Chapter 33: Medicine Garden

Lu Yang followed closely behind the ginseng baby, casting a look of novelty at the lush and verdant herbs surrounding them.

The sunlight pierced through the crevices of the grass leaves, casting mottled specks of brilliance upon Lu Yang.

Having shrunk in stature, the herbs in Lu Yang's eyes had become trees that shut out the sun, towering far above him.

Before long, the duo encountered a rushing stream, imbued with a natural, heaven-and-earth-bred spirituality used to nurture the herbs; a portion of the herbs' purification would also flow back into the stream, a mutual benefit to both.

"This is the river guarded by the River Spirit," the ginseng baby introduced.

Encircled around the periphery of the Seeking Dao Sect was a stream that flowed sometimes rapidly and sometimes gently, its source an everlasting, ceaseless clear spring.

That clear spring possessed a long and ancient history, existing even before the founding of the Seeking Dao Sect; by the grace of heaven and earth, it had birthed a single glimmer of spiritual light.

For inanimate objects, the greatest fortune was to give rise to spiritual intelligence, and this glimmer of spiritual light was of paramount importance.

Should the spiritual light return to its vessel, it would bring forth intelligence, leaping forward to become a darling of heaven and earth.

Should the spiritual light dissipate into the world, one would not know how many ages of trials and tribulations must be endured before such a glimmer could be birthed again.

Inanimate matter simply drifted with the tide, and who knew on what day it might crumble and dissolve amidst the battles of cultivating immortals, leaving no further hope of ever generating spiritual intelligence.

The probability of the spiritual light dissipating far exceeded the probability of it returning to its vessel.

Fortunately, a predecessor of the Seeking Dao Sect chanced upon this place, discovered the situation, and cast a spell to lock that single glimmer of spiritual light within the clear spring, allowing the spring to finally nurture a true spiritual intelligence.

Grateful for the kindness of the Seeking Dao Sect's predecessor, the spirit of the clear spring voluntarily guarded the sect.

This stream wound its way through various parts of the Seeking Dao Sect; on the periphery, it could guard the sect, and in the interior, it became one of the sources of vital energy.

The spirit of the clear spring was also known to people as the River Spirit.

From the perspective of an ordinary person, the river before the duo was merely two spans wide, and its flow was not rapid; calling it a stream was already an overstatement.

Yet after shrinking, this kind of stream appeared exceptionally thrilling.

A wooden plank spanned across the stream to serve as a bridge. By the looks of it, it seemed to have been constructed in advance by the Herb Kings when passing through this place.

As Lu Yang walked across the stream, he wondered if it was an illusion, but the current seemed to accelerate, as if... it was very excited to see him?

Lu Yang could not be entirely certain.

He also spotted a majestic city wall not far away, piled high with green stones, each rock larger than his entire body.

Only upon drawing closer did he discover that it was the wall of the herb garden.

The ginseng baby dug at the base of the wall a few times, revealing transparent stone blocks, looking as though something had originally been drawn out, leaving behind only empty, transparent glass.

The ginseng baby's roots elongated, nimble as tentacles, stringing these pieces of transparent glass together.

"This is..." Lu Yang raised an eyebrow, instinctively finding the object familiar.

"I recall these things are called spirit stones by you humans."

Lu Yang suddenly understood; no wonder it looked familiar, was this not simply a spirit stone after its spiritual energy had been completely drained? It was just that he had never seen one of such high quality.

"Do you like these things? Old Ba frequently buries these stone blocks at the base of the wall, and once the blocks are empty, he has me collect them so he can take them away all at once."

Lu Yang understood; cultivating herbs required a vast sea of spiritual energy, and the energy within the herb garden was not infinite, so the Seeking Dao Sect buried spirit stones in the garden to provide refined spiritual energy.

No wonder the moment he entered the herb garden, he felt the spiritual energy was exaggeratedly dense; it turned out to be fed by spirit stones.

The spirit stones used in the herb garden could certainly not be of low rank; it was highly probable they were the exceedingly rare high-grade spirit stones.

The ginseng baby used its roots to string the spirit stones together and walked ahead, while Lu Yang followed closely in its footsteps, trailing behind.

As the ginseng baby walked, it struck up a conversation with Lu Yang.

"Beneath our feet lies a grand array covering the herb garden, called something like the Ever-Green Array of Antiquity, which helps us herbs grow healthily; these transparent stones are a part of the array."

Lu Yang had heard of the Ever-Green Array of Antiquity; it was a top-tier array used when cultivating spiritual medicine, costing a fortune and consuming a vast sea of spirit stones every year.

"Oh right, I heard Old Ba say our Seeking Dao Sect is quite poor, and to raise us, they are almost unable to keep the pot boiling; like when they hold some sort of cuju match, a crowd of people fights until their heads bleed just to snatch a single ball, is that true?"

Lu Yang did not dare to answer; this Elder Ba appeared kind-faced and benevolent, yet his conscience suffered not a single shred of condemnation when deceiving the Herb Kings.

"This is called the Illusion-Breaking Immortal Wood, possessing the power to shatter illusion and peer into truth, truly the bane of the illusory; if one falls into an illusion, holding this wood tightly in hand will break the illusory realm."

Lu Yang followed the ginseng baby's gaze and saw a cactus.

"That is the Sun-Burst Flower, one of the essential materials for cultivating the Blazing Sun Dharma Body; aside from the power to cultivate the dharma body, adding it to any fire-attributed elixir can increase a trace of the Blazing Sun's true intent, yielding great benefit to cultivators with fire-attributed spiritual roots."

"The highest quality of the Sun-Burst Flower is the Ninth Revolution; a Ninth Revolution Sun-Burst Flower is effective even for the Tribulation Transcendence Stage, and this entire patch consists of Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Revolution Sun-Burst Flowers."

"Over there is the Dao-Comprehension Grove; its leaves steeped in water possess the power of Dao comprehension, and the wood is also the raw material for crafting top-tier magic treasures, rumored to fetch skyrocketing prices in the outside world. Every autumn, Old Ba plucks a large swath of Dao-Comprehension leaves for you all to consume."

Lu Yang had seen descriptions of the Dao-Comprehension Tree many times in books, described with all sorts of magnificent rhetoric, praising it as a celestial seed and a divine tree, noting that humanity's rapid rise in ancient times was heavily connected to the Dao-Comprehension Tree.

However, this was his first time seeing a real Dao-Comprehension Tree.

The Dao-Comprehension Tree, dozens of meters high, appeared to the three-inch Lu Yang like the legendary Jianwood that led to the heavens; looking up made one's head swim and eyes grow dizzy, as if the Great Dao was roaring in one's ears.

"I heard Old Ba say that low-level cultivators had best not consume Dao-Comprehension leaves; low-level cultivators lack both the Dao heart and the foundation, and consuming them too early is like pulling spikes to help them grow, which is detrimental to future cultivation and Dao comprehension."

"This is the same logic as how we herbs cannot be fertilized too much when we are young."

"The older the tree's years, the better the Dao-comprehension power of its leaves; the oldest among the Dao-Comprehension Trees is even older than me and is also an Herb King, you will see it in a moment."

"This is called the Lovesick Grass, one of the primary materials for refining the Lovesick Bright Moon Elixir; when the bright moon hangs in the sky, if two people separated by vast distances can consume the Lovesick Bright Moon Elixir simultaneously, their minds will connect, allowing them to converse across time and space."

"Legend has it that in ancient times there was a pair of lovers; the man came from a great clan and was the chief's son, while the woman was of humble birth, the descendant of a slave. The man met the woman while out hunting, and the two fell in love at first sight, pledging themselves to each other for life."

"Regrettably, as the son of a great clan chief, he did not possess the right to choose his mate, let alone marry a slave as his wife. The clan forced him to marry the daughter of another great clan chief; the two families were well-matched in social status, and after the marriage, the relationship between the two great clans would grow even closer."

"The man refused to comply, and on the day of the grand wedding, he secretly slipped away from the clan to elope with the woman."

"Upon learning of this, the clan elders were furious and dispatched experts to pursue them, killing the woman. The woman died in the man's arms, and filled with grief and indignation, the man slit his own throat and died; the blood of the two gathered upon a wild grass, dyeing even its root system red, thus becoming the Lovesick Grass."

Lu Yang was drawn in by the story and subconsciously asked, "How touching, did this event truly happen?"

"It's fake, a story someone fabricated in order to sell the Lovesick Grass at a high price; I was right there next to them when they made it up."

"..."