Leveling up

The piles of vegetables outside the thatched cottage gave Ye Huan a headache. His family ate them every day, but they still could not finish them, and they were gradually piling up. He looked over at the side of the cottage, where he had built a fence himself. The chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, cattle, and sheep he kept there had all grown up too.

As for the young wild ginseng, Solomon's seal, and fleeceflower root he had transplanted from the mountains, those medicinal herbs still had a long way to go. Even with ten days passing in here for every day outside, only a little over a year had passed. For medicinal herbs, it was still early days.

Then he unexpectedly noticed something. Had this Spirit Spring Space grown quite a bit larger?

He remembered that it had been about one mu in size at the very beginning. He had measured its boundaries with a tape measure: 33 meters long and 20 meters wide, or 660 square meters. Why did it feel bigger now?

He clearly remembered that when he measured it, the back of the thatched cottage had practically touched the boundary. Now there were roughly ten more meters behind it. Besides, there had not been a large rock in that corner before, but now one had suddenly appeared.

He went back, found a tape measure in the house, and entered the space again to measure it anew. "Sure enough..." Ye Huan could not puzzle it out, no matter how hard he thought. "It really is 11 meters longer and 10 meters wider. Its area is 1,320 square meters now, exactly double. Could it be because I've been growing vegetables and raising animals in here?"

Ye Huan did not know whether his guess was right, but he hoped it was. In the future, he would get more different vegetable seeds, or even seeds for other plants and things like saplings, along with more varieties of animals, to see whether that was the reason.

If it was, he would be overjoyed. The space could level up? What did that mean? It meant that his space would keep getting bigger, and might even develop mountains and lakes, or even seas? Glaciers?

Ye Huan himself felt like laughing first. He really had some nerve, daring to imagine anything at all. Cultivation was more important.

He calmed his mind and began cultivating along the circulation route taught in the Dao Scripture. After completing one grand circulation, he drank a cup of spirit spring water and continued. He repeated this over and over. After completing 36 circulations, he seemed to hear a "pop," as though something inside his body had been broken through.

He opened his eyes and saw a layer of black grime on his skin. He knew he had leveled up again, but he did not know exactly what level he had reached, because he had experienced this sensation four times now, including this time.

By his own reckoning, he should now be level five. Although he did not know how different his self-defined level five was from the levels his grandfather had mentioned, he knew he had definitely surpassed the level of a martial artist.

The Light Body Technique he practiced had already begun to show results. As for ancient martial arts, even excluding what his grandfather had given him, he had already mastered several styles. Yet he still could not grasp the essentials of talismans, divination, or that curse arts thing, and could not get started with them at all.

He had even reached the introductory level in medicine and beast taming, but those other subjects left him completely at sea, unable to find a way in, so he had never gone on to practice them.

Ye Huan appeared in his room and took another shower, washing the grime off his body. He noticed that his skin was growing increasingly fine and smooth, and had even acquired a faint sheen.

There was not a scrap of flab left on his body either, replaced by eight abdominal muscles that were not particularly pronounced. His overall build was not brawny, but its contours were very well proportioned and attractive, without being exaggerated.

Not only that, he found that his hearing and eyesight seemed to have improved too. He could now even hear insects chirping outside the courtyard.

He pushed open the window facing the mountain behind the house and peered into the distance through the wind and rain. To his surprise, he could clearly see the orchard on the mountain in this pitch-black night.

Not only could he see farther, he had even gained night vision. Ye Huan was delighted. This showed that cultivation really did have benefits. No wonder it was called the Longevity Dao Scripture.

Eyes that did not go blind and ears that did not go deaf-wasn't that a good thing?

Seeing that it was still early, he entered the space again. This time, instead of cultivating the Dao Scripture, he practiced those minor spells. The one he was practicing now was called the Fireball Spell.

It had been introduced in the Dao Scripture. He had tried it before at level four, but the fireball had been too small, just a wisp of flame. It could hardly be called a Fireball Spell.

Now, when he cast it again, the flame really did turn into a tiny fireball, about the size of an egg. He repeatedly shifted it around in his hand, making it move, then used the qi inside his body to push it out as the Dao Scripture taught.

The little fireball swiftly landed on a Chinese cabbage, and in moments, the cabbage became a pile of ash. Ye Huan stared, dumbstruck. This fucking thing was a fireball??

What kind of fireball could burn a fresh, juicy Chinese cabbage to ash in ten seconds?

He seemed to have discovered something incredible, so he began testing it on different things. Yet the result was always the same. Nothing could withstand the fireball's burning; the only difference was how long it took.

What left him most tongue-tied was an iron scale weight he went outside to fetch. Two minutes, and it burned away completely. This gave Ye Huan some understanding of this so-called Fireball Spell. This was fucking immortal magic, wasn't it?

He left the space, took deep breaths, steadied his mood, and went to sleep. He did not want to practice anything else. Today's Fireball Spell had frightened him a little. He still had not recovered from the shock.

Without cultivating, the night passed quickly. Ye Huan woke to wind and rain in the morning, stretched, and opened the front window. The wind and rain had eased considerably. By now, it could just about be considered moderate rain.

He checked the time. Nine o'clock. He slipped on his slippers and went downstairs, where he saw Jingjing sitting quietly and playing with Xiaobai. The wild wolf lay in the passage by the main entrance. Ye Huan's parents and the others were no longer afraid. Hearing Ye Huan, the wild wolf raised his head to look at him, then laid it down again and narrowed his eyes.

"Disco, how about heading into the mountains to get some food once the rain eases?" Ye Huan said to the wild wolf. Yes, he had named this wild wolf, Xiaobai's biological father, "Disco."

The wild wolf raised his head again, looked at the rain outside, stood up, and let out a howl.

"No rush. We don't know what it's like in the mountains right now. Once the rain stops, I'll go take a look too." Ye Huan understood what he meant and did not let him go right away.

After the two storms the night before last and yesterday, there was no telling what conditions were like in the mountains. He would not let Disco take that risk, and he also wanted to look things over once the rain stopped.

After rain, all sorts of treasures would emerge. His other purpose was to transplant more plants into the Spirit Spring Space. If there were any small animals or the like, he would not mind those either.

Disco lay down again and began to doze.

By lunchtime, the rain finally stopped. The long-absent sun hung in the sky, and moisture began rising from the ground. Before eating, Ye Huan went to the river to take a look. The water was almost level with the road. This counted as one of the bigger mountain floods in recent decades.