Opening a Spirit Field

One day, half a month later, Song Qingming was making talismans at home when Song Qinghe's voice suddenly came from outside, requesting an audience.

Upon hearing it, Song Qingming hurriedly set down his talisman brush, put away the unfinished talisman-making materials, tidied the table, and welcomed Song Qinghe inside.

Seeing Song Qingming, Song Qinghe did not beat around the bush. He got straight to the point and asked, "Qingming, do you happen to have any magical artifacts for setting up a Spirit Gathering Array? These past two days, I found a ley line rich in Spiritual Energy in a mountain hollow west of the Mysterious Iron Mine. There happens to be a spring beside it as well. I want to cultivate a few mu of Spirit Fields there. Could you help me set up a Spirit Gathering Array?"

After arriving at Lingyuan Mountain, Song Qinghe had acted completely out of character. Rather than spending every day in seclusion cultivating, he had wandered all over Lingyuan Mountain. Song Qingming had found it rather strange but had not asked further. Only now did he learn that Song Qinghe had wanted to open up some Spirit Fields here.

The Song Family also had several dozen mu of Spirit Fields on Funiu Mountain, producing over ten thousand catties of Spirit Rice every year. Thirty percent of that Spirit Rice had to be handed over to the Carefree Sect, another thirty percent to the Huang Family main branch, leaving the Song Family with only forty percent.

After supporting the family's more than twenty cultivators, they could still keep a surplus of roughly two thousand catties. Sold in Qinghe Market, this Spirit Rice brought the Song Family an income of more than two hundred Spirit Stones each year, making it an important source of revenue for the family.

"These past few days, I saw Sixth Brother wandering around to clear his head, and thought you simply weren't used to living here. Turns out you just can't sit still. As it happens, I have a set of Array Flags on me. I'll go take a look with you in a moment. Don't worry—leave the array setup to me."

The Spirit Gathering Array was an ordinary array that gathered the Spiritual Energy within spirit veins. It was generally set up in Spirit Fields and Spiritual Medicine Gardens. Some cultivators also deliberately set one up in their Cave Abodes, ensuring they had sufficient Spiritual Energy when breaking through in cultivation or advancing their cultivation techniques.

Setting up a Spirit Gathering Array was not particularly difficult. Even a Low-grade Array Master like Song Qingming could arrange one with ease. Back when he was still on Lingyuan Mountain, he had often helped other cultivators in the clan set up such arrays, and he still kept several sets of these Array Flags on hand.

Following his sixth brother, Song Qingming soon arrived at a mountain hollow not far west of the Mysterious Iron Mine. The hollow sat midway up the right side of the mining mountain, and from its lofty position, it overlooked the entire Mysterious Iron Ore Vein.

This place stood several dozen zhang above the foot of the ore vein. The cliff face was extremely steep; ordinary mortals could not climb it without external aid. Even the dozen or so Innate Martial Masters who knew some cultivation techniques would find climbing it dangerous.

For Song Qinghe to have found this place showed that he had put in no small amount of effort during these dozen or so days since arriving at Lingyuan Mountain.

The mountain hollow was a triangular platform, slightly higher at its pointed end, spanning roughly twenty zhang in each direction. A small stream also flowed slowly through it.

Spring water seeped day and night from a crack in the mountain at the hollow's pointed end, trickling drop by drop until it gathered into a slender current. It wound through rugged mountain rocks thick with weeds and brambles, passed through the center of the hollow, then tumbled down along the cliff, eventually joining Crescent Moon Lake several li away.

Song Qingming carefully sensed the Spiritual Energy here. It truly was somewhat denser than at the foot of the mountain. With a little clearing, the platform was enough to open up two mu of Spirit Fields.

Taking five three-inch Array Flags from his Storage Bag, Song Qingming scattered and buried them three chi underground at several points around the platform. He then took out a Grade 1 Array Plate and placed it in the center of the platform.

After forming a set of hand seals, a wave of Spiritual Energy rippled across the platform's ground. The Spiritual Energy throughout the mountain slowly began flowing toward this platform under the guidance of the Spirit Gathering Array.

Only after an hour did the Spiritual Energy slowly stabilize. Together, the two buried more than ten Spirit Stones beneath the ground where they planned to open the Spirit Fields. After a month, once the Spirit Gathering Array had gradually refined the Spirit Stones within, the soil here would be infused with Spiritual Energy and become a Grade 1 Low-grade Spirit Field.

Once ordinary land became a Spirit Field, it could be used to plant Spirit Rice and other spiritual plants. With ample Spiritual Energy in the fields, the time needed for such plants to mature could also be shortened.

Like spirit veins, Spirit Fields were divided into high and low grades. A lowest-tier Grade 1 Low-grade Spirit Field like the one Song Qingming and Song Qinghe had refined, even with the care of a Spirit Planter Master, could only shorten the maturation time of spiritual plants by ten or twenty percent. If they could be planted directly in a Grade 2 Spirit Field, their growth and maturation time could be reduced by at least thirty percent.

Low-grade Spirit Fields could only grow relatively quick-maturing Spirit Rice and Spirit Grass. Low-grade Spirit Rice matured roughly once a year and was the easiest spiritual plant from which to gain returns in a Spirit Field. It was the kind of crop all low-tier Spirit Planter Masters in the Cultivation World liked to cultivate.

Other Grade 1 Spirit Grass or Spirit Medicine generally required more than three years to mature. Planting some alongside the rice would also bring in a respectable income over time.

The Song Family only dared plant Grade 1 Spirit Rice and medicinal herbs in its Spirit Fields on Funiu Mountain. After all, cultivating high-value spiritual plants often attracted the covetous eyes of other High-tier Cultivators. Without sufficient strength to protect them, even if one possessed Spirit Medicine seeds, one would still not dare plant them on a large scale. Otherwise, it would be easy to draw attention and invite a calamity that wiped out the entire family. In Qinghe County, only those few Foundation Establishment Families dared cultivate some Grade 2 Spirit Medicine within their homes.

Spirit trees and medicinal herbs in the Cultivation World were graded according to their age. Those with a medicinal age of under two hundred years were Grade 1 Spirit Medicine; those over two hundred but under one thousand years were Grade 2 Spirit Medicine; those between one thousand and two thousand years were Grade 3 Spirit Medicine. There were only a few places in all of Wei State capable of growing Spirit Medicine above Grade 3. It was said that the Spiritual Medicine Garden of the Carefree Sect even held a Grade 4 Spirit Medicine more than two thousand years old.

After opening up this Spirit Field, Song Qinghe became busy as well. With Song Qingming's help, the two first spent several days carving a flight of steps more than ten zhang long into the cliff face with magical artifacts. This would make it easier for mortals below to climb up in the future. Cultivating Spirit Fields could not possibly be managed by cultivators alone; mortals were also needed to handle various trivial tasks. The Song Family's several dozen mu of Spirit Fields on Funiu Mountain likewise employed several hundred mortals to help cultivate them.

They spent a day relocating two mortal families from Crescent Moon Lake to the platform to help Song Qinghe tend the Spirit Fields here. The two selected families were overjoyed at the chance to farm for an immortal master. From then on, they would be at an immortal master's side. So long as they worked diligently, conscientiously, and with all their strength, perhaps one day they might receive some spiritual treasures from the immortal household as a reward.

Once the Spiritual Energy in the Spirit Fields had stabilized, Song Qinghe opened another Cave Abode against the mountainside of the platform and moved directly up from the ore vein below. Apart from his daily patrols of the ore vein, he normally remained on the platform, either cultivating or busying himself in the Spirit Fields.

After Song Qingming helped him set up the Spirit Gathering Array, he soon received the dozen or so Spirit Stones Song Qinghe paid for it. Although Song Qinghe had broken through to the Fourth Level of Qi Refining later than Song Qingming, he did not share the latter's straitened circumstances after his breakthrough.

The reason was that he still had a cultivator father supporting him. Song Qinghe was the son of Second Uncle Song Changwu. Though his innate Spirit Root talent was poor after embarking on the path of cultivation, he had never lacked resources up to this point. He was also a Spirit Planter Master himself, able to earn some Spirit Stones through helping the family manage its Spirit Fields. With further support from his father, his life was far better than those brothers like Song Qingming, who had to rely entirely on themselves.

Although Song Qinghe had invested several dozen Spirit Stones to refine these two mu of Spirit Fields, so long as he carefully cultivated spiritual plants for several years and waited for the quality of the fields to stabilize, he could still earn a considerable sum even if he left and sold the fields to someone else or handed them directly over to the family.

For a Spirit Planter Master, earning Spirit Stones in the early stages was fairly easy. Whether cultivating spiritual plants or nurturing new Spirit Fields, it was a stable source of income.

However, Spirit Planter Masters generally hid away in Spirit Fields year-round. They were not skilled at fighting techniques or hunting demonic beasts, and their combat strength lagged behind that of other cultivators. Most cultivators who chose this profession were people able to endure solitude.