A cultivator must at least be at the second layer of Qi Refining to cast spells.
But Lin Donglai was able to use his spiritual power to activate this Grade-One Lower-Grade spirit plant artifact, the Sweet Dew Gourd, even at the first layer of Qi Refining.
It was just that the amount of spirit field he could irrigate was only a few feet square, and it would drain seventy to eighty percent of his spiritual power.
This was where the Heaven-Defying effects of the Dao Seed truly shone!
With the Dao Seed cultivating automatically, Lin Donglai recovered his spiritual power extremely quickly, able to cast spells again after just a few breaths.
Even so, after using the Sweet Dew Gourd several times, he still felt a sense of exhaustion—a normal consequence of overusing one's spiritual power.
Moreover, since the Sweet Dew Rain Curse was triggered through an artifact, the sweet dew raindrops it produced contained only mediocre amounts of spiritual qi.
However, these sweet dew raindrops did carry the faint earth-element aura of Lin Donglai's current "Chen Earth Qi-Gathering Art," so they still had some effect in nourishing the spirit field.
After thoroughly watering the small patch of seedling soil back and forth, Lin Donglai carefully took out the germinated grain seeds of the blood marrow rice and began sowing them.
His cultivation was insufficient to master the Sprouting and Gestation Art, but the Farming Essentials contained a seedling method that did not require cultivating this technique.
That was the seed-soaking seedling method.
Lin Donglai had already soaked these seeds in the Sweet Dew Gourd for three days in advance, using the seed-soaking method.
The Sweet Dew Gourd had two functions: one was to generate and store sweet dew spirit rain using spiritual power; the other was to release the sweet dew spirit rain stored inside.
One would store sweet dew in the gourd in advance to soak the seeds; the next day, pour out the water that had lost its spirituality, then inject spiritual power again to generate sweet dew spirit rain for the seeds to absorb. After three or four days like this, the grain seeds would germinate smoothly.
What Lin Donglai needed to do now was scatter the germinated grain seeds into the seedling field that had already been thoroughly watered in advance.
The seedling stage was when constant watchfulness was most needed—birds might come to peck at the grain seeds, or jealous people might come to sabotage the field.
Lin Donglai simply built a small shed right beside it and did not even return to Immortal Seedling Peak to cultivate.
As for meals, he had already arranged with Ding Zhen that Ding Zhen would finish eating first and come here to watch over things for a while, then Lin Donglai would go eat and come back.
His cultivation would also be done here.
This was the situation for most spirit farmers who could not afford even low-grade formations—at critical times, they wished they could guard their spirit fields day and night.
Lin Donglai had also asked Huang Yue, and she only suggested buying a warning formation and an image-recording formation.
If someone really came to sabotage and was captured on the formation's imagery, he could report them to the Law Enforcement Hall. The saboteur would not only have to pay compensation but would also be punished.
But if you set up such a thing, surely no one would dare sabotage, making it seem rather useless.
Yet if you did not set it up, and something actually happened, there would be no way to seek redress.
As for birds, beasts, and insects, one would need to buy insect-killing formations, protective formations, and the like—but these formations were not only rather expensive, they also required spirit stones to maintain. Only relatively precious spirit herb fields had such arrangements.
Compelled by poverty, Lin Donglai suddenly felt that cultivating at the Spirit Field Valley was quite good.
At least cultivating the Chen Earth Qi-Gathering Art here was faster than at Immortal Seedling Peak. It was also quieter than Immortal Seedling Peak—at night, only a few spirit plant disciples, likewise afraid of sabotage, kept watch.
Once darkness fell and no one could see anyone, Lin Donglai could cultivate the Peiyuan Breathing Art, nourish his spiritual marrow, and nurture his essence blood without any real disturbance.
After scattering the germinated rice seeds, Lin Donglai used the Sweet Dew Gourd to generate more sweet dew, and once the gourd was full, he watered the field again.
After watering, Lin Donglai took out a copy of the *Azure Wood Herbal Classic*, borrowed from the Spirit Plant Hall, and began reading.
It contained illustrations and descriptions of the medicinal properties of over a hundred kinds of spirit medicines and spirit herbs, along with descriptions of how to plant and harvest each one.
Over these days, Lin Donglai had already read most of it, including several unranked spirit medicines involved in the Zhongmiao Pill.
But the planting and harvesting times for these spirit medicines all differed.
For example, Seven Star Grass was written to be planted in the fourth month and harvested in the tenth month. It needed to be planted in open, uncovered ground; in summer one had to guard against sun exposure, using a shed to block the sunlight, which then had to be dismantled in the evening to let the grass receive the starlight.
Then there was Suoyang Grass, planted in the fifth month and harvested in the ninth month. It loved sunlight but required careful watering, and favored dan tree ash fertilizer.
Bujing Flower preferred shade and dampness; it had to be planted in the second month and harvested in the sixth month.
Wild Shengjing Grass liked to grow on other trees. When cultivated artificially, one needed to arrange bark, stones, moss, and the like so that it received little direct sunlight and plenty of rain and dew. It had to be planted in the tenth month of autumn and harvested in the third month of the following year.
Lin Donglai was not confident he could keep these alive before reaching the second layer of Qi Refining, so he had not bred any seeds, but was instead thinking about how to set up the planting conditions.
...
Time passed quickly, and the second Hundred-Day Assessment arrived. Although Lin Donglai had nothing to worry about, he still made a point of asking around for news.
This time, there were more than twenty people who had still failed to draw qi into their bodies. They were all demoted to servant disciples, and each bore the debt of repaying the cost of cultivating them as immortal seedlings—twenty spirit stones per person.
"If it weren't for that ginseng chicken stew for cultivating the foundation, I might have fallen short too and been demoted to a servant," Ding Zhen sighed. "All of them are Five Spirit Roots Lower-Grade—not a single one of Four Spirit Roots Lower-Grade. We were lucky."
"Servants only get half a spirit stone a month in wages, and they do all sorts of menial, servile tasks."
"And even that servile work counts as the easy kind."
"I heard that some pills need to be tested, and they use servant disciples as test subjects. Many have died from eating pills."
"There are also all sorts of mines that need laborers to dig, and that's dangerous too."
"Once we complete our immortal seedling cultivation and can choose cave dwellings among the Outer Sect peaks, we can also spend spirit stones to hire servants to wait on us. It's very cheap—only half a spirit stone a month."
"For example, things like lighting fires to cook and washing clothes won't need to be done by ourselves, so we can focus on cultivation and Outer Sect missions."
Although Ding Zhen sympathized with them, the thought that he had become an Outer Sect disciple, standing above the servants, gave rise to no small amount of self-satisfaction. After all, they were all Five Spirit Roots Lower-Grade, yet his circumstances and those of the servant disciples were as different as heaven and earth.
Lin Donglai shook his head. "All of that is superficial. Improving our cultivation and learning a skill is what matters."
"Over these days, I've read the sect rules carefully. They make it nakedly clear that what the sect needs are useful cultivators—useless cultivators will likewise be discarded."
"If your cultivation shows no growth and you haven't mastered a skill, do you remember that old Daoist from the Mortal Dao Academy? That's where we'll end up."
"Even Outer Sect disciples who have mastered a skill don't amount to much. Inner Sect disciples can hire Outer Sect disciples, just as we can hire servant disciples."
"And True Inheritance Disciples rank equal to Inner Sect elders—they can directly kill any disciple who disrespects them without facing punishment."
This bucket of cold water Lin Donglai splashed was indeed effective. Ding Zhen nodded, but couldn't help sighing: "For those of us with such poor talent, even if we strive our whole lives to devote ourselves to the sect, in their eyes, perhaps we're still just insignificant."