Cloud Frontier, on the banks of the Red River, in the Poison Tempering Mountains.
What a vast and dazzling world this was. Lin Ke had felt its wonders the moment he transmigrated here.
But what did it matter how wondrous it was?
He was only an ordinary outer sect disciple with mediocre aptitude, also named "Lin Ke," with nothing for a transmigrator to take pride in.
"Lin Ke, you'll be taking over the Green Mulberry Garden today. Remember your monthly quota. If you're expelled from the sect, your cultivation will be crippled."
A voice sounded outside the door. It belonged to Lin Ke's senior sister.
After he repeatedly failed his assessments because he was too weak, his senior sister was the only person who still cared about him.
Plenty of people failed their assessments, but this had been his third and final chance.
Having missed this opportunity, he could practically be declared ineligible to advance to the inner sect.
Unless he made some great contribution later.
"Senior Sister, you should head back." Lin Ke smiled as he answered her through the door. "I'll take good care of the Blackgold Silkworms in the Green Mulberry Garden."
He did not dare go outside, afraid that his senior sister, who knew the original owner of his body well, would notice something amiss.
"Take care of yourself..." His senior sister's voice was filled with regret.
"I brought you into the Golden Wing Sect hoping to secure you a path to immortality. Your cultivation rose steadily at first. I never expected it to stop growing afterward, let alone fall all the way from the ninth level of Qi Refining to the first. Longevity will be difficult now."
"Still, although the Green Mulberry Garden's monthly requirements are harsh, it's a decent place to live out your days. If anything comes up later, just come to me."
"Don't worry, Senior Sister." Lin Ke's voice remained cheerful. "Go on, Senior Sister. I'm tired, so I'm going to sleep for a while."
His senior sister fell silent at that, then finally sighed and left.
Lin Ke, however, remained optimistic.
He was not afraid even though he would very likely have his cultivation crippled and be expelled from the sect in a month.
That was because the original owner of his body had actually obtained a fortuitous opportunity he had never told anyone about.
At that thought, Lin Ke focused his attention within his mind.
His sea of consciousness was utterly tranquil, as though it were a real ocean.
A sea of consciousness should have been empty, only changing once one reached the later cultivation realms.
Yet Lin Ke's Sea of Consciousness was different.
A red-and-green orb bobbed within it, absorbing wisps of Spirit Power from his body.
The original owner had obtained this Mysterious Bead through a chance encounter, then supplied it with spiritual energy for three whole years.
Three years!
Three years without an inch of progress in his cultivation!
Fortunately, after Lin Ke transmigrated here, the orb had already begun showing signs of stirring.
He estimated that it would unlock within the next couple of days!
And it seemed that Lin Ke's transmigration had accelerated the process.
He eagerly anticipated what this orb might bring him.
With that thought, Lin Ke finished tidying his room and went outside.
A mountainside covered in mulberry trees greeted his eyes. His house stood halfway up the mountain, and in the distance, a clear spring cascaded down from the summit.
The three mountains nearby were all part of the Green Mulberry Garden.
His job was to travel back and forth between the three mountains every day, collecting silk.
The Blackgold Silkworms in the Green Mulberry Garden had all been specially bred. There was no need to wait for them to form cocoons; instead, they spun silk onto the collecting shuttles of their own accord each day.
There were more than three thousand Blackgold Silkworms in total, spread throughout these three mountains.
As the only sect disciple in the Green Mulberry Garden, he was responsible for overseeing the mortals who worked there.
The sect disciple previously stationed here had already been transferred away, though Lin Ke had no idea where.
In any case, it was certainly somewhere better than the sparsely populated Green Mulberry Garden.
As he pondered this, Lin Ke sat cross-legged and regulated his breathing.
Only after confirming that his senior sister had gone far away did he breathe a sigh of relief.
There was no helping it. He was Lin Ke, not "Lin Ke."
If he met his senior sister face-to-face, she was bound to notice something suspicious, given how well the two knew each other.
That was why Lin Ke did not dare meet her at all.
"Ah, an elder sister is like a mother..." Thinking of the original owner's relationship with this senior sister, Lin Ke sighed.
Then he shook his head and put those thoughts aside.
Now was not the time to dwell on such things.
Completing his sect assignment came first!
And beyond that assignment, the Sect Grand Tournament was also coming up in a month.
If he slipped up and was injured or crippled before being expelled from the sect, it would be practically a death sentence.
But now, faced with both the sect assignment and the Sect Grand Tournament, he still had one slender thread of hope.
The Mysterious Bead in his mind!
If this Mysterious Bead could provide him with powerful support, he might be able to turn the tide of the Sect Grand Tournament a month from now.
Meanwhile, the sect assignment was not necessarily difficult either.
By all rights, meeting the sect's silk quota through normal means would be extremely difficult.
After all, his quota was twice everyone else's!
Ordinarily, the Green Mulberry Garden produced less than half a catty of silk.
Its highest yield had come in a year when a martial uncle skilled in the Verdant Growth Art used it to accelerate the mulberry trees' growth, enabling the Blackgold Silkworms to produce a great deal of silk.
Even then, it had only produced one catty!
It was like a milk cow that normally yielded half a bucket at a time. If driving it to exhaustion and death only yielded one bucket of milk, squeezing out two would be extremely difficult.
He had merely been demoted, after all. He could have been sent to raise spirit chickens, grow spirit herbs, or do any number of other jobs.
Those were lucrative posts, with plenty of surplus eggs, spirit herbs, and so forth. The outer sect disciples managing such places were generally rolling in wealth.
Only the Green Mulberry Garden was different.
The Blackgold Silkworm Silk yield only fluctuated by a few grams, leaving no surplus worth selling.
It was generally sold by the catty.
On top of that, the Green Mulberry Garden lay at the edge of the sect's territory, so even fewer people were willing to come here.
Still, Lin Ke would not simply sit and wait for death.
What could he do if the current techniques could not produce enough Blackgold Silkworm Silk?
Change the techniques!
According to his memories, silkworm rearing and mulberry cultivation here had not yet advanced to the point where spells replaced technology.
Their silkworm-rearing and silk-reeling techniques were extremely backward and primitive.
In other words, the biological knowledge in Lin Ke's mind from his previous life, inherited from people such as Mendel, Darwin, and Heavenly Venerable Yuan of Rice, could be put to use here.
That was what gave him the confidence to complete his sect assignment!
But first, he would need to understand the Blackgold Silkworms.
Only after gathering enough information could he devise a good way to apply that knowledge.
As he was thinking, the orb in his mind suddenly stirred.
Boom!!!
A thunderous roar erupted in Lin Ke's mind, and his mental power and soul instantly lost all awareness of the outside world.
Within his sea of consciousness, the orb seemed like a sponge that had soaked up all the water it could hold, giving off a sense of fullness, of overflowing satiety.
Then it exploded, transforming into wave after wave of purple qi and red radiance that pierced through Lin Ke's sea of consciousness.
It was happening!
The Mysterious Bead was changing!
Lin Ke's attention was wholly absorbed by the transformation within his sea of consciousness.
Clearly, something extraordinary was happening inside his head, and it was a thoroughly positive change!
Whoosh...
The purple qi and red radiance turned into streams of light, traveling through his sea of consciousness as though through a mire. Before long, they carved out a hemispherical space.
Space opened, the clear and turbid parted, purple qi came from the east, yin and yang gave rise to one another, and the great void mingled.
A wondrous, profound space formed within his sea of consciousness.
A round heaven and a square earth!
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