Verdant Acceleration Technique

After three days of growth, the rice seeds had begun to sprout.

At this initial stage, so long as there were no issues with soil fertility, Dong Lin hardly needed to worry about anything.

Spirit Rice had a growth cycle of around six months. Aside from regular fertilizing and pest control,

there was not much else Dong Lin needed to concern himself with.

As the ancients said, "You get what you pay for."

These ready-made spirit fields provided by the sect were far more convenient and effortless.

At that moment, a fellow disciple passed by Dong Lin's spirit field and saw him nodding at it in satisfaction.

Unable to help himself, he asked, "Junior Brother, is this your first time farming? Why haven't you accelerated the rice seeds?

If you just scatter the seeds and wait for the seedlings to emerge slowly, the seedling stage will take another two or three months."

"Huh? The Spirit Rice Cultivation Manual I bought never mentioned that at all."

Hearing his senior brother's well-intentioned reminder, Dong Lin felt that something was seriously wrong.

"Isn't seed acceleration a basic required skill for spirit plant masters? Junior Brother, didn't you look into it?

How could a cultivation manual not mention acceleration? Ordinary instructional manuals usually come with a universal acceleration method."

"No." Looking utterly baffled, Dong Lin took out the manual and handed it to the senior brother before him.

"What antique is this from? The art of accelerating spirit plants was developed several centuries ago by Senior Zhang Zaixian, the Master of Ten Thousand Farmers.

It takes some skill to even manage to buy an antique like this, Junior Brother."

"Thank you for the reminder, Senior Brother. I'll head to the market and look for another one right away."

Dong Lin hurried to the market, but the stall where he had bought the manual was long gone.

At the time, Dong Lin had merely been passing by when he spotted a basic Spirit Rice cultivation manual for sale at a stall and bought it on the spot.

Afterward, he had not thought to buy another copy at the Shouyang Storehouse.

Who would have thought he had bought an ancient edition missing such an important step?

Had that experienced senior brother not reminded him in time, Dong Lin would have suffered a massive loss this time.

A harvest every six months versus a harvest every nine months—the difference was worlds apart.

It could genuinely bankrupt Dong Lin down to his underwear.

Zhang Tao spotted Dong Lin approaching the market from afar. "Brother Dong, it's been a while. What are you looking for?"

Zhang Tao truly had an eye for customers. He had noticed Dong Lin from a great distance away.

He called Dong Lin straight into the shop.

After Dong Lin explained the situation, Zhang Tao brought out the latest Shouyang Encyclopedia of Spirit Crop Cultivation.

"It's quite a strange thing these days to find a cultivation manual without an acceleration technique.

Brother Dong, this edition of our Shouyang encyclopedia has everything you could need.

It alone contains over twenty acceleration techniques for different crop varieties. You'll definitely be satisfied.

No losses from buying it, no deception from buying it."

Dong Lin took the book, flipped through it a couple of times, and nodded.

"Fine. How much?"

"Ah, we're old acquaintances. I'll give you a discount—one hundred low-grade spirit stones. I normally sell this for over one hundred and twenty.

I'm only rounding it down for Brother Dong's sake."

"That expensive?" Dong Lin could not help frowning.

It was only their second meeting, yet Zhang Tao was acting so familiar with him that Dong Lin felt a little embarrassed to refuse outright.

"I could tell at a glance that Brother Dong is absolutely a genius in the cultivation world.

This book contains the acceleration and cultivation methods for over a hundred spirit crops and spirit herbs. It's definitely worth every stone.

This is called solving the problem once and for all. Buy one copy, use it for a lifetime. It's a great deal."

"Fine, then."

With the wealth of a man who did not care about the cost, Dong Lin bought the Shouyang Encyclopedia of Spirit Crop Cultivation.

Its contents were indeed comprehensive. Compared with the copy he had bought for a dozen or so low-grade spirit stones, it was like heaven and earth.

After searching through it for a long while, Dong Lin found the Verdant Growth Acceleration Technique, a universal technique for Spirit Rice.

He first tested it on several seeds.

To Dong Lin, the difficulty of getting started with this technique felt far greater than even the Lightning Summoning Art, a lightning-element spell universally acknowledged to be difficult to learn.

It took Dong Lin five consecutive days and over a hundred seeds before he finally succeeded in accelerating one, barely managing to get started.

This sort of spell, which required precisely guiding spiritual energy within a seed to stimulate its growth, demanded extremely fine control of spiritual energy through spiritual sense.

Only cultivators with exceptionally profound control over their own spiritual power could properly master acceleration techniques.

Dong Lin truly had no time or energy to spend practicing this acceleration technique further.

After gaining a preliminary grasp of it, Dong Lin rushed to the spirit field and learned through practice.

With tens of thousands of rice seeds, Dong Lin's current spiritual sense and proficiency with the technique allowed him to successfully accelerate only around two hundred per hour.

He spent an entire day there before barely managing to "pull up" fifteen hundred sprouted seedlings to encourage their growth.

As Dong Lin became more proficient with the acceleration technique, he could now steadily accelerate nearly five hundred seeds an hour.

He estimated that he should be able to finish accelerating all the Spirit Rice seeds in the field within three days.

"My cultivation is still too low. Once my cultivation rises and my spiritual sense strengthens, I should be able to accelerate them much faster."

Through Dong Lin's diligent labor, he finally completed the acceleration of all the rice seeds by noon on the fourth day.

By then, the Spirit Rice seedlings in the field had already grown to Dong Lin's waist.

The Spirit Rice had begun tillering, and the period ahead would be one of rapid growth.

During this stage, Spirit Rice had an extremely high demand for spirit fertilizer and water.

Whenever he had time outside his daily cultivation, Dong Lin went to the fields to fertilize and weed, ensuring that the Spirit Rice's growth would not be affected.

After making intensive use of the Verdant Growth Acceleration Technique, Dong Lin's control over his own spiritual power became increasingly refined.

Just ten days later, Dong Lin was completely confident.

He began attempting to break through to the Mid Qi Refining Stage.

By then, more than seventy days had passed since Dong Lin reached the peak of the Early Qi Refining Stage.

Dong Lin had already nurtured his dantian to an excellent state.

Just in case, Dong Lin also went through Senior Sister Yun Shu

and spent ten contribution points to exchange for a Meridian-Protecting Pill.

The Meridian-Protecting Pill was intended for Qi Refining cultivators, whose dantians and meridians were relatively fragile.

It was a medicinal pill specially developed to protect the dantian and meridians.

Its original purpose was for combat, preventing Qi Refining cultivators from suffering damage to their meridians or even their dantians when casting spells

whose immense power placed excessive demands on the spiritual energy within their meridians and dantians.

Ordinary cultivators only needed to take a Meridian-Protecting Pill before a magical battle to cast spells without worry, no longer needing to fear the consequences caused by fragile meridians.

Later, as the pill became widespread, a second use was developed—one that was now even more common.

That was to assist Qi Refining cultivators in breaking through minor realms.

This was because Qi Refining breakthroughs relied on using spiritual energy to envelop the dantian while applying pressure to it through the meridians, thereby expanding the dantian.

There were many intricacies to applying pressure through the meridians, and every cultivation technique had its own method.

As the most orthodox and balanced cultivation technique in the immortal cultivation world, the Breath-and-Spirit Absorption Art used the most orthodox and balanced method for its secret dantian-expansion technique.