Lin Donglai had thought chopping firewood would be an easy job—after all, what farm boy had never helped his family cut wood and carry water?
But the result was that the work proved extraordinarily grueling.
He had already entered the threshold of Marrow Cleansing and condensed five drops of essence blood; his strength ought to be far greater than when he was an ordinary mortal.
Yet even exerting all his strength, he only left a shallow mark on the firewood.
Examining it carefully, he finally realized this firewood was truly no ordinary wood.
According to the *Records of Cultivation Essentials*, ordinary wood could not withstand the flames ignited by a cultivator's spiritual power—but when refining pills, one could hardly keep igniting fire with spiritual power the whole time.
Thus there existed a special kind of wood used for fires in pill refining, called dan wood.
Dan wood was best suited for making charcoal; the charcoal produced from it was called dan charcoal, with extremely high temperature and stable fire.
As for stray branches and twigs that could not be used to make charcoal, they were put to other uses.
Which naturally included burning as firewood.
This wood was not only extremely hard in texture, its bark was also incredibly tough—even a slender branch was no easy thing for a practitioner of Great Completion in Tendon Transformation and Marrow Cleansing to snap barehanded.
Granny Qian sending Lin Donglai to chop firewood—she had most likely wanted to watch him struggle for her amusement.
But Lin Donglai was not one to give up easily. He focused entirely on figuring out how to split the dan wood. Those spirit stones were his to earn, no matter what.
He adjusted his stance, his breathing fully harmonized with the Prime Origin Breathing Technique, both feet gripping the ground like the roots of an old tree. Strength rose from his lower body to his waist, gathered along his spine's ancestral tendon and the other great tendons, integrating his muscles and twisting them into a single force, which he slammed down fiercely at the dan wood branch.
"Crack!"
The branch snapped. Feeling the rebound force transmitted to his hands, Lin Donglai gained a slight insight. He immediately adjusted his posture, seized hold of that feeling, and continued chopping!
With Lin Donglai's current strength, he had to use his full force in every strike to split a dan wood branch—and using full force inevitably inflicted hidden injuries on the muscles and tendons throughout his body. The rebound force from the axe and the dan wood would even travel back up into the bones of his arms. Every session of chopping firewood was like self-harm—as if nearly half the damage was being dealt to his own body.
But it was precisely because of this that the spiritual qi inhaled by his two Dao Seed tendrils continuously repaired the injured and strained areas.
In this way, the progress of his Marrow Cleansing cultivation was greatly accelerated.
To be precise, his utilization rate of the spiritual qi drawn from the void by the Dao Seed's root tendrils had increased.
Before long, another bone was being cleansed and refined, its ordinary marrow transforming into spiritual marrow.
At the same time, essence blood emerged from the spiritual marrow. Old blood, mortal blood, was squeezed out by the essence blood, slowly seeping from his pores through the rebound force.
It made Lin Donglai seem to have become a "sweat-blood steed"—the sweat that flowed from him was dark red.
This was precisely the supreme martial opportunity of the mortal world known as "Marrow Felling."
More thorough than Marrow Cleansing, and far more violent!
It could reshape one's fundamental constitution, granting superior martial aptitude.
For the path of immortality, however, it deviated from spiritual cultivation and leaned toward the training process of a body-refining cultivator.
...
As axe blow followed axe blow, Lin Donglai entered into his rhythm, focusing entirely on the single task of felling dan wood branches!
Namely, chopping firewood.
He set a standard for the firewood: every piece had to be roughly the same—similar length, similar thickness—so they would stack and store neatly.
This trained three abilities to the extreme: speed, precision, and ferocity.
Even though this was merely chopping firewood, Lin Donglai felt that if someone stood before him, a single axe stroke could split them from crown to crotch, evenly dividing them into two parts.
It was not until two shoulder-pole loads of dan wood branches had all been chopped into even segments that Lin Donglai noticed a pool of blood on the ground.
Sensing his own body, he found his Marrow Cleansing had reached Minor Completion—eight drops of essence blood condensed, thirteen drops in total.
For an ordinary person, twelve drops of essence blood would allow them to attempt refining essence into qi; nine drops of essence blood could be converted into a wisp of innate fetal breath, and using that innate fetal breath as a guide, one would draw qi into the body and refine the first wisp of spiritual power—reaching the first layer of Qi Refining.
The remaining three drops of essence blood were for sustaining the body; otherwise, if all were drained, one would suffer grave damage to one's vital energies.
Of course, the more robust the fetal breath, the more efficient the drawing of qi into the body—but that was a matter to consider after the Qi Refining realm.
Lin Donglai was different. He needed forty-nine drops of essence blood to nourish his Dao Seed, nine drops to complete the refining of essence into qi, and three drops to sustain his body's vitality—sixty-one drops in all would suffice.
If he had been cultivating on Immortal Sprout Peak, Lin Donglai certainly could not have finished before the second Hundred-Day Assessment. But on Tengshe Peak, with this environment so suited to the Dao Seed, if he stayed a while longer, more fine root tendrils would surely grow!
Never mind sixty drops of essence blood—even a hundred drops would not be difficult.
The question was, how could he continue cultivating—or working—on Tengshe Peak?
Lin Donglai's mind turned, and he looked toward Granny Qian.
He fetched some water from the vat, washed the bloodstains from the ground, and gave himself a rough rinse. Then he walked over to Granny Qian: "Senior, the firewood has been chopped."
Granny Qian had just heard the chop-chop of the axe as well, and had sensed from the shifting rhythm how rapidly the boy was growing. She thought to herself: "Some aptitude, it's a pity his spiritual roots are so poor."
"Good! Tong'er, give him a spirit stone!"
Lin Donglai was surprised: "Senior, didn't we agree on half a spirit stone?"
"This old woman has no spirit beads here. Giving you a whole one is a reward for working so briskly."
Lin Donglai seized the opportunity: "As the saying goes, one should not accept rewards without merit. Granny, might there be other tasks, such as chopping wood, that you could also entrust to me?"
Granny Qian laughed: "Quite the opportunist, aren't you? The firewood here is all chopped—I have none left. But I do know a place, a site专门 for felling dan wood branches. They need hands there, though usually only menial servants go—the spirit stones are few and the work exhausting. But why should this old woman tell you about it?"
Lin Donglai said decisively: "Senior, though this disciple is merely a five spiritual root of the lowest grade, I possess a Lower Grade Jia Wood Dao Body. The inner sect senior sister who tested my spirit told me I am suited to tending forests and fruit trees."
"If I can earn a few more spirit stones, I will have one more chance to pass the Hundred-Day Assessment, draw qi into my body, and formally become an outer sect disciple. Once I learn the art of tending spirit plants on Lingxi Peak, I will surely come help senior tend her orchard, without taking a single coin—as a token of gratitude."
Granny Qian listened: "A Lower Grade Jia Wood Body is nothing rare. Besides, I'm old—this old woman has no taste for drawn cakes."
"But your character is indeed pleasing. So I'll point you in a direction."
"Tong'er, take him to the dan wood forest that Old Man Ma tends."
Lin Donglai hurriedly expressed his thanks: "Thank you, Senior, for making this happen! This disciple is deeply grateful."
Ding Zhen was still catching insects in the garden and had not come out, so Lin Donglai said: "Please, Senior, pass word to my companions who came with me—tell them they need not wait for me."
Then he followed the little girl Tong'er toward the dan wood forest.
The dan wood forest lay at the other end of Tengshe Peak, in a section near Zhuque Peak. Zhuque Peak was where the earthly fire for pill refining and artifact crafting was located, so the spirit herbs planted near it were all things that loved sunlight and fire.
As soon as Lin Donglai drew near, he felt the temperature rise considerably.