Ji An fetched a meditation cushion from his room and invited Old Huang to sit on the chair. Standing while a guest sat was no way to host someone.
"Senior Brother, please have a seat. The place is a bit simple, and I've nothing to serve you, please don't laugh at me."
Old Huang sat down comfortably.
"You're too polite, Little Brother An. For us cultivators, simplicity is the way."
Ji An sat cross-legged on the cushion and said,
"Senior Brother, I was thinking of planting a few fruit trees in the courtyard. That way, I could serve fruit to guests in the future. Do you know where I could buy spirit peach or spirit apricot seeds?"
Old Huang shook his head.
"Little Brother An, this land here isn't even graded. Trying to grow spirit fruit trees here, you'd hardly keep them alive.
At the very least, you'd need a first-grade spirit field to raise them."
"What if, someday, my Minor Rain and Thick Earth spells reach the level of Great Accomplishment? Would it be possible then?"
Ji An was unwilling to give up. For the foreseeable future, farming would be his main way of earning spirit crystals, and naturally, spirit fruit trees were something he wanted to plan for early.
A disciple at the Qi Refining stage who managed to form a Foundation could select a mountain with a first-rank spirit vein node for their cave-dwelling, along with twenty acres of spirit fields exempt from taxes.
Spirit fruit trees needed at least a decade before they would begin to bear fruit. The older the tree, the higher the quality of its fruit.
If he planted them now, by the time he reached Foundation Establishment, they'd already be useful, and he wouldn't look so shabby when entertaining guests.
"No, it won't work.
I once heard a Senior Brother who worked in the medicine gardens say that he had reached Great Accomplishment in Minor Cloud and Rain, Thick Earth, and Withering-Bloom. He planted a spirit peach tree in his courtyard.
The tree survived, yes, but it was sickly and stunted. After ten years, it hadn't grown much at all. The trunk was no thicker than a child's arm."
Ji An nodded thoughtfully. He suspected that what the spells lacked were certain essential trace elements, meaning they couldn't provide the nutrients a spirit peach needed.
"Senior Brother, how long did it take you to cultivate that first-grade spirit field?"
"Let me think… about seven or eight years."
Seven or eight years was far too long. Ji An wondered whether Thick Earth at the Perfection realm could accelerate the process, and if so, by how much.
He still wanted to try cultivating a small patch of land to grow fruit trees. His goal was never just a Great Accomplishment; he was aiming for Perfection.
The more he prepared now, the smoother his road would be later.
"Little Brother An, I think rather than worrying about fruit trees right now, it'd be better to focus on planting more spirit grain. Take full advantage of the first year's benefits.
Improving your cultivation and raising your spell levels, that's what matters most."
"Senior Brother speaks wisely. I'll remember your words."
Old Huang, pleased with his sincerity, nodded with satisfaction and stood.
"Go on with your work, Little Brother. I have to head to the Administrative Hall to hand in this quarter's land rent.
If you find yourself short on spirit stones, don't hesitate to ask."
"My thanks to Senior Brother."
Ji An knew what this meant. Old Huang was offering more investment. For now, though, he wasn't lacking spirit stones. He'd wait a while before deciding.
"Senior Brother, one more thing. How many contribution points does it take to learn the fourth-layer planting spell manuals?"
"You want to exchange for fourth-layer spell manuals?!
Don't tell me… you've had another round of sudden insights?"
Old Huang could no longer remain calm; only a sudden epiphany could so dramatically speed up one's mastery of a spell.
"Seems like it."
Ji An scratched his head. Practicing spells in the stone tortoise's space looked no different from a sudden epiphany to anyone else. Calling it an epiphany wasn't wrong at all!
Old Huang's voice quickened. "Have you already grasped any spell to the Great Accomplishment stage? Which one?"
"Not yet. But I feel like Minor Rain is close."
'Feels close?' So it was just a misconception.
Strangely, Old Huang felt his mood lighten. He said,
"No matter which fourth-layer spell you want to learn, you'll need to pass a sect examination first.
When I studied the fourth-layer formula for Minor Rain, it cost me 500 contribution points. The fourth layer of Thick Earth cost me 600."
"So many?"
Ji An bared his teeth. He wasn't worth that much, even if he sold himself.
"Listen to me first," Old Huang chuckled. He remembered his own shock back when he'd gone to the Administrative Hall to redeem spell manuals.
"The sect doesn't take the contribution points all at once. They signed a contract with us. I signed a ten-year repayment plan. Next year I'll finally be free of it.
All production-type spells are handled this way at the fourth layer."
"That's a good system!"
Ji An nodded in approval. First ride the carriage, then buy the ticket later. The sect really did have foresight.
...
The next day.
Morning light scattered the valley mist as Ji An finished his cultivation.
Drawn by a faint fragrance, he stepped into the kitchen, lifted the lid off the pot, and was met with a wave of aroma.
He happily ate his bowl of yellow sprout rice, licking it clean, before settling cross-legged on a cushion to refine his qi.
A single meal of spirit rice required only half an hour to digest, yet the effect was equivalent to an hour of cultivation without pills.
Right now, Ji An has no more than three hours of cultivation a day.
With the spirit rice supplementing him, the day he advanced to the third level of Qi Refining would come even sooner. By then, he'd have the spiritual power to wield the fourth-layer Minor Rain.
When he finished, he noticed his spiritual veins had grown slightly more branched, which filled him with delight.
He kept Elder Qin Yan's teachings firmly in mind:
"Without small steps, you cannot travel a thousand miles. Without trickles, there can be no great rivers. Every effort today lays the foundation for tomorrow's waves."
After a harvest, spirit farmers usually rested a day or two before beginning the next cycle.
But Ji An didn't allow himself that luxury. For him, practicing spells was the only form of leisure.
He hadn't trained the Flamefire Incantation since first reaching entry-level.
The stone tortoise hadn't absorbed any Li trigram spiritual essence, so he had to rely on practice alone.
Next season, he planned to cultivate two acres of fields to raise his Flamefire Incantation as quickly as possible.
Placing the jade slip against his forehead, he studied while walking toward the fields.
Once there, he calmly cast the spell. Fire-element qi spread across the ground, igniting the stalks of spirit grain, and a pale smoke rose into the air.
By now, Ji An had learned five different spells. He realized that, despite their differences, there were subtle similarities among them.
With the most difficult Sharp Gold Art already trained to Proficiency, progress with the Flamefire Incantation came quickly.
Spell training wasn't about casual casting; it had a "correct answer." Only by aligning with a certain mysterious rhythm could one gain insight.
And that was the true strength of the stone tortoise: every single point of spiritual essence yielded tangible growth.
When half his power was spent, Ji An went into the nearby forest and found a flourishing elm tree.
It was an ordinary tree, but having grown within the sect's grounds, nourished by ambient qi, its trunk was as thick as a man's embrace.
His hand seals shifted, his left hand moving like a graceful dancer, elegant and fluid.
Threads of verdant wood-element qi drifted from the elm into his palm, spiraling into a vortex of energy.
The flow intensified until, at last, a pale-green Wood Element Pearl condensed in his hand.
Yellow leaves fluttered down before him. Looking up, Ji An saw that the once-lush tree now had half its leaves withered.
The Withering and Flourishing spell stripped away the vitality of plants, brutal and merciless. For its target, it was like surviving a calamity.
He marked the elm, deciding not to "shear wool" from it again for a while.
Taking an empty jade pill bottle, he dropped the Wood Pearl inside.
A casual shake produced a crisp clinking sound from the collection he had built up recently.
The pearls weren't needed in his fields for now. When he next visited the Administrative Hall, he planned to trade them in for contribution points.