Cultivation begins with harvest.

After harvesting the Linquan pumpkins, twelve remained. Chen Guang kept the two largest ones for his own use, intending to use them to soak the seeds of the spirit rice next year to increase yield.

Ten Linquan pumpkins were placed inside the Black Void Serpent's belt.

The remaining two are for my own use.

This time, a total of 6 Thousand Water Gourds, 5 copies of the Spring Spring Technique, and 3 talismans for the Spring Spring Technique were obtained.

Only two of them were of excellent quality, which made Chen Guang glance at a pile of spirit soil in the corner. The surface was blackish-purple, but the inside was a bright purple-red like blood. Just by being piled up there, some light purple-red liquid gradually flowed out.

That is black thistle soil, the best soil for growing Linquan pumpkins. Just having it piled up there caused Chen Guang a lot of trouble, but it was a happy trouble. With black thistle soil, the quality of growing Linquan pumpkins next year will be much better. However, the 100 jin of black thistle soil that he bought now is not enough for one mu.

Afterwards, they harvested cloud heart grass and red peony.

The remaining fragments of Jade Heart Grass only rewarded 5 days of cultivation, totaling 145 days, or 1740 hours of cultivation. However, this increased Chen Guang's mana by a quarter of a pot. Chen Guang is now only 5/12 away from breaking through to the third level of Qi Refining, which is nearly 3000 hours, or 250 days. He can break through to the third level of Qi Refining next year on his own. This speed is actually quite fast.

If it were an ordinary person, without using any external aids, they could cultivate for a maximum of three hours a day. Without using any elixirs, they would certainly be unable to make any further progress during the three-year preliminary examination.

The higher the cultivation level, the more meridians and acupoints are opened, and the higher the cultivation efficiency becomes. The influence of aptitude becomes more pronounced. This is why Chen Guang, who is of weak Ding aptitude, needs so much time. For Ding aptitude, the efficiency of converting spiritual energy into mana is twice that of Chen Guang. If it is Bing aptitude, it is more than five times.

Their breakthroughs didn't require as much time as Chen Guang's. This wasn't obvious yet because Chen Guang was ahead of them and didn't need to spend time on the mortal realm. But once they reached the mid-stage of Qi Refining, this point would become extremely apparent.

"In other words, the cultivation points rewarded by the Jade Heart Grass are actually calculated based on my pure cultivation efficiency, rather than a fixed increase. Does this mean my aptitude affects the speed at which the cheat program helps me improve?"

This conclusion left Chen Guang speechless, but it also made him slightly worried about his excuse for breaking through next year. Although his trust in the Qingheng Sect and his lack of need to be so conservative had gradually weakened his psychological burden of using the Jade Heart Grass to quickly improve his cultivation, it was not yet time to completely get rid of this worry.

Being too weak is the main factor leading to a lack of security, so it is inevitable to want to avoid being noticed by others. This anxiety will probably not subside until one's strength reaches a certain level.

The specific concern is: a weakling, relying on the pure spiritual energy and Qi-nourishing pills, can break through to the second level of Qi Refining in a year, which is already quite fast. What if he breaks through to the third level of Qi Refining?

How can this be explained?

The main reason for Chen Guang's rapid breakthrough is that there is a limit to the amount of time he can cultivate each day, and the spiritual energy conversion efficiency of those with weak cultivation aptitude is indeed a bit slow. It would be suspicious if it were too fast.

"Wait, wait!"

While his thoughts were in turmoil, Chen Guang suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He seized upon this inspiration and quickly came up with a solution.

That means becoming a "medicine addict"!

To be seen as a sickly person by others, all he needs to do is pretend to go to those shops and buy a batch of pills related to improving cultivation, making it look like he's going to consume them like crazy—things like Pulse Protection Pills, Star Sprout Pills, Qi Harmony Pills, and Yuyan Pills…

Buy as much as you can, then resell it at the noodle market. Just be a middleman who doesn't aim to make a profit. To be more precise, it's more like "cleansing one's cultivation level." Basically, just create the image of a "drug addict" and make sure that you sell these drugs without anyone knowing.

Do you need to make money?

No need, just don't lose too much money.

As long as he cultivates the Jade Heart Grass, Chen Guang doesn't need to work so hard, and he can use his free time to do other things. Therefore, there's nothing to regret about selling it.

But this made Chen Guang somewhat emotional: "So there's such a thing as 'black cultivation' in cultivation levels?"

A standalone market stall is still quite eye-catching. You can keep some pills and not rush to recoup your investment. When you have a reasonable reason to go out, such as "Fanglin Trip", you can sell some more at the market stall and make a profit as a middleman.

"I'll have to check when I have time to see if the sect has any special regulations regarding preventing resale, just in case I get myself into trouble."

Chen Guang needs to carefully calculate which goods he can sell at the Yanmian Market.

Really a lot.

The first stage (50) reward of Jade Heart Grass is actually a low-grade jade spiritual weapon [Jade Cutting Blade], and the unlocked cultivation content is naturally the seed condensation technique.

Although the Jade-Cutting Blade is a low-grade spiritual weapon, it doesn't have many special functions. Like a small fruit knife, its main purpose is to prevent the spiritual plants from being mixed with their own characteristics when harvesting them.

Jade Heart Grass must be harvested with tools that are neither metal nor stone, otherwise its medicinal properties will be damaged.

It's an incredibly sharp jade-cutting blade, yet it doesn't pose any hidden dangers. You can keep it for now and sell it if you're really short of money.

The first stage reward for Red Peony (50) is a unique palm-sized second-tier material called [Flame Crystal]. The new cultivation content that is unlocked naturally includes the technique of seed condensation.

The first stage reward for cultivating spirit plants is accumulating 50 units, and the second stage requires accumulating 1000 units. Overall, the rewards are not as good as others, but the daily rewards for spirit plants are already quite generous. In some ways, the Seed Condensation Technique is more valuable, but it is only a new supplement to the cultivation of spirit plants.

As the information accumulates to a certain level, the cultivation information of the spiritual plant becomes more comprehensive, and the seed-condensing technique merely serves as a supplement to this information.

Linquan Pumpkin has only accumulated 21/50, so he is temporarily ineligible for the first stage reward.

But Chen Guang already had nine Thousand Water Gourds. Even if he had one Linquan, one Moon Essence Liquid, one Cold Water Spirit Liquid, and one spare, four would be the maximum. On his first trip, Chen Guang only planned to take two with him, as these things couldn't fit into other storage artifacts and would be quite troublesome to take with him.

They had already planned how to take Chen Guang away.

The harvested and dried spirit rice totaled 455 catties. I took 100 catties with me to the market and stuffed the water gourd inside.

We will leave the Purple Spirit Earth Root aside for now.

The Spring of Life talisman doesn't accumulate rewards and isn't very useful within the sect, so it's best to use it now.

If there are too many Crimson Melting Pills, some can be traded.

I have seven bottles of Qi Nourishing Pills. One bottle has already used one pill, but it's still worth a thousand catties of spirit rice. The price of a Qi Nourishing Pill is in the range of 160 to 180 catties of spirit rice. It's an essential cultivation resource. Other pills can be more expensive, but Qi Nourishing Pills are the most basic type of pills. They are affordable for every cultivator in the mid-stage of Qi Refining.

All pills produced by the Qingheng Sect are packaged in bottles of three. Although the price of Qi-Nourishing Pills is low, there is still a substantial profit. Even though the sect buys raw materials at high prices, a single stalk of four-leaf Jade Heart Grass costs only 18 catties of spirit rice. Three Jade Heart Grass stalks can be used to refine a batch of Qi-Nourishing Pills, producing about 5 to 8 pills. Compared to other pills, they are less profitable, but they sell very well, so there is no worry about them not selling.

The funding he received from Wei Donglai and the others was immediately used by Chen Guang to make money. Thinking about it, he felt a little bad for them. Chen Guang chuckled. This would be the first business he would undertake in his elixir resale business.

Having decided what to bring, he stuffed the two Thousand Water Gourds into his Spirit Rice Pouch, pushed the cart, and headed towards the branch building with the harvested Jade Heart Grass and Red Peony. The Black Void Serpent Belt was still too small; there simply wasn't enough room for everything.

After waiting for a while in the assigned building, it was Chen Guang's turn. He put all the bags and packages on Linghe's back, leaving no room for anyone else to sit. Linghe was very fast. As soon as they arrived at Xingfeng Market, Chen Guang rented a handcart and headed straight for Fanglin Hall.

After exchanging the goods, he took out the Yongquan Technique Talisman and sold it to Guanglin Hall for 60 catties of spirit rice each, and also took out two bottles of Qi Nourishing Pills and sold them for 170 catties of spirit rice. Only then did he buy the pass token and the Night Walk Pill worth 220 catties of spirit rice. The name Night Walk Pill has nothing to do with speed. It is a kind of pill that cleanses one's aura.

Before entering the Yanmian Market, Chen Guang needed to remove the Qingling Qi from his body, otherwise his special aura would be too obvious and there would be nowhere to hide.

Fang Lintang's shopkeeper kindly reminded Chen Guang: It would be better to sell the spirit rice to them, and that the masked noodle market has a complete set of spiritual artifacts to conceal one's aura, so there is no need for the Nightwalking Pill to wash away one's aura.

But Chen Guang remained obstinate.

After all that, I only had two hundred yuan left.