sinovels Chapter 60 Violets and Radishes Mature
Chapter 60 Violets and Radishes Mature
Newly sprouted seedlings are quite fragile and require careful nurturing and care.
Liu He paid close attention to the seedling of the Mountain-Suppressing Arhat, fearing that something might happen to it and it would die.
As the days passed, the seedlings of the Mountain-Suppressing Arhat grew at an extremely slow pace, becoming taller and stronger, no longer the weak and feeble seedlings they once were.
He was full of expectations for it, looking forward to the time when the Arhat guarding the mountain would grow to three or five zhang or even taller.
Only a two-hundred-year-old Zhenshan Luohan tree can grow to two zhang tall.
The oldest tree on Lingzhi Peak, the 500-year-old Arhat statue, is only five zhang tall.
Liu He wanted to raise the Arhat that guards the mountain to a height of five zhang (approximately 10 meters), which seemed like it would take five hundred years, but that was not actually the case.
There are many powerful spells related to spiritual plants that can promote their growth and increase their lifespan.
For example, the Sweet Rain Nourishing Wood Technique can help the spirit wood grow for a day by casting it once.
The Green Grass Growth-Promoting Technique can accelerate the growth of spiritual plants for ten days with a single application.
There is also the "Annual Ring Creation Technique," which can make a spirit tree grow one annual ring and accelerate its growth for a year by casting it once! Casting the spell five hundred times can make the Arhat that guards the mountain grow five hundred years out of thin air.
These kinds of spells are powerful, but of course, they also require a high level of skill from the caster.
Even the simplest of the Sweet Rain Nourishing Wood Techniques can only be performed at the mid-stage of Qi Refining.
The legendary "Annual Ring Creation Technique" is a secret art that can only be performed by those who have completed the Foundation Establishment stage.
Liu He's cultivation level is currently low, only at the third level of Qi Refining, but he will eventually advance to the middle or even late stage of Qi Refining. At that time, he will be able to use these spells to help the Mountain-Suppressing Arhat grow stronger.
Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.
The sun and moon revolve, and time flies by.
Liu He's life passed by unnoticed in a cycle of repetition, and several months had passed in the blink of an eye.
It has been exactly one year since he moved from Waishan Forest Farm to Lingmu Garden.
His wooden house in the forest.
He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, meditating and practicing qigong.
In the abundant spiritual energy environment of Lingzhi Peak, he circulated his cultivation technique repeatedly.
The spiritual energy circulates between the dantian (lower abdomen) and the meridians and acupoints.
His dantian had expanded to three inches in size, with nine holes and eight orifices, making it a complete dantian. Despite circulating his qi through his body dozens of times, his dantian remained unchanged.
The spiritual energy within is colorless and transparent, invisible to internal observation, yet clearly present, filling the dantian.
Several days ago, Liu He had reached the third level of Qi Refining and was stuck at this minor bottleneck.
It took him four years to go from a mortal with no strength to undergo a process of cleansing his marrow and opening his meridians, embarking on the path of cultivation, and finally reaching the third level of Qi Refining.
Breaking through to the fourth level of Qi Refining and entering the middle stage of Qi Refining is not difficult, but it is not easy either.
To progress from the third to the fourth level of Qi Refining, one must compress and condense the colorless spiritual energy accumulated in the dantian into white, thread-like spiritual energy.
Depending on individual talent and aptitude, the difficulty of overcoming this bottleneck varies.
Genius cultivators can't even sense the bottleneck; they only need to cultivate for three to five days to condense wisps of spiritual energy and enter the fourth level of Qi Refining.
Ordinary cultivators can break through bottlenecks on their own by following the proper methods of cultivation.
It can take anywhere from ten days to half a month, or even two or three months.
Some people are unlucky or have very poor aptitude and may get stuck at a bottleneck for up to six months.
That said, there is a "shortcut" to breaking through this bottleneck.
With just one Qi Condensation Pill, one can break through from the third level of Qi Refining to the fourth level.
One Condensing Silk Pill costs eighty spirit stones.
Since arriving at the Spiritwood Garden, Liu He has hardly spent any spirit stones. He has saved all his monthly salary and even received an extra month's worth of spirit salary from the sect. He now has exactly eighty spirit stones in savings.
But he did not intend to buy Ning Si Dan.
The Condensing Silk Pill is merely a shortcut to breaking through to the fourth level of Qi Refining. For Liu He, buying one is enough; he wouldn't need that many even if he put them in the ant nest.
He really couldn't bear to part with it.
This bottleneck didn't require the aid of elixirs, so he decided to break through it on his own, saving spirit stones.
After two hours of cultivation, Liu He stopped and felt the changes in his dantian.
"There is absolutely no sign of a breakthrough."
"Forget it, I'm not a cultivation genius, it's not that easy for me to break through the bottleneck."
he thought.
Then, with a thought, he traveled to the ant nest, to the miniature spiritual plant garden next to the True Tiger Red Hemp.
"The violet and green ivy radish, planted a year ago, has finally ripened!"
He was overjoyed to see the rows of fertile soil in front of him, where violets and radishes were neatly planted.
The green leaves at the top of the vegetable unfold layer by layer, their vibrant green color bright and clear, and a faint bluish glow ripples as the branches and leaves sway gently.
Beneath the emerald leaves lies a plump, round, and gleaming radish, a precious plant.
Its semi-buried soil layer has a translucent green surface with natural intertwining patterns of varying shades of green, resembling flowing water and clouds spreading across the surface, as lustrous as jade carving.
He grabbed the leaves of the radish and pulled one out.
The slender, translucent white roots are mixed with soil, and the sweet fragrance is mixed with the faint earthy smell of the spiritual field.
It is quite large, about half a foot long, as thick as an arm, and weighs about two kilograms.
"The quality of this violet radish is absolutely rare and precious."
After all, he used the Spirit Nourishing Technique twice a day, morning and evening, to nourish the Violet and Green Radish.
Biluobao is an inexpensive type of spiritual plant, and no cultivator would cultivate it with such care.
A typical violet radish weighs about one pound and costs one spirit stone for two pounds, which is cheaper than most spirit fruits.
Liu He estimated that his Biluobao was of good quality and would be worth about one spirit stone per kilogram on the market.
A two-pound violet radish is worth two spirit stones.
"My ant soldiers are in for a treat!"
With that thought in mind, he traveled back to reality with a green radish.
The tiny green radish in the miniature plant garden returns to its normal size in reality.
It's worth mentioning that ant nests can only shrink and return to their normal size; they cannot expand and carry resources out.
The violet radish was shrunk by Liu He when he traveled into the ant nest, so it will return to normal when it returns to reality.
Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.
He chopped the violet radish into small pieces and divided them into three portions.
One packet was placed in the red queen ant nest next to the cabin, and the other in the black queen ant nest in the distance.
There was also a small piece of green radish, which was placed in the Red Queen Ant nest so that the ants could carry it to his magical artifact cave. This was Liu He's own.
The sweet and juicy violet radish emits a magical plant fragrance that attracts ants.
The ants excitedly scurried about, quickly crawling through the nest to carry small pieces of radish. They carried them back to the nest and then feasted on them.
The combined appetite of over 100,000 ants in the two ant colonies is considerable.
Since Liu He said there was no need to save any and that there would be plenty of spiritual plants in the future, the ants no longer needed to supply the radish only to the queen and larvae.
They can finish a two-pound radish in a day.
While the ants were feasting on the spiritual plants, Liu He was also enjoying an enormous radish in his spiritual artifact cave.
He ate it with gusto, his mouth overflowing with the sweet juice of the radish.
The spirit was implanted in the abdomen and transformed into wisps of spiritual energy that were digested and absorbed.
Because the Violet Flower and Green Radish were ripe, Liu He did not plan to buy the Condensing Silk Elixir to break through his bottleneck.
Although the effects of radish are not as strong as those of elixirs, they are more consistent and stable.
He can eat as much violet and radish as he wants every day, and over time the effect is no less than taking a magic pill.