After tallying up the gains from this battle,
Ye Qingxuan’s explorer avatar stored everything in a single storage pouch.
Originally, he had planned to use the realm gate to send all the spoils back to the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise.
But just as he was about to initiate the transfer, he remembered—
his Qingxuan Paradise was still too low in tier, and the realm gate it could manifest was only usable within the Earth Mystery Realm.
So any spoils his explorer avatar collected in Demon Domain No. 3 would have to wait until he left the domain before they could be sent back.
Once the battlefield was cleaned up, Ye Qingxuan’s avatar—wearing that dark-gold patterned mask—continued pressing deeper into Demon Domain No. 3.
Seeing that this expedition was going smoothly, Ye Qingxuan withdrew his attention and stopped monitoring his avatar so closely.
After the Qingxuan Paradise advanced to the third tier, it entered a long, slow period of accumulation.
During this lengthy phase,
Ye Qingxuan had his three avatars out there making their way in the world, so he didn’t need to worry about gathering resources for the paradise’s growth. He could comfortably return to his previous cultivation rhythm.
His main body only needed to stay at the headquarters—the paradise within the Xuantian Sect—handling logistics and resource coordination for his avatars.
Or, every now and then, he could let his main consciousness descend into one of his avatars to take in the sights beyond. That was more than enough.
As for everything else—including the war situation between the Earth Mystery Realm and the Green Demon Realm—it wasn’t something his current level of cultivation could influence.
After withdrawing his focus from his avatar, Ye Qingxuan took a single step and left the Qingxuan Paradise.
In the stone pavilion at the entrance of the paradise,
Ye Qingxuan brewed himself a pot of tea.
This was the very first pot he had made since the Tranquil Mind Tea had evolved to the fifth tier.
Among the tea plants he had been growing, aside from this one that had continuously advanced to tier five,
some of the other Tranquil Mind Tea plants had also mutated and reached the third tier.
But ever since this fifth-tier plant evolved, it had begun to suppress the others, absorbing the essences they had condensed to perfect itself.
Ye Qingxuan didn’t interfere or stop this process.
No matter how many low-tier tea plants there were, none could compare to a single high-tier mutant.
If this fifth-tier Tranquil Mind Tea plant could gain even greater room for growth by consuming the energy of the others,
then Ye Qingxuan would rather give up that entire patch of useless low-tier plants in exchange for one continuously evolving high-tier one.
So upon noticing the changes in this fifth-tier tea plant,
not only did he refrain from stopping it, he even planted other tea shrubs with similar effects around it, providing more essences for it to absorb.
He was genuinely curious to see just how far this continuously evolving Tranquil Mind Tea plant could go.
Pouring the freshly brewed fifth-tier tea into his cup, Ye Qingxuan took a gentle sip, closed his eyes slightly, and slowly savored the transformation of this new batch.
After a long while, he opened his eyes, a satisfied smile spreading across his face.
Once the Tranquil Mind Tea mutated and advanced to the fifth tier, not only did its original calming effect increase significantly, but the duration of its enlightenment-boosting property also improved.
Now, a cup of fifth-tier Tranquil Mind Tea could sustain about half an hour of enlightenment for a Nascent Soul cultivator.
Moreover, the tea’s enlightenment effect had been enhanced—after guiding a cultivator into that state, it could temporarily triple their comprehension ability.
Though this temporary boost didn’t do much for Ye Qingxuan’s own comprehension at the moment,
the tea plant was only at the fifth tier for now.
If it kept evolving, who knew—maybe one day it would be able to assist even him.
Beyond that,
once the tea reached the fifth tier, its leaves also gained a new property: helping lower-cultivation cultivators dispel inner demons.
The exact effectiveness of this demon-dispelling property would vary from person to person.
After all, everyone’s experiences differ, so the inner demons they face differ too—and so does their intensity, depending on the cultivator’s level.
Still, even just the enlightenment effect alone was enough to skyrocket the tea’s value.
In the course of cultivation, aside from accumulating energy, a cultivator’s innate comprehension talent is equally important.
Though one’s comprehension does improve with each breakthrough, as the body undergoes a total transformation,
the higher one’s initial comprehension, the faster their growth tends to be—and it might even affect their ultimate ceiling.
Because to break through realms, not to mention the profound rules required for the Dongxu (Hollow Void) stage,
even the earlier stages—
like liquefying spiritual power at the Foundation Building stage, opening the spiritual sense space at the Zifu (Purple Mansion) stage, solidifying spiritual power at the Golden Core stage, or activating spiritual power at the Nascent Soul stage—
all require a certain level of comprehension to grasp the underlying mysteries before a breakthrough can be made.
Accumulating enough spiritual power and maintaining its purity can only reduce the difficulty—it can’t completely bypass the process.
In short, a cultivator with both excellent spiritual roots and outstanding comprehension is a true genius.
But since comprehension can gradually improve with each breakthrough, and there are plenty of natural treasures in the Earth Mystery Realm that boost comprehension for early-stage cultivators,
most cultivators tend to focus more on their spiritual root talent while overlooking their comprehension ability.
Add to that the fact that cultivators with good spiritual roots usually have decent comprehension too—but those with great comprehension don’t necessarily have good spiritual roots.
That’s the main reason everyone puts so much weight on spiritual roots.
Because during the process of gestation, the more spiritual roots a person has, the stronger their physical foundation becomes.
And the stronger the physical body, the better it can nurture the essence, energy, and spirit during development, which in turn enhances comprehension.
Conversely, if someone is born with strong comprehension, it can’t actively feed back into the body during the unconscious gestation process to improve its foundation.
So for all these reasons, people have come to judge a person’s cultivation potential based solely on the number of their spiritual roots.
That said, there are exceptions—a small number of cultivators have outstanding spiritual roots but poor comprehension.
These individuals often need quite a few comprehension-enhancing treasures in their early cultivation journey to compensate and break through.
Right now, the fifth-tier Tranquil Mind Tea can only provide a temporary boost to comprehension. While that still makes it highly valuable, there are plenty of other treasures that can do the same.
But if, one day, this fifth-tier tea plant keeps evolving until it can permanently enhance comprehension—
that would be when its true value explodes.
As for when that day might come, even Ye Qingxuan himself doesn’t know.
Fortunately, he doesn’t rely on this single tea plant for resources, so he can afford to wait patiently for that day to arrive.
After finishing that pot of fifth-tier Tranquil Mind Tea, Ye Qingxuan leisurely made his way back into the paradise and resumed his daily cultivation routine.
