Chapter 476: Unless You Become the Grain Master!
Chapter 476: Unless You Become the Grain Master!
The Five Elements Art, forged from the fusion of high-level techniques, was already an existence that defied the heavens.
Now, Jiang Chen only needed one more Earth-grade Fire-attribute technique to complete the elemental circuit and synthesize an even higher-tier Five Elements Art. The mere thought of it made his blood pump faster.
Metal: Golden Seal Heaven Governing Art
Wood: Water-Wood Rotation Script
Water: Nine Curves Tide Generating Art
Fire: Nine Flames Mystic Art (Used as the fusion engine, doesn’t count toward the base elements)
Earth: Great Earth Heaven Bearing Art
Core: Five Elements Art
Without exception, every single one of his foundational techniques was a top-tier Earth-grade manual.Jiang Chen pulled up his system interface, his gaze drifting over his active spell list. He focused on three specific entries: Vine Bind, Forest Stealth, and Wooden Armor.
As his cultivation base and raw physical strength had exponentially increased, these low-tier utility spells had become largely obsolete. Rather than letting them take up valuable mental bandwidth, it was time to put them into the furnace. If he fused them, he might synthesize a high-tier spell that retained all their core utilities.
Without hesitation, Jiang Chen activated the Nine Flames Mystic Art.
The black flame roared to life deep within his Dantian. The system immediately responded.
[Please select spells to fuse.]
Jiang Chen fed Vine Bind, Forest Stealth, and Wooden Armor into the black fire.
Instantly, the rigid, structured memories of casting the three distinct spells dissolved. The rote incantations burned away, leaving behind only raw conceptual experience and elemental intuition.
From the ashes, a brand-new spell was born.
[Myriad Spirit Wooden Armor: Max Level]
Effect 1: Can forcefully attract all plant life within a fifty-mile radius to weave into a set of living wooden armor.
Effect 2: The armor can completely absorb 50% of the kinetic impact from a late-stage Golden Core cultivator’s attack.
Effect 3: Armor resistance to Metal and Fire damage +50%.
Effect 4: Armor resistance to all other elemental damage +30%.
Effect 5: The denser the ambient Wood Spirit Qi, the faster the armor regenerates (Max +60% regeneration speed).
Effect 6: The armor can be violently unraveled and deployed as a hundred-meter offensive vine net.
Effect 7: Enemies trapped within the net are subjected to severe poison, paralysis, piercing, and entanglement damage.
Effect 8: While wearing the armor or deploying the net, the user’s aura is completely masked, capable of evading detection by a Nascent Soul Perfected Lord’s Divine Sense.
Special Effect 1 (Wood Spirit Domain): Expand a hundred-meter domain where all plant life falls under absolute, telekinetic control.
Special Effect 2 (Rebirth): If the armor sustains a fatal, shattering blow, it will automatically cannibalize surrounding plant life to instantly reassemble at 50% durability. (Usable once per day).
Special Effect 3 (Arboreal Step): Within heavily forested areas, the user can instantly teleport between large plants. The transfer is perfectly concealed and emits zero Spirit Qi fluctuations.
Jiang Chen nodded slowly, highly impressed. “It retained the defensive traits of the armor, the stealth of the cloaking spell, and the crowd control of the vines. It’s an all-in-one tactical package, and it even includes a short-range teleport.”
If fusing three obsolete spells produced something this potent, what would happen if he fused five? Or ten?
He had deeply underestimated the absolute utility of the Nine Flames Mystic Art.
Furthermore, Jiang Chen possessed a monopoly that no other cultivator in the Azure Realm had: he could continuously gorge himself on fragmented, garbage-tier manuals, feed them to the black flame, and brute-force the creation of apex-tier techniques.
He had the time. He had the lifespan. He had the patience.
The only bottleneck was sourcing the raw materials. Complete, high-tier cultivation manuals were violently hoarded by the major sects, ancient aristocratic families, and elite powers. Anything floating around the black markets or loose cultivator circles was inevitably a flawed, incomplete fragment—sometimes nothing more than a single page.
Jiang Chen stretched lazily, popping his shoulders. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not in a rush.”
…
Two days later, Long Ao, Pei Mo, and Ruo Qunshuang departed the Cloud Sea Sect.
Ruo Qunshuang had quietly extended an invitation to Jiang Chen to join the expedition. However, having just returned from his own grueling journey, he politely declined.
Besides, the Spirit Farms were entering their most volatile operational phase.
There were two seasons that demanded a Spirit Farmer’s absolute attention. The first was spring. Countless newly promoted outer disciples were planting spirit rice in Grade-2 fields for the very first time. They were inexperienced, prone to panicking, and constantly triggering minor agricultural disasters.
The second was late autumn. Many ambitious farmers would over-plant to maximize yields, only to completely abandon the fields when the harsh winter set in, severely damaging the Earth Veins and dehydrating the soil. Every time this happened, the mess landed squarely on the desks of the core management office.
Ultimately, the cultivators brave enough to maintain crops through the freezing winter were a vast minority. The traumatic memory of the Cold Abyss Snow disaster still lingered in the sect’s collective psyche; no one wanted to risk their lives for a winter harvest.
After finishing his rounds in the outer fields, Jiang Chen headed to the core management office to see Elder mu.
It wasn’t a social call. Nearly five years had passed since he publicly revealed his mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivation. If he didn’t artificially “break through” soon, people would start asking questions.
Elder mu poured him a cup of tea, his eyes crinkling into a warm smile. “With the new mu you just absorbed, your territory in Red Leaf Valley is now seven mu, correct?”
“Indeed,” Jiang Chen nodded.
“Red Leaf Valley is a unique piece of real estate,” Elder mu noted. “Even if you expand past ten mu, the leylines won’t buckle.”
The core Spirit Farm region was notoriously fragile. In many sectors, managing more than five mu of spirit soil simultaneously would trigger localized disasters—Spirit Qi vacuums, sudden pest swarms, or soil acidification. Jiang Chen’s previous residence had suffered exactly those issues, forcing his relocation.
But Red Leaf Valley was different. Anchored by the ancient, massive Red Maple tree, the valley’s Feng Shui was rock-solid. Unless a true, sect-wide catastrophe struck, he could farm with impunity.
Jiang Chen smiled into his teacup.
He couldn’t care less about the external Spirit Farms anymore. As his true cultivation base rose, his personal spatial realm was constantly expanding. He currently possessed thirty-two mu of perfectly controlled, Grade-2 Spirit Farms inside his ring, and that number would only grow.
The crops he planted outside in Red Leaf Valley were purely a smokescreen.
He knew perfectly well—as Senior Sister Bei Qingtang had reminded him—that as a core disciple, he was entitled to move his residence up to one of the Immortal Peaks, automatically upgrading his fields to Grade-3. Any normal cultivator would have taken the promotion years ago.
But Jiang Chen’s situation was highly irregular.
First, he was the sole Cultivation Envoy of the Spirit Farms. His job literally required him to remain in the valley. Second, and more importantly, moving to an Immortal Peak meant living directly under the constant, sweeping Divine Sense of his Master, mu Ji. His privacy would be entirely compromised.
Staying in the lower valleys, tending to his “Grade-2” farms, was the perfect camouflage.
Elder mu set his teacup down, his expression turning serious. “Jiang Chen. When you finally reach the Golden Core stage… do you plan to stay down here?”
Jiang Chen paused. “What do you mean?”
“The vast majority of cultivators, upon condensing a Golden Core, immediately migrate to the Immortal Peaks where the Spirit Qi density is significantly higher,” Elder mu explained. “It is the natural progression of a cultivator’s path. Not everyone possesses the unbothered, eccentric temperament of your Master.”
Jiang Chen frowned slightly. “Are you saying that if I publicly break through to the Golden Core stage, the Sect will force me to leave the valley?”
“It is not a strict eviction,” Elder mu shook his head. “But if you wish to progress your cultivation further, you will have to leave. The ambient Spirit Qi in these lower valleys is simply insufficient to support a Golden Core Perfected Master’s daily intake. You would starve your own foundation.”
Elder mu paused, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Jiang Chen asked.
“Unless,” Elder mu said softly, “you take your Master’s place. Unless you become the Grain Master.”