Chapter 3754 — Spirit Herb Cultivation

Watching Wei Zhao and the others in the distance, relaxed and chatting and laughing, Meng Jueming pinched his chin and curled his lip in a cold sneer: Let you lot enjoy your triumph a while longer. Before, I had no time to bother with you, and that's how you slipped through the cracks. Next—there'll be time enough for you to cry!

Setting aside Wei Zhao, that troublesome thorn in the side, if it were only those two newcomers Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai, Meng Jueming had never once taken them seriously. Dealing with those two was, in his eyes, no more than reaching out and taking what was his—a trifling matter.

As was customary, only after all the newcomers of the Three-Tiered Pavilion had gathered did the Pavilion Master, Hu Yunfeng, appear to announce and reaffirm the rules of the coming assessment stages. And just like the first stage, the pressure-resistance trial, the venue for this third stage was likewise not the Welcome-New Pavilion, but the Pill Hall.

More precisely, however, the third stage was not to be assessed at the Pill Hall either. The Pavilion Master Hu Yunfeng merely led all the newcomers to the Pill Hall as a formality, so that each of them could select a few spirit herb seeds and carry them back to cultivate and nurture on their own.

As everyone knew, any cultivator in the world of cultivation must deal with all manner of pills—the only difference being in how many.

Some, blessed with deep backgrounds and superior conditions, could eat pills as though they were rice; others lacked such advantages and could only scrape and save, hoarding resources to trade for a single pill at the most critical juncture to aid a breakthrough; and still others, like Wei Zhao, were alchemists themselves, able to refine all manner of pills on their own.

In short, no matter which sort one was, across a long cultivation career one would inevitably require the aid of spirit herbs. Otherwise, in this present age where spiritual energy grew ever thinner by the day, to break through purely by one's own diligent cultivation was utterly unrealistic. Even if it could be done, it was only by a very few with extraordinary talent; the other ninety-nine in a hundred could not do without pills of every kind.

But to refine pills, apart from requiring dedicated alchemists, the most crucial element was still the common and uncommon spirit herb materials. Without a full complement of spirit herbs to serve as ingredients, even a Pill God like Zhang Lifeng would be a clever housewife who cannot cook a meal without rice.

Yet every spirit herb belongs among the treasures of heaven and earth. Even the commonest, lowliest spirit herb is only so relative to other spirit herbs; compared with ordinary plants, it remains an exceedingly rare and precious thing. To gather them in great quantity was simply impossible—to say nothing of rare varieties like the Heart-Devouring Linglong Grass.

Naturally, the method of artificially cultivating spirit herbs arose in response.

Yet though spirit herbs are plants like any other, their demands upon their growing environment are far more exacting than those of ordinary grasses, trees, and flowers. Even when cultivators devote vast effort to tending and nurturing them, the survival rate remains forever pitifully low, and their growth cycles are generally exceedingly long. All too often, after decades of painstaking labor, a single careless moment leaves them withered and dead, and all that heart's blood is poured down the drain.

Still, after thousands upon thousands of years of accumulated experience, the cultivation world of Cloud-Tier Island had by now distilled a highly mature method for planting and nurturing spirit herbs.

Not only was the survival rate greatly improved over former times, but with the addition of artificial ripening techniques, even their growth cycles had been drastically shortened. Many common spirit herbs could thus be cultivated on a massive scale, guaranteeing their supply.

Of course, this applied only to certain common spirit herbs. The vast majority of special spirit herbs, being exceedingly rare in themselves, had no store of experience to draw upon when it came to cultivation; their survival rates remained at extremely low levels. Otherwise, if they could be cultivated on a large scale, they would long since have been promoted for planting rather than called rare spirit herbs.

Across the whole of Cloud-Tier Island's North Island, the foremost authority in the planting and cultivation of spirit herbs was, naturally, the Pill Hall.

And this time Hu Yunfeng had brought the Three-Tiered Pavilion newcomers here so that they might receive seeds of various spirit herbs and take them back to cultivate in their own cave dwellings. This was the third stage of the newcomer assessment: the Spirit Herb Trial.

The Pill Hall, like the Law Enforcement Hall, was one of the few independent halls outside the Three-Tiered Pavilion of the North Island whose fame was such that it rang in everyone's ears.

Yet compared with the cold, desolate Law Enforcement Hall, heavy with authority, the Pill Hall was built against the mountain and opened wide to all quarters. In both its architectural layout and the bustle and spirit of its people, it was plainly far more genial and easygoing than the Law Enforcement Hall—at the very least, it did not set a person ill at ease.

And do not forget: that long-suffering senior brother had earlier still been pondering whether to scrape together two hundred spirit jades and come to the Pill Hall to ask an alchemist to refine a Foundation-Breaking Barrier Pill for him.

From the fees it collected each year for refining pills on others' behalf alone, the Pill Hall raked in a colossal fortune of astronomical proportions. Beyond that, the Pill Hall also partnered with great merchant houses like the Hong Clan Trading Company, selling all manner of pills in bulk—another fortune of astronomical proportions.

Add the two together, and the Pill Hall could absolutely be called one of the wealthiest halls of the Three-Tiered Pavilion. Even the Spirit Jade Hall, the hall specifically charged with mining spirit jade, could at best be considered its equal.

And it was precisely such vast financial power that enabled the Pill Hall to gather rare spirit herbs far and wide and to bind numerous alchemists to it with lavish pay. Were it unable to do these two things, the Pill Hall would be a hall in name only.

Led by Hu Yunfeng, the assembled newcomers of the Three-Tiered Pavilion climbed the steps that followed the mountain's contours. After winding past layer upon layer of antique buildings, there appeared before their eyes a lush, verdant expanse that made the heart drunk with delight.

Even from several dozen zhang away, one could catch the refreshing, soul-piercing fragrance of the spirit herbs. This was the Pill Hall's most important source of spirit herbs—the spirit herb garden it had organized and developed itself.

Spanning dozens of mu of land and consuming immense manpower and resources, the Pill Hall cultivated here no fewer than a hundred varieties of spirit herbs. And to guarantee an ample supply of spiritual energy, top-grade spirit jades brimming with spiritual energy could be seen piled here and there upon the ground.

Under natural conditions, spirit herbs have no need of such deliberate measures to grow properly. The garden clearly did so to raise its yield; otherwise, left to grow naturally, a patch of land merely dozens of mu across could hardly produce more than a few stalks of spirit herbs.

Gazing out, what lay before them was not only spirit herbs worth cities but spirit jades strewn everywhere—a sight to stir the soul. The newcomers of the Three-Tiered Pavilion, who had never in their lives witnessed such a spectacle, could not help but swallow in unison.

This place—this place was just damn well a paradise on earth! RS