Spirit Plant Entry: Immortality Begins with Farming

Chen Yuan squatted in the corner of the yard.

Three broken earthenware pots were arranged in a row, their rims covered with dried mud.

He reached out and checked the soil moisture in the leftmost pot—it was warm, a result of the residual flint fragments, which had lasted for more than half a month.

The yellow rice in the pot drooped its ears, the grains were plump, and shone with an unusual pale gold color in the morning light.

Let's see what kind of terms will appear this time.

Chen Yuan stared intently, and a few lines of small characters appeared:

【Name】: Yellow Sprout Rice (Contaminated with Heat)

[Entry]: Mild ripening agent (extractable)

[Status]: Late stage of grouting

"Accelerate..." he murmured, reaching out to gently touch the rice stalks.

The entry transformed into a tender green light and entered between her brows. In her sea of ​​consciousness, next to the pale yellow leaf that represented "minor yield increase," a new leaf appeared, its color as tender as the grass sprouts of early spring.

Instead of immediately testing it, he got up, walked to the corner of the wall, and pulled out a rough pottery bowl from under the woodpile.

The bowl contained half a bowl of murky water—it was sediment that had settled after being drawn in yesterday using the Spirit Rain Technique.

He carried the bowl back to the earthenware basin, his gaze shifting between the middle basin and the one on the right.

The rice in the middle pot has just sprouted ears, which are still green. The pot on the right is the most ordinary; even the rice stalks are half a head shorter than the two plants next to it.

Chen Yuan chose the middle pot, a thought suddenly forming in his mind.

The tender green leaf in his sea of ​​consciousness vanished.

There were no earth-shattering changes, but when Chen Yuan squatted down and looked closely at the rice ears, he noticed that the green color at the tips of the ears was fading at a visible speed.

It doesn't turn yellow all at once, but fades little by little, as if the color is being slowly erased by an invisible hand.

He reached out and pinched a grain of rice.

The hardness has changed.

It was soft and squishy when I touched it yesterday, but now I can feel a slight resistance on my fingertips.

"Half a day... can equal half a day of growth."

Chen Yuan muttered to himself, his legs feeling a little numb as he stood up, and he stumbled, grabbing the wall for support. The morning light shone directly on the few perilla plants in the corner, revealing small, dark red dots on the undersides of their leaves.

Fire aphid.

The creature, about the size of a grain of rice, has two pairs of thin wings on its back and is motionless, sucking sap from a leaf.

Chen Yuan frowned, went back into the house and found a small porcelain bottle. When he uncorked it, a pungent medicinal smell wafted out—it was "insect repellent powder," which he had bought last year, and only a little bit was left at the bottom of the bottle.

When the mixture was diluted with water and sprayed onto the grass blades, the fire aphids shook their wings, two flew away, and the rest clung on desperately.

Chen Yuan sprayed it again, waited for fifteen minutes, and then used the tip of a blade of grass to pry the insects off one by one, crushing them on the muddy ground. The dark red sap splattered, like dried bloodstains.

By the time everything was finished, the sun had already risen above the roof of the shed.

He hurriedly ate two mouthfuls of the cold porridge left over from last night. The porridge contained grain husks that hadn't been cleaned properly, making a gritty sound when he chewed it.

In the afternoon, Chen Yuan went to Baicaotang.

There were no customers in the shop, and Manager Liao was dozing off, his head resting on the counter. Hearing footsteps, he looked up and rubbed his eyes.

"Young friend Chen, what are you selling this time?"

"Buy two bottles of insect repellent." Chen Yuan walked to the counter. "The fire aphids have reappeared."

"Fire aphids?" Shopkeeper Liao bent down and pulled out two porcelain bottles from under the counter. "Did your perilla grass attract them? Well, fire-attribute spiritual plants love to attract these things."

He paused, then suddenly remembered something: "Oh right, the sect is currently collecting 'Fireweed' for making fire-attribute talismans, and there's a lot of demand. This stuff is easy to grow and doesn't require much spiritual energy, it just needs a warm environment—your courtyard is perfect."

Chen Yuan took the porcelain bottle: "Edelweiss? What's the price?"

"Ordinary quality, two spirit stones per plant. If you can cultivate one with strong fire energy, three spirit stones." Shopkeeper Liao lowered his voice, "Would you like to give it a try? I have some seeds here, I'll give you a few."

Chen Yuan hesitated for a moment, then took the small paper package handed to him by Manager Liao.

"Things aren't peaceful in the Eastern Wilderness," Manager Liao said, fiddling with his abacus. "The demonic path is very active. The Blood Fiend Sect clashed with the Flying Feather Sect, and several people died. Trade routes have been disrupted by 30%, and medicinal herbs from the Eastern Wilderness have all gone up in price."

Chen Yuan's gaze swept across the shelves, and several medicinal herbs labeled "produced in Donghuang" had the word "increased" added in vermilion ink after their prices.

"Looks like things are really going to get chaotic." Manager Liao sighed. "If you could grow more of your edelweiss, I'd buy it regularly."

"I'll give it a try first."

As Chen Yuan left Baicaotang, the pedestrians on the market street hurried by. Several vendors huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. As he passed by, Chen Yuan overheard half a sentence: "...More men have fallen at the front..."

He didn't linger and went straight back to the shantytown.

---

In the evening, Chen Yuan dug a shallow pit in the yard.

Five seeds—dark red, the size of rice grains, with fine veins on their surface—were poured out of the paper packet. They were buried in the soil, covered with a thin layer of earth, and the Spirit Rain Technique was cast.

The mist drawn by the second layer of the Spirit Rain Technique was thicker, falling onto the ground with a fine rustling sound.

After watering, he squatted down and waited.

A quarter of an hour, then a quarter of an hour.

A faint red glow emerged from the soil, like glowing embers, dark and somber.

Chen Yuan stared intently, and a few lines of small characters appeared:

【Name】: Edelweiss (germination stage)

[Entry]: None

[Status]: Growing

No entry found, that's normal.

He got up and went back inside, closing the door behind him. The oil lamp wasn't lit, but moonlight streamed in through the cracks in the window.

It's time to start cultivating.

In the sea of ​​consciousness, in that hazy space, "Entry Stardust" was a little brighter than when it first awakened.

Four leaves float in the center—one from a mutated golden thread grass discovered a few days ago [with faint spiritual energy], and the other two red leaves from a newly cultivated mutated perilla grass [with faint fire spiritual energy].

Since we don't have enough spirit stones, we can only use [weak spiritual energy].

With a thought, Chen Yuan caused the white leaves to vanish. A warm current rose and flowed along the meridians.

He immediately activated the Long Breath Technique, using the gentle aura unique to wood-attribute techniques to envelop the spiritual energy in an attempt to refine it.

Half an hour later, he opened his eyes.

His brows furrowed.

wrong.

The spiritual energy was absorbed smoothly, but after entering the dantian, it dissipated rapidly, like water poured into sand. The barrier of the third level of Qi Refining remained completely unmoved, without even a crack.

He looked at the red leaf.

Fire elemental energy... Wood generates fire, perhaps I can use the fire's power to break through the barrier?

After hesitating for a moment, Chen Yuan still took out the red leaf. The fire elemental energy entered his body, and he immediately felt a burning sensation in his meridians.

The Long Breath Technique belongs to the Wood element, which is inherently incompatible with Fire elemental energy, making its refining process difficult.

Another hour passed.

Chen Yuan broke out in a cold sweat, and felt a dull ache in his lower abdomen.

The fire elemental energy and the wood elemental energy were intertwined, like two knotted threads that became more and more tangled the more they were pulled.

He decisively stopped working.

When I opened my eyes, it was almost dusk.

The sunset painted the dilapidated houses and rooftops of the shantytown a vibrant orange-red, as if they were on fire.

There's a problem.

Chen Yuan muttered to himself as he restarted the Long Breath Technique. This time, he didn't absorb spiritual energy; he simply circulated the technique while concentrating his consciousness on the stardust in his sea of ​​consciousness.

Stardust glimmered faintly.

A simple diagram of light spots and fine lines appeared before my eyes—the light spots were acupoints, and the fine lines were the pathways of meridians. Most of the fine lines were light green, representing the spiritual energy of the wood element.

However, at several key points, multicolored spots of light appeared next to the green thin line: a turbid yellow light in the dantian, and dim gray spots at the intersection of meridians.

At the same time, several lines of small print appeared:

[Technique Status]: Long Breath Technique (Basic Wood-type Breathing Method)

[Entry]: Inefficient (wood elemental energy conversion rate is only 42%)

【关联状态】：四灵根驳杂不纯（金12%、木31%、水25%、火18%、土14%）

[Diagnosis]: The cultivation method is not well-suited to the spiritual root attribute, and the advantages of the wood element are not fully utilized; the mixed spiritual energy interferes with the circulation of energy. It is recommended to prioritize purifying the spiritual energy or change to a more suitable cultivation method.

Chen Yuan stared at those few lines of text, his breathing becoming heavier.

It turned out to be the case.

It's not that there's not enough spiritual energy, it's that the cultivation technique is too bad and the spiritual roots are too mixed. It's like trying to scoop water with a strainer; no matter how much you scoop, you can't retain it.

He recalled his days in the laboratory before he traveled through time. Back then, he was in charge of data analysis, and he always had to clean up noise and correct systematic errors before he could get reliable results.

Cultivating immortality... it turns out that it's also a discipline that emphasizes "data quality".

Footsteps could be heard outside the window.

Chen Yuan composed himself and pushed open the wooden door.

Old Zhao was walking back from the other side of the field, carrying a hoe on his shoulder and his trousers covered in mud.

"Old Zhao," Chen Yuan greeted him.

Old Zhao stopped and wiped his brow. "Young Chen, why the long face? Didn't you have a good harvest?"

"It's alright." Chen Yuan paused, then tentatively asked, "Elder Zhao, what do you usually do if you get stuck in cultivation?"

"Stuck?" Old Zhao planted his spirit hoe on the ground, took out his pipe, and said, "It depends on how you're stuck. If it's because you don't have enough spiritual energy, buy some pills; if you've hit a bottleneck, you'll have to find a fortuitous opportunity. But for people like us at the bottom, it's mostly because our cultivation techniques are inadequate."

"Cultivation technique..."

"Yes." Old Zhao lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and said, "I've seen a few people practice your family's 'Long Breath Technique' when I was young. The highest they ever reached was the fourth level of Qi Refining. To go any higher, you need to get something better."

Chen Yuan remained silent.

Changing your cultivation method sounds so easy.

Even the worst low-grade Yellow Rank cultivation technique in the market costs at least fifty spirit stones.

He hasn't even saved enough money for "Detailed Explanation of the Cloud and Water Technique".

Old Zhao saw his predicament and tapped his pipe: "Actually, there's another way."

"Please speak."

"Body tempering," Old Zhao said in a low voice. "Recently, there have been rumors that the 'Tide of Laws' is coming, and the fluctuations in spiritual energy will become more intense. At such times, those with strong physiques will live longer than those who only know how to breathe."

"Body tempering..."

"That's right." Old Zhao exhaled a puff of smoke. "Old Wu from the blacksmith shop on East Street is a body cultivator, at the third level of Qi Refining. His fists can smash bluestone slabs. Last year when the monsters attacked the village, he single-handedly withstood the first wave with his physique and waited for the patrol team to arrive."

Chen Yuan noted it down.

After seeing Old Zhao off, he returned to the house. The oil lamp was still unlit, and moonlight seeped in through the cracks in the window, casting pale patches of light on the floor.

He got out of bed and walked to the window, looking out through the crack.

The light in Widow Li's house was still on, and two figures were projected onto the window paper—one tall and one short. The taller one had broad shoulders and a thick back, with a robust build.

It wasn't the same monk from the patrol team a few days ago.

The figure moved, and Widow Li seemed to push the other person, who then grabbed her wrist.

The silhouettes on the window paper overlapped, swayed, then shrank and disappeared from sight.

Chen Yuan withdrew his gaze and lay back down on the bed.

The sound of a night watchman's drum came from outside the window; the bamboo clapper struck three times.

It's midnight.

Chen Yuan rolled over, facing the wall.

Sleepiness just won't come.