Cultivation Persistence, Point Allocation

Whoa!

A bumper harvest!

Jiang Tu's consciousness dropped back into reality, sitting cross-legged in the quiet room as the settlement page kept flashing and emerging.

Even his heart rate sped up!

Sequence points, cultivation experience, the complete Herbal Compendium, and that earthwalking straw figure Luo Jin had personally spent nine thousand days and nights of accumulated effort to point-illuminate.

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The harvest from this fourteen-year evolution was indeed bountiful, fully living up to the ten years he had painstakingly saved up before opening it!

It was worth it!

Yet as he looked at the settlement, amidst the excitement came a heavy, sinking feeling.

Behind each reward lay a bloody truth: Li Shitou's severed finger, the crushing defeat of the serf Rebellion, the blood and tears of tens of thousands of serfs who had died in unjust despair took up only a few hasty lines of text in the settlement, but during the evolution he had witnessed all of it with his own eyes, deeply feeling everything each person had experienced under the grand currents of shifting eras.

This was no hollow game; it felt more like a story that had truly, solidly taken place.

He took a deep breath, gathered his focus, and accepted the rewards.

Swish!

Golden light swept across as a thick book materialized before his eyes—the Herbal Compendium, complete!

Jiang Tu remembered that during the first settlement there had only been a few scattered manuscript pages, and the second time a few dozen somewhat complete notes, but this time it was a direct, full volume, which intangibly showed that from his initial ignorant slave-boy days, Luo Jin had gradually grown into the leader of hundreds of farmers in Shennong Valley.

He could already be considered a true Agricultural Path grandmaster with a systematic framework and inheritance.

Jiang Tu immediately reached out and touched it—

Swish!

The book turned into a torrent of scorching knowledge light that poured deep into his consciousness.

The principles of mutual generation and restraint of thousands of plants, methods for identifying and nourishing herbs, the core essentials of the pill pinching technique, and various pill formulas combined and matched; all these torrents of information rapidly integrated and settled within his mind.

In an instant, his view of the flora between heaven and earth changed entirely. He could recognize more species, distinguish more medicinal properties, instantly perceive the essentials of how they paired together, and even deduce the soil composition and state based on their growth.

Many of the herbs within the knowledge had completely perished over the course of thirty thousand years, and many species common in the evolution couldn't even find a name in reality, yet the principle of mutual generation and restraint among all things in heaven and earth remained connected. As long as he mastered the underlying logic, he could draw inferences about the rest.

Jiang Tu silently committed the core contents of the Herbal Compendium to memory, a plan already forming in his heart.

The premium quality herbs in the underground farmland couldn't be grown in vain. He could completely try refining some pills using ordinary furnace fire; though he lacked the pill pinching technique, as long as the herbal quality itself was high enough, furnace refining could also yield decent finished pills.

These pills could be used himself or served as resources for exchanging with others in emergencies.

After farming for so many years, it was time to cash out some returns! Transforming them into solid trump cards tucked safely in his pocket, ones no one could ever snatch away.

The golden light flashed once more—

A phantom materialized before his eyes: Luo Jin.

This time the phantom was far more solid than the last, with clear outlines and distinct facial features; even the skin and tiny hairs were crystal-clear.

A strange thought suddenly popped into Jiang Tu's mind. As Luo Jin's rank grew higher and higher, would this phantom one day be able to step out and transform from illusory to real? If so, wouldn't he be able to pull an ancient legion straight out of the evolution logs? That would be the ultimate realm of summoning help!

Sequence 3 Ancient Scholar, was it?

The phantom Luo Jin sat cross-legged with a calm expression.

"...Coming through the serf Rebellion can be considered a blessing in disguise, for it made me see clearly a crucial underlying rule of the Agricultural Path."

"The cultivation of us Agricultural Path Cultivators does not dissipate upon death; instead, it merges into the earth, or rather, returns to the earth. Perhaps it is because cultivators of our Agricultural Path are born from the earth and raised by the earth, remaining inextricably bound to it, and all cultivation of the Agricultural Path originates from this very soil and water."

"Precisely because of this, when I broke through that day, I was able to receive feedback and infusion pouring back from the earth."

"I suspect that hidden behind this lies something on a higher level than the 'inheritance method'—the possibility of a 'reverse inheritance method'. Not only can a master passing down inheritance to disciples edify more cultivators, but the moment a disciple or master perishes and their cultivation merges into the earth, as long as the distance between both sides is not too great, perhaps they can sense each other or even gain a certain degree of cultivation feedback!"

"Of course, this is currently just a conjecture."

Jiang Tu listened, nodding silently within.

The train of thought behind this "reverse inheritance method" could be described as soaring high above and taking a step further, more constructive than his own conjectures. Connecting the integration into the earth and the breakthrough feedback to deduce a two-way, reversible inheritance logic—this way of thinking was indeed brilliant.

"The characteristic of cultivation merging and returning to the earth, I shall provisionally name it—'Cultivation Persistence'."

"Lower-rank 'farmers' and 'field stewards' can increase soil fertility upon death, allowing more farming households who awaken awakened wisdom to successively be born across the land... What about 'herbal scholars' after death? What about higher-grade Agricultural Path cultivators after death? Can the cultivation they merge into the earth also merge into certain objects, transforming into... some kind of magical artifact closely tied to their cultivation and lifelong obsessions? A magical artifact exclusive to my Agricultural Path?"

Jiang Tu's heart gave a jolt.

Magical artifact?

Agricultural Path cultivators' cultivation persisting after death, transforming into magical artifacts?

This... actually made for an interesting thought!

Indeed, if Cultivation Persistence was true, then the higher the rank of the cultivator, the stronger their cultivation would be after death. It shouldn't just merge into the earth, but hold even more subtle and wondrous uses!

"Yet... hidden behind this likewise lies immense risk! Cultivation persistence—if this news were known by greedy individuals, I fear they would treat us Agricultural Path Cultivators as consumable materials and cultivation resources. For this very reason, this 'persistence' must never be spread outside, or it will surely invite huge disaster!"

Jiang Tu took a deep breath.

He thought of the strange calamity in Dajiang County, of those farmers who "suddenly died of illness" after being selected to enter the Daoist sect, of the establishment of New Dajiang County, of the Daoist sect's outward proclamation about "profound Daoist magic purifying strange Qi," and of those farmers who "encountered ambushes on their way home." Weren't they simply consumables for the Daoist sect?

Luo Jin's worries had already come to pass in reality.

At this moment, the phantom Luo Jin shifted his tone and changed his train of thought.

"...Let's talk about the Awakening Law. I've found that the Awakening Law isn't just passed down between master and disciple, but can also continue through paternal and filial bloodlines. If ancestors or fathers once produced a Farmer with Awakened Wisdom, their descendant blood relatives have a much greater chance of awakening wisdom. Some children are even low-grade Farmers right at birth. Thus, our Agricultural Path Kindling Flame can be passed down endlessly through ten thousand generations, its path never declining..."

"The deeper I delve into and cultivate this path, the more awe I feel for the boundless Great Dao and the profound mysteries of the Agricultural Path. I don't know how many secrets are left waiting for me to unearth one by one in the future... I must not slack off, and should diligently apply myself."

The phantom dissipated.

Jiang Tu was silent for a moment, unable to help chuckling.

Are you out here doing your daily three self-reflections?

Luo Jin was not only a good leader, but damn well a good ideological builder. While summarizing patterns, he was also feeding himself chicken soup, saying things like "diligently apply yourself"... A person like this could lead a reliable team in any era.

What more was there to say?

He should diligently apply himself, too!

Sequence Points: 729

Seven hundred twenty-nine points. This was several times more than the total harvest of his previous two sequence points combined. Yet for his current situation, it was actually not very abundant—merely a drop of water on a blazing cart of firewood.

To do a simple calculation: going from 1,596 points to 2,000 points for Eighth Grade peak required 404 points. Exactly how many it would take to break through the Eighth Grade limit and advance to Seventh Grade was still unclear, but at the least, he needed to reserve a few hundred points. That is to say... even if he smashed all of them in, he might not necessarily break through to Seventh Grade, and had a high probability of getting stuck halfway.

It was too much of a loss... Why use a butcher's knife to kill a chicken?

It seemed that sequence points were rare goods. He couldn't blindly add points to strengthen cultivation; instead, he should keep them for critical moments of breaking realms. Anyway, he needed to accumulate evolution time and wait for time to pass. His cultivation would naturally cultivate and improve on its own, and it wouldn't be much slower than evolution. Therefore, the bulk of points should still be added to the accumulation of evolution time, leaving behind just enough points for breaking realms.

Once he had evolution time, he would have everything!

"Add points."

Swish!

Consumed 400 Sequence Points; the accumulation speed of evolution time has been increased—

Hereafter, every year of real-time will yield an additional ten months of deduction time.

A full twenty-two months of deduction time per year!

Awesome!

This wave of speed increases was quite substantial! It gave five more months every year!

Jiang Tu closed the panel in satisfaction, his gaze falling onto the final reward. A palm-sized straw figure drifted down into his palm accompanied by a flash of golden light. Holding it in his hand, he seemed to be able to feel Luo Jin's nine thousand instances of diligent effort.

"Luo Jin's Earthwalking Straw Figure."

Jiang Tu examined it closely. The straw figure's lines were simple, but its facial features were blurry, and its eye sockets emitted a green, eerie light as it lay quietly.

He poked its forehead with his fingertip. Only then did the straw figure seem to finally wake up. Its little head moved, slowly turning to face Jiang Tu directly.

Then, it tilted its head with a dazed and innocent expression, seeming not to understand "who he was" or "where this was."

Jiang Tu: "..."

As expected, it wasn't very smart. It was a bit silly and clumsy, doing everything half a beat slow...

Ground ten-fold movement speed: as long as it was placed on the ground, it could run and shuttle at ten times the speed of the original owner, speeding up along with the increase in Luo Jin's strength.

Free shapeshifting: as long as he shifted his mind, it could transform into any appearance he wanted.

Jiang Tu's mood was subtle. After being silent for a while, a rather bold thought suddenly popped up in his mind...