Harvest

In a dark mountain cave, a cross-legged figure slowly opened his eyes.

It had taken a month to finally recover from his injuries. He could not help marveling at the formidable vitality of cultivators.

His severed bones had fused and healed anew, while the lung that had nearly been sliced in two had mended as good as before.

Only now did he have the leisure to count his spoils. He took out a storage bag and poured its contents onto the ground.

First was the Golden Flying Sword that had nearly hacked him to death. Unfortunately, it was a metal-element flying sword. Though he could barely use it, it did not match his spiritual roots and could not unleash its full power.

The items poured from the storage bag formed a heap as tall as a person. More than half of them were various Spirit Fruits.

After carefully taking stock, he found more than thirty varieties. Added to those Wang Hong had collected himself, he now possessed over forty varieties of Spirit Fruit.

In particular, more than a dozen jade-white, crystalline fruits caught his eye.

These should be the White Crystal Fruit recorded in the books, a second-tier Spirit Fruit. It was said that consuming it directly could refine a cultivator's spiritual power and remove impurities from it.

This was truly good stuff. He had combed all of Qingxu City and had not seen a single shop selling it.

Pure spiritual power could make spells more powerful, sustain combat longer, and could even increase the chances of successful Foundation Establishment.

He then sorted through the remaining dozens of Spirit Fruits. They were all first-tier Spirit Fruits, with no particularly precious varieties among them.

He pushed the Spirit Fruits into one pile and continued sorting the other items. There were actually more than fifty thousand Spirit Stones. Wang Hong was deeply shocked by Cultivator Ding's wealth. An ordinary Rogue Cultivator in the Qi Refining Realm would already be considered well-off if he had a few hundred Spirit Stones. Could becoming a treasure-stealing cultivator really be so promising?

There were also several jade slips. He inspected them one by one, first looking at a movement secret art called "Shifting Form and Changing Position."

This should have been the strange movement art Cultivator Ding had used to evade attacks, drifting two zhang away in a single instant.

There was also Cultivator Ding's primary Cultivation Technique, the "Sharp Metal Art," which was of no use to Wang Hong.

Another jade slip recorded the cultivation insights of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, followed by some accounts of his life.

It said that this cultivator had retired to Mistwind Gorge in his later years. Fond of drinking throughout his life, he planted a Spirit Fruit orchard and raised several spirit monkeys to brew spirit wine for him.

Only then did Wang Hong learn that deep within the orchard stood the cave abode of a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Those tens of thousands of Spirit Stones must have been this Foundation Establishment cultivator's fortune.

Cultivator Ding had been far too greedy. After obtaining such an enormous sum of Spirit Stones, he had still coveted Wang Hong's possessions. In the end, he had given away his life for nothing.

There was also a water-element cultivation technique, the "Gentle Water Art," a copy of the "Spirit Taming Art," and "Secret Brews of the Wine Master."

The Gentle Water Art could be cultivated from the Qi Refining Realm all the way to the Foundation Establishment Realm. It was probably the primary Cultivation Technique of that Foundation Establishment cultivator.

The Spirit Taming Art was divided into two major sections. One covered insect taming, including the raising and control of all kinds of spirit insects. The other covered beast taming, including the raising and control of all kinds of birds and beasts.

Secret Brews of the Wine Master recorded brewing methods for several high-grade first-tier spirit wines and two second-tier spirit wines.

High-grade spirit wines were currently things one could encounter only by chance. First, their ingredients were precious and difficult to find. Second, the brewing methods were the secrets of each wine master and were not easily passed on. On top of that, the brewing process was long, often taking decades or even centuries.

Thus, high-grade spirit wines had all but vanished from the market. Whenever one appeared, cultivators from every direction would scramble to seize it.

Once cultivators reached the Foundation Establishment Realm, they could generally only rely on Spirit Stones or pills to replenish their depleted spiritual power; some could only recover through meditation. Spirit Stones and pills replenished spiritual power slowly, causing great inconvenience in battle. Compared to spirit wine, they simply could not be mentioned in the same breath.

After putting away the jade slips, he scattered all the Spirit Stones across the space's soil. Once the space absorbed these Spirit Stones, its area should reach four mu. He had been worrying about where to plant all the Spirit Fruits he had obtained.

Wang Hong then picked up a black little sword from the ground, only as long as his palm. It was actually a Spirit Artifact flying sword used by Foundation Establishment cultivators, worth at least tens of thousands of Spirit Stones.

Once again, he lamented that Cultivator Ding truly should not have pursued him. Perhaps the man had grown accustomed to killing people and seizing treasures; whenever he saw a target, he could not resist striking. In the end, it had only benefited Wang Hong.

There was still a pile of miscellaneous things on the ground. He rummaged through them for a while and found only spirit herbs, spirit ore, and similar items. Nothing especially valuable remained, so he simply swept everything into his storage bag.

Unfortunately, he had not found a technique for concealing cultivation. Wang Hong dearly wanted one; it would surely be quite useful for tricking people.

Still, this time's harvest had already been abundant. The most valuable thing in life was knowing contentment.

His Primordial Spirit appeared above the space. The Spirit Stones had already been fully absorbed, and the land now covered four mu. Based on his previous calculations, the flow of time should have reached thirty-three times that of the outside world.

Wang Hong planted one of each type of Spirit Fruit he had collected, filling the newly opened one mu of land.

Naturally, the more White Crystal Fruit, the better. He ought to plant plenty of such good things, so he planted all fifteen White Crystal Fruit seeds.

Recently, he had discovered that the Spirit Grains and spirit wheat had begun mutating again. This time, however, not all of them mutated—only about half.

The plants had grown even taller, their stalks as thick as bowls and nearly one zhang high. Their grains had become larger, and their maturation period had grown longer as well.

The mutation had not yet fully completed, so he did not know what they would ultimately become. Wang Hong was greatly looking forward to it.

Seeing several spirit bees dancing among the spirit herbs, he remembered the Spirit Taming Art he had just acquired. This was the perfect chance to try it on these spirit bees.

According to the Spirit Taming Art, a bee colony was much like a human kingdom, with clear ranks and meticulous divisions of labor.

The worker roles were further divided into those responsible for gathering nectar, brewing honey, cleaning the hive, feeding the eggs of the next generation, and many other specialized tasks. All these workers were female bees.

Though the male bees were larger, they did not take part in any labor.

They were responsible for only two things. First was fighting: they guarded the queen bee and the hive in daily life, and whenever battle came, they were the ones who risked their lives.

Second, they spent each day surrounding the queen bee and mating with her. A queen bee could lay several thousand eggs each day. They must have been exhausted too.

A normal spirit bee colony had a queen bee, and all spirit bees obeyed her commands.

If the queen bee in a colony died or disappeared by accident, some of the female bees would slowly evolve into queen bees.

However, queen bees evolved from such female bees were innately deficient and of poor quality. The constitutions of the offspring they bred would also severely degenerate.

The bee colony in the space was currently queenless. What he needed to do was find the strongest egg among the unhatched ones, make it recognize him as its master, and then raise it into a queen bee. In the future, he would control the colony through the queen bee.

However, that piece of honeycomb had spent nearly three years in the space, and the original eggs had all hatched. The current queen bees had all transformed from female bees, so their quality was poor, and naturally the eggs they laid were not much good either.

He suddenly remembered that Cultivator Ding's storage bag also contained a piece of honeycomb. Only a month had passed, so it should not have hatched yet.

He immediately took that piece of honeycomb from the storage bag. Sure enough, it contained many eggs that had not yet hatched.

He picked out the strongest egg, forced out a drop of blood essence from his fingertip, and slowly drew a tiny rune in the air. Then, with a surge of spiritual power, he activated it. The rune emitted a faint glow and flew into the insect's body.

At that moment, Wang Hong felt an inexplicable connection form between himself and that insect.

He then manually made a queen cell and placed the master-recognized egg inside. The young egg in the queen cell would receive special care from the colony, be fed royal jelly for a long time, and eventually become the new queen bee.

After the new queen bee was born, the colony would kill the unsuitable queens and leave behind only the finest queen.

After finishing with the bee colony, Wang Hong remembered that he had previously caught several ant eggs and brought them in. He wondered how they were doing.

Sweeping his Spiritual Sense through the space, he discovered several ants gathered around one of his spirit herbs, chewing away with great relish. Wang Hong flew into a rage. His spirit herbs were meant to be sold for Spirit Stones.

He threw them all out of the space. Remembering his earlier experiment, he caught them again and brought them back into the space. Sure enough, creatures hatched within the space could be brought into it.

Having dealt with matters in the space, it was time to return to Qingxu City. Though he had endured countless dangers this time, his harvest had also been full to bursting.

There was no vacant land left in the space. Even if he found spirit herbs now, he would have nowhere to plant them.

Moreover, all his magical artifacts had been destroyed. Should he encounter danger, his combat strength would be greatly reduced.

Thus, with a shake of his body, he transformed into a middle-aged man with a face full of bristling beard and blended into a group returning to Qingxu City.

During Wang Hong's absence, his several shops had operated normally, bringing him an additional income of more than thirty thousand Spirit Stones.

Zhao Ning also reported a piece of news that drew his attention.

Recently, someone had been secretly investigating the supply channels of the Elixir Pavilion, trying to uncover information about their supplier or alchemist.

But the investigator had asked the wrong person. He had questioned the soldiers stationed in the shop and tried to bribe one of Wang Hong's subordinate soldiers with five Spirit Stones.

That person had been thinking far too simply. In the eyes of other mortals or cultivators at the first level of the Qi Refining Realm, five Spirit Stones were already no small fortune.

In the eyes of Wang Hong's soldiers, it was merely a fraction of their monthly income. As his own income rose, the treatment of his subordinate soldiers had risen with the tide.

What was more, they were comrades who had endured countless trials of life and death together.

This matter gave Wang Hong a warning. Since he intended to open shops selling pills and spirit herbs, it was only a matter of time before someone set their sights on him.

If no one could ever discover the source of his goods, suspicions would instead arise after enough time had passed.

The spirit wine shop was easy enough. He had hired dozens of mortals to help brew spirit wine. Since Spirit Rice matured in only three years and could be bought as long as one had Spirit Stones, while the recipe for Spirit Rice wine was no secret and could be purchased with a little money.

Anyone with interest only needed to make a few inquiries to learn that Skinny Monkey and the others brewed the spirit wine themselves. At present, there was only one wine cellar. He merely needed to build several more cellars for storing aged wine to blind people's eyes and cover their ears.

As for the Elixir Pavilion, Wang Hong thought it over carefully. Rather than hide and conceal things until they became mysterious and suspicious, he might as well expose them openly.

What was commonly seen aroused no suspicion. If he exposed it directly and made people accustomed to it, they would instead have no reason to doubt it.

"Mm, from now on, I'll hide the secret of the space beneath what is grand and splendid, open and aboveboard," Wang Hong pondered inwardly.

But once he had more Spirit Stones to spare, he should still purchase some spirit fields.

Spirit fields that had been managed for a long time would have many stable outputs. He only needed to hire people to tend them, without spending too much of his own energy.

At the same time, they could conceal the origin of some spirit herbs.