After receiving the information, Xiao Shou noticed that aside from being labeled as an exceptional material, there was an additional description.

What did that mean?

He looked at the flower in his hand.

It was about the size of his palm, crystal clear, with mysterious white patterns flowing across its surface.

Just staring at those patterns gave him a faint sense of insight as if he were about to comprehend something.

He found himself unable to look away, he turning it over and examining it carefully again and again.

"Haha, Master, stop... that tickles!"

At that moment, the bud trembled slightly.

A strand of consciousness gently touched Xiao Shou’s mind and transmitting that message.

He immediately froze.

After two months of complete silence, the sudden voice startled him so much that his hand instinctively shook and he threw the Tier 5 Flower of Eternity away.

"Who’s there? What are you?"

"Ah, that hurts!"

After being tossed aside, the Flower of Eternity landed on the ground and trembled a few times, it then slowly floated back up and hovered in front of Xiao Shou.

Its consciousness spoke again, sounding aggrieved.

"Master, I’m very delicate. Please handle me gently."

"The Flower of Eternity... you can talk?"

So it had gained sentience?

Now he understood what "possessing strong spirituality" meant.

Aside from that initial shock, Xiao Shou quickly calmed down.

After all, in his previous life, he had lived in an era flooded with information.

Movies, television, anime, novels... he had seen all kinds of strange creatures before.

At this point, it was hard for him to feel genuine fear.

Besides, the Flower of Eternity was extremely beautiful and its voice sounded like that of a child, neither clearly male nor female.

And it kept calling him "Master," which made it feel even less threatening.

"Why do you call me Master?" Xiao Shou asked.

"I could talk as soon as I became aware!" the childlike voice replied, sounding confused. "You are my Master. Do I need a reason?"

As it spoke, the Flower of Eternity floated down and landed in Xiao Shou’s hand.

"Master, don’t throw me away again. Flying by myself is really tiring."

No reason?

Xiao Shou thought about it.

The Tier 5 Flower of Eternity had been created through his ability.

In a sense, he really was its creator.

So it was only natural for it to regard him as its master.

Understanding this, he stopped dwelling on the question and instead asked curiously, "Fine, I won’t throw you away. Tell me what you can do. Don’t tell me I’m supposed to use you for refining and turn you into an artifact spirit?"

"Master, you’re so mean! How could you scare such a delicate flower like that? Boohoo..."

The Flower of Eternity made a few exaggerated sobbing sounds before continuing.

"I’m very useful! As long as you feed me enough spiritual energy, my bud will absorb it and bloom into a beautiful flower filled with the power of time."

"Inside my flower space, you can freely control the flow of time."

"For example, Master, you can cultivate inside me. I can adjust the time flow up to ten thousand times faster."

"I can also swallow your enemies into my space and accelerate or reverse their time."

"And once I absorb enough nutrients and advance to Tier 6, I’ll become even more powerful!"

"Enough spiritual energy? Roughly what kind of ratio... like how much energy is needed to sustain how much outside time? And what effect does spending time inside your internal space have on the human body?"

Hearing this, Xiao Shou suppressed his excitement and asked several questions in a row.

He wanted to clearly understand any drawbacks first.

Otherwise, rushing in recklessly and suffering heavy losses because of hidden side effects would not be worth it.

"Uh... inside my space, either I control it, or after Master forms a contract with me, you can control the time linkage between inside and outside yourself."

The Flower of Eternity sounded a bit embarrassed and guilty as it explained.

"If the connection is maintained, then the time you spend inside is real in the outside world as well. That means you are consuming your own lifespan."

"But if the connection is cut off, then when you enter my internal space... your own time will be temporarily frozen by my innate time laws."

It hesitated slightly before continuing.

"However, that mode consumes a lot of spiritual energy. At the highest ratio of one to ten thousand, it costs about one top-grade spirit stone per day. That’s what my inherited knowledge says."

"One top-grade spirit stone per day?"

Xiao Shou thought about it.

That was actually acceptable.

Now that his ability had reached Tier 5, he should be able to fuse top-grade spirit stones.

He even began wondering what would happen if those were further upgraded.

Could they become spirit jades that was used in higher realms? 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

That seemed very likely.

His thoughts immediately drifted off in that direction.

The Flower of Eternity, unaware of his tendency to zone out, thought he was dissatisfied with its high energy consumption.

The bud trembled, then suddenly transformed into a tiny humanoid figure the size of a butterfly, with four translucent wings.

It crawled over and hugged Xiao Shou’s finger.

Its delicate little face blinked rapidly and tears welling up in its eyes but not quite falling.

While looking utterly pitiful, it said, "Master, please don’t dislike me. Even though I’m a bit delicate and a little picky with what I eat, I’m actually very easy to take care of."

"Using me may seem to consume a lot of energy, but compared to the benefits, it’s definitely worth it."

"Master, Master, Master... please don’t abandon me."

After he snapped out of his thoughts, Xiao Shou twitched at the corner of his mouth.

Looking at the Flower of Eternity, which seemed to come with its own cuteness skill, he could not help but marvel at how it managed to keep its tears perfectly on the verge of falling.