Chapter 20 (continued)

Seeing how delighted he was, Shan Heyuan said, "He didn't just praise you. He rewarded you too, didn't he?"

"Of course," Qi Yuanbai said. "Master is the fairest person there is. He said we all deserved credit for saving the Spirit Plant Garden after such a severe outbreak of disease, so he rewarded my senior brother and me. There's something for you too."

Shan Heyuan was genuinely surprised. "For me too?"

"Yes. Master said that although he paid you before, it wasn't enough to express his gratitude. He sent a gift especially for you as a token of his appreciation, to thank you for saving the Spirit Plants he spent more than half his life collecting."

Shan Heyuan couldn't help saying, "I gained a great deal from treating those Spirit Plants too. Senior Zhan is far too generous."

Qi Yuanbai pulled a bag from his storage ring and pressed it into Shan Heyuan's hands. "The gift is already here, so just take it."

With that, Qi Yuanbai urged him to open it and have a look.

Since transmigrating to this world, it was the first time Shan Heyuan had received a gift from someone other than Shen Duheng.

He gently opened the bag and reached inside, pulling out five emerald-green Jade Slips, each the size of a mahjong tile.

Qi Yuanbai craned his neck to look at what was in his hand. "What are they?"

Shan Heyuan turned the Jade Slips over and showed Qi Yuanbai the words on their backs. "A Study of Green Leaves, A Study of Green Vines, A Study of Wood, Spirit Plant Secrets, and Ge Xuan's Notes."

"They all seem to be books on cultivation," Qi Yuanbai said.

Shan Heyuan swept them with his Divine Sense. "They don't just seem to be. They are."

"Then they must be books that aren't commonly found on the market. My master likes growing Spirit Plants, and the books he's collected are quite useful. See if they're of any use to you."

Shan Heyuan stroked the Jade Slips with care. "How could they not be? There aren't many books on growing plants in Jingzhishan Town. I was just wondering how to find more books on the subject, and Senior Zhan sent these. It's like sending charcoal in the snow."

Seeing how much he liked them, Qi Yuanbai was delighted. "I'll write to Master and tell him you like the books he sent."

Shan Heyuan smiled. "Thank Daoist Zhan Cang for me. I like them very much."

Shan Heyuan took the Jade Slips home to read and found that each of the five had a different focus. Every one of them explained profound subjects in simple terms and was exceptionally well written.

He had read a great many texts by now, and his discernment had improved as well.

Jade Slips this good would cost at least five thousand spirit pearls apiece on the market.

Daoist Zhan Cang had sent him five at once, all detailed and perfectly suited to his current reading level. He must have put considerable thought into them.

Shan Heyuan was deeply grateful to receive such generous treatment from an elder.

Shan Heyuan showed the Jade Slips to Shen Duheng. "Daoist Zhan Cang has given me a truly generous gift. I'd like to send something in return and write to thank him while I'm at it."

Shen Duheng took the Jade Slips and swept them with his Divine Sense. "They really are excellent Jade Slips, suited to your current level. For that Daoist to treat you so generously, I suspect he's considering taking you as a disciple."

Shan Heyuan was taken aback. "Surely not?"

"The Supreme Harmony Sect already wanted to take you into its inner sect. If you had passed the entrance examination, they would naturally have needed to find a master to guide you. The sect has quite a few masters and elders now, but Zhan Cang is the only one skilled at growing plants. If you had passed, he most likely would have been the one to guide you."

Hearing his analysis, Shan Heyuan felt it really was possible.

"The people of the Supreme Harmony Sect all have good reputations. Zhan Cang is at Late Core Formation now and has four direct disciples. He could manage a few more. If you're interested, taking him as your master would be a good choice."

Shan Heyuan shook his head repeatedly. "No, no, no. I'm not thinking about that at the moment."

Shen Duheng returned the Jade Slips to him. "Since you're not, you should take care with what you emphasize in your letter."

With Shen Duheng's advice, Shan Heyuan carefully weighed his words as he wrote. He sincerely thanked Daoist Zhan Cang for supporting a junior and tactfully expressed his wish to go out and make his way in the world if he had the chance.

A clever man like Daoist Zhan Cang understood what he meant as soon as he read the letter. Rather than being displeased, he encouraged him to go out and see the world while he was young.

Shan Heyuan devoured the Jade Slips like a starving man. To digest the knowledge they contained, he made a special trip to town to buy a fine Jade Slip solely for his reading notes.

The five Jade Slips contained a great deal of knowledge, and it took him nearly a month to finish reading them all.

The Jade Slips primarily recorded knowledge, but they also contained a few Secret Methods for growing plants.

After finishing them, Shan Heyuan decided first to try a Secret Method for making fertilizer recorded in Ge Xuan's Notes, called the Spirit-Imbuing Heap-Burning Method.

He chose this Secret Method to try because he had learned a heap-burning method for making fertilizer from the Spring Transformation Art and had become very proficient at using it.

The Spirit-Imbuing Heap-Burning Method was an advanced version of the conventional method. According to the Jade Slip, it produced better results and could be used on higher-grade Spirit Plants.

He was growing many Spirit Plants now and needed a great deal of fertilizer. Since this method worked well, he considered giving it a try.

The Spirit-Imbuing Heap-Burning Method used different techniques and had different material requirements.

When making fertilizer with the ordinary heap-burning method, any material would do as long as it contained Spiritual Qi. Different materials produced fertilizer with different levels of fertility and Spiritual Qi, but all of it was usable.

The Spirit-Imbuing Heap-Burning Method, however, had specific requirements. It required materials of all five elements-metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—and prescribed the proportion of each.

In addition, certain auxiliary materials had to be added to blend the spiritual power and attributes within the materials, such as red jade wood, primordial water, and ice crystal soil.

All these materials had to be purchased separately, and they were not cheap.

Shan Heyuan went to the Hidden Spirits General Store and bought the materials on his list. When he paid, his brows twitched at the expense.

The materials cost him a full forty-seven thousand three hundred spirit pearls, even after the shopkeeper gave him a discount and rounded the price down.

After buying the materials, he first had to heap them up according to a set procedure and let them ferment, taking care to control the temperature.

Once they had fermented, he could burn them.

Shan Heyuan rarely spent such a large sum of spirit pearls.

Having spent the spirit pearls, he naturally wanted good results, so he took great care when mixing the materials and setting them out to ferment.

On the day of the heap burning, he paid a hefty sum to bring Zhong Shuran over and set up a talisman formation by the river, ensuring that the fire would remain steady throughout and nothing would go wrong during the burning.

The wind blew hard by the river, shaking the withered yellow reeds violently.

To guard against fire, Shan Heyuan had asked Shen Duheng in advance to use his spirit sword to clear a large area for them. He had also dug firebreaks around it and channeled water into them, lest a fire spread to the nearby woods and mountains.

Zhong Shuran knew Shan Heyuan had always been reliable, but seeing the neatly prepared clearing, he still couldn't help saying, "You really are meticulous. No wonder you're so good at growing Spirit Plants."

"It's not our own land, so we have to take even better care of it," Shan Heyuan said. "Otherwise, we'd have no sense of public decency."

Zhong Shuran gave him a thumbs-up.

Shan Heyuan smiled and urged him on. "It's getting late. Hurry and set up the talisman formation."

Zhong Shuran was a talisman master, and he was also quite skilled in formations.

He pulled out a design. "I've already planned it out. Help me bury the talisman pieces."

"All right," Shan Heyuan said. "Draw the layout first, and then I'll bury them."

Talisman formations were a rigorous discipline. Where each talisman piece had to be buried and how far it had to be from the others all required precise mathematical calculations, and the work then had to follow the calculated design.

Cultivators had good memories, and most already had the design in their heads when setting up a formation, so they didn't need to look at it.

A novice like Shan Heyuan had no such ability and could only work from the plans.

Not only did he need to look at the plans, he also needed Zhong Shuran to draw the layout on the ground first.

Cultivators' Divine Sense was powerful enough to scan many details, and dedicated talisman and formation cultivators were especially adept at it.

Zhong Shuran quickly drew the layout in the soil, then split up with Shan Heyuan to bury the talisman pieces.

The depth at which each talisman piece was buried mattered too. Shan Heyuan held the plans and checked the details for every piece he buried, striving to leave no room for error.

Working together, the two made fairly quick progress.

Before noon, the entire great formation was in place.