Since the second hundred-day assessment, Lin Donglai had tended the spirit fields for another month, and the seedling nursery was now a lush expanse of young rice shoots.
After the seedlings were divided, it would be time for transplanting. Two jin of rice seeds came to just a little over two fen of land; that extra bit was reserved for filling in gaps.
Over this past month, Lin Donglai, cultivating diligently, had already refined five Earth-element fetal breaths and had begun cultivating the Renzi Water-Gathering Art in addition. He had even completed one Water-element fetal breath, planted within his kidneys.
When he switched from the Chentu Earth-Gathering Art to the Renzi Water-Gathering Art, although Earth overcame Water, there was none of the searing sensation there had been before when Fire overcame Wood.
Only during the transition did he suddenly feel his body grow twenty to thirty jin heavier, as if pinned down by a ghost, with heavy dampness in his body and easy fatigue.
But once the first Water-element fetal breath had condensed, this sensation gradually faded.
His body had grown accustomed and adapted.
After all, Lin Donglai possessed five spirit roots, so in theory he could cultivate techniques of all five elements.
Though he was not following the General Outline of the Five Elements by waiting until mid-Qi Refining to cultivate other elemental techniques in tandem, with the Dao Seed present, he had no fear of qi deviation and refining himself to death.
When he inspected his five viscera through inner vision, he could see that the Earth-element fetal breath in his spleen had taken the form of a palm-sized chunk of rock and soil.
The Water-element fetal breath planted in his kidneys appeared, under inner vision, as a tiny spring.
Once planted into the five viscera, these elemental fetal breaths nourished them greatly.
For instance, the spleen governs postnatal transformation and transport, and Lin Donglai's appetite had grown considerably during this period, his digestion improving as well. The outward manifestation was that he no longer needed to relieve himself—everything he took into his body could be converted into spiritual qi and essence.
And since kidney water governs essence and vitality, Lin Donglai's complexion had become much ruddier. Even though he had refrained from actively practicing the Muscle-Tendon Changing and Marrow Cleansing Standing Post to avoid excessive consumption, he had still converted another blood-marrow bone into a spirit-marrow bone.
Moreover, no matter which fetal breath was refined and which viscus it strengthened, it offered some benefit to the Origin-Nurturing Breathing Technique, which in turn harmonized the body, so there was no worry of falling ill from imbalance among the five viscera and five elements.
Ironically, the spirit-root Dao Seed, which had brought Lin Donglai so much benefit, had changed very little. Its roots had not increased, its leaves had not multiplied, and its tender stem had not grown taller. It simply rooted itself in the void of his mind, cultivating automatically according to the technique.
Ever since the Dao Seed could circulate the qi-drawing art on its own, even after the spirit stone supply was cut off, no thought of "craving spiritual qi" had been transmitted to him, lifting a great burden from Lin Donglai's shoulders.
Only his spiritual power grew at a pace that could only be called slow. These days, the total spiritual power resident in his dantian was a mere eight strands.
After all, most of the spiritual qi drawn in through cultivation was absorbed by the spirit-root Dao Seed. Of the remainder, after gathering elemental essence, it became attributeless spiritual qi.
This attributeless spiritual qi then had to nourish the spirit marrow, gestate essence blood, and refine fetal breaths, with some also needed to nourish the five viscera.
Late that night, at the hour of Zi, Lin Donglai faced north to gather the qi of Renzi. Ren water was yang water, its image being the night dew at the moment when the first yang is born at midnight. This night dew nourished plants and trees even better than rain from the sky.
There were even those who cultivated this technique who would specifically hire servants to gather dew from spirit herbs and spirit flowers at the hour of Zi, storing it in gourds. Once refined, it could aid their cultivation—far more convenient than toiling alone to draw in qi.
"Squeak squeak!"
"Squeak squeak!"
Hearing the sound of a rat, Lin Donglai's eyes snapped open.
Over these days, he had grown familiar with the few other immortal seedlings in Spirit Field Valley who had likewise chosen the path of spirit cultivation.
None of them had been directly designated for the Spirit Cultivation Hall, so when they heard that Lin Donglai would enter the Spirit Cultivation Hall as soon as his immortal seedling period ended, they were deeply envious.
Because of this, two of the immortal seedlings had even tried to curry favor with him, and he had faintly come to feel like the leader of this cohort of immortal seedlings in Spirit Field Valley.
But Lin Donglai did not let his guard down because of it—in fact, he grew more cautious, worried that someone out of jealousy might secretly sabotage the spirit field he had worked so hard to tend.
Moreover, in recent days, someone really had found their seedlings gnawed upon.
He suspected some small creature was behind it.
Casting a "Fire-Starting Art," Lin Donglai crept out of the shed on tiptoe to check the situation.
This Fire-Starting Art, like the Cleaning Art from before, was among the simplest of techniques—not even worthy of being called a technique, merely a method of employing spiritual power.
By the faint firelight, aided by the keen perception that frequent inner vision had brought him, within moments Lin Donglai found himself face to face with a pair of black eyes no bigger than beans.
It really was a rat!
This rat was quite large, the size of a cat or small dog, seemingly a field rat mutated by absorbing spiritual qi.
It might only be a rat, but after eating so many spirit-grain seedlings rich in spiritual qi, its vital energy was already equivalent to an innate-stage martial artist of the mortal world.
At this moment it even wore a rather humanlike expression, showing a trace of surprise at being discovered.
Grabbing his fine-iron hoe, Lin Donglai covered ground with every stride and charged forward.
The large rat showed no fear of humans and rushed toward him at an astonishing speed.
In the blink of an eye, it darted out from between Lin Donglai's legs, slipped behind him, and let out another squeak, as if mocking: "Too slow! You think you can catch me?"
Lin Donglai's gaze sharpened as he marveled inwardly—how fast this rat was! Was it naturally fast, or had it awakened an innate spell?
After that, Lin Donglai chased and drove the rat off again and again. Though he couldn't catch it, he held firm guard over the spirit field.
Lin Donglai had put real effort into planting this blood-marrow rice, and this plot of land had been well chosen—the earth qi was abundant, and previous cohorts of immortal seedlings had scattered spirit stone powder here, so its spiritual qi was not lacking. His seedlings grew the best, and thus attracted the large rat the most.
Seeing no opportunity to gnaw the seedlings, and wary of the fine-iron hoe in Lin Donglai's hands—if it struck its body, it would surely be split in two—the rat had no choice but to give up and went off to gnaw at other people's seedlings.
Before long, another immortal seedling guarding his own field saw the rat eating his seedlings and cried out: "Everyone come help! What a huge rat! It's become a spirit!"
Lin Donglai did not hesitate and rushed over at once. With a few more people, they might just be able to finish off this rat—otherwise, from now on, they would likely be harried without end!
In an instant, three immortal seedling disciples set out at the same time. Since those who chose the path of spirit cultivation all had extremely poor spirit-root aptitude—mostly low-grade four spirit roots or low-grade five spirit roots—their cultivation levels were all about the same, barely at the first layer of Qi Refining, not even reaching the second layer.
Without reaching the second layer of Qi Refining, none of them had naturally learned a single technique. But one of them, named Ning Feng, had studied some mortal martial arts before learning immortal cultivation and was very agile. Though far slower than the giant rat, if he joined with Lin Donglai and the others to block its escape routes, they might well be able to kill it.
"Fellow Daoist Lin, Fellow Daoist Chen, I'm going to use my family's inherited martial arts against this evil beast. But be careful if it flees your way—it may bite if it grows desperate."