Wizard Cultivation

Yin Ming finished the day's land-clearing quota right on time.

From the weeds and shrubs he had cleared, the Scavenger Gourd extracted nine Grain-Repelling Pills, two packets of Hemostatic Powder, and a Myriad Poisons Pill synthesized from a hundred herbal toxins.

That old dog Hoven came to inspect the work and looked over the neatly cleared half-acre plot.

He nodded in satisfaction. "Not bad! You were only a little short of being today's best farm slave."

Yin Ming: _(ツ)_/.

Jeroen Hoven saw that Yin Ming was completely unmoved.

His face darkened as he turned and left, leaving everyone baffled.

"Did that old dog Hoven take the wrong medicine? His expression changed faster than flipping a page!"

With the Grain-Repelling Pills, Yin Ming no longer had to worry about going hungry, and his energy was inexhaustible.

In this perilous world, Tulip Manor was not a bad place to cultivate in seclusion.

That was, provided he had sufficient strength.

Farm slaves had no rights. If he was selected as a sacrifice again someday, he at least needed the strength to flip the table.

"..."

As night fell, the farm slaves returned to Blackstone House one after another.

The moment he entered Blackstone House, Yin Ming heard a pained gasp.

In the dim light, Randy lay resting on his stone bed, his back covered in whip marks, flesh split and bloodied.

"Randy, how did you offend Hoven to get whipped this badly?"

Once farm slaves survived their first week, they were rarely whipped again, since injuries affected their work efficiency.

That bloody back had taken at least a dozen lashes. It was practically an attempt to kill him.

"This morning, I reminded you to eat black bread. Do you remember?"

Randy shifted and touched his wounds, sucking in a breath from the pain. He said weakly, "Hoven thought I was the one who woke you up, so he took his anger out on me."

Randy had nearly been beaten to death because he had woken me up?

Thinking of how Jeroen Hoven's expression had changed faster than flipping a page earlier, Yin Ming knew there was definitely something going on that he did not understand.

"What do you mean, woke me up?" Yin Ming asked suspiciously.

"White bread, living beyond your means, Jettansen's fate," Jack quietly prompted.

The words seemed disconnected, but Yin Ming frowned and thought for a moment before linking the three clues together.

For farm slaves to obtain white bread, they had to push their bodies beyond their limits and become the so-called best farm slave of the day.

Although white bread tasted better, it was no more nutritious than black bread. A tiny piece could not make up for the body's deficit. Over time, the body would grow weaker and weaker, until, like the strong Jettansen, they collapsed and never got back up.

Jeroen Hoven had been guiding him step by step, making him addicted to the taste of white bread before boiling the frog in warm water.

If this was not a coincidence, then the human heart was truly grotesque and terrifying.

"Jeroen Hoven used white bread as bait, trying to work me to death! But what does he gain from it? No matter how lowly farm slaves are, don't they still cost money to buy?" Yin Ming muttered in confusion.

"Count Golden Lion isn't short of money. What he cares about is something more advanced," Randy said, sounding as though he only half understood it himself.

"People are divided into high and low ranks, and so is food. White bread is food for free citizens and nobles. Farm slaves who want to eat white bread deserve to work themselves to death. That's what I heard from the older farm slaves," Jack said with a bitter smile.

"Every batch of farm slaves picks out a Jettansen. The older farm slaves all know this, but anyone who dares to wake that person up has to face Jeroen Hoven's whip," Randy said.

"You don't need to worry anymore. Just understand one thing: lowly people like us don't deserve white bread. Then Jeroen Hoven won't target you again. Those are the rules of the game," Jack said.

"What the hell..."

Sure enough, once someone had enough gold coins, they no longer cared about pursuing wealth. Instead, they devoted themselves to stopping others from becoming wealthy.

Yin Ming could not understand the nobles' twisted values. He took out a packet of Hemostatic Powder wrapped in dead leaves. "For stopping the bleeding! Otherwise, with injuries like yours, if you fail to finish tomorrow's quota, you'll get whipped again."

The Hemostatic Powder worked immediately.

Within minutes, the wounds began to scab over, and it also had some pain-relieving effect.

What the Scavenger Gourd extracted was essence, allowing substances of the same kind to be used to their fullest. Ordinary Hemostatic Powder displayed the effects of a miracle medicine.

"..."

Late at night!

After his two roommates had fallen asleep, Yin Ming prepared to begin wizard cultivation.

He reviewed the Vast Sea Meditation Method in his mind.

Wizard cultivation could be divided into three parts: mental power, spell runes, and magic power.

However, whether engraving spell runes or condensing magic power, both required mental power. Mental power was the key factor determining a wizard's strength.

Wizard meditation methods and the Corpse-Liberation Immortal Visualization Method both focused on the human body's third treasure, spirit.

Yet there was an essential difference between the two.

First, the amount of mental power the human body could contain was limited.

The Corpse-Liberation Visualization Method caused mental power to undergo a qualitative transformation, becoming divine sense capable of passing through the body to see objects. After Corpse Liberation, one could even use a magical artifact to send the primordial spirit out of the body.

The wizard meditation method turned generated mental power into runes that permanently stabilized mental power, allowing one to contain vast quantities of it.

Then, one used mental power to sense the elements of heaven and earth, tempering magic power similar to mana. By channeling magic power into spell runes outlined by mental power, one could directly cast wizard spells.

A One-Ring Wizard needed to permanently stabilize ten basic Mental Runes.

Those below the First Ring were called Wizard Apprentices. Every three runes corresponded to a minor realm.

"..."

After confirming that he had not forgotten the method, Yin Ming quickly adjusted his breathing and entered meditation.

Meditation was not only a realm, but also a state.

"Vast Sea..."

In his mind, he visualized an endless sea. Violent winds raised towering waves that crashed against a reef as smooth as a Three-Body Problem droplet.

When the waves receded, the reef was spotless, without a single drop of water remaining.

This was the first level of the Vast Sea Meditation Method—Mirror Reef.

Once one could use mental power to retain one hundred droplets on Mirror Reef, it meant one possessed the mental power needed to permanently stabilize the first Mental Rune.

Wizard talent was an innate potential, though it could change because of one's previous cultivation.

"..."

Half an hour later, Yin Ming slowly opened his eyes, disappointment showing in them.

Mental power cultivation was like rolling a snowball. Wizards placed immense importance on talent, and those with the potential to become wizards were geniuses chosen from one in a hundred.

Yin Ming could leave sixty droplets on Mirror Reef. His initial talent met the standard for becoming a wizard.

The Corpse-Liberation Immortal cultivation had completely dissipated. Without its support, this was his truest talent. His innate mental power surpassed more than ninety-nine percent of ordinary people, but it was not outstanding among wizards.

A very small number of wizard geniuses possessed enough innate mental power to permanently stabilize the first Mental Rune, or even the second.

"One step behind, always behind! With this talent, anyone else would be lucky to break through to become a One-Ring Wizard before dying of old age."

Yin Ming sighed, then smiled faintly. "Fortunately, my control over mental power is high enough. Yin has never relied on talent to make a living."

Compared to cultivating immortality during the Age of Dharma Decline, this level of difficulty was nothing!

Yin Ming had gone from an ordinary mortal to the Corpse-Liberation Tribulation-Transcendence Realm in just twenty short years.

His strength might be gone, but just answer this: was he fast or not?

Corpse Liberation was a shortcut to ascension, but cultivation speed was not actually this exaggerated.

Yin Ming had taken a shortcut among shortcuts. Only he knew how much modern technology he had used and how many experiments he had conducted.

Now, he had the Scavenger Gourd, and heaven and earth had not entered the Age of Dharma Decline. Conditions were better by who knew how much. There was no reason he could not solve the problem of cultivation talent.

"Relying on the meditation method to accumulate mental power, it would take at least half a year, even at the fastest, to gather enough to engrave the first Mental Rune."

After thinking for a moment, Yin Ming could not help frowning. "Too slow! I can't even wait a day."

Jeroen Hoven's murder attempt had failed. Though Randy had already taken the whipping, who knew whether, after sleeping on it, Hoven might grow angrier and ignore the game rules that did not actually exist, deciding to beat him to death?

Surviving in this world was simply too difficult!

He had spent nearly a month learning to be an obedient farm slave, yet someone had still targeted and tried to murder an utterly insignificant farm slave.

He had to become a Wizard Apprentice as quickly as possible!