Building a sect from scratch.

Chapter 68 Spiritual Spring and Sugarcane

Spiritual spring water is not uncommon; while it's not everywhere, there are quite a few in the wilderness and mountains.

For example, there are two or three spiritual springs of varying sizes in the Taiyin Sect's headquarters, and many of them are marked on the maps explored by players.

However, there are still differences between spiritual springs. Just like the watermelons that the students buy at ALDI and the Qilin melons that everyone buys at the Chinese market are completely unrelated except that they are both from the Cucurbitaceae family and the Citrus genus, spiritual springs are generally classified into different grades based on their water quality and the spiritual energy they contain.

The rock spring that Zhu Xian and the golden-haired bamboo fox mentioned, although the springhead is small and the water flow is only a thin thread, is a standard Xuan-level spiritual spring in terms of quality. It is much more precious than the Huang-level spiritual springs and non-level spiritual springs that players have discovered!

The Xuan-level spiritual spring contains abundant spiritual energy, making it an excellent medicinal catalyst. It's a good choice for alchemy and weapon crafting, and most importantly, it can be used to nourish spiritual plants; a single drop is equivalent to a year's worth of effort. Therefore, for many plant spirits, the allure of the spiritual spring is like catnip to a cat—irresistible.

Of course, everything has its shortcomings, and extremes have their opposites. The spiritual spring is not entirely beneficial to demon cultivators and monsters.

If one's cultivation level is too weak, excessive use of spiritual spring water will not only damage one's origin due to the body's inability to withstand the high concentration of spiritual energy, but in severe cases it will also "burn" the spiritual platform and inner core, causing one's cultivation level to regress instead of progress, or even cut off one's path of cultivation!
Therefore, the vicinity of high-level spiritual springs is either occupied by knowledgeable demons and spirits, or it is a desolate wasteland—those that could be attracted have been "killed" by the spring water, so naturally it becomes a wasteland.

This small, mysterious spring is no exception. Because it is located in a crevice between rocks, no vegetation grows around it, not even moss.

The spring water was crystal clear, shrouded in a faint glow, though it was not clearly visible due to the mountain mist.

Bai Chenxue took a deep breath of the rich spiritual energy, let out a comfortable sigh, and muttered to herself, "May I try some?"

Despite her thoughts, she filled the bamboo tube first before eagerly trying out the last bit of the spiritual spring water.

"Those two NPCs didn't say I couldn't drink it, right?"

She stroked the cabbage-shaped dog's head and said, "Besides, this is a spiritual spring! It sounds like a good thing! I'll just sneak a little bit, it shouldn't be a problem, right?"

The cabbage didn't understand what Bai Chenxue meant by babbling on, but that didn't stop it from licking Bai Chenxue's hand with a silly look on its face.

"Ugh! How many times have I told you, stop spitting on my hands!"

Bai Chenxue disgustedly wiped the drool from the cabbage on the back of her hand on the stone, then carefully scooped up a small handful of spiritual spring water and tentatively took a sip.

A surge of intense spiritual energy, like a tidal wave, rushed into Bai Chenxue's body, rampaging and causing pain in her eight extraordinary meridians. Her vision flashed with red warnings, and Bai Chenxue was so frightened that she quickly adjusted her pain level to 0. Then she quickly threw the filled bamboo tube into her system inventory to prevent it from being lost or spilled.

The little cabbage on the side sensed something and started pacing around anxiously, nuzzling and biting in Bai Chenxue's arms.

With no pain in sight, Bai Chenxue calmed down. Although her health bar remained unchanged, the red light in her vision continued to flash – this was the system's pain warning. The redder the flashing color, the higher the pain level, which generally meant that her life was under serious threat.

Although she didn't know what the spiritual spring in "Ten Continents Chronicles" was all about, the feeling of spiritual energy rushing into her body and crashing around was still there. Bai Chenxue thought for two seconds, threw the cabbage on the ground, grabbed a few small pebbles, and began to use her skill to put the pebbles into and take them out of the space created by "Pot Heaven".

Unlike before, when using skills would consume mana, after hundreds of times, Bai Chenxue's mana bar was still full!
This also means that Bai Chenxue's guess is somewhat reasonable—she drank too much spiritual spring water and her face turned red because she was about to die from overeating!

After fiddling with the pebbles for quite some time, the flashing red in her vision finally stopped, and Bai Chenxue breathed a sigh of relief, her sense of pain returning with lingering fear.

Unexpectedly, as soon as she was brought back, the pain in her meridians caused her to cry out in agony. Helpless, she had to turn off the pain sensor again.

"Cabbage," Bai Chenxue picked up the cabbage, slowly stood up, and sighed earnestly, "One really shouldn't be too greedy!"

……

On the other side, Zhu Xian was bickering with the golden-haired bamboo raccoon as usual. "That was close! I almost lost my life to a dog today!"

"With your thick skin, who can bite through you? You're like an old sugarcane painted green, pretending to be a tender bamboo!"

Bamboo Fairy, used to ignoring the golden-haired bamboo rat's sarcasm, continued muttering, "Speaking of which, dogs don't eat bamboo, right? So why did it bite me? It's really itchy!"

Is it possible that you are sugarcane?

"Impossible!" Bamboo Immortal declared emphatically, "I am bamboo!"

"Ugh……"

"As for me, I've lived my whole life on thin ice. Do you think I can..."

"No, you are sugarcane."

"Let me finish speaking, I can walk..."

"No, you are a sugarcane without feet."

I'll fucking beat you to death!

After a cloud of dust, the golden bamboo fox had long since vanished, leaving only a messy cave entrance, mercilessly mocking the bamboo fairy who was unable to hunt down her friend.

"Seniors! Seniors! I'm back!"

Bai Chenxue, carrying the cabbage, quickly flew to Zhu Xian's side: "Huh? Where's Senior Zhu Li?"

"I'm here!"

Suddenly, a fluffy golden ball poked its head out of the horribly damaged hole. The golden bamboo rat smiled and spoke, with a few bamboo leaves knocked off its head, making it look rather disheveled.

Bai Chenxue asked casually out of curiosity, "What is this, seniors...?"

Zhu Xian swayed slightly: "Ahem, this is our way of cultivation. You're still young, it's normal that you don't understand."

"Oh, oh!" Bai Chenxue didn't ask any more questions. She was now focused on awakening the intelligence in the cabbage, so she quickly took out a bamboo tube from her backpack and eagerly boasted, "I brought back a whole tube!"

“Not bad, pour half a bucket of water on my feet first, and I’ll explain it to you slowly,” Zhu Xian seemed quite satisfied, then muttered, “I really don’t know how your master and your so-called Taiyin Sect taught you, they don’t even teach you common sense…”

The golden-haired bamboo rat beside him said calmly, "You are sugarcane, you have no feet."

"here?"

Bai Chenxue opened the bamboo tube, carefully approached the bamboo fairy, and slowly poured spiritual spring water onto the part of its stem from which it grew, asking...

"Yes, yes, right here, oh ho ho—so comfortable, hey hey hey, that's enough, that's enough, any more and I can't take it anymore!"

(End of this chapter)