? Thinking about it carefully, it's quite absurd."
"Alright. I might have been led astray by these ritualistic things of the Dune People. Their set of rituals is merely a product of their own superficial understanding, relying on path dependence."
Locke walked around the rock once and immediately frowned. Many tiny ferns with creeping fleshy rhizomes grew around the rock.
Locke picked one of them, sniffed it under his nose, and frowned at the same time.
As a Potion Master close to the First Ring, he instantly realized that this ordinary plant contained several key components that critically influenced the physical changes in mortals.
"I might have guessed wrong before."
Locke thought, "Collective consciousness resonance might exist, but it doesn't act on the Dune People's own bodies; instead, it acts on these plants."
"Animals and plants are two sides of the same coin in nature, closely intertwined. Perhaps it's not the biological will of collective consciousness resonance that causes an organism to evolve."
"This is a baseless conjecture."
"The leap is too great. What if the plants themselves have some mechanism that can accept the will of animals in the environment and undergo certain changes to help the animals survive?"
Locke put forward his second hypothesis. "The Dune People's crude telepathic ability amplifies this effect."
"Ordinary creatures might lack the ability to communicate, or lack persistent and strong emotions, to cause plants to undergo corresponding changes in a relatively short time."
"In Botany, there are already many phenomena of Magic Plant interaction with animals, forming co-evolution through sound and natural magic structural components. It's just that these plants on the Dune Plane are mere ordinary plants, and most importantly, there seems to be some mechanism that accelerates the speed of evolution."
He was very interested in this himself.
But it might also be a false alarm; if it was merely the simple effect of plants on the human body, then it would be meaningless.
Because this is a common relationship between plants and animals.
Early Potionology and current herbalism specifically study extracting special components from Magic Plants to achieve certain specific effects.
The key lies in the mechanism that might accelerate evolution, not in what changes occurred in the Dune People.
It was also simple to disprove.
Locke immediately used Full Moon Growth, shining it on a fern in the corner of the rock, while also reflecting the collective consciousness resonance gathered by the Dune People during the ritual onto a fern.
Locke also used First Ring Magic · Rapid Growth to urge its growth.
As a result, this fern experienced prosperity, then decay, scattered its spores, and finally withered rapidly.
"No changes. This idea is also wrong."
Locke frowned.
He walked into the natural caves where the Dune People lived and indeed saw some simple stone tools for mashing fern fronds.
"That Dune Person had severe magical pollution. It's impossible for ordinary plant herbal mixtures to prolong his life."
"So, it cannot be simply regarded as a simple application of herbalism. That's too absurd."
"However, if it were that easy to discover, then this phenomenon should have been common knowledge long ago." Locke squatted down, examined the types of mashed fern leaves made by these ordinary Dune People, and used Archaeology spells to recreate their original form.
"They are all simple, ordinary ferns."
"It's impossible to have such miraculous effects. Unless these ferns are specifically evolved for the Dune People."
"Therefore, they have a special effect on the Dune People's bloodline essence, which can help the Dune People's bloodline essence undergo corresponding changes. But I have already tried the demand echo formed by the Dune People through telepathy and rituals; even when I reflected it onto these ferns, it did not produce any corresponding changes."
Locke fell into deep thought.
Either he would find a way to make the Dune People eat these plants and repeatedly verify the effect, or he would directly recreate, through contemplation, the mechanism by which the Dune People caused these ferns to undergo specific evolution, accelerating their evolution.
"Is it that there wasn't enough time, which is why it failed? No, I already used accelerated growth."
"The plant's growth cycle has been shortened by me. These are just ordinary plants; I can easily make them bloom and wither dozens of times within 1 second. Several cycles have already occurred."
Locke pondered, "Could it be that this line of thought is also wrong?"
Putting aside everything else, the Dune Person's bizarre vitality alone was very abnormal.
Either the Dune People are tougher and more talented than Wizards imagine, or there must be some undiscovered mechanism at play.
"Could it be that it's not collective consciousness, but some kind of spiritual fusion?"
Locke blinked and immediately denied it. "No, grafting methods already exist for grafting Magic Plants with Magical Creatures. Such Magic Plants, infused with animal spirituality, would become violent instead."
Locke looked at the stone worshipped as a god, "Let's think in reverse. If there is some mechanism in living beings that can affect plants and accelerate plant evolution, and then plants accelerate the evolution of living beings, why haven't Wizards discovered it for so long? It's very likely that Wizard society lacks this, or rather, Wizard society doesn't lack it, but Wizards lack it."
"That would be religious belief."
Locke's eyes lit up. "Before, I kept thinking and thinking, and I was completely off track. Thinking carefully, special plants only appear around the stone. After these Dune People consume these plants, they benefit, and therefore they believe it is bestowed by the stone."
"So, what happened?"
Locke used the Wizard's vision—spiritual vision—and saw that the spirituality of that stone was very special; though an inanimate object, it possessed a large amount of living people's spirituality.
Due to the Dune People's worship, this spirituality remained in the stone for a long time, while some spirituality drifted out, falling onto the surrounding ferns.
"So, it's very likely that spirituality is the key." Locke mused, "When animal spirituality directly fuses with plants, it will cause the plants to strengthen in a short time, become violent, and then rapidly decline. Less than one in ten grafting attempts succeed."
"But there are successful grafting methods!"
"If, through faith transformation, a special spirituality that has shed its animality, even a special product of a special spirituality, has been generated over the years and combines with plants, it seems to give rise to extraordinary changes."
Realizing this, Locke immediately extended his hand, and with Mist's Power in one palm, he grasped the stone, extracting a portion of special spirituality from it. Then, Locke chose not to infuse this valuable special spirituality into the surrounding ordinary ferns, but rather into an ordinary sea gold sand plant he took from his astral ring.
Locke used Full Moon Growth, leveraging the connection characteristic of this Great Magic blueprint, to link the spirituality of the sea gold sand with that special spirituality. The two merged like water and milk.
Immediately after, under Locke's tense gaze, the fern fronds of this sea gold sand plant exhibited abnormal trembling, on the verge of becoming violent, but this abnormality quickly subsided.
The entire sea gold sand plant underwent a peculiar change, its leaves developing a serrated edge.
Locke's heart rejoiced. "I guessed correctly. Fusing this special spirituality can cause plants to undergo a certain degree of special evolution."
"So, it's not some collective consciousness resonance, but rather these special spiritualities passively merging with the spirituality of the plants around the stone over a long period, causing these plants to undergo corresponding changes."
Locke's gaze shifted slightly. "Since these spiritualities were originally generated based on various desires, and after a special transformation through the stone, the human spirituality was also washed away, transforming into a special state of spirituality."
"Therefore, after these plants passively absorbed some of the special spirituality, they developed a way that could help the Dune People evolve and possibly help them escape their current predicament."
Locke pondered, "Of course, to achieve this set of special rapid evolution mechanisms, several conditions are required, and it is indeed quite coincidental to gather them."
"First, this is a people who like to worship a certain inanimate object."
"Second, these people like to make wishes to the inanimate object, hoping to achieve some kind of evolution."
"Third, these people possess a telepathy-like ability that can create collective consciousness resonance, strengthening their spiritual remnants. Ordinary creatures, no matter how much they worship an inanimate object, might not be able to retain their spirituality within it."
"In the endless void, there must be many races that meet these requirements. But it is indeed not that common; just a relatively high-intensity telepathic racial talent has already blocked many civilizations."
"Secondly, this civilization must also like to worship inanimate objects." Locke thought, "This inanimate object can transform into a special divine state."
Locke's expression was strange. "A racial talent for telepathy is relatively easy to satisfy in the Wizard World. But Wizards in the Wizard World cannot access religion."
"At least not normal religions. Let alone such primitive religions. Moreover, I suspect that only this kind of worship of stone-like objects, or even only the worship of stones, can produce this special spirituality."
"The World Rules of the Wizard World also seem to be different; worshipping inanimate objects simply cannot give rise to any special changes."
"And in the various Colonial Planes, it is precisely the lack of races with such high-intensity innate telepathy..."
Locke realized that this special situation was very likely related to the World Rules.
That is, the World Rules must allow people to worship a certain inanimate object, and that inanimate object must have the rule of transforming and storing human spirituality.
This rule does not exist in the Wizard World.
Therefore, this is destined to prevent Wizards in the Wizard World from discovering, at least in the Wizard World, the mechanism by which this special spirituality can merge with Magic Plants to accelerate evolution.
And it is indeed very difficult for Wizards from the Wizard World to discover such imperceptible things when they go to various Colonial Planes.
Especially since such imperceptible things would be extremely rare in the various Colonial Planes.
Races with such high-intensity telepathic abilities rarely remain in primitive worship.
It's just that the Dune People's situation is special, having undergone a severe civilization regression.
Locke whispered, "It is indeed quite difficult to detect. If I hadn't been lucky, I wouldn't have noticed this detail. This is also based on the fact that I am a Potion Master, which is why I am so sensitive to how many minutes an ordinary person can live. If it were other Wizards, why would they care about a few minutes' difference in an ordinary person's lifespan?"
"Even so, my previous ideas were all wrong."
"But this mechanism can indeed cause plants to undergo a certain degree of rapid evolution. The Dune People's wish is to evolve to survive, but what if I gather these three conditions and find a race whose wish is simply to cause Magic Plants to evolve?"
"Can it cause Magic Plants to evolve more purely?"
"However, in that case, I would need a highly psionic-talented race to worship an inanimate object for me, helping me collect this special spirituality." Locke looked at the group of Dune People. "These Dune People can do it, but their numbers are too small. I need more, much more. Their population is currently less than one-tenth of what it was; even if all of them came to help me, it wouldn't meet my requirements."
"No wonder Wizards need to conquer Colonial Planes. This... I need more races like the Dune People to collect enough special spirituality for my Magic Plant spiritual grafting experiments."
By itself, not just any race can produce this kind of special spirituality.
It requires a race like the Dune People, who naturally possess high telepathic talent.
Locke scanned the group of Dune People. "Since that's the case, I'll find a way to take them with me later. For now, I'll help them clear up the surrounding pollution and let them maintain the status quo."
"Anyway, if there's a chance to leave the Dune Plane, these people probably won't have any attachment to their homeland."