Breath Concealment Technique

Night fell.

Lu Xuan dragged his slightly weary body back into the house.

Although there were not many spirit plants in the spirit field at the moment—eleven spirit firefly grasses about to mature, ten newly planted seedlings, two Eclipse Moon Trees, and one Red Cloud Pine—

because they were all being cultivated with an extremely meticulous method, with the Spirit Rain Technique and Earth Guidance Art cast round after round, by the end of the day, even Lu Xuan's physique as a Qi Practitioner felt fatigued.

Still, he rather enjoyed it. Compared to watching all those spirit plants flourish, this bit of exhaustion did not count for much.

He ate a simple dinner, rested for a moment, then sat on the wooden bed, circulated his cultivation technique, and recovered his spiritual power.

The sudden surge in his cultivation had made the flow of spiritual power inside him somewhat sluggish. He had to adapt and adjust.

Suddenly, he noticed the array plate beside him flare with brilliant light.

A miniature spiritual energy shield appeared over the array plate. At a certain spot on the shield, faint spiritual light flickered like ripples.

Lu Xuan's expression turned grave. He memorized the position where the spiritual light was flashing, let a Sword Qi Talisman slide into his left palm, then abruptly rose and came before the blue-gray stone wall, leaping up.

Vaulting over the stone wall, Lu Xuan's sharp eyes spotted a shadowy figure twisting its tiny body as it fled into the distance at high speed.

Seeing the tiny shadowy figure that had tried to invade his spirit field, Lu Xuan flew into a towering rage. How could he possibly let it escape so easily?

The spiritual energy inside him circulated rapidly. Soon, a faint golden sword qi instantly condensed, like a streak of flowing light, and whistled toward the tiny shadowy figure.

The shadowy figure seemed frozen by the sword intent, its speed slowing drastically, and it was cut into two pieces by the golden sword qi.

The light dispersed, and the surroundings fell into dimness.

Lu Xuan tightly gripped the Sword Qi Talisman and looked around. Seeing nothing unusual, he slowly exhaled a mouthful of turbid qi.

He went over to the severed shadowy figure, picked up the two pieces of its remains, and returned to the courtyard.

As soon as he entered the house, a gray-black grass rope slithered to Lu Xuan's feet and tapped his knee, signaling that an outside object had invaded the spirit field.

"I've already wiped it out, and your warning only just arrived. That reaction speed of yours is really something."

Lu Xuan looked at the Grass Puppet, whose grass rope had retracted after warning him, and did not know whether to laugh or cry.

Under the dim yellow candlelight, he could clearly see the appearance of the black shadow's remains in his hand.

It was pitch-black all over, as thick as a finger, with folds of varying depth across its body. It was precisely the Black Bud Worm Lu Xuan had found before in Common Harmful Demon Insects and Their Solutions.

"Once wasn't enough, so you came again. You're treating my spirit field like your backyard, aren't you?"

Lu Xuan controlled the Gold Metal Swordplay to slice the Black Bud Worm's two sections of body into piece after piece, then burned them into black ash with the Fireball Technique. Only then did the anger in his heart completely dissipate.

"Good thing this protective array worked and stopped the Black Bud Worm's invasion in time. Otherwise, the consequences would have been unthinkable..."

The thought that the spirit plants in the spirit field might have been parasitized by the Black Bud Worm's eggs, thereby affecting his light orb rewards, left him with lingering fear.

He felt more and more that spending a large sum to buy this secondhand array had been an extremely wise decision.

The appearance of the Black Bud Worm was only a small ripple in his peaceful farming life. In the following days, nothing else happened.

Lu Xuan's days were simple yet fulfilling. Every day, he carefully cultivated the spirit plants with the Spirit Rain Technique and Earth Guidance Art, and from time to time used the Fireball Technique to stimulate the Red Cloud Pine.

He barely went out for several days. During that time, only Zhang Hong came by once.

Zhang Hong was about to follow the cultivators of the Wang Family, along with hundreds or even over a thousand rogue cultivators, into the wilderness to develop a newly emerged secret realm. Before leaving, he came to bid farewell to Lu Xuan and asked him to help keep an eye on and look after his wife and children at home.

Other than that, Lu Xuan basically had no contact with anyone else.

Five days passed, and he harvested two more batches of mature Spirit Firefly Grass, eight plants in total. In the spirit field, only the last three Spirit Firefly Grasses were about to mature.

Among the eight, three were of common quality, and five were of good grade quality.

Among the eight White Light Orbs that appeared, three yielded cultivation as their reward, adding one year of cultivation to Lu Xuan and increasing the spiritual power in his body by quite a bit.

As for the other five, two were the Earth Guidance Art and Gold Metal Swordplay. With these two experience packs, Lu Xuan's understanding of these two techniques deepened further, his casting speed became faster, and their power increased by a great deal.

The remaining three yielded three talismans, all first-grade: the Sword Qi Talisman, the speed-boosting Swiftness Talisman, and the defensive Earth Armor Talisman. Lu Xuan kept them all for emergencies.

After harvesting these eight mature Spirit Firefly Grasses, a large area opened up in the spirit field. Lu Xuan carefully planted the remaining ten Spirit Firefly Grass seeds, and before long, they sprouted tender green shoots that trembled gently in the breeze.

The ten plants he had planted earlier had already grown quite a bit. Each was about three inches tall, their leaves had turned dark green, and the specks of fluorescence on them had become increasingly distinct.

The final three Spirit Firefly Grasses did not make Lu Xuan wait for long. One day, after he cast the Spirit Rain Technique on each of them, the faint progress bars beneath all three Spirit Firefly Grasses filled to the maximum.

With his mind focused, Lu Xuan discovered an unexpected joy.

"Mature Spirit Firefly Grass of good grade quality." *2 "Mature Spirit Firefly Grass of superior grade quality."

"I finally cultivated a superior grade Spirit Firefly Grass."

Lu Xuan held the Spirit Firefly Grass, whose fluorescence was even brighter, feeling gratified.

Out of twenty-four plants in total, under the meticulous cultivation of the Spirit Rain Technique and Earth Guidance Art, one superior grade plant had finally appeared.

Although the probability was extremely small, Lu Xuan understood.

After all, the spiritual energy in his own spirit field was thin, and by the time he could learn the Spirit Firefly Grass's real-time state, it had already entered its later stage. There was little room to improve its quality, making it difficult to achieve a qualitative leap.

"If I want a large number of superior grade spirit plants to appear, or even higher-level perfect grade ones, at least two conditions need to be met."

"The concentration of spiritual energy, and meticulous cultivation from the moment the spirit seed is planted all the way until maturity."

Lu Xuan concluded.

In the Spirit Field, three White Light Orbs flickered faintly, drawing Lu Xuan's attention.

"Harvested one Spirit Firefly Grass. Obtained half a year of cultivation."

Cultivation again. This is leaving me with no motivation to work hard at cultivating.

Lu Xuan felt the surging Spiritual Power that had appeared out of nowhere inside his body and sighed with emotion.

"Harvested one Spirit Firefly Grass. Obtained a First Grade Talisman, Exorcism Talisman."

A dark-yellow talisman appeared in Lu Xuan's hand. In the center of the talisman was the image of a vicious ghost, suppressed beneath chains formed from two strange patterns.

"Exorcism Talisman, First Grade Talisman. After use, it can purify and drive away evil spirits and ghosts within a certain range. Rather rare."

A thought flashed through Lu Xuan's mind, and he carefully put away the Exorcism Talisman painted with the vicious ghost image.

The final White Light Orb came from the Superior Grade stalk. Spirit Plant quality was one of the factors that influenced how generous the reward was, so Lu Xuan held great expectations for it.

The light orb turned into countless specks of light and surged into Lu Xuan's mind. A thought flashed by, and a cultivation technique appeared in his Sea of Consciousness.

"Breath Concealment Technique. After cultivating it, one can restrain one's own aura and cultivation, granting quite decent concealment ability."