Spirit Plant Entry: Immortality Begins with Farming

When I stepped down on the third step, I heard a "crack" sound from under my foot.

It's not gravel. It's bone.

Chen Yuan lowered his head.

A section of hand bone protruded from the dark red sand, its five fingers curled up, the bone black, and its surface covered with fine cracks. He squatted down and brushed the sand away with his fingers.

More than one section.

The entire skeleton was buried in the soil in a curled-up position, with three ribs broken and a thumb-sized hole in the center of the skull.

Some rotten pieces of cloth were still hanging on the skeleton; the color had faded considerably, but it was still recognizable as the gray robes of an outer disciple of the Flying Feather Sect.

The time of death was no more than six months.

Chen Yuan stood up and looked around.

The blood mist thickened, reducing visibility to less than three zhang (approximately 10 meters).

The buzzing in the air became clearer—now it could be discerned that it was countless tiny, overlapping roars, like a million voices wailing deep within the rock face.

The bark texture on the palm of his right hand began to feel hot.

It wasn't pain. It was some kind of deeper resonance, like the heavy breathing deep underground... on the same frequency.

He continued walking forward.

Every ten steps you take, you can find a corpse in the sand.

Some were intact, some were scattered, and some were just a few bones. Their clothing varied; some were outer disciples, some wore the attire of other sects, and some were even dressed in animal skins, resembling rogue cultivators.

The ways they died were also different.

Some were pierced by sharp weapons, some had their bones twisted as if crushed by a tremendous force, some were charred black, and some... were left with only a layer of skin covering their bones, their flesh and blood nowhere to be found.

Chen Yuan stopped in front of a corpse.

This body is very special—it is in a cross-legged sitting position, the bones are intact, and the bone color is not dark red, but a light gold.

On the sand in front of the corpse, several lines of writing were carved with a finger, the characters illegible and the edges blurred by the blood mist:

"The Seventh Day"

Qi Sea depletion

Blood poison seeps into the bones

This method is fraudulent.

Wang Mo...you...

The words after that are illegible.

Chen Yuan stared at the two characters "Wang Mo" for three breaths.

He then bypassed the corpses and continued forward.

The rock face began to narrow.

It shrank from three zhang wide to one zhang wide, and then to a narrow gap that only allows one person to pass through.

The rock walls on both sides were no longer dark red, but turned deep purple, with a viscous black liquid seeping from the surface, making a "plop" sound when it dripped.

The stench of blood in the air had faded, replaced by a cloying, nauseating smell of decay.

Chen Yuan stopped at the entrance of the crevice.

The pulsation of the bark lines on his palm intensified. At the same time, he felt the forbidden area token in his arms... getting hot.

It wasn't a physical burning sensation. It was an abnormal fluctuation in spiritual energy, as if someone was monitoring him through a token.

He took off the token and held it in his hand.

The words "Blood Refinement" on the surface of the wooden plaque were faintly glowing.

Chen Yuan stuffed the token into his boot and covered it with his trouser leg.

The moment the light was obscured, a low growl came from the depths of the crevice.

It wasn't a human roar. It was a lower, more murky wail, a mournful cry squeezed from the depths of the rocks.

He drew the spirit hoe from his waist—before entering the forbidden area, the disciples of the Deacon Hall had taken away his storage bag, leaving only this hoe used for planting herbs.

A wooden handle, an iron tip, and a blade that's been ground to a semi-sharp finish; it can't kill people, but it can chop wood.

He gripped the hoe handle and stepped into the crevice.

Darkness swallowed him.

It's not the darkness of night.

It was a blood mist so thick it was almost invisible, making no difference whether your eyes were open or closed.

I could only rely on touch—my left hand was on the wall, and the rock face my fingertips touched was wet, slippery, and cold, with a layer of slippery, moss-like substance on the surface.

Breathing became difficult.

The cloyingly sweet, putrid smell in the air felt like being filled with syrup, sinking heavily into my lungs. With each step, my chest tightened.

After walking about twenty steps, a faint light appeared ahead.

Dark red light shone through the gap, vaguely revealing the outline of an open space.

Chen Yuan quickened his pace.

With the last three steps, he burst through the crevice, and suddenly everything opened up before him—

It's a cave.

It's ridiculously big.

The dome is over thirty feet high, and the rock walls are ring-shaped and taper inward, like an inverted giant bowl.

In the center of the cave was a deep pit, ten feet in diameter, in which a dark red liquid churned. It was not water, but blood plasma so thick it was almost solid.

Bubbles continuously rise on the surface of the blood plasma. When the bubbles burst, they spray out blood mist, which rises into the air, condenses into blood droplets, and then falls back into the pit like rain.

Repeatedly.

Around the pit were seven corpses.

Not the kind that's buried in the ground.

They sit cross-legged on the edge of the pit, facing the blood pool, in a meditation posture.

The body was intact, with the skin and flesh shriveled and stuck to the bones, and was dark red, as if it had been smoked in a pool of blood for countless years.

Seven corpses, in seven directions.

Chen Yuan approached the nearest body.

He was an old man with white hair and beard, but his face was dry and shriveled like tree bark. His eyes were sunken, and his lips were slightly parted, revealing a few blackened teeth.

He wore a faded blue robe with the cloud-patterned insignia of the inner disciples of the Flying Feather Sect embroidered on his chest.

The corpse's hands were in a mudra, resting on its knees. The right index finger was extended and touched the ground in front of it.

There are words on the ground.

Chen Yuan squatted down, brushed away the accumulated dust, and read the line of small characters:

"After three thousand days of blood refinement, I finally understood one truth—this is not purgatory, but the stomach that devours people."

He stood up and looked at the second body.

She was a middle-aged woman with her left arm severed at the shoulder, the cut clean. In her right hand she held a broken sword, the tip of which was embedded in the ground, the words "Liuyun" engraved on the blade—the mark of Liuyun Valley.

There was also a line of text in front of her:

"He who swallows blood, also swallows blood."

The third body was that of a young man, his eyes wide open, with no eyeballs in their sockets, just two black holes. He was clutching his own throat with both hands, his fingernails digging deep into his flesh.

The handwriting was so illegible that it was almost unrecognizable:

"It's laughing...it's laughing..."

The fourth body, the fifth body, the sixth body...

Before each corpse lay a sentence. It was like a dying epiphany, or perhaps a warning.

Chen Yuan walked to the seventh body and stopped.

This one is different.

The remains were in a kneeling position, not in meditation. The hands were outstretched forward, palms facing upward, as if in prayer.

The body was not shriveled, but rather somewhat swollen, with dark purple skin covered in fine blood vessels.

He was wearing a gray robe worn by the outer gatekeeper.

Very new. The time of death was no more than three months ago.

Chen Yuan crouched down and saw what the corpse was holding in its palm—

A section of ginseng root.

Dark red, shriveled and blackened, but recognizable as the rootlets of a blood ginseng. Exactly the same as the rootlets of that blood ginseng in the shantytown.

There were no words in front of the corpse.

But next to the ginseng root, a simple pattern was drawn in blood: a circle with a dot inside.

Chen Yuan stared at the pattern for a long time.

Then he stretched out his right hand, palm up, and held it above the ginseng rootlets.

The bark texture on my palm suddenly twitched!

The ginseng root trembled simultaneously.

Immediately afterwards, the pool of blood in the pit began to boil—not just bubble, but truly boil.

Blood churned and roared, creating a three-foot-high wave of blood.

The waves crashed against the edge of the pit, splashing blood droplets that stretched into long, twisting threads in the air, eventually coalescing into seven blood-red tentacles.

The tips of the whiskers split open, revealing fine, sharp teeth.

They all rushed towards Chen Yuan!

Chen Yuan suddenly withdrew.

But the blood mist was too thick, and he was a beat too slow. His left leg was entangled by a tentacle, its sharp teeth piercing his flesh, and a sharp pain exploded instantly—not the pain of flesh, but the pain of something drilling straight into his bone.

He swung his hoe and chopped at the base of the tendrils.

The hoe blade slashed into the tentacles, the sensation so dull it was almost despairing.

The tentacles contracted in pain, but instead of breaking off, they tightened their grip even more.

The other six whiskers also rolled in at the same time.

Chen Yuan gritted his teeth and pushed the Long Breath Technique to its limit.

The wood-attribute spiritual energy surged through the meridians, but in this environment filled with blood energy, it was like pouring water into a sea of ​​fire, instantly evaporating it.

The bark-like texture on my right palm started to feel hot.

It wasn't resonance, it was...excitement.

Chen Yuan made a firm decision, no longer resisting the erosion of blood energy. Instead, he opened his meridians, allowing the blood energy to flow in along the earth vein imprint.

boom--

My vision was instantly stained red.

He "saw" it—not with his eyes, but with his senses.

Deep within the pool of blood, a huge, indistinct outline curled up. Like a heart, or an embryo, its surface was covered with vascular patterns, pulsating slowly with each breath.

The seven tentacles are its extended "tentacles".

At this moment, the blood energy surging into Chen Yuan's body was being frantically drained by that outline. As if it had discovered a more delicious meal, it abandoned its tentacle attacks and instead used the blood energy connection to directly devour Chen Yuan's life force.

Chen Yuan felt like he was being drained of his energy.

His skin began to dry out, his hair lost its luster, and his vision blurred. At this rate, he would become the eighth corpse in at most thirty breaths.

He looked down at his right hand.

The dark golden veins on the palm of his hand were throbbing wildly. Stimulated by the blood energy, the ginseng's illusory roots sprouted from his palm and reached into the air, like octopus tentacles, wrapping around the surging blood energy in reverse.

Then, start "inhaling".

It's not Chen Yuan absorbing it, it's the fibrous root of the blood ginseng that's absorbing it

It filters, purifies, and transforms the incoming blood and qi into a gentler, more refined energy, which is then fed back to Chen Yuan.

At the same time, a portion of the energy was diverted and, following the blood and qi connection, poured back into the outline deep within the blood pool.

The pulsation of the outline suddenly became disordered.

Chen Yuan seized the opportunity, pulled the forbidden area token from the top of his boot with his left hand, and threw it with all his might toward the blurry outline deep in the blood pool.

The token traced an arc in the air.

The tentacles all turned at once to intercept the token.

At that very moment, the Long Breath Technique within Chen Yuan's body began to operate wildly. The wood elemental energy no longer resisted the blood energy, but instead enveloped it, completing a full cycle within his meridians.

Then, he opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of blood mist.

The blood mist left the body and condensed into seven fine needles, which precisely pierced the roots of the seven tentacles.

This is an unorthodox technique recorded in the second level of the "Cloud and Water Manual"—"Rain Needle." Originally a method for precisely delivering water during irrigation, it has now been transformed into an attack by him using his blood energy.

Blood burst from the base of the whiskers.

All seven whiskers drooped softly at the same time.

Chen Yuan broke free from the restraints on his left leg, turned around, and rushed towards the gap.

The roar of the blood pool came from behind, and the blood plasma surged, but the tentacles did not chase after them—they retreated into the pool, seemingly digesting the blood and qi that they had just inhaled, which had been "contaminated" by the blood ginseng root.

The moment he rushed into the crevice, Chen Yuan's legs buckled and he collapsed to his knees.

He coughed violently, each cough producing bloody froth. Looking down at his left leg—the spot where the tentacle had bitten him—the skin was blackened, the flesh shrunken, revealing the stark white bone.

At the edge of the wound, a wisp of dark red blood was spreading upwards along the meridians.

He gritted his teeth and pressed his right hand against the wound.

The ginseng root emerged from the palm, pierced the wound, and began to devour the invading blood energy.

The process was painful, but the spread stopped.

Ten breaths later, the illusory root retracted.

The wound was still gruesome, but it was no longer getting worse.

Chen Yuan used the rock wall to support himself as he stood up and limped out. With each step, his left leg felt like it was being burned by a hot iron.

But he didn't stop.

When they returned to the open space, it was completely dark—the “darkness” in the forbidden area was that the blood mist was so thick that it blocked out all light, leaving only the dark red glow emanating from the blood pool deep within the cave.

He sat down by the pit, tore off a piece of his clothes, and hastily bandaged his wound.

Then he took out the forbidden area token from the boot.

The light on the words "Blood Refinement" on the wooden plaque had completely gone out. It wasn't that they were obscured, but rather that the characters themselves had become blurred, as if they had been corroded by something.

Chen Yuan tossed the token at his feet and looked at his right hand.

Beneath the bark texture of his palm, the dark gold veins were clearer than before.

Moreover, he could feel that the section of Blood Ginseng Yang Body that he had merged with was slowly and greedily digesting the blood energy it had just devoured.

At the same time, a vague "emotion" is conveyed.

It's not language, it's a response at the level of instinct:

hungry.

I want to eat more.

Chen Yuan grinned and chuckled.

The sound echoed in the empty forbidden area, only to be quickly swallowed by the blood mist.

He closed his eyes and began to circulate the Long Breath Technique.

This time, the surging blood energy no longer rushed in recklessly. Filtered by the blood ginseng's fibrous root, it became gentle, like a tamed wild beast, flowing along the meridians and nourishing the parched sea of ​​qi.

The cultivation speed is three times faster than in the outside world.

The price is that with each cycle of the body's energy, the bark lines on the palm of the right arm deepen one degree.

Like tree roots taking root in flesh and blood.

It grows deeper and deeper.

After an unknown amount of time, Chen Yuan suddenly opened his eyes.

He "heard" it—not with his ears, but through the sensation transmitted by the Blood Ginseng Root via the earth's veins.

Deep within the cave, beside the pool of blood.

One of those seven corpses, the corpse of the outer disciple who was holding the ginseng root just now...

My finger twitched.

It wasn't the wind.

It is a true, slow flexion and extension.