Plant VS Cultivation

Chapter 21: A New Sunflower

Twenty days passed in the blink of an eye.

After collecting the day's portion of Sun Essence, Gu Mo entered the Black Mist Space. Inside, a small box emitted a golden glow—this was the result of his hard work: fifty portions of Sun Essence.

Without hesitation, he carried the small box to the vending machine and deposited all the Sun Essence. As the last portion was inserted, the sunflower option on the vending machine's interface became available for purchase.

Purchase!

A familiar-looking seed rolled out from the machine's opening, and Gu Mo caught it swiftly. Focusing his mind on the seed, he saw information about the sunflower appear, confirming that it was indeed a sunflower seed.

However, the sunflower option did not disappear from the vending machine's display. This meant that as long as Gu Mo gathered another fifty portions of Sun Essence, he could purchase yet another sunflower.

Leaving the Black Mist Space, Gu Mo planted the second sunflower seed. Just like the first, by the next day, it had already sprouted and provided him with one portion of Sun Essence at sunset.

However, the new sunflower only condensed Sun Essence at twice the normal amount, meaning it needed more time to mature before catching up to the first sunflower, which produced three times the usual amount.

Still, whether it was double or triple, the vending machine considered both as a single portion. Unless Gu Mo planned to use the Sun Essence for cultivation or to dispel the black mist in his space, there was no real difference.

Now, he only needed to wait twenty-five days before purchasing a third sunflower. At that point, his cultivation speed would match that of someone with a high-grade spiritual root.

From a low-grade spiritual root to a high-grade one—this was a true defiance of fate! Because of this, Gu Mo had to be extremely cautious, ensuring that the secret of the sunflowers was never exposed.

Eight Months in the Spiritual Plant Hall

By the eighth month of his time in the Spiritual Plant Hall—and the fifth month since he obtained his spiritual farmland—Gu Mo finally gathered another fifty portions of Sun Essence and acquired his third sunflower.

At the same time, he remained busy. Since he didn't need to cultivate the traditional way, he spent most of his time tending to his spiritual farmland and practicing spiritual farming techniques.

This effort paid off. The Spirit Jade Rice in his farmland was now ripe, filling the air with a rich, fragrant aroma. His mastery of spiritual farming techniques also improved—he had progressed from two techniques to four.

The only technique he had yet to grasp was the Rejuvenation Art.

Compared to the other four techniques, Rejuvenation Art was the hardest. It wasn't just a method for healing damaged spiritual plants—it could also heal cultivators' injuries.

Mastering it was a game-changer. A spiritual farmer proficient in Rejuvenation Art was a completely different caliber from one who wasn't. Such individuals were highly sought after—whether by sects that needed them to care for precious plants or by adventuring teams looking for a healer.

However, the difficulty of learning the Rejuvenation Art was immense. Despite all his effort, Gu Mo was still just shy of entry-level mastery. And that was with the biological, botanical, and medical knowledge he had brought over from his previous life!

For ordinary cultivators, even finding the threshold to start learning would be a challenge.

The only exception was those with Wood-attribute spiritual roots, who could rely on their innate affinity to comprehend it much more easily.

Spiritual Roots and Attributes

Spiritual roots were categorized not only by grade but also by elemental attributes.

Every cultivator had all five elements within them, but their distribution varied. Some individuals had one element that was especially dominant, making them attribute-based cultivators.

For these individuals, learning techniques that matched their dominant attribute was significantly easier.

As for outer disciples like Gu Mo, the sect never even bothered to test their spiritual root attributes—it simply wasn't worth the effort. Low-grade spiritual roots were typically weak and evenly balanced across all elements.

Harvesting the Spirit Jade Rice

"For now, I should harvest the Spirit Jade Rice," Gu Mo muttered, pausing his studies of the Rejuvenation Art.

He had originally planned to master all five core spiritual farming techniques before this season's harvest. That way, he could truly farm like an immortal cultivator—no longer needing to carry a hoe and manually till the fields like a mundane farmer.

Unfortunately, his progress hadn't met expectations.

Standing before his farmland, Gu Mo formed a hand seal. A sharp Metal Qi Blade condensed at his fingertips. With a swift motion, he slashed outward—golden rice stalks fell in waves.

In no time, the entire one-mu plot was harvested.

Next, he cast another technique. With a flick of his gray outer disciple robe, the fallen rice stalks disappeared—absorbed into his sleeve.

This was the Sleeve-Sized Small World technique.

Sleeve-Sized Small World

It was said that a powerful cultivator had created this spell after drawing inspiration from the legendary Great Sleeve World, a top-tier divine ability.

Of course, this version was just an extremely simplified version—so simplified that it was classified at the same rank as something as basic as the Cleaning Spell.

Its function was simple: store objects within the cultivator's sleeve.

However, unlike true spatial treasures, items stored in Sleeve-Sized Small World still weighed down the cultivator and drained spiritual energy while being stored.

For cultivators without storage treasures, it was still a useful alternative. But few were willing to learn it. After all, why waste time and energy maintaining a spell when a simple backpack could do the same job?

Yet, Gu Mo chose to learn it—not just for convenience, but also for concealment.

His greatest secret—the Black Mist Space—could not be exposed.

With Sleeve-Sized Small World as a cover, he could use the storage ability of the Black Mist Space without drawing suspicion. As long as he didn't store anything beyond what he could physically carry, no one would question him.

The hundreds of pounds of rice stalks from the farmland were well within his limit. With a body three times stronger than an average cultivator at his level, carrying that much weight was no issue.

Preparing for the Journey

With the rice safely stored, Gu Mo headed to the Spirit Sunflower Field in front of his hut.

He carefully dug up his three sunflowers along with their soil and placed them into separate pots.

Next, he would head to the Spiritual Plant Hall to register his harvest. He couldn't afford to leave the sunflowers unguarded while he was away. If someone entered his hut and discovered them, it would be a disaster.

Back when he lived in the outer disciple dorms, someone had broken into his room. He hadn't forgotten that incident.

By keeping the sunflowers potted with soil, they could survive for several days without reverting to seeds. Once he returned, he could replant them without issue.

Of course, this was only a temporary solution.

As his sunflower count grew, moving them around like this would become impractical.

By then, he planned to set up defensive formations around his farmland.

For now, however, he needed to save up money—and this rice harvest was about to be his first real profit in the cultivation world.

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