Destiny in Cinders

The plants in all three plots that An Jing had used different fertilizers on ripened fully.

”They all grew so much faster!” Filled with joy, he inspected the plots and nodded with satisfaction. ”They all do work pretty well. There are some differences between the spirit plants though.”

The feys’ spirit farms were quite different from normal human farmlands. They didn’t plant the same type of crop across whole plots of land. Instead, they focused on planting a whole ecosystem of different spirit plants. Just like their cores, the spirit farms integrated all sorts of spirit plants of varying types and sizes that encouraged each other’s growth, a microcosm of their natural habitats that reduced risk of pests. The only problem with that was that this method of planting was too complicated. Only feys that had gained insight and made progress on their fey cores could manage it.

An Jing noted that the plot using the fertilizer called flora’s lush caused spirit grass and stem-based plants to grow faster than the rest, with the plant called the crimsonleaf pulp already fruiting. He picked one of those crimson fruits and ate it. Its flavor was dense and sweet; the moment his teeth broke the skin, rice-wine-like juices burst into his mouth and flowed down his throat.

The other plot that used goldbreath soil as fertilizer promoted the growth of roots and tubers more than the rest, namely, talisman tubers and earthspirit tubers. The former could be ground into powder and made into spirit ink for wood-aspect talismans, while the latter was potato with powerful spirit qualities. Consuming them quickly replenished one’s qi essence.

As for the speed sprouter fertilizer, it promoted the growth of various types of spirit plants in a relatively even measure and also worked the fastest, almost double the amount of plant growth. The only issue was that there was a cost for the rapid growth. The fruits grown using flora’s lush tasted delicious, while those grown using goldbreath soil were filled with spirit qi. Speed sprouter’s fruits, on the other hand, tasted far plainer despite being the same fruit. The dense fragrance was missing and it was even a little sour. The spirit energy contained within was passable at only some twenty percent less than the rest. Though subpar, they were still proper spirit plants.

”Speed sprouter it is!” An Jing picked that to be the fertilizer he would import in the future, and the reason was simple: He wasn’t going to consume the spirit plants himself since their effects weren’t that potent. Instead, he planned to sell them to others, and the more and faster he could harvest them, the better. The snow calamity would be encroaching into the depths of Brokeblade Mountain soon, so the slower the growth, the less he would earn.

More importantly, An Jing wanted to keep the ruse hidden. If he wanted to sell spirit plants, he would do so under the pretense that he was harvesting them before the snow calamity ravaged them. If he was able to produce spirit plants of good quality despite that, it would certainly raise some eyebrows.

He didn’t need to make a huge killing, only enough to fund the cultivation resources he needed personally and to stabilize the situation around Riverside by offering the people some jobs. He held back for the bigger picture just in case. Even though he had other solutions, such as the martial-scholar formation discs that could decrease the side effects of using speed sprouter using terrestrial-vein qi, he didn’t bother with it.

With his farming strategy settled, he activated Solace and had it gather information about the rest of the spirit farms around Brokeblade Mountain’s central region. The terrain was actually rather unique. According to Yvelbane, this was a ten-point furnace, an arrangement that described the central peak of Brokeblade Mountain being surrounded by nine shorter peaks around it. Every single spirit peak was encircled by a ring of spirit farms. The terrestrial veins gathered qi and natural energy near the center peak, which pierced the Celestial Ocean above, sending the qi of nine skies back to the nine surrounding peaks, creating a natural ”furnace” that was capable of producing the finest spirit veins and spirit metals.

”In theory, there should be quite a lot of valuable spirit minerals and metals at the base of each peak,” Yvelbane said. ”The whole place might even be capable of producing other types of precious spirit materials, but chances are the four-winged lunar serpent already used them up.”

”Who cares? Your fragment is way more important.” Spirit items weren’t that much of a draw to him, considering he had access to both worlds. Instead, restoring Yvelbane’s power was his main priority. Anything else was just icing on the cake. ”This terrain is rather interesting, though, so I’ll gather some more detailed data about it. Come to think of it, weren’t the first formations essentially attempts at imitating natural formations like this? Can I have formationists duplicate this terrain if I gather enough data from it?”

”You indeed can. The major formations of large sects either borrow natural formations as a foundation or try to recreate them. The martial path of Void Embrace is even more impressive in that you can create a mountain sect within your own body that you can deploy outside you when needed. You should keep gathering data like that. It might come in useful when you lay out your own internal body formation one day.”

”That’s true.” An Jing continued to pilot the drone. ”Let’s finish the scan first before discussing our grand ambitions.”

***

When he returned to Keensight and showed the map to Xu Tai and Bai Qinghan, he got quite a surprising reaction.

”Senior Disciple, you shouldn’t let anyone else see this map,” Bai Qinghan said in an uncharacteristically surprised voice. ”This is criminal behavior in Grand Chen! You can’t let yourself be discovered!”

”Huh? Criminal?” An Jing said, confused. ”It’s just a map. You can just buy these, right? Surely it’s not that big of a deal.”

”Normal maps are fine, but yours labels specific spots where spirit plants and spirit ores can be harvested. It even has a general distribution of the different lifeforms, spirit-power density as well as the charted-out flow of terrestrial veins. It’s a strategic map! That’s a big deal!” Bai Qinghan shook her head with disapproval. ”In Grand Chen, possessing armor, crossbows, arcane artifacts, cavalry troops and even fortresses isn’t a crime. But making a detailed strategic map of your own with terrestrial-vein information to set up city-class formation is akin to rebellion. It’s not that a map like this isn’t useful, but you can’t let anyone else find out about it. You might eventually need to work with Grand Chen, so don’t get found out doing anything that might tick them off.”

What in the world is with these two... Xu Tai listened to the tense discussion. You two personally took over a city of Grand Chen despite one of you being a core successor of the Brightmirror Sect and the other being a goddess of the demonic cult! You’re basically rebels already, and you’re splitting hairs over a map?