Mountain Sitting Immortal

Thanks to the lesser rejection reaction of the man made foundation, so long as Roar survives the first stage of the operation, the second half of the process will be easier and safer to achieve with the life pill.

As Arthur was thinking of this, he went ahead to make the next batch of life pills with the bone marrow that he already got. Then he resumed with the fourth stage, which involved fusing the natural wonder with the life pill in order to help it advance to the third mortal coil.

The natural wonder is a yellow crystal. The yellow crystal is shining brightly like a sunstone. The source of its energy is the mana in the environment.

Just like a living thing, the crystal is inhaling mana from the environment and converting it into light energy. In his mana sense, it looked like the yellow crystal was breathing.

What he sensed is not a mistake, though. He has heard that natural wonders are actually alive. Or to be more precise, they are the gestative state of a race of beings called elementals.

These elements are creatures born in nature and are naturally attuned with mana. They are very powerful when they mature and are born, but in their fetus state, they are weak and can't defend themselves.

This weak state allows opportunistic and greedy beings like humans and beasts to steal their potential to establish their own foundation. This is essentially what the foundation establishment by assimilating a natural wonder is.

He has tried ten attempts to fuse the yellow crystal with Roar's life pill. While they all failed, the yellow crystal itself was still alive and well.

The natural wonder is mostly intact, and any injury it sustained during the attempts was easily healed by inhaling mana from the environment. So he has no need to worry about using it for another ten attempts.

The only thing to worry about is the life pill dying again. In order to make sure that it won't happen, he created a pot engraved with the energy infusion formation and was prepared to use the serum to sustain the life of the life pill.

Then he placed the first life pill into the pot and switched on the energy formation engraved into the pot. After that, he set up an apparatus that dropped the serum onto the life pill in the pot from above.

With his preparation complete, he picked up the natural wonder and placed it beside the life pill. Then he stepped back to watch the process.

The life pill became active as soon as it sensed the natural wonder. It began producing tendrils of flesh that it extended all over the yellow crystal and used to assimilate it.

The reaction to the life pill was instinctive. This reaction was similar to that of a man dying of thirst placed beside a lake. Both of them were trying to satiate their thirst.

The life pill is not conscious or sentient, so its reaction is not fueled by greed or other evil intentions. It just knows that the natural wonder has something that it urgently lacks.

What the life pill lacks is something very important to it, so it is doing everything it can to acquire that thing by assimilating the natural wonder. As for if it will be able to survive the process, that is not part of the life pill's concern.

This instinctive sense of lack is something that every living thing, be they human, beast, or plant, will experience when they come into contact with natural wonders.

For humans and beasts with eyes, they will feel the deep-seated lack of potential as soon as they lay their eyes on the natural wonder. They will be able to tell at a glance that the natural wonder has what they lack, and absorbing it will solve their problem.

They will be tempted immediately to absorb the natural wonder. It is a temptation that will never stop unless they move far away from the natural wonder or successfully absorb a natural wonder.

Humans can still restrain themselves when they see a natural wonder due to their wisdom and intelligence. But beasts can't restrain themselves and will fall into the temptation.

For many beasts, falling into this temptation means death because they are not compatible with the natural wonder. Only those with intelligence can hold off on trying to assimilate the first natural wonder that they encounter.

Plants also encounter this problem. But plants need to touch a natural wonder first before they experience the temptation to absorb it.

For humans and beasts, something can be done to help them increase their compatibility. But plants are mostly on their own in the matter of establishing their foundation.

In most cases, only natural wonders of the wood element will help plants advance to the third mortal coil. Anything else usually leads to their death.

So if a human wants a plant to advance to the third mortal coil without using a wood element natural wonder, it will be very difficult to do. It will be especially difficult if that plant is to have both wood and metal elements.

He was thinking about this when the life pill exploded in its attempt to absorb the life crystal. This meant that it had failed.

Arthur had had enough. He said, "Forget it. You guys are a failure. Just go and die."

He decided to get over the series of failures as soon as possible so that he can begin the plan he just came up with for Roar. So he picked all the remaining nine life pills and dropped them into the pot with the natural wonder.

Then he folded his hands across his chest and waited to watch their failure. He grumbled to himself as he did so, "What a waste of time."

He was resigned to failure. But as he watched the nine of them struggle to assimilate the same natural wonder, he noticed something interesting begin to happen.