As the Soulfrost Sequoia entered full bloom, the room transformed. It looked and felt as though night had fallen, the backdrop of clear skies dotted with countless stars and a full moon filling the entire space. The air carried a slight coolness to it, just like the kind that came with springtime.

Yang Qing sighed wistfully, taking in the sight as he moved to pour himself another cup of wine. A good wine was made for exactly moments like this, where everything seemed to pull you inward to relax, put your feet up, settle your mind, and enjoy your surroundings with a leisurely heart that had no burdens to carry, only enjoyment and tranquility.

The state of the room made him miss his abode. Even with Yang Shitong there and his foul personality, Yang Qing always found himself sinking into the comfort of that place. Whatever worries he carried seemed to melt away the instant he set foot in it.

And now, thanks to the blooming Soulfrost Sequoia, he was feeling the same way he did whenever he was home.

As Yang Qing soaked in the atmosphere, resting comfortably in his futon with his cup in hand, Tang Xiadan had drifted into a state of rest and forgetfulness of his own. Only his had nothing to do with relaxing and soaking in the atmosphere. He was deeply immersed in understanding the profundities brought about by the Soulfrost Sequoia’s bloom, sensing the changes running through both himself and the flower; everything else got pushed to the far edges of his mind.

Seconds quickly turned to minutes and it wasn’t long before an hour flew by, with Tang Xiadan showing no signs of breaking his meditative pose any time soon. In that while, Yang Qing drank leisurely, following the whims of wherever the current environment led him. If it led him to ponder his cultivation and comb through his experiences, he did that. If it evoked new ideas about some art or another, he did that too. And if it led him down a nostalgic trail, leaving him reminiscing about how far he had come and how the journey had been, he allowed his mind to drift easily down that river of wonder.

He became a true wanderer in thought, given over to the influence of the Soulfrost Sequoia, and he was better for it. It may have looked like he was simply lazing about, but in truth, by allowing himself to float aimlessly like a reed following the flow of a river, he was inwardly changing and flowing and improving.

Cultivation wasn’t always about struggling bitterly or closing yourself off to contemplate the Dao with complete focus, shutting everything else out. Sometimes cultivating meant being whimsical, allowing your thoughts to drift and wander without rhyme or reason, and in doing so, you might find yourself stumbling across breakthroughs in understanding and enlightenment that could only come in such a state of mind.

And even if the enlightenment doesn’t come, there are still other harvests to be had, such as removing various knots in your mind and heart, allowing for deeper clarity and an easier flow of thoughts, which in the long run will bring more harvests still.

There was no shortage of cultivators who had gained insights or entered a state of enlightenment from doing mundane things that at the time had nothing remotely to do with cultivation.

The Dao was endless, fluid, and varied in form and nature. To make inroads into it and travel its waters longer and further, one had to adopt the same malleability it possessed.

Yang Qing didn’t receive any sudden bursts of enlightenment or inspiration, no sudden breakthrough in understanding, and his realm had gained nothing noticeable either. And yet he could tell that this one hour of whimsical wandering had benefited him greatly, as evidenced by the liveliness in his palace world.

The waters of the ocean in his palace world had a rhythmic liveliness to them that moved whimsically, just as his thoughts had, and as they did, the whimsy of that movement made them resemble the flow and rhythm of a real ocean, as opposed to the almost rigid movements they usually had.

That movement might not have meant much to another cultivator, but it meant a great deal to Yang Qing. Whether it be his physique, his Dao, or his purple grade art, all of it was rooted in nature and the flow of life and harmony surrounding it. The more his palace world came to resemble the natural flow of life in the real world, the deeper his understanding of his Dao, his cultivation art and his physique became, especially when it came to the former two.

That feeble, unassuming movement of the waters in his palace world looked no different from before, and yet as unassuming as it was, as mundane as it seemed, its effects were anything but. Yang Qing could feel his spirit, his qi, his realm, and his understanding consolidating and slowly sublimating with the same whimsical ease as the flow of those waters, and with it came various subtle transformations within him. His qi flow, on top of being smoother, now carried the same liveliness as that ocean water. He had no doubt that if he dared execute the Yin Salmon Water Veil of Ten Thousand Streaks, those salmon were likely to be livelier and odder than they had been earlier when he used it at the gorge in the Azure Sapphire Kingdom.

He wouldn’t find it strange if the salmon even started speaking. If, before this change, one of them was already winking at Haoshi, blowing kiss bubbles at her, and swishing its tail to look more appealing, how much odder and more animated would its habits be with the current changes happening within him?

Outside of his qi flow being smoother, faster and livelier, his mind and thoughts moved freely and with greater breadth, few inhibitions or restraints holding them back, which in turn quickened his speed of thought. But it was the freedom of thought that Yang Qing appreciated most. The Universal Resonant Light Purple Grade Art thrived on variety born out of freedom of thought and application. It aimed to replicate the boundlessness, the variety, and the countless immutable forms and relationships seen in nature, and as such, understanding it demanded the same variety and boundlessness in thought.

Given his present changes and the harvest where his frame of mind was concerned, he was certain that later, when he contemplated the Universal Resonant Light, he would gain an even deeper understanding of the art, while at the same time refining what he already knew, and with far greater ease than before.

Both Tang Xiadan and Yang Qing lost themselves to their own worlds, and while it didn’t seem like it to either of them, given how immersed they each were, four hours slipped by quickly. It was approaching the halfway point of the fifth hour when the immersive atmosphere broke. Tang Xiadan suddenly opened his eyes, and Yang Qing was there to catch it as a golden gleam flashed within Tang Xiadan’s black eyes, which now carried a certain depth to them that one couldn’t quite put into words.

"Seems like Fellow Daoist had quite the harvest," Yang Qing commented, smiling at Tang Xiadan.

"All thanks to you, Fellow Daoist," Tang Xiadan said, sighing contentedly as he took stock of the changes happening within him. He was still at the peak stage of the palace realm, but from those four hours alone, from what he had gained and the transformations it had brought, he could easily take a half step into the domain realm if he wished. And this was without him having even begun to fully digest everything the Soulfrost Sequoia had given him.

The flower would be in full bloom for three years, and the advantages it brought would be sustained continuously throughout, after which the advantages would cease as the flower froze over, entering a prolonged dormant hibernation that would last however long it took to transform from flower to fruit, and from fruit to a sapling of the sequoia tree. Only when the sapling formed would the ice surrounding it thaw and its hibernation end. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

That period could take as little as five hundred years or as long as fifty thousand, and in certain cases, the flower never fruited at all, withering away after a prolonged stretch of time instead.

This meant Tang Xiadan had only three years left with it. Given the harvest he had just had, that time was more than enough, especially since the effects of the Soulfrost Sequoia would only grow stronger the closer it crept toward hibernation.

Given everything, he now had far more confidence in attempting the domain realm, and he couldn’t help but feel immensely thankful toward Yang Qing. And it wasn’t just because of the Soulfrost Sequoia, but his own body as well. That flame working in tandem with the Soulfrost Sequoia had not only restored him fully to his peak condition, but he felt that intrinsically he had improved beyond even that, especially with the positive changes happening within the Soulfrost Sequoia because of that flame, changes that consequently ended up benefiting him as the flower shared what it gained with him.

The transformations happening within him thoroughly exceeded what he had even dared to hope for.

And given those changes, the trade he had just engaged in with Yang Qing hardly felt fair to Yang Qing. As if arriving at a weighty decision, Tang Xiadan’s gaze turned deeper and more serious. "Fellow Daoist, have you heard of the Treasure Coin Palace?"