[Cultivate Blood Jade to maturity to receive rewards: Slight Hematopoietic Enhancement (Silver Tier), Extremely Weak Bloodline Purification (Black Iron Tier), Dragon Fire (Black Iron Tier)]
[Cultivate the Blood Jade Variant Form to maturity to receive rewards: Slight Hematopoietic Enhancement (Silver Tier), Extremely Weak Bloodline Purification (Black Iron Tier), Toxin (Black Iron Tier)]
Two reward information displays came into view, making Ciel's breath catch slightly. These rewards were even more generous than he had previously expected. The original Blood Jade should have only provided Silver-tier hematopoietic enhancement and Black Iron-tier bloodline purification.
But now, the two groups of Blood Jade cultivated with dragon blood and Acromantula blood both had an additional reward. Black Iron-tier Dragon Fire and Black Iron-tier Toxin respectively.
This led him to form a hypothesis. "Dragon Fire and Toxin seem to be the signature abilities of dragons and Acromantulas respectively. Could it be that using different blood types to cultivate Blood Jade yields different abilities related to the blood source as rewards?"
This hypothesis made him suddenly clench his fists. If so, then by cultivating Blood Jade, he could potentially obtain many different abilities. Plus the rewards Blood Jade itself provided were extremely rare.
Hematopoietic enhancement might be related to improving Legendary Strength and Legendary Vitality. And bloodline purification, even at the Black Iron tier, was extremely precious. After all, a wizard's magical talent was fundamentally rooted in bloodline. Purifying bloodline could, in a sense, enhance magical talent.
Even if the improvement might not be very significant, for him, even a slight talent boost would reduce the diminishing effect of reward orbs. Abilities that originally required harvesting five rounds of rewards to improve might only need three rounds! The time and resources saved would be incalculable.
These two rewards alone made him feel that requiring Class 5X magical creature blood for catalysis wasn't too harsh a condition. And now there were additional rewards, with Blood Jade maturing in just about a month.
He had only one thought churning in his mind. "Jackpot!"
Then, after he calmed down, his gaze fell on the third group of luminescent mushrooms. The first two groups had successfully transformed into Blood Jade. But this group showed no signs of transformation toward Blood Jade. Instead, the luminescent mushroom mycelium itself had begun to wilt. Gone was the previous liveliness, with edges becoming cloudy.
This made him show a regretful expression. From the looks of it, the third group had failed. Fortunately, he hadn't held high hopes for this spontaneous experiment. Failure was within reason.
However, he didn't immediately remove these mycelia. After all, he had used two types of precious blood. He'd observe a bit longer.
Then he took a deep breath, shifting his attention from the joy of successful Blood Jade transformation awaiting maturity to the little silver bucket on the greenhouse workbench.
Previously, his use of the little silver bucket had been to directly place seeds and plants inside to stimulate their vitality. But tonight, through Dumbledore's explanation, he learned that the true use of Demeter's silver cup was primarily for soil.
The legendary Demeter's cup could make the earth fertile for thousands of miles each time it displayed its power. Of course, this was just mythology... no one knew if such scenes had truly occurred in history.
The imitation praised as closest to Demeter's cup, Hufflepuff's Cup, could brew nectar that made soil fertile. This created Hogwarts' unrivaled greenhouses in the magical world. Even plants like the Whomping Willow could grow at Hogwarts.
Whether the little silver bucket in his hands was actually the historical Demeter's cup or not, his previous usage was like using a kettle to stew beef. It worked somewhat but was quite ridiculous. If Dumbledore hadn't told him the proper usage, this thing might have gathered dust in his hands for who knows how long.
Now he picked up the little silver bucket, filling it with soil from the little greenhouse. Then he drew his wand, casting the Demeter ritual magic he'd learned from Dumbledore.
His wand struck the edge of the little silver bucket. The next moment, an unexpectedly pleasant, clear ringing echoed through the little greenhouse. He also recited the ritual magic incantation.
"Proscindite glaciem, vomere fulgente! Ring the cup once: break the frozen earth, let plowshares gleam!"
The moment the incantation was recited, he felt the little silver bucket before him produce different vibrations than before. The feeling was as if it were awakening! His heartbeat suddenly accelerated.
His wand steadily struck the little silver bucket's edge again. Accompanied by increasingly pleasant ringing, the ancient incantation echoed.
"Spargite grana auri, paleasque territe! Ring the cup twice: scatter golden grain, thresh the chaff!"
This time, he could visibly see the little silver bucket beginning to emit strange radiance. Unfortunately, it was too severely damaged. Areas where patterns and text had been worn away remained dim. Only places still retaining some patterns emitted light.
Taking a deep breath with rising anticipation, he struck the third time. With the wand's third strike, it seemed to ring an ancient bell. The bell sound echoed through the little greenhouse... solemn and reverent.
He felt momentarily dazed, as if seeing countless people singing, dancing, and celebrating abundance. At this moment, the radiance on the little silver bucket reached its most intense point. Light flowed like water, enveloping and penetrating the soil within the little silver bucket. After a moment, it completely dimmed.
His gaze eagerly fell into the little silver bucket. The soil inside hadn't changed much in appearance... still fertile black earth. But he sensed a different feeling from it. This feeling of ancient magic.
Before he could carefully examine this magic's peculiarities, Shadow, which had been nestled in the little greenhouse absorbing residual nutrients from deep in the soil, suddenly became excited. Countless shadows writhed on the ground, weaving into urgent words.
"Father. Hungry. So hungry."
His expression was surprised and uncertain. Shadow, which mastered ancient shadow magic, was different from ordinary Shadow Thorns. The existing soil in the little greenhouse lacked certain nutrients it required. Only deep in the soil remained traces. This made Shadow's maturation indefinitely distant.
But now Shadow's urgent behavior... could it be that after performing the ritual magic, the soil processed by the little silver bucket could satisfy Shadow's growth needs?
After a moment, he nodded, scattering the bucket of soil on the ground. "Eat."
Shadow, already impatient, immediately emerged from the shadows and took root in this soil. Under his gaze, the reward orbs above Shadow, which had been quite weak and slow to grow, suddenly began expanding at visible speed!
(TL NOTE: Unfortunately, my LOTR: Playing Minecraft in Middle-earth book was mistakenly flagged as spam on Webnovel and removed. I'll re-upload it under a different title by tomorrow at the latest. Thank you for your patience!)