Two-Star Spiritual Apprentice

Afternoon sunlight bathed the farm. The midsummer fields were lush and green, farmers could be seen working everywhere, and Spirit Plant Masters waved their hands along with the breeze.

Unlike Arcana Mages, who directly mobilized Spiritual Power, or knights, who painstakingly cultivated powerful battle aura,

Spirit Plant Masters were individually weak, but they could synchronize their breathing with plants, then mobilize the natural power suffusing the plants to help them grow.

Duke carried a wooden pole, with the corpse of a badger hanging from its end.

He swaggered along the farm road. Knights from the patrol guard rode past in groups without even sparing him a glance, leaving behind great clouds of dust kicked up by their horses' hooves.

Dust brushed across his face.

Duke held his breath and waved a hand in front of him.

Once the dust settled, the farm road regained its natural atmosphere. As Duke walked along it and looked at the surrounding scenery, he suddenly felt an inexplicable stir in his heart.

Following that feeling, he walked to the roadside.

He simply sat down cross-legged, took over the Field Meditation from Xiao Yi's idle mode, and began meditating with practiced ease.

The Free-floating Spiritual Particles around him continuously surged into his body. Suddenly, Duke sensed something different among those Free-floating Spiritual Particles.

It seemed that hidden among the vast crowd of Free-floating Spiritual Particles were certain special particles. They rose from the surrounding fields, became mixed into the torrent of Free-floating Spiritual Particles, and were absorbed by his body.

"What is this..."

The moment he noticed it, those special particles in the torrent of Spiritual Particles joyfully surged toward him, slightly accelerating the speed at which he absorbed Free-floating Spirituality.

"So that's how it is!"

Duke suddenly understood.

The Free-floating Spirituality in the air was not made up of a single kind of Spiritual Particle. Rather, it was formed from Spiritual Particles emitted by all things. By using Field Meditation to successfully sense one kind of Spiritual Particle, he seemed to have developed an affinity with it, thereby increasing the speed at which his body absorbed the corresponding Spiritual Particles.

"No wonder Field Meditation is a meditation method suited to comprehension geniuses. The higher one's comprehension, the more one understands, and the more Spiritual Particles one becomes attuned to. The faster one's cultivation becomes!"

"And I've just comprehended one!"

Once he understood everything, Duke could not help wanting to comprehend more things during meditation, so he could become attuned to more Spiritual Particles.

However, after straining for a long while, he still could not comprehend anything else.

"Looks like comprehension depends on fortunate coincidence... Forget it, I'll let Xiao Yi idle." Duke was about to stand up, but in the next moment, he sensed a change in his Spiritual Sea.

The large pool of Spirit Liquid had seemingly reached its limit under the absorption and enhancement of the meditation method.

The next moment.

All kinds of understanding regarding energy circuits flashed through his mind, breaking apart and reassembling, flickering along different trajectories.

"Arcane Trajectory!"

As inspiration struck, Duke immediately grasped the traces of energy circuits flickering in and out and learned Arcane Trajectory.

The various incredible mysteries of Spiritual Arcana were hidden within these ever-changing Arcane Trajectories, then manifested outwardly in the form of energy circuits.

In an instant.

Having truly captured Arcane Trajectory for the first time, Duke's large pool of Spirit Liquid in his Spiritual Sea rapidly condensed into a short, slender line that shimmered with light.

An energy line!

All the Spirit Liquid condensed, gathered, and transformed into one thin, short energy line.

Yet he could clearly sense that although this energy line was tiny, the Spiritual Power contained within it was no less than that of the great pool of Spirit Liquid before. At the same time, his control over Spiritual Power greatly strengthened alongside the formation of the energy line.

At that moment.

A quantitative change finally triggered a qualitative one.

Opening his eyes, Duke found the world before him exceptionally bright. He smiled faintly. "Not bad, not bad. Condensing Liquid into Line—I've advanced to a Two-Star Spiritual Apprentice!"

In essence, Spiritual Apprentices from One-Star to Five-Star could not complete an independent ring and thereby construct the most basic spell model of the Spiritual Arcana system.

But.

After Condensing Liquid into Line, his control over Spiritual Power had greatly increased, meaning he could officially begin making cards.

Of course, Little Sam's Card Shop had already gotten onto the right track. Duke did not actually need to work hard making cards. After all, the income from making cards was not even as good as what he could earn from making one trip to Chen Jiao City to buy goods on commission.

However, his goal was to become a Card Making Scholar among the Arcana Mages.

Building up experience through making cards would greatly benefit his future card making.

He stood up.

The corner of his eye suddenly caught sight of a sign planted on the field ridge beside the road.

He walked over and took a look. It was an announcement for rent and sale: "Undeveloped farms in Little River Bay south of town are for sale. They can be purchased outright or leased for ten years. Those interested should promptly go to Snakehead Tower for consultation, purchase, or lease."

"A farm?"

Duke narrowed his eyes.

He had never considered getting a farm before. After all, farms lay on the outskirts of town, and without the ability to protect oneself, they were certainly much more dangerous than the town's interior.

But now he had begun cultivating battle aura, and his physical qualities had improved greatly.

Having advanced to a Two-Star Spiritual Apprentice, with the Sand Eagle also upgraded to version 1.0, his strength had soared. Protecting himself was more than manageable.

"I need to cultivate battle aura, practice marksmanship, and feed Little Dou. All of that needs to be kept secret... If I had a farm of my own, wouldn't it be easier to cover things up?"

With that thought in mind,

he hurried back to Little Sam's Card Shop, handed the badger corpse to Aunt Abby for disposal, then hurried toward the center of town once more.

The center of town was surrounded by four streets: First Vertical Street, Second Vertical Street, First Horizontal Street, and Second Horizontal Street. Many tower-shaped buildings had been constructed there, the tallest of which was Snakehead Tower.

It was the administrative center of the entire Snakehead Town.

Duke raised the green Spirit Card, and after entering Snakehead Tower without trouble and making inquiries, he arrived at a window in the farthest corner of the first floor.

"The farm map for Little River Bay. Pick whichever plot you want and check the price yourself." The worker was not particularly enthusiastic. He simply tossed out a map, then began cracking melon seeds on his own.

Duke carefully examined the map.

The farms in Little River Bay had been divided into twenty plots, distributed along the bend of a small river. The map also showed irrigation channels, which could basically ensure that every farm had access to water.

Six of the plots had been marked with red crosses, indicating that they had already been sold or leased.

Duke took a fancy to a small farm on the southern bank of Little River Bay. The farm covered one hundred mu, roughly the size of eight or nine standard football fields, and was a typical family farm.

After many Spirit Plant Masters saved up enough money, they would buy a small farm of their own to manage.

Duke's predecessor had often dreamed of doing the same. It was only after failing to open his qi sea that he abandoned the idea.

"The ten-year rent for one mu is ten silver dragons. The ten-year rent for one hundred mu is one gold dragon... Buying costs one gold dragon per mu, so one hundred mu costs one hundred gold dragons..."

"That's really not cheap!"

Duke definitely could not produce one hundred gold dragons. He could scrape together ten gold dragons, but he would need time.

"Forget it. I'll go back and think it over..." Duke returned the map. He had not made up his mind to lease a farm, and besides, Little Sam's Card Shop could not do without him.