The Medicinal Garden, Grim News Arrives
Ten days passed in a row.
On July 10, the day to upgrade the Spirit Field finally arrived.
Li Yunjing came to the Spirit Field early.
He moistened the Spirit Field one last time with spiritual liquid.
As it happened, he used up all the spiritual liquid.
The Spirit Field could finally be upgraded.
Li Yunjing immediately silently willed it to upgrade.
The Spirit Field upgraded from lv1 to lv2.
[Spirit Field (lv2)]
[lv3 spiritual effects: The reduction in crop growth cycles increases to -50%. When absorbing Spiritual Qi while cultivating a wood- or earth-attribute Cultivation Method within a radius of ten zhang, Spiritual Qi absorption speed +40%.
Automatically clears away first-grade pests. +30% chance of Spirit Plants undergoing beneficial mutations.
Produces one drop of Condensed Spring Dew every seven days.]
[Upgrade requirements: Yang-Restoring Wood Marrow ×1, fifty cubic units of first-grade spiritual soil.]
The lv3 spiritual effects made Li Yunjing's eyes light up.
It produced Condensed Spring Dew every seven days.
That was one more product.
Condensed Spring Dew was a first-grade spiritual substance.
It contained abundant vitality.
Taken directly, it could heal the vast majority of injuries.
It was also one of the main ingredients used to refine the high-grade Spring-Restoring Pill.
A single drop of Condensed Spring Dew could sell for twenty-four low-grade Spirit Stones.
And that was only for ordinary-quality Condensed Spring Dew.
Premium-quality Condensed Spring Dew was worth even more.
Upgrading it to lv3 wouldn't be difficult, either.
Li Yunjing could simply buy the fifty cubic units of first-grade spiritual soil.
It would cost just a hundred low-grade Spirit Stones.
The Yang-Restoring Wood Marrow was more expensive, though.
A single piece cost eighty low-grade Spirit Stones.
The total cost came to a hefty hundred and eighty low-grade Spirit Stones.
Fortunately, Li Yunjing hadn't been idle over the past ten days.
Besides spending some time cultivating every day,
Li Yunjing had made a trip to Xunxian Town.
He had spent every Spirit Stone he had
on three sets of spirit medicines for refining Yellow Sprout Pills.
Together with the two sets of spirit medicines Li Yunjing had left ten days ago,
that made five sets in all, and Li Yunjing had used up all five over the ten days.
He had succeeded three times in five attempts.
Two batches had been premium quality, and one had been ordinary.
In the end, Li Yunjing had obtained ten Fine-Grade Yellow Sprout Pills and seven ordinary Yellow Sprout Pills.
Along with the two Fine-Grade Yellow Sprout Pills he had left from before, Li Yunjing had twelve Fine-Grade Yellow Sprout Pills.
Selling them would bring him three hundred and ninety-six low-grade Spirit Stones.
As for the seven ordinary Yellow Sprout Pills,
each could sell for sixteen low-grade Spirit Stones.
The seven would bring in a hundred and twelve low-grade Spirit Stones.
Altogether, that came to five hundred and eight low-grade Spirit Stones.
After deducting costs, the six sets of spirit medicines for refining Yellow Sprout Pills had cost Li Yunjing a total of a hundred and sixty-eight low-grade Spirit Stones.
From this round of pill refining, Li Yunjing could make a profit of three hundred and forty low-grade Spirit Stones.
That pleased Li Yunjing immensely.
No wonder alchemists were the most sought-after professionals in the cultivation world.
The profits they earned were enough to make many people green with envy.
Of course, for Li Yunjing to make such a large profit,
he had the Alchemy Chamber's boost to thank, in addition to his own extraordinary talent.
For other alchemists,
unless they were highly experienced and had spent years refining pills,
a beginner would be lucky not to lose even the pants off his legs.
After lingering in front of the Spirit Field for a while, Li Yunjing walked away.
He went to the Patriarch Hall and offered a stick of incense to the Luozhen Sect's patriarch.
A strange feeling suddenly came over Li Yunjing.
He had triggered the Patriarch's Protection, increasing his cultivation speed by twenty percent for the next thirteen shichen.
As Li Yunjing left the Patriarch Hall, he thought of Zhang Hanpeng.
The kid had been gone for ten days.
He wondered whether Zhang Hanpeng had managed to recruit anyone.
Shaking his head, Li Yunjing decided not to dwell on such trivial matters.
He picked up a hoe from in front of Luozhen Hall and walked some five hundred paces northeast.
Here, Li Yunjing had woven a fence around a plot of land.
Half the enclosed plot had already been hoed, while the other half remained untouched and overgrown with weeds.
This was work Li Yunjing had started a few days ago.
Since the newly built cave abode could be upgraded,
Li Yunjing planned to continue building new structures.
For his second structure, Li Yunjing planned to build a medicinal garden.
Although his cave abode could also be used to grow spirit medicines,
Li Yunjing intended to use its two medicinal fields to grow spirit medicines for himself.
There was no way they could supply the entire Luozhen Sect.
The spirit medicines grown in this medicinal garden, on the other hand, would be used to supply the entire Luozhen Sect.
He hoed all the soil in the remaining half.
Li Yunjing then took out a bottle of spiritual liquid.
He poured it into the freshly hoed ground.
Now he only had to wait about seven or eight days before the plot could be used to grow spirit medicines.
Just then, a notification popped up before Li Yunjing.
[New structure detected: medicinal garden. Add it as an upgradable structure?]
What was there to hesitate about? Li Yunjing immediately answered yes in his mind.
[Medicinal garden (lv0)]
[lv1 spiritual effects: Spirit medicine maturation time reduced by 25%. Ordinary spirit medicines have a +10% chance of reaching premium quality.]
[Upgrade requirements: Spirit-Stabilizing Grass ×10 plants, low-grade Spirit Stones ×20.]
The lv1 effects were barely satisfactory.
The upgrade requirements were simple, too.
Li Yunjing planned to make another trip to Xunxian Town in a few days
to buy all the materials needed for the upgrade.
Having made up his mind, Li Yunjing planned to seize the time to cultivate while the Patriarch's Protection was still in effect.
September 15 was the day of the Immortal Alliance's assessment.
There were only about two months left until September 15.
Just as Li Yunjing was about to go cultivate,
a streak of light suddenly raced toward him from the distant horizon.
It landed in front of Li Yunjing: a small sword the length of a palm.
"Flying sword message!"
Surprise showed in Li Yunjing's eyes.
He crushed the small sword, and Gao Jin's voice rang out.
"Sect Leader Li, there's news of your junior brother and junior sister. Come quickly!"
Hearing this, Li Yunjing put everything else aside.
He first returned to the Patriarch Hall and took the incense burner.
Then Li Yunjing immediately left the Luozhen Sect.
At present, apart from the incense burner, there was nothing else of value in the entire Luozhen Sect.
Even if Rogue Cultivators came looking to plunder it, they would have to leave in tears.
Though ordinary Rogue Cultivators wouldn't come here anyway.
What Rogue Cultivator didn't know the Luozhen Sect's current situation?
They wouldn't get a bite of mutton here, and they'd still end up stinking of it. It simply wasn't worth the trouble.
Li Yunjing stuck two Breeze Talismans onto himself and headed for Xunxian Town at full speed.
Before long, Li Yunjing entered Xunxian Town.
He headed straight for his destination.
Li Yunjing soon arrived at Gao Jin's Worry-Relief Shop.
Gao Jin had been waiting for some time. When he saw Li Yunjing arrive, he immediately went forward to greet him.
"Sect Leader Li, you've finally come. Follow me!"
Gao Jin gave him a brief greeting, then led Li Yunjing toward the back of the Worry-Relief Shop.
Lifting the curtain, Li Yunjing entered the Worry-Relief Shop's rear courtyard.
Eight corpses lay on the ground in the courtyard.
All eight corpses were missing parts.
Two of their heads had vanished without a trace.
Gao Jin walked over to the two headless corpses.
"Sect Leader Li, please look. These two corpses are a man and a woman, and their builds and everything else are basically a match. I'm afraid..."
Gao Jin didn't finish.
But his meaning was perfectly clear.
These two headless corpses were Mo Xuan and Shui Yao.
Li Yunjing was silent and expressionless, with no trace of emotion visible in his eyes.
After a moment, Li Yunjing took a deep breath.
He stepped forward and looked down at the two corpses on the ground.
As Li Yunjing crouched down, sadness suddenly appeared in his eyes.
In the end, they were separated by the divide between yin and yang.
He had known a Golden Core cave abode wouldn't be so easy to explore.
Li Yunjing mourned in silence.
Seeing this, Gao Jin quietly left as well.
After mourning for a while, Li Yunjing planned to take the two of them away.
Since they were disciples of the Luozhen Sect, they should be buried there.
Before that, Li Yunjing searched the two corpses
to see what belongings they still had on them.
Gao Jin was a man who followed the rules. He only collected the bodies.
He wouldn't touch the belongings on them.
Li Yunjing was feeling around the male corpse's chest
when he suddenly noticed that something felt wrong.
He hurriedly pulled open the corpse's clothing, exposing its chest.
A gruesome wound appeared before Li Yunjing...