Jia Yi slept soundly in the field that night.
But his "sleep" was just outer appearance.
Just a minute after he fell asleep, he had entered a special realm.
Although Jia Yi didn't know its true nature, after observing for so long, he gradually understood a few things – this dimension was likely a mind space, something only a special type of cultivator could open.
On top of that, it had dimensional qualities, being a real space and not imaginary.
The size and appearance reflected "territory" of Jia Yi in the real world, and it included a small island hovering in the centre above the territory, where he could manage the space and store various things.
He hadn't yet explored all functions, but he knew a few:
His "territory", which was the wood-empowered field he marked, would gain a slight bonus in the refinement of spiritual, enhancing the quality of plats. It is this spiritual power that entered the plant but wasn't fully refined, that becomes impurities later on.
Additionally, older plants that had been planted in the territory for a longer time have imprints on their virtual self. By inspecting them, Jia Yi realised they were "wishes and hopes".
Like a circular imprint on a branch, which meant that the plant wanted to grow this branch.
Jia Yi, seeing this, could decide whether to fulfil this wish by using the space's special power, or to eliminate this wish, using equal power.
This special power was absorbed when a plant was picked. Jia Yi inspected the plant after realising this the day after, and found that the plant had remained normal.
In an attempt, he replanted the plant, and came to the realisation that it wouldn't absorb the energy at all.
This situation wasn't unusual – there were various situations where it could occur. The two most comm are that the plant has lost most of its vitality, but this wasn't the case, because the plant was very healthy. Another possibility was to use a secret technique to kill the possibility of replanting… this technique was generally used before selling plants, to make sure the plants seeds are controlled by the main power.
From this, he guessed the space absorbed a special matter of the plant, causing them to "die" the moment they stopped absorbing spiritual power. He didn't understand this mechanism – even if the power was dim, it wouldn't die, and when it was grown on moss instead of earth, it was still fine. So he guessed there was an unknown mechanism behind all of this.
After being in this space for so long, he named it [Verdant Dream].
Reflecting reality and imprinting wishes. Living in prosperity when "dreaming" and "dying" when you stop… wasn't this a dream?
At least he thought so. The dream didn't reject him either, so it would be now called dream by him.
When he woke up here, he would be in the small wood temple he build on the island, sitting on a futon.
Scared of his past life's rumours that you would die when you fall asleep in your dream, he didn't dare to build a courtyard with a bed, but instead opted for an open temple to oversee the landscape.
The island was small, but over time, whenever he broke through, it would grow larger.
With it, the "territory" he could reflect would also grow larger.
Currently, with every minor stage, his island would grow by 1m radius in every direction while his territory would grow by 1 acre.
An acre in this world was a 100m x 100m square, which was around the size of two and a half acres in his past life.
Looking at the space that grew once more, Jia Yi was delighted.
He had only constructed his small temple when he was in the fourth stage of qi refining, during which the space was 4 metres in radius in every direction (8metres in diameter).
Now it was 7 metres in radius, nearly double as large, but he didn't want to increase it for now, nor did he plan to apply for an additional acre from the family.
After all, he would leave soon.
Jia Yi stood up and floated down, something he could only do in his dream.
Cultivators in the qi refining stage couldn't fly at all, in the foundation building stage, you could fly with various flying artifacts, and in the Origin Light stage, you could finally fly naturally.
When he looked at his plants, he felt a deep satisfaction and affection.
He walked through them and inspected them. Seeing they were all healthy and there was no faulty, he did his routine.
Somehow, he could use wood-type spells in this dream, which allowed him to give the plants a second growth blessing from the Wood Blessing spell. This spell sped up the consumption of wood-type spiritual power for plants.
Wood root cultivators could also use this spell on themselves to recover quickly.
In the space, he could cast his spells smoother and faster, with virtually no consumption.
After doing all this, flying in the centre, he sighed and said "Alright, I know you guys insist on having various weird wishes. Since this is your 'graduation', as usual, I will fulfil one wish of each of you."
The plants seemed full of energy and cheered, swaying in the wind.
He didn't know why, but he always felt like these plants had a higher spirituality after they entered.
Approaching each plant, he chose the most suitable wishes before granting them.
He called the power of the dream 'Dream Essence'. When a plant was plucked, it would give him 10 essence. Fulfilling and eliminating wishes would cost 1 essence.
From his experience of tending plants for over five years, Jia Yi concluded that plants had three to five wishes in their lifetime.
Most of the wishes aligned with their usual growth, so he fulfilled three wishes on average for each plant. The additional wishes, like 'hardening roots against worms' were eliminated in the dream, and in the real world, he would find the pest that made these plants wish such useless things.
Unfortunately, after a test, he realised the plants wouldn't change this wish after having it once, as if scared. He could only eliminate it. If he allowed it to exist, then the plant would grow in this direction naturally, which was a bit annoying and would lower their worth.
He fulfilled a wish for all plants until he arrived in the centre of the third acre, where he saw the rebellious plant once more.