Chapter 29 – Spirit Farms
With a “peng”, sparks flew from the ground.
Liu Ming felt as if his hands were on fire and under a great rebound, the silver hoe almost flew out of his grip.
The ground was as hard as steel, and the hoe wasn’t even able to enter the dirt.
After a slight pause, Liu Ming quickly bent down and observed the ground. Only then did he realize that the ground here was different from normal farmland. The dirt was actually of a purple-red color.
The weeds also had dirt covered roots that dug far down into the ground, which made the plants seem as if they were one in the same with the ground.
With furrowed eyebrows, Liu Ming poked the purple red dirt and realized that it was uncharacteristically cold and hard.
“Kid, stop examining the ground. This isn’t ordinary dirt but a special dirt called Resting Dirt which is used to plant Spirit Rice. It can’t be hoed with normal methods.” A half-naked large man that was sporting extensive muscles saw Liu Ming’s actions and smiled as he lectured Liu Ming.
‘Resting Dirt.’ Naturally, this was the first time Liu Ming heard such a name, so he stood up to look at the other inner sect disciples working their fields.
The disciples within the surrounding fields were all furiously waving their hoes, but not much was accomplished by them. Only a thin layer of dirt an inch deep was hoed over.
In addition, the silver hoes in their hands were pulsing with white light. Obviously, this wasn’t a simple farming activity.
“This thing is actually a Practitioner Weapon.” Liu Ming retrieved his gaze, and, after looking at his own hoe, he realized that there were lightly carved Spirit Tattoos on the surface of the hoe.
“Since this is a Practitioner Weapon, I might as well insert a little Yuan Li into it.” Liu Ming thought for a while and started urging the Yuan Li in his body to pour into the silver hoe in his hands.
However, Liu Ming face changed after a while had passed.
No matter how much Yuan Li he poured into the hoe, the Spirit Tattoos didn’t change in the slightest. It was as if Liu Ming had wasted all of his previous efforts.
Liu Ming furrowed his brows, and, after another few seconds, he tried pouring his newly converted Fa Li into the hoe.
In an instant, the Spirit Tattoos on the silver hoe lit up, and a soft white light shone from the hoe.
This was the trick!
No wonder there were only Inner Sect Disciples in these fields and no Outer Sect Disciples. In order to hoe these fields, one must use Fa Li.
After Liu Ming understood how to use his hoe and why this was a Sect Chore, he crashed the hoe down again.
With a “pu” sound, the silver hoe landed on the ground and brought up a thin layer of purple red dirt and weeds.
Taking a light breath, Liu Ming started furiously hoeing.
After the majority of a day, Liu Ming was resting within the field and after a long time, he slowly opened his eyes. However, as soon as he looked at his field that had just been hoed, he smiled bitterly.
The Resting Dirt was extremely hard to hoe and in Liu Ming’s attempt to hoe the field, not only did he exhaust all of his Fa Li, his arms were also extremely tired and in pain.
What made Liu Ming even sadder was that although he had just hoed the field, there were already weeds growing from the Resting Dirt. Even though these weeds were extremely small, their roots were just as strong and would be a great pain to Liu Ming when he hoed the field for a second time in order to hoe to the required depth of half a foot.
For some of the twenty-plus year old Inner Disciples, that had a huge reservoir of Fa Li, hoeing the field was easy, and they had already finished and left after giving their hoes to the elder within the forest.
As for the disciples that were about seventeen to eighteen, they had already hoed their field a couple of inches deep and would probably be able to finish in half a day.
After seeing all of this, Liu Ming could only bitterly smile.
He couldn’t compare to the older disciples with his shallow Fa Li and could only barely finish the task of hoeing half a foot deep in three days. He didn’t even have a lot of time to rest.
What made Liu Ming even more depressed was the fact that he seemed to be the only new disciple working the fields.
However, after giving it some thought, Liu Ming realized that it wasn’t so unexpected.
The Opening Spirit Ceremony only yielded a few tens of Spirit Apostles and each new Spirit Apostle received his or her sect chore at different times which meant that getting the same sect chore was pretty rare.
After thinking about his situation for a while, Liu Ming stood up again and walked to the edge of his field. After a flash of white light from his hoe, he swung his hoe down again.
…..
At the morning of the second day, the other fields had already been hoed while Liu Ming was the only disciple left still hoeing his field.
However, when it was at noon of the second day, Liu Ming was standing at the middle of his field and could only stare helplessly at his arms that were red and swollen like radishes.
Because of excessive force, Liu Ming’s arms were swollen to the point where, even if he moved his arms, he would feel an extreme pain and thus could no longer swing a hoe.
“Not bad, there aren’t many new disciples that have endured as long as you have.”
Suddenly, a soft voice came from behind Liu Ming,
Liu Ming turned around in shock and saw the Spirit Master that was dressed like an old farmer behind him.
However, the old farmer’s gaze had a bit of approval when he looked at Liu Ming.
“Hello Martial Uncle!”
Without pausing, Ling Ming quickly greeted the Spirit Master.
“What faction are you under and what’s your name.” The old farmer asked.
“My name is Bai Chong Tian and I am under the Nine Infant Faction.” Liu Ming answered truthfully.
“Nine Infant. That’s Gui Senior’s faction. What Spiritual Pulse are you and are you a Personal Disciple?” The old farmer asked again after looking over Liu Ming again.
“I am only a Three Spiritual Pulse. How could I possibly be a Personal Disciple?” Liu Ming replied respectfully.
“Only a Three Spiritual Pulse. You’re talent is a little low. It’s a pity because with your mental fortitude, I would have liked for you to become my disciple.” Hearing this, the old farmer sighed.
“I am very sorry, martial uncle is…” A thought popped into Liu Ming’s mind and he couldn’t resist asking the Spirit Master.
“My first name is Su. You can call me Su Martial Uncle. However, looking at your current state, it’s impossible for you to keep on going. I’ll teach you the set of Exercise Punches, and if you perform it a couple of times, the swelling of your arms should go away.”
“Thank you for your generosity.” Hearing this, Liu Ming had a great smile on his face.
“You don’t need to thank me. These Exercise Punches can be learned by all disciples that have been in the sect for an entire year. I’m just teaching it to you early.” Su Martial Uncle said indifferently.
Then, the Spirit Master’s body flickered, and suddenly he was in a strange body position. Then, he started to slowly perform each movement of a peculiar boxing technique while muttering a mysterious chant.
Liu Ming had seen countless secret techniques on Savage Island and was naturally interested in this boxing technique that looked like a secret technique. Using his talent of being able to do two things at once, Liu Ming started to memorize each movement and word the Spirit Master performed.
In the end, the old farmer only had to perform the boxing technique three times before Liu Ming had memorized the technique completely and was able to perform the boxing technique without fail.
Seeing this, Su Spirit Master showed an expression of regret and left without saying anything else.
Liu Ming, who was completely absorbed in the Exercise Punches, performed it seven or eight times until his body was emanating heat and his swollen arms had returned to normal.
Not only did his body feel great, Liu Ming felt as if his mental energy had also grown a little.
Finally, Liu Ming realized that Su Martial Uncle was no longer beside him. While still excited, Liu Ming immediately went and picked up the hoe on the ground and started hoeing the field.
During the night of the third day, Liu Ming threw his hoe to the ground and stretched backwards. Below his feet was a field that had been hoed half a foot deep with not a single weed in it.
Just when Liu Ming wanted to rush into the forest and return the quest to Su Martial Uncle, a sound of breaking air came from the horizon and ash colored clouds descended from the sky one after another.
Shockingly, those were the old disciples who were hoeing with him two days ago.
These disciples stood at the side of the field silently but on the face of every disciple, there was happiness that could not be hidden.
In Liu Ming’s mind, he felt curious. Just when he was about to go and ask the disciples what happened, that Su Martial Uncle rode on a cloud, flying from of the forest, and appeared on top of the Spirit field.
In one of his hands was a small golden bowl, while the sleeves of his other hand fluttered constantly. Faintly, there were lots of golden granules being tossed from the sky, evenly covering every field.
When Liu Ming saw that the Spirit Master’s cloud flying towards his own field, he dodged aside hastily.
After a while, the old farmer’s grey cloud stopped. Immediately after, he tossed the golden bowl up high and after mumbling some words, the golden bowl unbelievably grew to the size of a water tank.
Then, with a ‘gululu’ sound of water, spring water that was as white as milk flowed out from the tank and fell as rainwater on every field below.
Although Liu Ming was standing outside the field, he could still clearly sense the condensed Yuan Li that was in the field.
Something that was even stranger was that as the rain continued to fall, seedlings of rice emerged from under the field and subsequently grew at an amazingly fast speed that the eye could see and started to tassel.
After two hours, the rainwater finally stopped as the hundred acre field had turned golden with gigantic grain stalks that were over five feet tall and were full of rice.
“Old rules, everybody can go to your own field, collect ten Spirit Rice stalks and leave on your own,” The faint voice of the old farmer commanded then he rode on his cloud and flew back towards the forest.
The disciples who were waiting outside the field bowed and thanked the disappearing Spirit Master before rushing towards their own fields and picking the rice they wanted. In addition, they started started using all kinds of Practitioner Weapons to collect the stalks.
Incredibly, every one of them were really honest and collected only ten stalks of rice, not one person dared to take more.
After looking for a while, Liu Ming uncontrollably went and grabbed a seventeen or eighteen year old disciple who finished collecting the stalked and was about to leave, and asked, “Senior, what can these grains do? Why is every senior so joyous about it?”
“Hmph, this is Spirit Rice. It will be beneficial after cooking it. Go back and try it yourself, and you will know,” The male disciple unwillingly and hastily offered two sentences and after that, left.