The Path to Wealth and Prosperity

With a thought, the Evil Eye Dharma Protector's dark pupil flickered with spiritual light, locking onto a wandering soul drifting through the peach grove. As he fixed his gaze on it, invisible shackles of spiritual power instantly bound the mistlike soul.

In the next instant, the wandering soul flashed and was forcibly seized and brought before Lin Xu. The Bright Light Lamp flashed, suppressing the soul within its bowl and refining it into a few drops of lamp oil.

The abundant Spiritual Qi on Peach Grove Slope, which covered two or three mu, had gradually drawn wandering souls from nearby to gather their scattered spirits, forming a natural maze formation.

As Lin Xu wiped out the wandering souls in the grove one by one, the mist over Peach Grove Slope gradually dispersed, revealing its original spiritual beauty.

The peach trees once shrouded by wandering souls revealed their vibrant life in the sunlight, their branches laden with plump fruit through which spiritual charm flowed.

Once the mist over Peach Grove Slope had gradually dispersed, Lin Xu assigned villagers to build a caretaker's cabin in the grove and established a collection duty rotation.

Every morning, two villagers would enter the grove to patrol and pick ripe spirit peaches.

Name: Peach Grove Slope

Level: Level 1 resource point

Ownership: Peach Tree Village

Output: Approximately 50 jin of ripe peaches can be collected daily

Status: [Developed] Interference from wandering souls purified, spiritual charm stable, output efficiency increased by 30%

Area: Approximately 3 mu

Associated building: Caretaker's cabin (level 1), can accommodate two villagers on rotating guard duty, provides basic protection against rain and fire

The data showed that approximately fifty jin of ripe peaches could be picked from Peach Grove Slope each day, of which around thirty-five jin actually went into storage. After being smoke-dried, they yielded about ten jin of dried peaches.

Lin Xu also ordered a smoke-drying stove built beside the cabin. Apart from the fresh peaches needed that day, the rest would be slowly dried over a low flame to preserve their spiritual charm, then sent together to the village warehouse.

"This alone will give us ten jin of dried spirit peaches a day. At Xuanwei Monastery's exchange rate, that's worth one string of Dharma Coins. One string a day makes thirty strings a month!"

Lin Xu did a quick calculation, a glint flashing in his eyes. "The peach trees here can gather Spiritual Qi. If we nourish them with spiritual fertilizer and set up a Spirit Gathering Formation to speed up the gathering of Spiritual Qi, Peach Grove Slope will become a graded resource point in less than three years. By then, the price of the spirit peaches will rise more than tenfold!"

Before this, he had worked himself to exhaustion capturing and refining Yin souls in Yin Locust Forest, earning only one or two strings a night while risking his life.

Now that he was guarding Peach Tree Village, he did not have to do anything, yet thirty strings came in every month, as steady as Mount Tai.

"Sure enough, farming and development are the path to wealth and prosperity."

Because of the Spirit Realm's invasion, the real world had been forced onto a path where technology and cultivation advanced side by side.

Limited by their resources, ordinary people treated cultivation only as an aid to strengthening their bodies, while Spirit Realm adventurers rapidly accumulated wealth and cultivation by seizing the Spirit Realm's resources.

Among them, the Lineages and financial conglomerates that had endured for so long all controlled stable resource points in the Spirit Realm.

At the market price of fifty or sixty yuan per Dharma Coin, one string a day meant an income of fifty or sixty thousand yuan, with a steady monthly income of over one and a half million.

Calculating his earnings, Lin Xu turned his attention to the second project awaiting development in Peach Tree Village.

[Pool on the back mountain (spirit fish can be caught, undeveloped)]

The pool lay hidden deep in the dense forest north of the village. Its waters were deep and emerald green, wreathed in faint Spiritual Qi. Now and then, silver scales leaped above the surface, reflecting streaks of spiritual light.

Name: Spirit Pool

Level: Level 1 resource point

Ownership: Peach Tree Village

Output: Azure-Patterned Spirit Fish (10 can be caught daily), cold jade algae (10 plants can be gathered daily)

Status: [Developed]

Area: Approximately 1 mu, over 10 zhang deep

Associated buildings: [None]

Peering through the surface, Evil Eye's dark pupil discovered schools of Azure-Patterned Spirit Fish living in the pool. These fish were active at night and hid by day, feeding on spiritual algae and drinking spring essence. Their flesh and blood were imbued with spirituality.

Item: Azure-Patterned Spirit Fish

Grade: Blue, fine

Type: Spirit fish

Effect: Nourishes the meridians and strengthens the soul when eaten, cultivation +10%

Description: Has the luster of azure jade. Often dwells deep in spirit springs, absorbing and exhaling moonlight. When swimming, it resembles a star-studded river. Found deep in spirit springs, it often grows alongside cold jade algae.

Through Evil Eye's vision, Lin Xu saw cold jade algae swaying with the water at the bottom of the pool.

The cold jade algae was crystal clear from root to tip, like ice. Its roots gripped the cracks in the rocks on the pool bed, and its leaves gleamed silver in the moonlight.

The algae had no grade displayed. Clearly, like the spirit peaches from Peach Grove Slope, it was an ungraded spiritual object.

The Azure-Patterned Spirit Fish were long and slender, shaped like shuttles and a little over a chi in length. Azure markings appeared and vanished along their backs, and as they swam, a faint light seemed to flow around them, like stardust in the water.

They darted in schools among the cold jade algae. Whenever the moon rose, they surfaced to absorb and exhale its clear light and refine Spiritual Qi.

"Both Azure-Patterned Spirit Fish and cold jade algae favor moonlight. If I build a Moon-Drawing Formation in the pool, I can greatly increase their growth rate and quality."

As Lin Xu pondered this, he mobilized the villagers to begin catching Azure-Patterned Spirit Fish and gathering cold jade algae.

Unlike dried spirit peaches, Azure-Patterned Spirit Fish were a precious cultivation resource. The ten produced each day were not even enough to divide among Lin Xu and the Dharma Protectors under his command.

After assigning Wang Yue to take two outer disciples and a squad of militia to lay a Spirit Gathering Formation on Peach Grove Slope and build a Moon-Gazing Pavilion at the back-mountain pool to gather moonlight, Lin Xu had to turn his attention to the matter before him:

People from Xuanwei Monastery had finally arrived.

"So many people. Are they going to war with the dungeon...?" Watching the images Evil Eye sent back, Lin Xu's thoughts stirred.

On the country road connecting the monastery to Peach Tree Village, seventy or eighty Xuanwei Monastery disciples marched at the front in neat formation. Leading them were three red-robed elders and true disciples, riding clouds and mist.

Immediately behind the Xuanwei Monastery disciples were a full two hundred Dharma Protector Dao soldiers in armor from head to toe. The blades of the Soul-Slaying Halberds they carried glinted coldly, and their imposing armor shone with a chilly bronze luster in the morning sun.

Behind the Dao soldiers, five hundred able-bodied militia escorted more than a hundred supply carts as they rumbled along, raising billows of dust on the bumpy dirt road.

Such a massive display was clearly directed at the dungeon.

"According to Chen Yuanfu, of the five villages under Xuanwei Monastery, Peach Tree Village was the most recent to submit and has the smallest population. But even the largest village has only a little over a thousand permanent residents.

"The monastery has only about two hundred inner and outer disciples combined, and the Demon Subduing Hall has only three hundred Dharma Protector Dao soldiers. By that reckoning, Xuanwei Monastery has sent out almost everyone this time."

After a quick calculation, Lin Xu's heart sank.

Though NPCs were rigid in their actions, they were extremely meticulous in what they did and would never shoot an arrow without a target.

For Xuanwei Monastery to mobilize on such a scale, the dungeon's strength had to be extraordinary, forcing the monastery's upper ranks to assemble all their forces.

By now, Wang Yue, Chen Yuanfu, and the other monastery disciples had received word and put down their work. They stood with Lin Xu at the village entrance, gazing solemnly at the vast procession approaching from afar.

Xuanwei Monastery's procession did not stop at the entrance to Peach Tree Village. The red-robed elder at its head swept his gaze over the assembled people, then led the procession straight east, toward the dungeon.