Stepping out of the Immortal Cave, I swallowed a Bi Gu Dan, circulating my Qi to refine it. As the Medicinal Pill transformed into energy, I immediately felt my stomach full, without any hunger.
Afterward, I walked to the Spirit Valley, took out my tools, and began tilling the soil. Infusing Spiritual Qi into my hands, the spiritual hoe flew. Tilling the Spirit Valley not only consumed Spiritual Qi but also required significant physical strength. After one hour, I had only tilled one acre of Spirit Valley. At this rate, it would take two days to completely till all ten acres of Spirit Valley.
A day passed, and five acres of Spirit Valley were tilled. Not only was all the magical power in my Dantian exhausted, but I was also incredibly tired. I stopped working and entered the Immortal Cave to start a fire and cook. I took out a kilogram of Spirit Rice, washed it, and put it into the pot. Fortunately, the Lin Clan who were here before did not take these daily necessities for starting a fire when they left, otherwise, I would have had to use the Nine Dragons Cauldron to cook Spirit Rice, and Eighth Uncle would surely scold me to death if he knew.
In less than half an hour, a pot of fragrant Spirit Rice was ready to eat. Lin Zufeng was already starving and ate all the Spirit Rice in one go. After that, he used a cleansing spell and came to the lounge clean, sitting in meditation to refine the spiritual power of the Spirit Rice within his body and restore the magical power in his Dantian.
An hour later, the spiritual power contained in the Spirit Rice was completely refined, and the magical power in his Dantian had recovered by 40%. The remaining would be supplemented during tomorrow's Cultivation. After finishing his circulation, he lay down to rest. Perhaps due to a day of labor, he soon fell into a dream.
After a good night's sleep, the next morning, he first took a Bi Gu Dan and began his Cultivation for the day. He circulated the Fire Flame Art to absorb external Spiritual Qi. Two major circulations took an hour, not only restoring the magical power in his Dantian but also increasing the magical power in his body.
After finishing his morning Cultivation, he returned to the Spirit Valley. The spiritual hoe flew, and in an afternoon, he finished tilling the remaining four acres of Spirit Valley, half a day ahead of schedule. The magical power in his body was also completely exhausted. He first sat in meditation to restore the magical power in his body. Not bad, he praised himself. He could start sowing tomorrow.
With the Spirit Valley prepared, he began with the Spirit Medicine seeds for the Qi Gathering Pill. Each acre was planted with two types of Spirit Medicine, fifty seeds of each. The main ingredient for the Qi Gathering Pill, Qi Gathering Grass, occupied a full acre with one hundred seeds. All eight types of Spirit Medicine seeds were planted, taking two days and covering four and a half acres of Spirit Valley. The remaining five and a half acres were reserved for planting the Spirit Medicine seeds for the Heqi Pill.
When one is engrossed in a task, time always flies. Five days passed in a flash. All ten acres of Spirit Valley had been planted with Spirit Medicine. Only the remaining Spirit Medicine seeds gifted by Fifteenth Uncle, totaling five hundred and forty seeds, needed careful consideration for their arrangement. It was impossible to return them to Fifteenth Uncle anyway. The first round of watering was complete; now, it was just a matter of careful tending, regular rain application, pest control, and weeding. The remaining time could be used for Cultivation.
Days passed in such a busy manner, one after another. More than ten days later, the Spirit Medicine seedlings in the Spirit Valley had grown about a finger high. After careful statistics, out of 1,800 seeds, more than 130 did not germinate. For each type of Spirit Medicine that did not germinate, some had five or six, others seven or eight. This was an astonishing achievement for a novice planter, but Lin Zufeng was not satisfied with this. All the missing ones were replanted, and the remaining more than four hundred seeds were planted in the Spirit Valley ditches or ridges. These were his private property, and after the Spirit Medicine matured, they would belong to him personally. Moreover, he wanted to learn Alchemy, and he needed Spirit Medicine for practice, didn't he? He didn't want to always just talk about it.
Thus, he Cultivated in the mornings, tended to the Spirit Medicine in the afternoons, and read and studied in the evenings. His time was fully scheduled, and his life was very fulfilling.
He was now familiar with and could recite the growth environments and habits of over 1,800 types of Spirit Medicine from the Ten Thousand Medicines Canon, and he could identify over 3,000 types of Spirit Medicine. He had simulated the Bi Gu Dan and Qi Gathering Pill from Lian Dan Chu Jie countless times in his mind; all that was left was to personally refine them. He planned to start with the Bi Gu Dan for practice, as it was the easiest to refine, and all Alchemy apprentices began with the Bi Gu Dan.
Three months later, his Cultivation had reached Qi Refining Level 6 Late Stage. Perhaps in less than a month, he could attempt to Breakthrough to the Qi Refining Late Stage and enter Refining Qi Level 7. However, having experienced injury during his last Breakthrough, he was not in a hurry. After all, the transition from Level 6 to Level 7 was a major hurdle from Qi Refining Middle Stage to Qi Refining Late Stage, not easily broken through. He decided to settle for a period, purify the magical power in his Dantian, and then consider the Breakthrough.
He had memorized 3,800 types of Spirit Medicine from the Ten Thousand Medicines Canon, and he had simulated the Heqi Pill from Lian Dan Chu Jie several times. The Spirit Medicine, under his careful tending, was growing splendidly. His usual workload was not heavy, so he had more time for Cultivation and study.
One day, he came to the riverbank next to the Spirit Valley and found that the closer the land was to the river, the denser the Spiritual Qi seemed to be. This greatly surprised him. Could it be that this land had a tendency to transform into Spirit Valley? He checked repeatedly, and indeed, about three or four acres of ordinary land by the river seemed to have a tendency to upgrade to Spirit Valley. He didn't care; he would till these three or four acres first and then decide what to plant. Anyway, he had nothing else to do. He immediately got to work. In one morning, he tilled two acres on the left side of the river and two acres on the right side. He simply diverted the river water into the Spirit Valley to see what changes would occur tomorrow.
The next day, he felt that the Spiritual Qi in the newly reclaimed land seemed more abundant than yesterday. Was it due to the river water? Or was the Spiritual Vein's range expanding, or both? He didn't care; he diverted river water into the Spirit Valley again to see if there were any changes tomorrow. A week passed like this, and the Spiritual Qi in the newly dug land was infinitely close to that of Spirit Valley. He could try some experiments; wasting land resources was shameful.
Searching through his Storage Pouch, he found only five kilograms of Spirit Valley that could be planted. It seemed he could only try with Spirit Valley. Success would be joyful, and failure would not result in significant loss. He soaked the Spirit Valley in river water to germinate. This breeding process only took three days. Three days later, he began planting the Spirit Valley. Five kilograms of seed grain planted three acres, leaving one acre empty for now, as there was nothing else to plant.
Thus, he managed Cultivation, planting, and learning without neglecting any. Five months later, all the Spirit Medicine grew splendidly, especially the Spirit Valley. It showed no signs of being one or two months behind season; it felt like it was going to mature early. It normally matured in eight months, but it had already been heading for a month and a half in just five months. It seemed that harvesting next month would be no problem, and judging by its growth, the yield should not be bad. He just couldn't figure out the cause. The only difference was that the Spirit Valley had always been irrigated by river water. Could it be the river water, or some other reason? He needed to investigate thoroughly when he had time. Now was the critical period for the Spirit Valley; he would look for the problem after this batch of Spirit Valley was harvested.
A month later, there were no major issues with the Spirit Medicine, except for three plants that were eaten by insects due to his carelessness. Fortunately, they were discovered in time, preventing greater losses. The Spirit Valley had all matured and was ready for harvest. He took out his sickle and, in one go, harvested the Spirit Valley from three acres of Spirit Valley in one morning. After threshing and estimating, the yield per acre was about six hundred kilograms of Spirit Valley, and judging by its plumpness, it was high-quality Spirit Valley. Three acres of Spirit Valley yielded 1,800 kilograms of Spirit Valley. One hundred kilograms of Spirit Valley could be processed into about seventy kilograms of Spirit Rice, so 1,800 kilograms of Spirit Valley could be processed into over 2,500 kilograms of Spirit Rice, worth over 1,200 Low-Grade Spirit Stones. This was unexpected wealth that did not need to be handed over to the Family. Instead, handing over the four acres of Spirit Valley to the Family should even earn him a reward. As for the newly added four acres of Spirit Valley, it seemed to be the result of the Spiritual Vein's extension combined with the Spiritual Qi contained in the river water. With the Spirit Valley harvested, he would investigate the cause of the river water containing Spiritual Qi tomorrow.