Isn't this just cheating?

After leaving the city Alex took a look at the map. According to the mission details he would likely find the verdant fire seed in the forest surounding white frost Mountain. Which was allegedly a dormant volcano, hence the fire seed spawning near by.

What a fire seed is should probably be explained. Fire, along with many other things, where given diffrent grades by cultivators. The three main grades where 'mortal', 'spirit' and 'heavenly'. Mortal was the most common, being the classification for anything that didn't have controlled qi. Normal trees, unenlightened beast's, or basic fire.

Things in the spirit grade were similarly things that could use qi. A plant that had gained the ability to absorbe qi from the air was a spirit plant. A beast that could actively cultivate was a spirit beast. And a flame that could burn useing qi was a spirit flame. As for things of the heavenly grade, he didn't know.

A fire seed was the dormant form of a spirit flame, spirit flames instinctively that if they burned to much qi they would run out, and die. So when they spawned if the senced that there was a lack of ambient qi around they would go dormant, forming a 'seed'. Diffrent environments would cause diffrent seeds. A lot of rich fire qi? Standard fire seed. A lot of fire qi deep under the earth? Earth fire seed. Rich amount of fire qi in the middle of a spiritual forest? Verdant fire seed. So on and so forth.

Due to the combination of white frost being a dormant volcano, and as such having a monumental supply of renewable fire qi. And the surounding forest having a spiritual plant rate of 15%, considerd high for a non sacred land. And the chances of a verdant fire seed spawning was very high.

Verdant fire seeds where also considerd a great choice for alchemists as having a flame with fire and wood properties, to purify and enhance alchemical ingredients, was a great support.

Alex stored the map away and got to running with a combination of [flash step] and [serpants dance], at his curent pace it would take three days to get to the forest.

The first couple of hours went without anything special. This close to a major city there was no bandits and any spirit beast strong enough to threaten Alex or nuwa had long been hunted down by the city guard. After about 4 hours of constant running, the path Alex had been following began to become more rugged. Less of a road and more of a dirt path. Still no events though.

A bit later when he was waiting to recover his stamina, even he couldn't run at max speed with techniques for 5 hours strait, the first thing of note happend. Along his way he ended up getting attacked by a low rank spirit beast. Around body forging stage 5, or qi absorbing stage 5 for alex. It resembled a panther, but with a green coat and spines along its back.

Of course, before it could get close to alex nuwa woke up, and swallowed it whole. It should be mentioned that that full size nuwa was about as long as a large semi truck, and as wide as a cow.

[Nuwa has eaten a green spine panther. Devour has activated. Trait [Meadows camouflage] has been gained. Bloodline Abilities [spine formation], [stalking] and [deep bite] have been gained. Basic stats +5 advanced stats +2]

'I don't need camouflage, and I don't like the color green. Please remove it.' Looking over to nuwa, who now had green patches on her scales, Alex held in a chuckle as nuwa was now red, green and silver. Despite the fact that it was mid spring alex felt like that was strangely topical for the time.

[Trait [meadows camouflage] has been exchanged. 20 exchange points gained. Current exchange points: 28,140]

'Realy got a nice stock of points. Just another couple months till 50,000. But I'll probably spend them on something before that.'

Seeing as nuwa had gained some new abilities, and alex could use said abilities, he raised his arms to try one of them out. Three long bone spurs grew out from the side of his forearms. but they were not the best looking, so to speak. So he got rid of them soon after. With nuwa back to standard size and his energy back, Alex started sprinting again.

Another few hours passed with nothing new. A couple weak spirit beast's in the bloodline refining stage which didn't even give abilities or stats. One or to trade caravans he passed by. Not much more then that.

Three days later Alex was at the foot of a colossal mountain capped In white snow with a large forest at its base. 'Well I'm at the base of the mountain. Now what? Just run through the forest hoping I find a fire seed? That'll take forever. Wait, I have an idea.' Sitting down for a moment alex focused on his elemental circuits. Each one reacted to the elements around it, so theoretically he should be able to use his fire and wood circuits as radars for a verdant fire seed. The bigger the reaction the closer he was.

This had some flaws as it only picked up on how much qi of a certain element was around, so he could find anything. But it was better then nothing. Focusing on those two circuits he got to searching. Standing back up he started sprinting through the forest. The mid point between the forest and mountain had the best chance of having a fire seed, so that's where he went first.

In a forest like this, most beast's powerfull enough to chalange alex lived in the core areas and were territorial, preferring to stay in their lair and cultivate rather than go put and hunt. The remaining beast's were to weak to chalange him in any way, becoming food for nuwa. Once he reached the mid way point, where the fire and wood qi where equaly high, Alex got to searching.

Once Alex reached basic tier 1 in soul cultivation he unlocked his spirit sence. usually a cultivator would gain a spirit sence at nascent soul stage, as their newly condensed spirit was able to sence the surroundings. But if someone used soul cultivation, that stage could be reached much earlier as their 'official' mind palace could fill in that role.

Closing his eyes to concentrate alex focused on the fire and wood qi, sending for any 'pockets' of qi, or particularly strong streams flowing to one area. Once he was sure there was nothing in the surounding area, he moved onto the next keeping in the middle zone of the forest. A day later and he found a large patch of qi more pure then the surroundings.

In the center of the pocket of qi there was a large tree in the middle of a field of burnt ground. Under the roots of the tree their was a 'seed', it was a deep green and transparent with red flames trapped inside. Walking over to the tree alex got ready to use a technique he made ages ago, [earth's blessing]. This was the gardening technique he had made when he was a 'child'.

Even in their dormant state a fire seed would form a 'protector' to take care of them untill the qi levels rose high enough.

If anyone tried to take away the seed, the protector would attack, and the large tree was the protector of this verdant fire seed. Of course, if a agreement was made the protector could be bribed. it was a separate entity from the seed after all. And as such if given something more valuable then the seed, it would easily betray its 'creator'.