Longevity Begins With Zongmen Handyman

Chapter 4: Qi Refining Level 1

Five days have passed.

In the evening, as usual, Li An closed the door tightly and started cooking.

To avoid the smell of the newly harvested spirit rice, which was not fully matured, being detected, he added a dozen or so mature spirit rice grains each time.

In fact, there wasn't much difference in the aroma between the two, and Prince Lin and Zhang Susu wouldn't be able to notice.

But caution and carefulness had already become ingrained in Li An's bones, becoming a kind of instinct.

These past few days, Li An was able to harvest about one jin of spirit rice every night.

This was the limit.

Because his method of stealing was too careful, he only took three to five grains from each rice stalk instead of the whole stalk.

While taking them, he also used his fingernails to disguise some bite marks, as if they were caused by insects or ants, so the speed was very slow.

Moreover, Li An wasn't greedy. The main reason was that there were many impurities in the spirit rice, which limited the speed of extracting spiritual energy.

Currently, within a day, his body could only digest up to one jin of spirit rice.

Anything more would be wasted and couldn't be absorbed.

This was thanks to his experience in cultivation from his previous life. Otherwise, people like Prince Lin would only be able to consume half a liang every day at this stage!

This was the importance of resources. If one cultivated using spirit stones, the speed of absorbing spiritual energy would be many times faster!

Naturally, the progress of cultivation would also be faster.

...

A pot full of spirit rice porridge was cooked, and Li An ate it heartily.

The taste didn't have the fully matured aroma of spirit rice, and there was a faint grassy taste, but Li An enjoyed it.

He finished the whole pot of porridge.

Li An inspected his body. Under the nourishment of a pot of spirit rice essence every day, the green sprout in his dantian had already grown to the size of a pea.

But it was still in the sprouting state!

These past few days, Li An had repaired about one-fifth of the damaged spiritual roots caused by the Thunder Spirit Qi.

It was slow, but he was satisfied.

This fully proved the miraculous effect of the Life-Nurturing Immortal Casting Technique.

After all, when spiritual roots were damaged, usually only second-grade elixirs had the possibility of repair!

A second-grade elixir, even as a lowly servant like him, would be impossible to obtain, let alone a formal disciple.

...

As night fell.

Li An, as usual, sneaked into the spiritual field.

After observing for a few days, he had a deeper understanding of the overall situation of the spiritual field.

Spirit Gathering formations were arranged around the spiritual field to gather spiritual energy for the growth of crops.

However, the distribution of the Spirit Gathering formations was uneven, resulting in the left side of the land being the most barren and the quality of the spirit rice being the worst.

On the right, secondly, and in the middle, the best!

Tonight, he directly sneaked into the central area, which is the core production area and the central zone of the Spirit Gathering Formation.

Under the moonlight, the rice in front of him was tall and dense, with each rice ear plump and full.

Li An's movements were extremely skilled, as he followed the water channel all the way.

"Hmm?"

Suddenly, a green caterpillar fell on Li An's sleeve, catching his attention.

Caterpillars, active at night and feeding on rice leaves, resemble maggots during their larval stage and have a similar appearance to moths as adults.

It was normal for there to be caterpillars in the Spirit Rice Field, but this one was unusually fat and large, and its body had a faint transparent feeling, indicating that it had undergone some spiritual transformation.

This was not right. Very few caterpillars undergo spiritual transformation, usually only during their adult stage, and the current level of spiritual rice was not enough to support such transformation.

Li An paid attention and continued along the water channel.

This area was the most flat, with the water in the channel almost stagnant, in a still state. However, as he walked, his sensitive skin detected movement in the water, as if something ahead was absorbing water.

Li An reached out and sensed an extremely rich spiritual energy around him. At the intersection of the two water channels ahead, there was a gurgling sound of water.

It was a whirlpool!

The water in the spiritual field was being sucked into it.

Moreover, the spiritual energy in the spiritual field was also converging here, carried away by the flowing water.

The leaves of the weeds around the whirlpool were covered with more than a dozen large transparent caterpillar larvae, all of them undergoing spiritual transformation.

"So someone is stealing spiritual energy!"

Li An suddenly realized.

There must be a hidden mechanism or formation at this whirlpool, stealing a portion of the spiritual energy from the Spirit Gathering Formation in the spiritual field.

"This theft of spiritual energy through the whirlpool has caused an imbalance in the spiritual energy in the spiritual field, resulting in a large number of caterpillars..."

Li An pondered. Who could be the one stealing the spiritual energy?

He subconsciously looked towards the top of the Spirit Plant Mountain.

Fan Jie was the only possibility.

Stealing from within!

However, Li An had no desire to meddle in other people's affairs.

Instead, he was quite delighted and caught all the spiritualized caterpillars on the leaves around the whirlpool.

In the words of his previous life, these caterpillars were all high-quality protein!

A spiritualized caterpillar the size of a thumb contained almost the same amount of spiritual energy as a catty of spiritual rice.

If it weren't for the gathering of spiritual energy here, the entire spiritual field probably wouldn't produce so many spiritualized caterpillars.

For cultivators who had just entered the Qi Refining stage, this was a rare delicacy, but for someone like Fan Jie, who was in the mid-stage of Qi Refining, it was of no use.

Of course, these caterpillars also contained a small amount of insect poison, so the other low-level workers didn't know how to consume them.

As a result, these caterpillars had been left untouched.

Instead, Li An benefited from it!

Moreover, as long as the spiritual energy remained imbalanced, the spiritual field would always have a shortage of spiritualized caterpillars.

"The number of pests will continue to increase, and the damage caused by them will become more severe. The chances of my theft of Lingmi being discovered will become even less likely!"

Li An felt relieved and finished collecting these pests before continuing to harvest Lingmi.

...

The next day.

Early in the morning, Fan Jie came down from the mountain. He had some business to attend to and took the opportunity to check on the progress of Li An and the other two in their cultivation.

"Hmm, Wang Zilin, your Xingyun Buryu technique has reached a basic level of proficiency."

"Zhang Susu is not bad either."

Wang Zilin made the fastest progress in cultivation, followed by Zhang Susu, which pleased Fan Jie.

Especially Zhang Susu, who had successfully refined her Qi, her aura became even more enchanting, and her figure became more graceful and charming under the nourishment of Lingmi. Fan Jie couldn't help but take a few more glances.

"And Li An, what about you?" Fan Jie turned his head to look at Li An.

"Reporting to the Immortal Elder, my spiritual roots are damaged, and I haven't been able to enter the Qi Refining stage yet..."

Li An's face looked unpleasant.

"You haven't entered Qi Refining yet?!"

Fan Jie's eyebrows furrowed, and the muscles on his face trembled. He shouted, "There's only half a month left, and you still haven't entered Qi Refining. Did you come to Lingzhi Mountain to freeload?"

Li An lowered his head and dared not speak.

"Don't think that keeping silent will make everything fine. Let me tell you, Lingzhi Mountain doesn't support idle people, let alone useless ones. If you can't participate in cultivation after half a month, all your monthly allowances will be deducted. Get out of here!"

"Do you understand?"

Li An said, "Disciple understands."

Only then did Fan Jie snort coldly and said, "I have some business to attend to and will be away from the mountain for a while. During this time, none of you are allowed to step foot on the mountain. If I find out, I will interrupt your cultivation."

After saying that, he turned and left Lingzhi Mountain.

"Li An, have you not repaired your spiritual roots yet?"

After Fan Jie left, Zhang Susu asked Li An.

Li An smiled bitterly and shook his head, "Not yet... I'll try again."

After saying that, he went back to his room.

"Susu, don't worry about him. I've heard that repairing spiritual roots requires a second-grade elixir. He will never have the opportunity in his lifetime. He is destined to be useless..."

"Come, let's practice the Xingyun Buryu technique together. I feel like I've made some progress and can share my experience with you..."

A faint, cheerful voice came from outside the room.

...

Today's dinner was particularly delicious.

After boiling dozens of spiritualized larvae and Lingmi together, the rice had a hint of meaty aroma.

The spiritual energy and life essence of this pot of rice were equivalent to the amount of Lingmi consumed in the past half month.

After eating, their bodies visibly grew larger, about the size of peanuts.

The top of the growth even had some protrusions, as if sprouts were about to emerge.

...

Another ten days passed.

In three days, the one-month "novice period" for the three of them would come to an end.

On this evening, after dinner, Li An examined his dantian and finally revealed a relaxed and satisfied smile.

In his dantian, a green and tender seedling had "broken ground" and grown a tender leaf.

Li An's damaged spiritual roots had finally been restored under the nourishment of the seed!

This could be called a miracle!

Because even with a second-grade elixir, it would take about half a year to repair the spiritual roots.

"With the seed, my vitality and recovery ability have significantly improved. Even if I don't cultivate, I can easily live to be 120 years old as an ordinary person."

Li An whispered to himself, then took out the small piece of Lingstone.

The low-grade Lingstone contained limited spiritual energy.

And Li An was well aware that this should be one-third of a complete Lingstone.

The three of them should receive three Lingstones each month, but Fan Jie withheld two and divided one into three parts for them.

Quite despicable.

But it should be barely enough to enter the Qi Refining stage.

Li An absorbed the abundant spiritual energy from the Lingstone and then activated the Life-Nurturing Immortal Technique, refining the spiritual energy into his body.

Another five days passed.

Li An finally succeeded in Qi Refining and entered the first stage of Qi Refining.

"The cultivation speed of the Life-Nurturing Immortal Technique is indeed... relatively slow."

Li An woke up with a complicated expression.

Even Zhang Susu, Wang Zilin, and those familiar with the breathing technique only took a total of seven days.

The actual time spent on Qi Refining did not exceed two days.

But it took Li An so long...

However, what satisfied him was that the Qi he cultivated was extremely pure, without any impurities.

After all, the path of cultivation is long and arduous. Li An's temperament has long been tempered to be firm and calm. He will not be anxious or anxious just because he falls behind others.

At the same time, Li An activated the seed, allowing his damaged spiritual roots to continue to appear in a broken state.

- This is one of the special effects of the seed, which can disguise and hide one's own state and aura.

...

Fan Jie has been away for more than half a month since he left.

It was only three days later, at noon, that he finally returned.

"Everyone, gather outside!"

...

Starting tomorrow, updates will be posted every morning at 10 o'clock.

(End of this chapter)