Chapter 17
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 17
Lee Hyun began by examining the seeds he had purchased at the Emerald Cloud Market.
The Yin Water Lotus seeds were roughly the size of a fingernail, pitch-black and hard as iron. Pressing down with his thumb produced not the slightest give, and when he dropped one onto the stone floor, it let out a sharp, metallic clink.
A sprout is supposed to break through a shell like this?
The stallkeeper had warned him that Yin Water Lotus seeds could not simply be tossed into water. One had to grind down a section of the stony hull against a whetstone to thin it out, then steep it in cold water for several days to stimulate germination.
Carefully avoiding the embryo within, Lee Hyun filed the rounded end of each seed against a whetstone. The moment a sliver of the pale inner husk peeked through the black outer shell, he stopped.
He placed the sanded seeds into cold water to steep for several days.
He had already chosen the ideal place to cultivate them.
It was near the underground aquifer he had discovered long ago while carving out spirit field No. 1-2.
Lee Hyun had no intention of removing the stone slab sealing the aquifer. The subterranean water on the other side was under immense pressure; unsealing it recklessly would risk submerging the entirety of Tunnel No. 1.
Instead, he excavated a separate cavern roughly thirty zhang away from the barrier. Between the aquifer and the new chamber, he left a thick wall of bedrock untouched, ensuring that even if fissures developed under the strain, the water would not burst through.
He left several stout stone pillars connecting the ceiling and floor to ward off cave-ins, then coated the basin with multiple layers of dense pottery clay to prevent leaks. At the far end, he carved an overflow channel so that if the water ever rose too high, the excess would drain harmlessly into an abandoned cavern on the other side of the field.
Though he had not tapped the aquifer directly, the cavern’s proximity to it made the underground air distinctly colder and damper than anywhere else in the tunnel.
“This should be more than suitable for cultivating Yin Water Lotus.”
Lee Hyun cast the Spiritual Rain Spell several times until the newly hollowed-out reservoir was filled. Even at its deepest point, the water reached only to his waist, while the center remained a wide, shallow expanse that rose no higher than his knees.
Across the reservoir’s floor, he spread a thick layer of fine silt gathered from the edges of the aquifer. He then buried the filed Yin Water Lotus seeds at regular intervals throughout the shallows, covering them with just enough mud to keep them from floating to the surface, and channeled a faint trace of the Sprouting Spell into each one.
Within the seeds, the slumbering spark of vitality stirred faintly.
Along the damp earth bordering the reservoir’s banks, he planted the Water Root Grass he had purchased in Cloud Capital.
Water Root Grass was merely a mortal herb, but it had a habit of sinking deep, resilient roots into riverbanks. It seemed ideal for binding and reinforcing the loose soil around his newly excavated reservoir.
Finally, Lee Hyun carved a line of characters into a wooden placard and staked it at the cavern entrance.
[Spirit field No. 1-6]
After admiring the inscription for a moment, he nodded in satisfaction.
For the Rock Honey Peach seeds, he selected a raised terrace situated just above the reservoir.
While the Rock Honey Peach thrived on a blend of water and earth qi, its roots were prone to rot if kept submerged. Rather than planting them directly in the sodden silt beside the reservoir, he chose a slightly elevated location where subterranean moisture could seep through naturally while still allowing surplus water to drain away.
Lee Hyun dug deep into the bedrock floor, laying down successive layers of cobblestones, fine gravel, and coarse sand from the bottom up. Over this drainage bed, he spread a blend of rich spirit field soil and aquifer mud, shaping it into a gentle slope so any excess runoff would filter down into a collection sump on the opposite side.
There were seven Rock Honey Peach seeds in total.
After soaking them in Spiritual Rain Water for a full day, he planted them three zhang apart to ensure their root systems would never choke one another.
At the entrance to this terrace, he drove another wooden placard into the earth.
[Spirit field No. 1-7]
Next, Lee Hyun set aside a small experimental plot. He partitioned the interior into separate sections and planted small quantities of Bone-Corroding Flower, Yin Soul Grass, Purple Poison Orchid, and Earth Vein Flower.
Once the herbs developed past their seedling stage, he planned to vary the frequency of the Spiritual Rain Spell across each section, even withholding moisture from one plot entirely until the plants showed clear signs of withering. He systematically recorded the watering intervals and dates on placards beside each batch.
At the entrance to the testing grounds, he planted another marker.
[Experimental spirit field]
* * *
A month later, Lee Hyun traveled back to Cloud Capital to collect the working scale model he had commissioned from the aging mortal artisan.
The contraption consisted of a forearm-sized water basin, slender bronze pipes, and a small wooden bucket balanced on a fulcrum.
Lee Hyun brought the mechanism back down into Tunnel No. 1 and ran it through countless trials. At first, the bucket would tip forward under the weight of the water but fail to swing back upright. When he increased the weight of the stone counterweight at the back, the bucket became so heavy that it refused to budge even when brim-full.
He whittled down the stone counterweight millimeter by millimeter and shifted the pivot point back and forth. Yet if the pivot sat too close to the center, the bucket refused to tilt; if set too far forward, it spilled its contents long before it was full.
This is surprisingly tricky…
Lee Hyun carefully shaved the underside of the wooden bucket, angling it so that it narrowed toward the front lip. With that adjustment, as water poured in, the center of gravity shifted forward at an accelerating pace.
Over the weeks that followed, he made several discreet supply runs to Cloud Capital, purchasing spare components and bronze tubing of varying diameters.
Channelling the Soil-Softening Technique through his Earth-Shoveling Sword, he softened the cavern floor to carve out large basins and drainage troughs. For areas where bedrock was sparse, he laid down thick beds of pottery clay and baked them rock-hard with heat spells. As for the large buckets and stone counterweights, he scaled up the mortal artisan’s prototype to match the full dimensions of the subterranean fields and carved them by hand.
He designed the elevated supply basins wide and shallow so the hydrostatic pressure would not drop too drastically as the water level fell. Even so, there was still a measurable difference in the flow rate through the bronze pipes between when a basin was completely full and when it was nearly dry.
Yet Lee Hyun was not building a precision water clock meant to measure seconds over a ten-day period. All he needed was an autonomous mechanism that supplied moisture at a regular enough cadence for spirit herbs to thrive.
* * *
One year later.
Inside spirit field No. 1-1 of Tunnel No. 1.
Roughly a zhang above the field’s entrance, a newly excavated alcove sat embedded in the cavern wall. Resting inside was a wide, shallow reservoir, covered with a layer of mortal-made hemp cloth to keep out falling stone dust.
Beneath the reservoir, two bronze pipes—each thinner than a pinky finger—extended side by side. From their polished tips, clear drops of water dripped at a measured, agonizingly steady pace into a wooden bucket balanced on a pivot.
Drip.
A droplet fell.
Then another.
The liquid inside the reservoir was pure Spiritual Rain Water, generated and stored in advance using the Spiritual Rain Spell.
Instead of flooding straight into the furrows below, the water gathered drop by single drop inside the balanced bucket.
For the past ten days, that bucket had remained perfectly still.
Then came the final drop.
The moment the water level breached the threshold, the center of gravity snapped past the fulcrum.
Clack.
The bucket tipped forward.
Whoosh—
The Spiritual Rain Water stored inside surged over the lip in a clean, unified cascade, plunging into the distribution trough below.
Diverting along the primary channel, the water branched out into smaller, gently sloping stone runnels that snaked through the furrows of the spirit field.
The dry soil greedily drank in the moisture, spreading a deep, even dampness across the roots of the Bone-Corroding Flowers and Yin Soul Grass.
Emptied of its heavy cargo, the lightened bucket yielded to the stone counterweight mounted behind it.
Click.
The bucket swung cleanly back to its upright resting position.
From the mouth of the bronze pipe, a fresh bead of water formed, swelled, and detached.
Drip.
The cycle had begun anew.
Watching the water saturate the furrows from his vantage point below, Lee Hyun rubbed his chin.
“Hmm… Why did that work so cleanly on the first try? That actually makes me nervous…”
Of course, it was hardly his first try; it was the culmination of countless adjustments and prototypes.
He had installed dual bronze pipes as a safeguard. Even if mineral buildup or debris blocked one pipe completely, the watering cycle would merely stretch to twenty days instead of ten, rather than choking off the supply entirely.
Furthermore, water produced via the Spiritual Rain Spell contained none of the mineral sediment found in natural spring water. Dense with spiritual qi, it resisted natural evaporation far better than ordinary mortal water, making it uniquely suited for long-term storage in subterranean reservoirs.
The data from the experimental spirit field had also yielded clear conclusions.
Once thirty days passed without water, the foliage of the spirit herbs began to lose its luster, and the medicinal potency they had spent decades condensing started to bleed away into the surrounding earth.
An automated watering cycle of ten to fifteen days was more than safe; so long as the interval never stretched past thirty days, the crops would not suffer lasting damage.
A single supply basin held enough Spiritual Rain Water to trip the tipping bucket thirty times. At a pace of one discharge every ten to fifteen days, a single full basin could sustain a spirit field unattended for an entire year.
Naturally, there was a drawback. Storing Spiritual Rain Water over long periods caused its ambient qi to dissipate gradually, resulting in slightly slower plant growth compared to casting the spell directly overhead every week.
Yet this mechanism was never built to achieve peak cultivation speed. Its purpose was simple: to keep the crops alive, healthy, and potent while Lee Hyun was away or buried deep in seclusion.
“Now I won’t be chained to watering the fields every ten days. Though it still needs a prolonged trial run. Let’s see how it holds up over the coming year before outfitting the rest of the fields.”
Around spirit field No. 1-6, the Water Root Grass took hold across the banks without issue.
However, there was not the slightest indication of the common mortal grass mutating into a spiritual herb.
Lee Hyun felt no disappointment as he jotted the observation down on a wooden tablet. If ordinary wild herbs could transform into spiritual herbs simply by soaking in ambient qi for a few months, genuine spirit plants would not be so fiercely fought over across the cultivation world.
Out of the twenty Yin Water Lotus seeds, eleven successfully sprouted. At first, tiny leaves no larger than copper coins pushed upward on slender stems; as time slipped by, circular emerald leaves unfurled across the mirror-like surface of the reservoir.
A cool, refreshing chill clung to the undersides of the floating leaves. While it was still far too early to harvest them as mature spiritual herbs, the subterranean pool clearly agreed with them.
The Rock Honey Peach seeds, on the other hand, showed no signs of movement for a very long time.
Lee Hyun had begun to suspect the seeds were dead, but whenever he peered at them through the Qi-Observation Technique, a microscopic ember of life force still burned within their hardened shells.
Finally, after six months of silence, three of the seven seeds cracked open, thrusting pale sprouts upward through the gravelly topsoil.
Their stems were a rich wood-brown, and their leaves were noticeably thicker and waxier than those of mortal peach saplings. Running along the central veins of each leaf was a faint, amber-gold luster that caught the dim light of the cave.
“Three surviving out of seven is already a blessing…”
Encouraged, Lee Hyun set to work installing the same tipping-bucket irrigation mechanisms across spirit fields No. 1-2 through No. 1-5.
By the time he finished filling the final reservoir using repeated casts of the Spiritual Rain Spell, he collapsed backward onto the stone floor, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Phew… Filling five massive basins in one sitting is no joke.”
The Primordial Unity True Qi that normally saturated every fiber of his flesh and marrow was completely drained.
Sprawled flat on his back, Lee Hyun closed his eyes.
He circulated the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art, drawing the thin, scattered spiritual qi of the tunnel slowly into his pores.
“The watering takes care of itself… and I can recover my spiritual power just lying flat on my back…”
A slow, satisfied smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
“Life is getting more comfortable by the day.”
* * *
Two years passed.
Through continual adjustments, the automated irrigation mechanisms installed across all five spirit fields ran with mechanical reliability.
One bronze pipe had indeed clogged due to fine pulverized rock dust, but thanks to the redundant second pipe, the plants had not suffered a day of drought. Taking the lesson to heart, Lee Hyun fitted fine copper mesh screens over the intake valves of every reservoir.
The Rock Honey Peach saplings had now grown to his knees.
The leaves of the Yin Water Lotus had expanded to the size of an adult’s palm, blanketing nearly half the reservoir in an unbroken sea of vibrant green. There was still no hint of flower buds, but this was a spiritual plant known to take decades just to produce its very first bloom.
With his farming automated down to occasional reservoir refills and routine mechanical inspections, Lee Hyun settled completely into the rhythmic isolation of closed-door cultivation. Whenever nothing demanded his attention, he simply cultivated.
* * *
330 years later.
A deep, subterranean tremor rippled through the cultivation chamber of Tunnel No. 1.
Inside Lee Hyun’s body, the Primordial Unity True Qi that flooded his meridian network and flesh surged like a vast, unbroken ocean tide.
The qi circulating through his bones, sinews, vascular walls, and internal organs was incomparably denser, heavier, and more refined than it had ever been in his past life.
Lying motionless on the bedrock, Lee Hyun opened his eyes.
“Hmm…”
He had attained the 3rd Stage of the Primordial Unity Body 230 years ago.
Now, he was no longer a cultivator who had merely crossed the threshold of the 3rd layer of Qi Refining; he had pushed deep into the late 3rd layer, his fingertips brushing against the barrier of the 4th layer. Naturally, his Primordial Unity Body was also rapidly approaching its 4th Stage.
For the first time in centuries, Lee Hyun picked up a wooden tablet and carved an updated Handmade Status Window into the grain, quietly savoring his progress. Having his cultivation etched into tangible words always gave him an immense sense of accomplishment!
【Age: 555】
【Cultivation Realm: Qi Refining, 3rd layer (late)】
【Spiritual Power: 206】
【Spiritual Roots: Wood, Fire, Earth】
【Cultivation Art: Primordial Unity One-Qi Art】
【Physique: Primordial Unity Body, Stage 3 (late)】
A spiritual power rating of 206 was an absurd, terrifying figure for someone technically at the 3rd layer of Qi Refining.
Even when accounting for the purity and compression of spiritual energy, Lee Hyun was certain that his internal reserves far outstripped those of an ordinary cultivator at the Great Perfection of Qi Refining. In truth, he was right.
All of this was the natural consequence of using his entire physical body—every bone, muscle, and organ—as a vessel for qi, rather than relying on a tiny, fragile dantian.
Having lived and practiced in isolation for hundreds of years, his mastery over spells had evolved to a staggering degree. Virtually every spell he had routinely relied upon over the last 330 years had broken through to Major Accomplishment!
【Spells (Minor Accomplishment): Sword Control Technique, Earth Spike Technique, Wood-Binding Technique, Poison Analysis Technique】
【Spells (Major Accomplishment): Cheonggang Sword Formula, Fireball Technique, Lightness Technique, Earth-Shrinking Step, Qi-Concealment Technique, Spiritual Rain Spell, Soil-Turning Spell, Yang Metal Formula, Sprouting Spell, Earth Escape Technique, Spherical Qi Barrier, Spirit Light Shield, Qi-Observation Technique, Farsight Technique, Night Vision Technique, Earth-Sensing Technique, Enhanced Hearing Technique, Scent-Tracking Technique, Cleansing Spell, Clear Qi Formula, Breath-Holding Formula, Detoxification Formula, Glimmer Spell, Fire-Kindling Spell】
【Spells (Perfection): Spirit-Concealment Technique】
【Applied Spells: Reclining Escape Technique】
He had developed profound mastery over twenty-nine different spells. Among them were offensive arts like the Sword Control Technique, Earth Spike Technique, and Wood-Binding Technique—arts he had learned during his centuries underground simply to pass the time when boredom set in.
The spells that had reached Major Accomplishment were those he had used day in and day out over the past 330 years of subterranean life. They were now so deeply carved into his muscle memory that his Primordial Unity True Qi manifested them the instant the intent formed in his mind.
That he had mastered so many spells was not proof of heaven-defying talent, but simply the result of time. Tier 1 fundamental spells possessed straightforward, rudimentary spell structures. Given over five centuries of unbroken lifespan and endless repetition, even a cultivator with mediocre aptitude would inevitably master them to this degree.
Lee Hyun lowered the carving chisel and turned his awareness inward, examining the state of his Essence, Qi, and Spirit.
“Strange… My cultivation realm hasn’t budged in a decade…”
Over the past ten years, the ceiling of his spiritual power had not increased by a single point.
Whenever he circulated his art to absorb spiritual qi, his saturated physical body pushed back. The ambient qi simply slid across the surface of his skin and dispersed into the air. No matter how rigorously he channeled the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art, he could not force another drop of energy into his flesh.
It felt precisely like trying to pour fresh wine into a leather wineskin that was already stretched to its absolute breaking point.
Could this be the bottleneck between the 3rd and 4th layers of Qi Refining…?
The memory of Jang Pyeong, the cultivator he had spoken with long ago in Cloud Capital, surfaced in his mind.
— I’ve been stuck at the 3rd layer of Qi Refining for over fifty years.
Back then, Lee Hyun had assumed the old man simply had poor aptitude or damaged meridians. Looking at his own situation now, he realized that wasn’t the case. As the texts often warned, the divide between the Early Stage and the Middle Stage of Qi Refining was a genuine bottleneck.
“This isn’t something blind seclusion can solve… There’s a crucial piece missing.”
It seemed the time had finally come for him to emerge from his tunnels and step back out into the world.