Chapter 29: Beyond Expectations

With twenty-three contribution points in hand, Shen Qinghe walked out of Emerald Spirit Peak, hesitating over whether to exchange them for something. After a moment’s thought, she gave up the idea. With so few points, she could hardly get anything worthwhile. As for cultivation pills, she still had eight bottles of Qi-Gathering Pills, each containing ten pills—more than enough to last her a long while. To exchange for a better cultivation technique, these points were far from sufficient. Any technique superior to "Qi Refinement Manual" cost at least a hundred contribution points.

After weighing her options, Shen Qinghe decided to save her twenty-three contribution points for now.

When she returned to the spiritual field, the sun was already sinking. She first cleared away the stubble left from the harvest, then took up her hoe and turned the entire field once again. Once everything was in order, she divided the spiritual field into three areas. She planned to reserve half for continued cultivation of Azure Spirit Rice. The other two sections—one would be her test plot, the other for planting any new products that might result from her experiments.

Standing atop the field ridge, Shen Qinghe surveyed the neatly arranged land with a flicker of satisfaction in her eyes. From her storage pouch, she took out a wooden box and gently opened it. Inside, seven seeds glimmered with a faint purple glow—these were the spiritual seeds borne by the Purple Spirit Ginseng she had grown in a flowerpot. She had discovered, on her return from Qingyun Market, that the Purple Spirit Ginseng by her bed had matured enough to harvest seeds. Without hesitation, she had picked them, all in preparation for today’s planting.

With a deft touch, Shen Qinghe dropped each of the seven seeds precisely into the shallow pits she had prepared. Carefully, she covered them with spiritual soil and watered them with spring water from the spirit well. When she straightened up, the setting sun had already painted the clouds a brilliant orange-red.

“Time to go back,” she murmured, brushing the earth from her hands and putting her tools away in her storage pouch.

A cool mountain breeze swept across the spiritual field as she made her final inspection of the protective array before heading back to her small courtyard in the dusk.

As soon as she pushed open the courtyard gate, a familiar aroma of food greeted her. Warm orange firelight flickered from the kitchen, where Liu Qingqing’s slender figure busily tended to the stove. When Liu Qingqing came out with a steaming dish in her hands and caught sight of Shen Qinghe, her almond-shaped eyes sparkled, and a radiant smile broke across her face.

“Senior sister, you’re finally back!” she exclaimed, hurrying over with a plate of spirit vegetables and pouting slightly. “You haven’t tasted my cooking for three days running now.”

She tugged at Shen Qinghe’s sleeve, looking up at her with plaintive eyes, very much like a kitten longing for affection.

Shen Qinghe couldn’t help but smile, tapping her on the forehead. “Alright, alright, I promise I’ll eat two bowls tonight.”

“You have to keep your word, senior sister!” Liu Qingqing beamed and dashed back to the kitchen. “You sit and rest—I’ll bring out all the dishes right away!”

Her jubilant silhouette conveyed a joy she could not hide, the ends of her hair tracing happy arcs through the air as she moved.

After a delicious meal of Liu Qingqing’s home-cooked fare, Shen Qinghe finally returned to her own room.

On the table by the window stood a green porcelain bowl, half-filled with clear water that shimmered in the candlelight. She gazed into the bowl for a moment in thought, then took a jade bottle from her storage pouch. Uncorking it, she poured out a round Fasting Pill.

“Let’s start with the Fasting Pill,” Shen Qinghe murmured to herself.

The Fasting Pill was the most basic type of pill in the cultivation world—perfect for preliminary trials. She was well aware that, with her meager cultivation at the second level of Qi Refinement, if she couldn’t even fuse the properties of a Fasting Pill with a spiritual plant, there was no point in attempting anything more advanced.

Gently, Shen Qinghe placed the Fasting Pill into the bowl. The pill sent out faint ripples across the surface before settling at the bottom, unmoved. Clearly, pure water alone would not dissolve it.

She then took a pouch of Azure Spirit Rice seeds from her storage pouch. With a flick of her fingers, a dozen plump seeds dropped into the bowl. Placing her right hand on the bowl, she guided a thread of spiritual energy from her fingertip, slowly infusing it into the water. The energy coiled around the Fasting Pill, which began to bubble and dissolve, releasing a pale spiritual glow into the water. The seeds seemed to sense the change, greedily absorbing the medicinal strength.

Before long, one seed began to tremble, then gave a soft pop as a tender green sprout emerged from the shell. Once the Fasting Pill had fully dissolved, all the seeds had sprouted, their delicate shoots swaying gently in the water.

After examining them for a while, Shen Qinghe selected the healthiest seedling and, with a thought, summoned the ancient book.

Name: Azure Spirit Rice (recorded)
Status: Healthy
Growth: 3/10 (Seedling)
Cultivation: Mastery (34/1000)
Mutated Trait: Fasting Pill Trait (Fuse/Remove)

Note: Spiritual rice produced from Azure Spirit Rice carries special properties—long-term consumption enhances the body and purifies spiritual power.

Even after reaching mastery in cultivating Azure Spirit Rice, progress in teaching others her cultivation methods had slowed considerably. Still, seeing the new “Fasting Pill Trait” appear in the mutated traits section brought her genuine joy.

“So this works after all!” Shen Qinghe suppressed her excitement.

Taking a deep breath, she drew five lower-grade spirit stones from her pouch and placed them within easy reach. Grasping a spirit stone in her right hand and holding the seedling steady in her left, she willed, “Fuse.”

In an instant, a tremendous force erupted from her left palm. Shen Qinghe felt as if her spiritual power was flooding uncontrollably into the seedling, searing pain shooting through her meridians as her energy drained away far faster than she’d anticipated. The seedling was instantly engulfed in a blinding spiritual light, so intense she had to squint.

Within the light, she could just make out the seedling’s silhouette, twisting and contorting, stretching and contracting. At last, the radiance faded, leaving Shen Qinghe pale and breathless, her spiritual power completely depleted. Her fingers trembled; the spirit stone in her hand had crumbled to dust, and the others nearby had lost their luster.

Fighting off the dizziness of spiritual exhaustion, Shen Qinghe shakily lifted her left hand and examined the seedling. At first glance, it looked unchanged—a tender green shoot atop a slender stem, as though the earlier transformation had never occurred.

“Did it... fail?” Her heart clenched, and she quickly focused her attention on the ancient book.

As her thoughts turned, the book fluttered open on its own, and a line of golden characters slowly surfaced on the glowing page:

Marrow-Cleansing Spirit Rice, formed by fusing the Fasting Pill trait into Azure Spirit Rice. Once mature, its spiritual rice, when consumed long-term, will cleanse impurities from the body. It can also produce a single potent pill, capable of washing the muscles and marrow, purifying spiritual energy, and solidifying the foundation.

Shen Qinghe’s pupils contracted sharply, her fingertips trembling uncontrollably.

“Washing the muscles and marrow... purifying spiritual power...” she whispered, her voice quivering with excitement. “I actually managed to cultivate a spiritual plant with such effects this time!”

She had only hoped to breed an ordinary spiritual plant combining the properties of both the Fasting Pill and Azure Spirit Rice—at best, one that could directly produce Fasting Pills. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected this chance fusion to result in such a qualitative change, producing a plant capable of marrow cleansing!

It was far beyond her expectations.

Still, upon reflection, even a single Marrow-Cleansing Spirit Rice could only congeal one pill with those properties, which helped calm her excitement somewhat.