Reminder

Li Shiming sorted the items by category and put them into his Server Room Space. The space inside the Storage Bags was very small, only about one cubic meter or so.

What he needed to deal with now were the spiritual plants he had bought. That was the Most Important matter.

A spiritual plant with only its roots left had never had much chance of surviving to begin with. If he waited any longer, it would have no chance at all.

Inside the Server Room Space, his consciousness settled on the spiritual plant root and the two branches. There were no leaves on the branches, only five protruding tender buds.

With only these to go on, he could not determine what kind of spiritual plant it was. In any case, it had not been mentioned in the book Spirit Planter Basics.

Whatever kind of spiritual plant it was, judging by the size and shape of the roots, he estimated it was a shrub type.

From the database of the IBMz15 Mainframe, Li Shiming found the formula for soilless Nutrient Solution for shrubs, as well as shrub grafting techniques.

He first used chemical methods to make his own sterilizing solution, then washed the roots clean, paying special attention to the broken ends.

Then he placed the roots in the shrub soilless Nutrient Solution and cast the Spring Breeze Transforming Rain Art to water them.

After that, he used grafting methods to graft the two branches onto the broken ends of the roots.

With the environment of the Server Room Space and control through his consciousness, Li Shiming could artificially create a sterile environment for the spiritual plant.

After finishing all this, whether the spiritual plant could survive was up to fate.

Just as he was about to study the newly acquired Spells, footsteps came from outside the study.

"Si Qin, is something the matter?" Li Shiming asked with a slight frown.

He had already given orders that when he was in the study, no one in the household was to disturb him.

"Young Master, Gu Offering has arrived at the reception hall!" Si Qin replied softly.

"I'll go right away!" Li Shiming hurriedly put away his things, stood up, and left the study.

He had instructed everyone in the household that when Gu Offering came, there was no need to announce him first; they were to invite him directly into the residence.

He did not want things to be like last time, making a dignified Sect Cultivator wait outside the gates.

"Greetings, Fellow Daoist Gu!" When Li Shiming saw Gu Jia, he gave him a warm salute.

"I'm relieved to see you here, young friend!" Seeing that Li Shiming was unharmed, Gu Jia replied with a smile. After Li Shiming sat down, he continued, "Something happened over at the Market today. Two Hao Family Cultivators were killed. Don't go to the Market for the next while!"

Gu Jia had received a Thousand Mile Transmission saying that a powerful cultivator had appeared near the Market and had calmly left after killing two Hao Family Cultivators outside it.

If a powerful cultivator stirred up trouble inside the Market, then since he had accepted Spirit Stones from the Market, it would be perfectly normal for him to step in and resolve it. But what happened outside the Market had nothing to do with him.

However, he remembered that he had only just told Li Shiming about the Market, and he was afraid Li Shiming might go there and run into that powerful cultivator, so he had come over specifically to explain.

"Thank you for telling me. Actually, I don't have any extra Spirit Stones on hand either. Going to the Market would only have been to broaden my horizons. Since it's so dangerous, I won't go," Li Shiming said, shock showing on his face.

"When I go to the Market next time, young friend, you can come with me!" Gu Jia said after thinking it over.

"Fellow Daoist Gu, the Hao Family you mentioned just now—is the Hao Family very powerful?" Li Shiming asked, looking curious.

"What Great Power could the Hao Family be? At best, they barely count as the lowest-grade Cultivation Family. Their strongest member is only at Qi Refining Stage 6. As far as I know, the entire family had seven cultivators—oh no, now they have five left. Their main business is making Talisman Paper, with a small number of Low-Grade Talismans made and sold on the side!" Gu Jia replied with a hint of disdain.

"Are there many Cultivation Families like that in Central Capital?" Li Shiming continued asking.

"There are only five forces that can be considered Cultivation Families. The rest are Rogue Cultivators surviving on their own. The spiritual qi around Central Capital is thin, so the cultivators living here won't be very strong. Powerful forces are in regions with denser spiritual qi," Gu Jia explained with a smile.

Li Shiming now had a general understanding of the situation around Central Capital. Thinking about it, that made sense. Once he left the Spirit Gathering Disk, he could barely cultivate at all.

Places far from human habitation might be a little better, but he imagined the spiritual qi concentration there would still be quite strained.

Cultivators occupying such places were almost the same as living in the secular world. It would be strange if their strength could be very great.

He then asked Gu Jia for guidance on some issues regarding the use of Spiritual Power. These questions were extremely important to him.

Gu Jia seemed to think highly of him and answered all his questions in detail.

Of course, Li Shiming did not ask anything too secret. Most of it was ordinary applications of spiritual qi.

After Gu Jia left, excitement appeared on Li Shiming's face.

The questions Gu Jia had answered for him had benefited him greatly.

Li Shiming stood in the center of the room and struck his palm toward the paperweight on the desk.

When he sent out this palm strike, he mobilized the Spiritual Power inside his Spiritual Qi Vortex and discharged it from his body through his palm.

There was still a distance of one meter between his palm and the paperweight. The Spiritual Power released from his palm turned into a gust of wind that blew the paperweight off the desk.

As the paperweight left the desk, it shattered into tiny wood fragments that scattered all over the floor.

Li Shiming stared at his own palm in surprise. It had to be known that he had not used any Spell with that palm strike; he had formed it entirely with Spiritual Power.

So cultivators did not need to use Spells at all. The Spiritual Power they possessed on their own already had extremely strong killing power.

In addition, injecting Spiritual Power into both legs, though not as fast as the speed granted by a Low-Grade Body Lightening Talisman, could still increase running speed severalfold.

Of course, these ways of using Spiritual Power were the lowest level. Only by using Spells and Magic Artifacts could cultivators bring out the greatest power of Spiritual Power.

Take Magic Artifacts, for example. Every kind of Magic Artifact had Rune Arrays inscribed on it, forming special effects.

When using a Magic Artifact, one needed to activate the Rune Array of the Magic Artifact with Spiritual Power. Only then would it count as using the Magic Artifact correctly.

As for how to recognize and activate Rune Arrays, that was not something that could be explained in a sentence or two. One needed to go to a sect to study it.

Although Gu Jia thought highly of Li Shiming's future, he was not Li Shiming's Master and would not teach him specific knowledge.

Being willing to offer a few pointers was already showing Li Shiming tremendous respect.

Li Shiming had not truly come into contact with the Cultivation World, and did not know that knowledge in the Cultivation World was what was truly priceless.

As long as Li Shiming had not entered the Sky Ocean Sect, this kind of knowledge could not possibly be taught to him.

Why was there such a great gap in strength between a Sect Cultivator and a Rogue Cultivator? Though differences in equipment and spells played a part, another reason was the Rogue Cultivator's lack of foundational knowledge. The power of the same Magic Artifact in a Sect Cultivator's hands and in a Rogue Cultivator's hands might not be the same at all.

Over the next few days, Li Shiming kept an eye on the Spirit Plants in the Server Room Space while studying the newly acquired spells.

The three Secret Manuals he had bought for twenty Spirit Stones—Body Lightening Art, Fireball Spell, and Object Manipulation Spell—had taken repeated attempts, but by using the IBMz15 Mainframe's vast collection of videos and images, with his five senses serving as the playback devices, he finally comprehended the intent behind the three Spells.