Outer Gate Spirit City.
When Li Ping'an returned here, he sold the five Spirit Awakening Pills.
These things were useless to him; it was better to exchange them for Spirit Stones.
What surprised Li Ping'an the most was that their price was incredibly high; each one sold for 200 Spirit Stones!
Dusk approached.
Li Ping'an left the city.
All the nearby Spirit Fields suitable for cultivation were occupied. To prevent theft, most of the Utility Disciples had built simple thatched huts and lived by the Spirit Fields.
Night fell.
Li Ping'an finally arrived at a less populated place, Jiang Family Village.
Backed by majestic mountains and facing the clear river, the environment here was quite good. Although the Spiritual Qi in the Void Realm couldn't compare to that of the Immortal Sect, it was still several times denser than in Tiankui City.
Jiang Family Village had many stone houses.
But it was very quiet here; there was no smoke from cooking fires, nor the laughter of playing children. Many houses were vacant.
At the village entrance.
A seventeen or eighteen-year-old youth with sword-like brows, star-like eyes, and a graceful demeanor was constantly practicing swordplay with added weight.
Even as Li Ping'an, Heihei, Niuniu, and Dahyang passed by, he did not divide his attention in the slightest.
Li Ping'an naturally did not disturb him. After passing through the village, he used his mountain-observing technique and quickly located a Spirit Field with no plants cultivated.
(Ding: Discovered a Grade Three Spirit Field.)
Grade Three?!
Li Ping'an's heart swelled with joy as he looked around. That Spirit Field was very large, fully two acres!
"This is the place."
Li Ping'an took out his sickle and began clearing the weeds.
Just then,
The youth practicing his sword walked over and coldly said, "What are you doing?"
"Clearing land," Li Ping'an replied, then showed his Utility token. "See? I'm a Xianyan Sect Utility Disciple."
The youth scanned Li Ping'an and said, "No clearing and cultivation are allowed here!"
Li Ping'an frowned. "Why not?"
The youth said, "This is the ancestral graveyard of Jiang Family Village."
Ancestral graveyard?
Li Ping'an looked closely and only then noticed the gravestones hidden among the weeds. However, the graveyard only occupied a small area, and there was still plenty of space for cultivation.
Li Ping'an smiled and said, "Fellow Daoist, I won't touch your Jiang Family Village ancestral graveyard. I'll just clear and cultivate the surrounding area."
"That's not allowed either." The battle sword in the youth's hand gleamed with cold light. "Seeing as you have no Spiritual Root cultivation, it wasn't easy for you to come to the Xianyan Sect. Go a hundred meters east from here, and you can plant whatever you want."
Li Ping'an raised an eyebrow. "No room for negotiation?"
"None." The youth's voice was cold, and his gaze was even colder. "I am the last person in Jiang Family Village, and I am the village guardian. Absolutely not allowed!"
"Alright then." Li Ping'an could only walk away and look for other Spirit Fields.
After all, this was someone's ancestral graveyard.
His luck wasn't bad.
Just across a ditch from the Grade Three Spirit Field, Li Ping'an discovered another three acres of Grade Two Spirit Field.
"Little ones, it's time to clear the land."
Li Ping'an planned to use this as his first base and then slowly expand.
The weeds were rampant, and the trees were tough.
It took a full hour to clear all the weeds and turn over the soil in this plot.
However, the harvest was a bit disappointing.
The previous Grade One Spirit Field yielded 5 cultivation points after clearing, and this Grade Two Spirit Field also yielded 5.
Before long, the wooden shed was built.
Li Ping'an found a stone to sit on and took out the Spiritual Rice and Spirit Medicine planting manuals, reading their contents under the moonlight.
The Spiritual Rice section stated a natural growth cycle of half a year.
Irrigation with Ling Lake water, nurturing with Spirit Nurturing Art, and diluted Yao Beast blood and beast cores could be used as nutrients, resulting in better quality Spiritual Rice.
"So, the horse manure I painstakingly brought is probably useless."
Li Ping'an continued to check the Spirit Medicine section.
This item matured in one year, but the older it was, the better its quality. It required similar nutrients to Spiritual Rice and could also be nurtured with Spirit Stones.
However,
No one would be foolish enough to use Spirit Stones; those were cultivation resources. Utility Disciples worked hard to cultivate precisely for Spirit Stones.
Next, was the supplementary content for cultivation.
It mentioned using various immortal arts to accelerate the growth of spiritual plants, shortening their maturation cycle, such as Wood Spirit Art, Earth Spirit Art, Wind Spirit Art, Sun Spirit Art, and Spirit Gathering Arrays, among others.
For watering spiritual plants, Rain Talismans or Rain Arts could be used, but their effects were not comparable to Ling Lake water.
With this understanding, Li Ping'an got up and looked around. In the night, he could see the youth still practicing his sword.
Li Ping'an pondered for a moment, then walked over, carrying a pot of wine he had brought. He smiled and said, "Friend, may I ask a question?"
The youth stopped practicing his sword. "What question?"
Li Ping'an handed the pot of wine to the youth and said, "Where is the Ling Lake?"
The youth took the wine and said, "Don't seek death."
Huh?
Li Ping'an frowned. "Hey, I'm asking respectfully and even offering you wine. Isn't your attitude a bit excessive?"
The youth took a sip of wine and said indifferently, "The Ling Lake flows out from within the Xianyan Sect. Cross the mountain behind the village and head south to reach it."
"The Ling Lake isn't large and is very close to Wang Family Village. It has long been occupied by Wang Family Village. If you want to get water there, you'll have to pay resources, otherwise, you'll be seeking death."
So that's how it is.
Li Ping'an showed a look of understanding.
The youth asked, "Just arrived, haven't you?"
"Yes," Li Ping'an nodded.
"No wonder you came here to cultivate." The youth said, then continued, "This Clear Water River is also influenced by the Ling Lake and contains Spiritual Qi."
"But the source has a better effect. The water flowing here already has little effect, so no one comes here."
The youth was quite a drinker and also quite talkative.
Under the night sky, the two spoke quite a bit.
From him, Li Ping'an also learned a few things. The youth's name was Jiang Ming, and he was the only living person in Jiang Family Village.
Everyone else in the village had died. As for the reason, he didn't say, and Li Ping'an didn't ask.
Jiang Ming also said that if one wanted to cultivate here, they had to find a force to rely on. Otherwise, when the spiritual plants matured, they would easily be destroyed.
In the Outer Gate Spirit City area, there were twenty-eight villages alone, among which Wang Family Village, with its Ling Lake advantage, had the strongest foundation.
Other forces included Xiao Xian Sect and Zhong Xian Sect.
The leaders of these two forces were both Outer Gate Utility Disciples, and their members were also seekers of immortality from all corners of the world. They were already able to contend with the major villages.
As for the forces behind these two, there were still Xianyan Sect figures overseeing them; otherwise, they would never have been able to develop.
Besides that,
Outer Gate Spirit City was relatively safe, with no fighting occurring, but cultivating Spirit Fields outside the city was far from peaceful.
Killing people and seizing treasures for resources was commonplace, and Outer Gate Spirit City generally didn't interfere, and the Xianyan Sect would even less so.
Li Ping'an took a sip of wine and smiled faintly, "Brother Jiang, do you mean I have to join a force to cultivate in peace?"
From the bottom of his heart, Li Ping'an didn't want to join any force, including the Xianyan Sect, which he didn't hold in high regard.
Jiang Ming shook his head slightly, "Joining a force won't work either. There are battles almost every day. Can you not go and cheer them on?"
"You have no Spiritual Root cultivation, so if you go, it's just death."
He paused slightly.
Jiang Ming continued, "The cultivation conditions here aren't too good, so generally, no one will trouble you."
"If they do, remember, this is Jiang Family Village's land. This pot of wine counts as your protection fee..."