Cultivation is Just That Scientific

Li Shiming left the guest courtyard and returned to his own courtyard, where he saw Si Qin sitting on a small bed by the outer door with her arms crossed, eyes squinting and her head nodding off slightly.

Upon hearing the sound, Si Qin immediately became alert.

“Young Master, you’re finally back—ah, you smell awful!” Si Qin jumped off the bed when she saw Li Shiming, and immediately caught the stench emanating from him.

“Prepare hot water, quickly!” Li Shiming waved his hand as he spoke.

“Who knows what Young Master has been up to!” Though she complained, her hands and feet were swift as she hurried away.

Before long, a large bucket of hot water was ready. Li Shiming soaked in the hot water, and the grime on his body gradually came off, revealing even more delicate skin.

He thought of the appearances of the two cultivators; his skin now bore some resemblance to theirs.

The troubles in Nanling City had nothing to do with him. After three days of practicing the Five Elements Qi Absorption Technique, the spiritual qi vortex in his chest had fully stabilized.

Over these three days of cultivation, he noticed that the four glowing stones on the Spirit-Gathering Disk had dimmed slightly.

He was able to observe this because of the server room space. When he stored the Spirit-Gathering Disk in the server room, this slight change in brightness became perceptible through his awareness.

He came to a conclusion: the four glowing stones on the Spirit-Gathering Disk were being consumed.

As long as the Spirit-Gathering Disk remained active, the four glowing stones would continue to deplete.

He didn’t know how to turn off the Spirit-Gathering Disk, nor did he dare to forcibly remove the four glowing stones.

For now, he could still rely on the Spirit-Gathering Disk for cultivation. If he damaged the disk, his cultivation progress would be in jeopardy.

He tried cultivating without the Spirit-Gathering Disk. When he sensed the scant few spiritual qi particles around him, he realized that without the disk’s aid, it might take him a hundred times longer to reach the second level of Qi Refinement.

Using calculations performed by the IBM z15 server, Li Shiming determined that the Spirit-Gathering Disk could last another twenty-five days.

He needed to make full use of these twenty-five days to maximize the disk’s effectiveness.

Moreover, after three days, he made another discovery: the spiritual qi gathered by the Spirit-Gathering Disk in the server room space increased the concentration of spiritual qi there.

He could even draw spiritual qi from the server room space for his own cultivation.

Thanks to this discovery, whenever he wasn’t practicing the Five Elements Qi Absorption Technique, he left the Spirit-Gathering Disk in the server room space. This ensured that the disk’s effectiveness wasn’t wasted in the slightest.

He also found time to leave the city gates and dispose of Chief Escort Wang’s corpse, ensuring the server room space was clean.

Additionally, ever since he reached the first level of Qi Refinement, the duration for which he could use his mind to drive the generator had doubled. Now, he could power the generator for two hours, and this duration continued to increase.

That evening, Li Shiming retrieved Shi Ximing’s (that cultivator who got blasted to pieces) storage pouch from the server room space. Ever since the spiritual qi vortex formed in his chest, he had been considering how to open the pouch.

The concept of a storage pouch, which could store items within a pocket dimension, was mere fantasy in his previous life. No basic scientific framework even existed for such a notion, let alone research into spatial storage.

Though he had the server room space, which functioned similarly, this was a cultivator’s storage pouch, containing the belongings of an immortal—a matter of great importance to him.

Besides, if his storage ability was discovered, he couldn’t reveal the server room space. While storage pouches were rare in the secular world, nearly every cultivator seemed to carry one, suggesting they were of limited value within the cultivation world. It would be safer to reveal the existence of a storage pouch instead.

Li Shiming attempted to channel spiritual qi from his chest to his right hand. A wisp of spiritual qi flowed obediently from the vortex in his chest to his hand.

When he pressed his hand against the storage pouch, something remarkable happened: he sensed a space where every item within was perceptible to him.

A hoe, a rake, a shovel, and two coarse cloth bags.

If not for sensing about a thousand taels of gold, a pile of silver like a small hill, a white robe, a long sword, and five books, he would have thought he’d opened a farmer’s stash.

Nonetheless, he didn’t underestimate the items. The hoe, rake, and shovel all contained spiritual qi.

Although their spiritual qi was far less than that of the long sword, the fact that they had any spiritual qi at all confirmed they were cultivation tools.

The two coarse cloth bags contained husked rice, which also held spiritual qi. Holding a grain of rice in his hand, he could feel the gentle warmth of the spiritual qi within.

The long sword and white robe had similar levels of spiritual qi, suggesting they were of the same tier.

He compared them to the small wooden sword he obtained from Chief Escort Wang. Though small and impractical in size, the wooden sword contained far denser spiritual qi, suggesting it was of much higher quality.

Lacking detailed standards for evaluating cultivation tools, he could only make rough judgments based on spiritual qi concentration.

He took out the five books. These were what he most desired: cultivation manuals that could expand his understanding of cultivation.

The titles were Spring Rain Technique, Yang Metal Technique (庚金诀 Yang Metal Technique – Geng refers to one the ten heavenly stems corresponding to Yang Metal), Earth Essence Technique, Basics of Spiritual Plant Cultivation (灵植夫基础), and a cultivation journal.

Basics of Spiritual Plant Cultivation detailed how to grow spiritual rice, spiritual tea, spiritual herbs, spiritual flowers, and more than twenty other types of spiritual medicines. It covered everything from soil composition to seasonal care and potential issues, in meticulous, almost babysitter-like detail.

Additionally, Basics of Spiritual Plant Cultivation referenced the Spring Rain Technique, Yang Metal Technique, and Earth Essence Technique—three basic spells that a spiritual planter must master.

Each of these three spells had its own book, explaining every step of their casting in exhaustive detail.

When he read the cultivation journal, Li Shiming understood why Shi Ximing’s storage pouch contained these items.

Shi Ximing had been a spiritual planter, and those two bags of spiritual rice were his own harvest.

Inside the cultivation journal, there were also twenty-three talismans, including eleven Basic Light Body Talismans (初级轻身符) that Li Shiming recognized. The rest included two Basic Earth Armor Talismans (初级土甲符), five Basic Fireball Talismans (初级火球符), and five Basic Ice Arrow Talismans (初级冰箭符).

He picked up a Basic Light Body Talisman and hesitated to use it.

Until he officially entered the world of cultivation, these talismans were his trump cards.

Though he had the Introduction to Runes, he lacked the materials to learn talisman-making.

Shi Ximing’s cultivation journal served more as a learning guide for becoming a spiritual planter. Li Shiming’s spiritual qi wasn’t yet sufficient to learn spells, and it was too early to consider a specific cultivation profession.

For now, the cultivation journal merely broadened his knowledge without offering immediate practical value.