After leaving the Spirit Plant Hall, Lin Donglai went to Spirit Field Valley at the foot of Immortal Sprout Peak.
He had no spirit stones to buy seeds for now, but no matter what, he had to get the field tilled first.
Huang Yue had lent him a secondhand, well-worn refined-iron hoe for turning the soil and working the field.
There were actually farming implements like ox-drawn plows, but those were all magical implements—mortal tools simply couldn't till spirit fields, and renting magical implements wasn't cheap. Only human labor cost nothing.
Spirit Field Valley wasn't very large, but it still had two to three hundred mu of land.
This year's recruitment had taken in an especially large number of low-aptitude disciples. Those with four or five spirit roots, among whom Earth, Wood, or Water were at least passable among the five elements, had all been sent here to study the way of spirit planting.
There were thirty to forty such people.
They all knew this was not a place to stay long—it was merely a place to learn the craft. One plot of field per person was enough; any more than that they couldn't tend anyway, so no one went around greedily seizing land.
According to the rules of the Spirit Plant Hall, only during the Immortal Sprout period, upon passing assessment to become a Rank One Lower-Grade Spirit Planter, would one qualify to become an outer-sect disciple of the Spirit Plant Hall in the future, take on the sect's farming missions, accumulate merit, and obtain cultivation resources.
The plot of barren land with the richest earth qi that Lin Donglai had marked yesterday had not been claimed by anyone, so Lin Donglai simply started right away, using lime to mark out lines and enclose an acre of land, beginning his great endeavor of farming.
With the first swing of the hoe, Lin Donglai felt how hard and compacted the soil was. The refined-iron hoe rang against extremely tough grassroots, producing a faint sound of clashing metal along with some rebound.
The land in Spirit Field Valley was subject to an Immortal Sprout recruitment every five years: two years allotted to the Immortal Sprouts to practice the way of spirit planting, and the remaining three years the valley was sealed, letting wild grass grow freely.
Those wild grasses, having absorbed spiritual qi and fertility, had all transformed into unranked spirit herbs—but they had no medicinal value whatsoever. They were simply extremely tenacious in life force, with roots that were exceptionally tough and hard.
Lin Donglai looked carefully and found that one of them resembled the goosegrass that grows between field ridges.
This grass was extremely difficult to tear apart, its roots sunk deep. Even if you pulled it out, as long as it touched the ground while drying in the sun, it might take root again and grow another whole patch.
Having transformed into an unranked spirit herb, it even carried a faint metallic luster, like iron wire or steel wire.
There were other grasses as well—barnyard grass that looked much like rice stalks, foxtail grass, smartweed, wood sorrel, dandelions, plantain... all extremely common weeds of the fields and paths.
Having grown in this spirit-field land for so long, they had all transformed into half-spirit herbs with powerful vitality and extremely strong root systems.
Although the earth qi of this barren plot was the strongest, the weeds here had also grown the best, some nearly as tall as a person.
Lin Donglai wasn't really afraid of anything else. These weeds had strong vitality, which was exactly what supplemented the "life essence" that his spirit-root Dao seed craved. As long as he drew in the life essence, no matter how tenacious these weeds were, they could not revive.
But it occurred to him that the soil must already be full of wild grass seeds. Even if he cleared this batch, a second batch would quickly grow back.
Lin Donglai sighed inwardly: "I should have borrowed a sickle."
Without a sickle, he could only bend over and pull the weeds up by hand.
Thanks to his cultivation of the Muscle-Tendon Transformation and Marrow Cleansing Standing Art, and his earlier insight into how body cultivators increase their strength while felling the Cinnabar Wood, Lin Donglai's strength had already reached over a thousand catties. Pulling grass was no problem at all.
As he pulled, Lin Donglai also drew in the living qi of the plants. But according to the technique's teachings, these grasses belonged to the Yi Wood category. The vitality of Yi Wood was soft and supple, different from the vitality of Jia Wood, and thus could not augment the Jiaying Life-Gathering Method.
However, the Dao seed was not picky about its diet. The newly sprouted bud packet badly needed this Yi Wood vitality to nourish itself.
The only slight trouble was that besides the weeds, there were many other insects, toads, and even things he had never seen before that depended on the weed ecosystem—all obstacles on the road of farming.
Toads, frogs, earthworms and the like could be spared—they ate insects, so their lives could be let go. As for the other insects, he didn't know whether they were poisonous, but they had certainly mutated under the nourishment of spiritual qi. He couldn't even crush them to death normally, so Lin Donglai practiced his eye and used the hoe to chop them dead or smash them.
After killing these insects, a small measure of life essence was actually drawn in by the Dao seed—only it was different from the vitality of plants. This life essence seemed to carry the most primal vitality of living beings, and after being filtered once through the Dao seed, it directly nourished Lin Donglai himself. Though minute to the extreme, he could clearly feel some benefit.
Whether pulling weeds or exterminating insects, everything brought Lin Donglai a slight positive feedback.
And the five wasting strains and seven injuries from physical labor—the aching back and sore waist—were dissolved away by the Dao seed's constant automatic cultivation of the Peiyuan Breathing Art and the Qi-Drawing Art. It was as if his stamina were inexhaustible; he couldn't feel fatigue at all.
"It seems Senior Sister Jiang Biling was right. I really am cut out for farming."
He worked like this all the way until the end of the Chen hour. The weather was hot, the sun high overhead. Everyone else had gone off to rest in the shade, but Lin Donglai alone, stripped to the waist, was actually basking in the sunlight, because his spirit-root Dao seed was emanating the thought of "craving sunlight."
Ji Yan sat in the shade, watching Lin Donglai work with ever greater energy, and couldn't help but say, "Isn't that man tired? I saw him arrive at the Mao hour."
Sang Zhi said, "Even his working posture is the most laborious kind—twice the effort for half the result. One look and you can tell he's hardly ever worked the land. Yet he's been at it for over two hours without a single rest. Could he be a body cultivator?"
Ma Teng, sharp-eyed, spotted the gourd fastened at Lin Donglai's waist and said, "The Spirit Plant Hall recruits Immortal Sprouts with spirit-planting talent into the hall as outer-sect disciples."
"Disciples who enter the hall receive a spirit-planting magical implement. Look at the gourd on his waist—there are patterns on it, looks quite extraordinary. It must be the spirit-planting implement, the Sweet Dew Gourd."
Ji Yan said incredulously, "We're farming here too! To join the Spirit Plant Hall you still have to pass assessment before the Immortal Sprout cultivation period ends. How come he joined directly without taking the assessment? Could he have connections?"
"With connections, you'd go straight to being an apprentice at the medicine gardens, not come to Spirit Field Valley to learn how to farm," Sang Zhi said. "Though with that brute strength of his, that untiring appearance—maybe that counts as a kind of talent too."
"We've also cultivated the Muscle-Tendon Transformation and Marrow Cleansing Standing Art and increased our strength, but none of us is untiring like him."
Just as they were making Lin Donglai their topic of conversation, Lin Donglai sat down cross-legged. From the shifting shadows of the plants, he had noticed that the Wu hour had arrived—just in time to cultivate the Bingwu Yang-Gathering Art in the manner of Wood giving birth to Fire.
At the Wu hour at high noon, facing south, visualizing the sun, gathering the sun's yang qi and fire qi—the spiritual power cultivated this way would be Blazing Sun spiritual power.
As he looked within, the root hairs of the spirit-root Dao seed relating to the qi-drawing art began to shift from azure to crimson-red, then began to cultivate the Bingwu Yang-Gathering Art in concert.
The Jiayin true qi he had already cultivated inside his body met the Blazing Sun true qi and burned and transformed directly. Lin Donglai also felt a searing sensation through his meridians.
"Oh no!" Lin Donglai sensed something wrong with his cultivation, but it could no longer be stopped. All his Jiayin true qi was scorched and transformed into the far more violent Bingwu true qi. Only after the transformation was complete did the burning pain fade.