Applying Knowledge

Yunzhi pinched Lu Yang's collar with two fingers, waved him in front of her eyes, still not understanding the principle, and set him back down.

Lu Yang was equally puzzled. He followed the incantations and methods taught by Senior Disciple Sister, so why did it feel like two completely different spells when he cast them?

"This doesn't make sense."

"I'll demonstrate it to you again." Yun Zhi was a very responsible teacher, though her teaching skills were quite average, but she made up for it with patience.

Yun Zhi took out an hourglass, turned it upside down on the ground, then held Lu Yang's shoulders, and the two of them performed a Spatial Jump together.

Lu Yang only felt a blur before his eyes, and he arrived in a strange space, with colorful streamers on both sides.

Lu Yang subconsciously wanted to touch the streamers, but Yun Zhi stopped him.

"Those are strange sights formed by spatial distortions. Not to mention you, even Spirit Transmutation Stage cultivators would be crushed to pieces and their souls scattered if they touched them."

Lu Yang was so frightened that he quickly retracted his hand.

The two stepped out of the space and saw a white giant snake coiled around the mountains, breathing in the sun and moon, refining the essence of heaven and earth. Its snake eyes were intelligent, and the two of them happened to fall into the giant python's mouth, entering its belly.

Just as gastric juices were about to drip, Yun Zhi stepped again, returning to the strange space.

Following Yun Zhi's footsteps, Lu Yang saw bizarre and magnificent spectacles: an ocean made of magma, a great cultivator undergoing tribulation, a silent swordsman carrying a thick, wide blade...

Lu Yang had never seen or heard of these places before. It was truly hard to imagine that there were such extraordinary people and sights in the world.

Finally, the two returned to the starting point, Lu Yang panting, still shaken.

"The places I took you to just now are all within the Dao Seeking Sect's inner realms. You'll have a chance to go there yourself in the future."

The Dao Seeking Sect was too big and too broad. The areas outside the nine core mountains were still unknown to Lu Yang.

"Try casting the spell again?"

Yun Zhi thought that things might be different this time.

Meeting Yun Zhi's eager gaze, Lu Yang braced himself and cast the spell again.

After a day of practice, Lu Yang finally learned how to sense the underground environment and how to avoid being stepped on after shrinking.

Shrink Ground to Inch never succeeded once, but Shrink Ground and Inch each succeeded every time, becoming more and more proficient.

In the end, he didn't even need the incantation; he could cast the spell with a single thought, as if he had been immersed in it for months or years.

Lu Yang's initial intention in learning Shrink Ground to Inch was to use the spell to travel, and now that he had learned the spell "Shrink Ground" to travel, it could be considered fulfilling his initial intention.

It was just that the method was hard to describe, and the speed was a bit slow.

Seeing Lu Yang changing size at will, drilling back and forth in the soil, having a great time, Yun Zhi casually asked, "Little Junior Brother, I heard that you have a hard time getting tasks at the Task Hall?"

"Yeah, most of the tasks can only be completed by those above the Golden Core Stage, and there are very few tasks suitable for me." Lu Yang was considering squatting at the Task Hall for a few days to see if he could find a suitable task.

"It's quite a coincidence. A few days ago, I had a meeting with the elders, and someone at the meeting said that there was a problem with the Medicine Garden. They posted a task in the Task Hall, but no one took it. I think you're a suitable candidate, so you might as well go to the Medicine Garden and take a look."

Lu Yang knew that since his master went into seclusion, Senior Disciple Sister had been hosting the meetings in his master's place.

"What task?" Lu Yang wondered. His special skills weren't particularly outstanding in the Dao Seeking Sect, so what kind of task would be suitable for him to do, let alone in the completely unknown Medicine Garden?

He hadn't even learned all the knowledge to identify herbs yet.

"You'll know when you get there." Yun Zhi didn't answer.

In Lu Yang's view, the Dao Seeking Sect itself was a small cultivation world. He could find people to help him refine pills, refine artifacts, set up formations... Most of the time, they could be self-sufficient.

Refining pills required Spiritual Medicine, and the Dao Seeking Sect had a great demand for pill refining, so they couldn't always rely on external purchases.

In order to solve the problem of Spiritual Medicine, the Dao Seeking Sect opened up a large Medicine Garden for planting herbs, and the Task Hall also posted tasks to help cultivate herbs in the Medicine Garden.

Cultivating herbs required professional knowledge, and Lu Yang didn't know anything about it. He still hadn't distinguished what herbs and spirit beasts he ate every day, let alone cultivate herbs.

From far away, Lu Yang could smell the fragrance of the Medicine Garden, which was different from the fragrance of Pill Cauldron Peak, which had a chance of being poisonous. This was the purest herbal fragrance. Mortals who smelled it for a long time would live longer, free from illness and disaster.

At the entrance of the Medicine Garden, an old man was lying down, a cattail fan covering his face, leisurely lying on a rocking chair, dozing off.

"Old man, is this the Medicine Garden?"

The old man drooped his eyelids and glanced at Lu Yang: "Who are you?"

"Lu Yang."

"I didn't ask what your name is, I asked what your identity is."

"The Sect Master's fourth disciple, Yun Zhi Senior Disciple Sister's Little Junior Brother."

The old man didn't think much of it when he heard the first part. The Sect Master had disappeared for ten years, and no one cared about him. He should retire when he should retire, and stop occupying the position and letting Yun Zhi do the work. What was that all about? But when he heard the second part, he suddenly woke up.

The Sect Master's disciple meant that he was Yun Zhi's Little Junior Brother!

The old man suddenly got up, his body even more agile than Lu Yang's.

This was normal. In the cultivation world, you couldn't judge someone's skills and age by their appearance. When an old man and a child stood together, it was hard to tell who was the grandfather and who was the grandson.

No one in the cultivation world advocated respecting the old and loving the young, after all, it was possible that the old man and the child were both better than you.

"So you were introduced by Yun Zhi, you should have said so earlier." The old man put his arm around Lu Yang's shoulder, as close as brothers.

"We're all from the Dao Seeking Sect, you can just call me Old Ba. I'm in charge of this little plot of land in the Medicine Garden."

Lu Yang suspected Old Man Ba was taking advantage of him, but he had no proof.

"What did Yun Zhi send you here to do, pick herbs? How many years old, a thousand or two thousand?"

Seeing Old Man Ba like this, Lu Yang inexplicably thought of the meals Senior Disciple Sister made for him. Could it be that they were all made from herbs from the medicine garden that were a thousand or two thousand years old?

Thousand-year-old herbs are not like cabbages; they are quite precious to the Dao Seeking Sect.

No, no, Senior Disciple Sister is quite frugal and thrifty; she wouldn't waste herbs on herself.

Lu Yang politely asked, "Senior Disciple Sister said that the medicine garden released a task a few days ago that no one accepted. I wonder what the task is?"

Old Man Ba suddenly understood. So it was this task: "Do you know how to cultivate herbs?"

"Not at all," Lu Yang said truthfully.

"Then I'll explain it to you simply. The steps for cultivating herbs are quite cumbersome. One of them is loosening the soil so that the roots of the herbs can better absorb the spiritual energy in the soil and complete the interaction with the spiritual energy in the air."

"The task of loosening the soil has always been done by a pair of Silver Ring Heavenly King Earthworm couples."

"Recently, they've had some problems at home, and no one is working, so I released a task to loosen the soil in the medicine garden. This requires the Earth Escape Daoist Arts, one of the Five Elements Daoist Arts. There are quite a few little guys who know Earth Escape Daoist Arts, but they all think it's too much trouble and don't want to take it. It just so happens that Yun Zhi sent you here."

"So what I have to do is..."

"Imitate earthworms, burrow into the soil, and loosen the soil in the medicine garden."

Lu Yang: "..."

Lu Yang suspected Senior Disciple Sister was playing with him, but he still had no evidence.