Chapter 106: Experience-Increasing Giant Bone Spirit Rice
Chapter 106: Chapter 106: Experience-Increasing Giant Bone Spirit Rice
The matter of getting a Storage Ring had been put on the agenda, but it wouldn’t make sense to ask Song Yunxi about it again. After all, why would a mere Spirit Plant Cultivator need such a large Storage Space? After mulling it over, he could only let it go for now and bring it up again when the opportunity arose.
Chen Mo took out the 3,000 catties of Spirit Yellow Rice that had been stored in his space and piled it in the utility room. If it was only for half a year, it shouldn’t go bad.
Having done all this, he returned to the fields. Five acres of the Spirit Field remained unharvested, and this was the only plot where the [Gathering Spirit] Talent had been applied! Giant Bone Spirit Rice was vastly different from Spirit Yellow Rice. Though the stalks of the latter were tall, they only reached about half the height of a person. The heavy yield of grain ears easily weighed them down until they lodged. In contrast, Giant Bone Spirit Rice—where a single grain was the size of a thumb—grew more like a robust herbaceous plant. Its root system was exceptionally developed, resembling a small tree. The grain ears at the very top had absolutely no adverse effect on the stalk, even with a 100% increase in yield!
Chen Mo picked up his sickle and spent the better part of the day harvesting the final five acres of the Spirit Field. Following his usual routine, he set fire to the remaining stubble in the field before heading back home. He took half a catty of Giant Bone Spirit Rice, removed the husks, added water, and cooked a full pot of Spirit Rice over the fire.
The moment Chen Mo lifted the pot’s lid, a rich, refreshing fragrance instantly filled the entire room. The aroma was in no way inferior to that of Profound Soaring Spirit Rice! At that moment, the Pentagonal Heavy Lizard, which had been following him around, suddenly raised its head. It opened its eyes and scrambled on all fours, searching for the source of the scent.
Chen Mo took a bite while it was hot. As the Spirit Rice entered his stomach, Spiritual Qi dispersed throughout his body, and a warm sensation quickly enveloped him. He could clearly feel the fluctuation of Spiritual Qi, almost as if... as if he were practicing Cultivation using a Low Grade Spirit Stone! Moreover, the texture and aroma of the Giant Bone Spirit Rice were exceptionally outstanding. No wonder the previous Pavilion Master of the White Snake Marketplace was willing to risk taking a loss just to have a taste!
"No, the Spiritual Qi contained within seems to be even more abundant than in the Profound Soaring Spirit Rice!" Chen Mo pondered for a long time before deducing that it must be related to his [Gathering Spirit] Talent. He cut a piece of chicken, stir-fried some Cyan Leaf Orchid, and sat alone at the dining table to savor the meal. This kind of life had become his daily routine. Ever since breaking through to the Qi Refining Third Layer, he hadn’t taken a single Fasting Pill!
After polishing off the meal of rice, a line of text floated into his vision. Chen Mo opened his interface to see that his Huai Mountain Qi Cultivation Technique, which previously took four days of Cultivation to gain a single point, had unprecedentedly gained one experience point!
"It works!" Eating could actually elevate his Realm! At this moment, he was beyond thrilled. For the next seven consecutive days, aside from plowing the soil and sowing seeds, Chen Mo meticulously recorded his experience gains. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that as long as he ate a fixed amount of Giant Bone Spirit Rice at regular times every day, it would only take two days to increase his experience by one point. With 358 experience points remaining, he would only need two more years to smoothly break through to the Qi Refining Fifth Layer! What a pleasant surprise! It was truly a pleasant surprise!
In a great mood, Chen Mo went outside and slaughtered another Spirit Chicken, storing it in his Storage Space. Now, aside from Kang, only one of the original four Spirit Chickens remained! The second batch of twenty he had purchased had already grown up to Chen Mo’s chest. Barring any accidents, they could be sold for money before winter arrived.
Ever since the ten hens matured, Kang had been toiling hard every day, but for some unknown reason, not a single egg had been laid yet. Chen Mo had asked other Spirit Nurturers in the Marketplace and received a definitive answer: it typically took a year. Only after a year would Spiritual Birds begin laying eggs, and even then, their production efficiency wasn’t very high.
For the second crop of the latter half of the year, he followed his previous layout: ten acres of Spirit Yellow Rice and five acres of Giant Bone Spirit Rice. The remaining five acres were planted with Successor Rice, which was the least valuable but had the highest yield. Chen Mo planned to expand his breeding scale once spring arrived next year. After all, since his [Sturdy] Talent had leveled up, the frequency of grooming the animals had extended to once every 15 days. This meant it would hardly have any significant impact on his Cultivation.
At the same time, after two continuous months of uninterrupted, high-intensity management of the Spirit Field, his Rainfall Technique was also on the verge of a breakthrough. It would definitely be enough to elevate it to the next level before this crop of Spirit Rice matured! Once that happened, his harvest might even double! After all, 500 catties of Giant Bone Spirit Rice a year wasn’t even enough to feed him.
With the Spirit Field planting on track, Chen Mo resumed his life of bitter Cultivation. The other Spirit Plant Cultivators in the vicinity would always cast peculiar glances at their new neighbor, who lived a secluded life and busied himself in the fields every day. They would sometimes gather in small groups, whispering and gossiping among themselves, but none of them ever had the courage to step forward and strike up a conversation.
"Wan’Er, why don’t you go chat with him?"
"Exactly! If you go, wouldn’t you easily win him over? Once you climb the high branch of Purple Cloud Peak, won’t you soar to great success?"
There weren’t many Female Cultivators working as Spirit Plant Cultivators in any Marketplace, and the White Snake Marketplace was no exception. However, the previous Pavilion Master was quite reasonable; to prevent them from encountering danger, the Spirit Fields assigned to them were mostly near the Marketplace, which served as an alternative form of sticking together for safety.
The woman they called Wan’Er was named Xia Wan. She was already in her mid-thirties, but her skin and appearance were vastly different from those of an ordinary Spirit Plant Cultivator. Once, the Fragrance Pavilion of the White Snake Marketplace had even sent someone to her door, specifically asking her to join them; with her looks, as long as she was willing to lie down, she was guaranteed an endless supply of Spirit Stones. However, she had righteously rejected the offer.
Now at the Qi Refining Fourth Layer, her strength was among the best of the Spirit Plant Cultivators. Coupled with the turmoil at Purple Cloud Peak two years ago, she was the only Qi Refining Fourth Layer Spirit Plant Cultivator in the entire White Snake Marketplace who hadn’t gone there. As a result, she had virtually become the core figure among her peers.
Faced with the others’ teasing, Xia Wan hesitated. In truth, what the others didn’t know was that aside from being a Spirit Plant Cultivator, she had another hidden identity! All these years, she had been acting as the lover of the former Pavilion Master of the White Snake Marketplace... meeting with him in secret every so often. However, his wife’s family was too powerful, so she had never gained a proper title after all this time. She never expected her patron to end up dead. Over the course of two years, the resources the former Pavilion Master had left her were gradually depleted, and she had to find another way out!
Biting her lower lip, she walked with a swaying, delicate gait toward where Chen Mo was.
Not long after she left, the group of Female Cultivators, who had just worn sincere expressions, immediately revealed looks of disdain.
"A slut is a slut. Going after another man!"
"Exactly! Does she really think no one knows about her filthy, scandalous affairs?"
Xia Wan’s supposedly secret affairs had long been seen through clearly by her neighbors. Which Spirit Plant Cultivator planted five acres of the Spirit Field only to harvest a mere thousand catties a year? After paying taxes, there was almost nothing left. How could someone like that cultivate to the Qi Refining Fourth Layer? If it weren’t out of fear of her strength, these people would probably have openly mocked her to her face long ago.