Daily Life in the Herb Garden

Top-tier resources were controlled by major powers, which was why everyone wanted to join one faction or another.

The Three Upper Sects of the Crimson Wasteland Spirit Domain were the Flowing Cloud Sect, the Sunrise Sect, and the Divine Mist Sect.

The ten great aristocratic clans were the Lin Clan, Mu Clan, Mo Clan, Xiao Clan, Ji Clan, Chu Clan, Su Clan, Yun Clan, Yan Clan, and Lu Clan.

The great clans were bound by marital ties, their web of relationships tangled and sprawling.

These marital ties were not ordinary marriages. Talented disciples within a clan, regardless of gender, could remain in the clan and seek suitable partners to bear descendants, while those partners were far weaker in strength.

Of course, it was not as though there were no unions between the strong. It was simply that two cultivators with profound cultivation and exceptional talent found it difficult to conceive life.

The Crimson Reed Domain was filled with lofty mountains and dense forests, with spiritual plants and medicinal herbs everywhere. The largest forest was Starlight Forest.

It lay to the east of the domain, a hundred and eight thousand li from here, but the other four great forests and secret realms also held abundant resources.

She would definitely go to Starlight Forest. She merely needed to wait until her strength had improved before exploring it.

Jiang Lu set down the last book. As she walked back, she sorted through the vast amount of information in her mind.

Her current cultivation consumed an enormous amount of spiritual energy. While others might advance three layers after absorbing that much energy, she might only advance one. Therefore, she also needed abundant resources, and she would certainly have to explore the secret realms and dense forests in every direction.

But first, she needed sufficient means to protect herself.

Among the hundred arts of cultivation, the five foremost were the sword path, alchemy, talismans, formations, and forging. They were also the most widely practiced arts.

Now that she was in the Medicine King Pavilion, she could put alchemy on the agenda. Next came self-defense. She planned to study the sword path; spiritual swords were the easiest to wield among magical artifacts, and there were many sword techniques to choose from.

Most importantly, she had found a sword technique in the Scripture Pavilion, so she could use it directly.

Inhale~

Exhale~

The long, drawn-out sound of breathing gradually faded, and Jiang Lu slowly opened her eyes.

The aura around her gradually settled into calm stability. After finishing the books in the Scripture Pavilion, she had told Master Wen that she wished to live in the herb garden so she could better tend the spiritual plants.

Other than the days when herbs were collected, disciples rarely came here. Day after day, only she and Master Wen tended the spiritual plants. It was beneficial to her cultivation.

After so many days of cultivation, no matter how slow-witted she was, she had realized that her Spiritual Roots were different. She had watched Senior Sister Yue Ying and Master Wen cultivate. Both were at the Qi Refinement Middle Stage, and their speed of absorbing spiritual energy was extremely slow—not even one-tenth of hers.

Yet she could feel the changes in their strength.

Her own rate of spiritual energy absorption was dozens of times faster than theirs, yet she only felt her dantian filling. Whenever she tried to advance, she always felt that she lacked that final spark. Still, she was certain this was a good thing.

Because while handling spiritual plants, she could sense that her connection to plants was gradually strengthening. There were quite a few spiritual plants that she could process faster than Master Wen.

It was simply that Master Wen was busy and had not noticed.

Jiang Lu did not know Chi Li and Cangchen's identities, nor did she know that they had long since seen through her Spiritual Roots.

Meanwhile, Chi Li and Cangchen felt that Jiang Lu cultivated steadily and cautiously every day. They feared that she had long known that her Spiritual Roots were unusual.

Thus, both sides produced a perfect misunderstanding.

"Master Wen, we've come to collect this month's spiritual plants."

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Two disciples approached from afar, dressed in dark blue robes. They were disciples of Alchemy Courtyard One.

"You're here. Little Jiang has already sorted everything out, so you can go straight over."

Master Wen emerged from the herb beds, greeted them, and pointed toward the courtyard where Jiang Lu now lived.

He had no idea how that little girl's mind worked. She said that harvesting and processing spiritual plants together was too inefficient.

So she proposed that one person harvest while the other processed them. The pace had become much faster, leaving him far more time to cultivate. Naturally, he was more than willing.

"Alright."

The two disciples nodded. They had come twice already, so they naturally recognized this new apprentice. But Master Wen had led them before, whereas she was handling things directly now. Could it be that she had some talent in this area?

The two entered Jiang Lu's courtyard and saw her sorting spiritual plants. Unlike the plants she had sorted before, these had been divided according to their medicinal properties, so they would not need to be sorted again during alchemy.

One of them could not help picking up the spiritual plants on the table and examining them again and again. Then he looked at Jiang Lu and asked, "Did you sort all of these?"

Jiang Lu turned at his words and saw the two standing before those baskets of spiritual plants. She hurriedly replied, "Yes, Senior Brother. Is there a problem?"

The man merely shook his head and put down the spiritual plant in his hand.

"Take us to count the spiritual plants for Alchemy Courtyard One."

After speaking, he paused, then continued,

"You've sorted these spiritual plants well. Keep sorting them this way from now on."

Jiang Lu nodded and answered, "Yes, Senior Brother."

She was secretly pleased. Judging by their attitude, she had not been wrong to sort them this way. The quality of spiritual plants varied, and the medicinal properties of the pills they produced would differ greatly as well.

According to the pill formula, when processing spiritual plants, one also had to carefully remove damaged portions. Certain medicinal properties attached to some spiritual plants did not need to be removed with wood spiritual energy, while others did.

She had already learned the first step, sorting. The next step was to learn removal.

She watched as the two put the spiritual plants into their storage bags, registered the information, and left.

Jiang Lu looked at the basket of spiritual plants she had kept behind. She carried them into the house, intending to process them all when she had time that night.

The spiritual plants that matured each time were never identical. After delivering the fixed quota to the designated courtyards, they could keep whatever remained.

They could sell them or refine pills with them themselves. This was an unspoken rule of the herb garden. As long as they were not too brazen and were not discovered, nothing would happen.

To refine pills, one needed strength at Qi Refinement Third Layer or above. Otherwise, insufficient spiritual energy during the refinement process could easily lead to failure.

She was still at the Qi Refinement First Layer. She could buy an alchemy furnace first and begin refining after reaching Qi Refinement Third Layer, but even the cheapest alchemy furnace required two hundred mid-grade spirit stones. She could not afford one now.

"Junior Sister Jiang, we've come to collect the spiritual plants for Alchemy Courtyard Two."

Not long after, another two people came to collect spiritual plants. However, part of the required amount had not yet been sorted. Jiang Lu said apologetically:

"Please wait a moment, Senior Sisters. I'll have them sorted soon. You can first check whether the quantities of the others are correct. Those over there are for Alchemy Courtyard Two."

The two nodded without blaming her. It was common for them to wait when they came to collect the plants. After all, the spiritual plants were all picked that very day, so it was perfectly normal that the quantities had not yet been confirmed. Looking at the several baskets of spiritual plants in the distance, they were much faster than usual.

"Senior Sister Dan, the batch of alchemy furnaces in our courtyard needs to be dealt with, right?" the female cultivator on the left asked.