Spirit Plant Entry: Immortality Begins with Farming

It was 3:45 AM, and the sky was still not fully light.

Standing outside the gate of the Flying Feather Sect, Chen Yuan saw the true appearance of the sect for the first time.

—Today is the monthly "Sect Lecture Day" for outer sect disciples, so we must enter through the main gate.

The gate was a pair of giant jade gates, each ten feet tall, with a relief carving of birds spreading their wings. Each feather was engraved with intricate runes, shimmering with a pale golden light in the morning glow.

Two stone sculptures stood in front of the gate—not lions or unicorns, but two strange birds with three pairs of wings, their heads raised to the sky, their claws pressing down on the clouds.

"This is the 'Six-Winged Sky Falcon,' the mount of our founding ancestor."

A voice came from the side.

Chen Yuan turned his head and saw a round-faced boy wearing an outer sect gray robe. He looked about fifteen or sixteen years old and was at the third level of Qi Refining. He was looking up at the stone sculpture with his eyes full of awe.

"Is this your first time using the main entrance?" the boy asked.

Chen Yuan nodded.

"No wonder." The boy grinned. "My name is Zhou Ming, and I've been a disciple for two years. My legs always go weak when I walk through the main gate—I heard that even late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators can't break through the array on this gate."

Chen Yuan didn't reply, he just stared at the two doors.

The door slowly opened.

It wasn't fully open; only a crack wide enough for one person to pass through. Behind the door stood two guards dressed in light blue, tight-fitting clothes, with three silver stripes on their sleeves—inner disciples, Qi Refining Stage Seven.

"The credentials." The guard on the left said expressionlessly.

Chen Yuan took out the disciple token given to him by Su Wanqing—made of wood, with "Flying Feather" engraved on the front and "Medicine Valley · Chen" engraved on the back.

The guard took it, tapped the token with his fingertip, and the token lit up with a faint white light.

"Chen Yuan, registered at Medicine Valley, Qi Refining Level 4." After the guard finished reading, he threw the token back. "Go in, walk straight for three miles to the 'Listening to the Dharma Platform.' The lecture will begin at Chenshi (7-9 AM). Don't wait up."

Chen Yuan took the token and stepped inside.

---

Inside the door lies another world.

The first thing I felt was the spiritual energy—three times stronger than in the Medicine Valley, and ten times stronger than in the shantytown. Taking a breath, it felt as if my internal organs had been cleansed, and even the lingering pain from the ley line mark on my right palm lessened.

The road was paved with white jade, three zhang wide, and stretched straight ahead. Instead of trees, it was planted on both sides of the road with "spiritual bamboo" that was three people tall. The bamboo was green and translucent, like a piece of jade. The bamboo leaves gently collided in the morning breeze, making a crisp sound like wind chimes.

To the left of the road are rows of pavilions and palaces. The tallest one has nine stories, with upturned eaves and corners. Each eave is adorned with bronze bells that move automatically even without wind, their sounds echoing far and wide.

"That's our largest and most complete collection of books, the 'Scripture Pavilion'," Zhou Ming followed up and whispered. "Outer disciples can only enter the first three floors, inner disciples can enter the first six floors, and it's said that only core disciples and elders can enter the last three floors."

Chen Yuan looked in the direction he was pointing.

East of the Sutra Repository is a large, domed hall, entirely crimson, with a chimney on its roof emitting wisps of blue smoke—the Alchemy Hall. Further east is a square, black stone building, with two enormous phantom images of weapon-refining furnaces standing at its entrance—the Weapon-Refining Hall.

To the right of the road was a spacious training ground. At this moment, hundreds of people were practicing spells there, fireballs, ice spikes, and wind blades flying wildly, exploding in colorful light in the morning glow.

"Those are inner disciples," Zhou Ming said enviously. "They get half an hour a day to use the spirit-gathering array in the training ground for free, and their cultivation speed is three times faster than ours."

Chen Yuan continued walking forward.

Along the three-mile stretch, he saw thirteen grand halls, more than twenty courtyards, and seven towers. Each building had a different style; some were simple and imposing, while others were exquisite and ornate, but they all shared one thing in common—spiritual energy.

Every brick, every tile, and every blade of grass here is imbued with a rich spiritual energy.

This is the true sect of immortal cultivation.

Compared to this place, the shantytowns are like pigsties, and the medicinal herb valley is like a vegetable garden.

"Oh, right," Zhou Ming suddenly remembered something, "whose sermon did you listen to today?"

"Deacon Su of Medicine Valley," Chen Yuan said.

"Master Su?" Zhou Ming's eyes lit up. "She spoke well! Last time she talked about 'the symbiosis of spiritual plants and earth veins,' and after listening, the patch of Qingfeng Grass I planted grew 20% better. However..."

He paused, then lowered his voice:

"When she's giving her lectures, the people from the court always find fault with her. Last time, they even got into an argument and almost came to blows."

Chen Yuan frowned slightly: "Why?"

"It's a clash of ideologies," Zhou Ming shrugged. "Those people at the Array Academy think that planting spiritual plants should be done honestly according to their array formations. All that talk about symbiotic relationships with ley lines and natural harmony is just heresy. But Master Su just won't believe it and insists on doing her thing."

As they were talking, a wide-open flat area appeared in front of them.

That's "Tingfaping".

The platform was circular, with a diameter of a hundred feet, and the ground was paved with bluestone slabs, on which were engraved complex spirit-gathering runes. At this moment, three or four hundred people were already sitting on the platform, all of them outer sect disciples, divided into several groups according to their respective halls and courtyards—the Medicine Valley sat on the east side, the Array Academy sat on the west side, the Alchemy Hall sat on the south side, and the Weapon Refining Hall sat on the north side.

Chen Yuan found the area of ​​the Medicine Valley and sat down in a spot on the side.

Zhou Ming sat next to him.

At the exact hour of Chen (7-9 AM), when the bell tolled for the seventh time, a pin drop could be heard on the Dharma Listening Platform.

Everyone stared at the high platform—not at the Dharma Transmission Elder, but at the figure behind him.

As Su Wanqing took her first step onto the steps, her left foot had just landed on the bluestone slab when three tender sprouts suddenly appeared within a three-inch radius of her feet—not an illusion, but real, emerald-green, glowing spiritual grass sprouts, which sprouted leaves, grew taller, and bloomed into a cluster of white flowers the size of rice grains at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The second step is that clear spring water seeps out from the cracks in the rocks, forming a small circle around her feet, neither overflowing nor spilling, and crystal clear to the bottom.

The third step is that sparks float in the air, not hot, and dance around her like fireflies.

The fourth step is that the ground gleams with a metallic sheen, and a thin layer of white frost condenses on the surface of the bluestone slabs—not ice, but a manifestation of the golden energy.

In the fifth step, she stood in the center of the high platform. The bluestone slab beneath her feet silently turned into fertile soil, and a green vine broke through the soil, twining around her ankle and growing upwards, blooming with three pale purple flowers.

Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth.

The five elements manifest, and lotus blossoms appear with every step.

The entire courtroom fell into a deathly silence for three breaths, then erupted in a collective gasp of shock.

"The Five Elements manifest in form..." an old disciple in the Medicine Valley murmured, "Senior Sister Su has cultivated the 'Azure Wood Spirit Technique' to the fourth level?"

"More than that." The person beside him said, their voice trembling. "This is 'Five Elements Following the Flow,' a threshold that only those in the late Foundation Establishment stage can possibly reach..."

On the other side of the Array Court, Senior Brother Zhang's face instantly darkened.

On the high platform, Su Wanqing flicked her sleeve, and all the strange phenomena vanished—the tender buds withered into ash, the spring water seeped into the cracks in the rocks, the sparks went out, the golden frost melted, and the green vines withered back into the soil. It was as if everything that had just happened was an illusion.

But the damp marks on the bluestone slab beneath her feet were still there.

Today we'll discuss the balance of the five elements.

She spoke, her voice not loud, yet it seemed to carry a certain rhythm, each word striking a chord in people's hearts.

"But I'm not going to spout that nonsense from books—you're all tired of hearing about fire generating earth and earth generating metal."

She raised her hand, her five fingers spread wide.

Five orbs of light rose from the fingertips—but this time they were not evenly colored five colors. Instead, the firelight was intense, the gold light was bright, the water light was faint, the wood light was dim, and the earth light was almost invisible.

"This is a typical five-elemental state within a fire-attribute spiritual plant," Su Wanqing said. "Fire is strong, metal is secondary, water is weak, wood is declining, and earth is exhausted—this is the standard cultivation plan of the Array Academy. Set up a 'Fire Gathering Array,' irrigate with 'Fire Spirit Liquid,' and it can be ripened in three years and used as medicine in five years. Is that right?"

In the courtroom area below the stage, many people nodded subconsciously.

"And then?" Su Wanqing asked, "After the plant is ripened, what percentage of its medicinal efficacy will remain? Thirty percent? Forty percent?"

Senior Brother Zhang suddenly stood up: "What do you mean by that, Senior Sister Su? The success rate of our Crimson Flame Fruit cultivated by the Array Academy has never been lower than 70%!"

"I'm referring to the efficacy, not the success rate of pill refining." Su Wanqing looked at him calmly. "Junior Brother Zhang, have you ever refined pills before?"

Senior Brother Zhang paused for a moment.

"You don't refine pills, so you don't know—" Su Wanqing clenched her five fingers, and the strongest flame suddenly exploded, devouring the other four flames. "The pills refined from spiritual plants with unbalanced five elements have many impurities, heavy toxicity, and their efficacy is greatly reduced."

She released her grip, leaving only a ball of raging, flickering flame in her palm.

"Your court only cares whether the spiritual plant has 'grown up' or not, not whether it 'grows well'."

"Absurd!" Senior Brother Zhang raised his voice. "The most important thing in cultivating spiritual plants is growth! Only when they have grown properly can they be used as medicine. Whether they grow well or not is the alchemist's business!"

"So you and the Alchemy Hall argue every year," Su Wanqing retorted, cutting him off with a single sentence. "Last year's batch of 'Ice Heart Lotus' had a success rate of less than 50%. The Alchemy Hall said it was due to your improper cultivation, while you said it was their lack of skill—they argued for three months, and in the end, who was responsible?"

Senior Brother Zhang's face turned ashen.

Whispers rippled through the audience—the incident caused quite a stir, and in the end, both sides were held equally accountable, withholding resources for half a year each.

"I'll tell you what the problem is today." Su Wanqing spread her five fingers again, and the five orbs of light reappeared, but this time the proportions changed—fire was still the strongest, but the four orbs of light of metal, water, wood, and earth were no longer weak, but were like four thin threads, winding around the fire orb, forming a stable structure.

"The five elements are balanced, not equal," she said. "Fire-attribute spiritual plants are dominated by fire, that's true. But the other four elements are not 'useless,' they are 'supporting.'"

She lightly tapped her finger, and the golden light brightened slightly: "The Metal element is stern and restrained. The fire is too strong, causing the spiritual energy within the plant to become volatile and the medicinal properties unstable—adding a little metal will calm it down and make the spiritual energy more docile."

The water glowed: "Water nourishes and flows. The fire has dried up the vitality of the spiritual plants—add some water to moisten them, and their vitality will return."

The lights of wood and earth appeared one after the other: "Wood governs growth, and earth governs bearing. Without wood and earth, fire is like a rootless duckweed, burning out as soon as it's finished."

Five orbs of light spun in her palm, forming a perfect cycle—fire at the very center, the other four rows like four pillars, both constraining and supporting it.

"This is the true balance of the five elements." Su Wanqing raised her eyes and scanned the entire room. "It's not the kind of brute force that the Array Court uses to 'pile up firewood,' nor is it the kind of muddling through that some people in the Medicine Valley use to 'add a little of everything'—it's about clear distinction between primary and secondary elements, and mutual generation and support."

A low murmur of applause rose from the audience in the Medicine Valley area.