"It seems that the Dark Essence Mushroom doesn't like light, and it needs decayed spiritual wood to grow," Lu Xuan thought as he considered the hints that appeared in his mind.
"Not liking light is easy to handle. Although it's hard to move it indoors because of the spiritual field and soil, I can build a simple shelter to block the light," he reasoned.
"But finding decayed spiritual wood is a challenge. Spiritual wood is common, but who would have decayed spiritual wood at home?" Lu Xuan pondered as he gathered tools from his house and built a simple wooden shelter around the Dark Essence Mushroom.
Since it was a second-grade spiritual plant, the sooner he planted it, the sooner he could harvest it. He didn’t want to waste any time and decided to head out to search for the wood.
He walked towards the center of the market town and, after a while, arrived at a large courtyard. Looking over the stone wall, he could see tall spiritual trees densely planted inside.
The owner of the courtyard was a cultivator with the surname Zhou, at the third level of Qi training. Lu Xuan had only heard about him before and rarely had the chance to interact with him.
It was said that this Zhou cultivator had a close relationship with a higher-level Qi training cultivator in the market town, which allowed him to occupy such a large courtyard and grow many spiritual trees.
Decayed spiritual wood could come from pest damage during cultivation, long storage time, or poor storage conditions that changed the wood's properties, causing it to decay.
Since this Zhou cultivator had many spiritual trees, it was possible he had some decayed wood at home.
As he approached, a young cultivator came out to greet him. Lu Xuan explained his purpose, and the young cultivator led him to meet the Zhou cultivator.
The young man whispered a few words to his father, the Zhou cultivator.
"I am Zhou Yuan. May I ask how to address you, young brother?"
"Lu Xuan."
"Hello, Daoist Lu. My son mentioned you were looking for decayed spiritual wood. May I ask what you need it for?"
"To be honest, Brother Zhou, I've had some insights into cultivating spiritual plants and want to verify a theory with the decayed wood. I heard you have high skills in growing spiritual wood, so I came to see if you had any," Lu Xuan replied, half-truthfully.
"I see," Zhou Yuan nodded, his expression unchanged, making it hard to tell if he believed Lu Xuan or not.
"Due to various factors, I do have a few pieces of decayed spiritual wood at home."
Zhou Yuan instructed his son briefly and then went to the back of the courtyard to fetch some wood.
The wood looked old and worn, giving off a foul, decayed smell.
"If you want it, you can take it," Zhou Yuan said.
"However, planting spiritual wood requires more effort and resources than regular spiritual plants. Even if these pieces are decayed, they still have some value."
"For two spirit stones, you can take these three pieces of wood."
Lu Xuan frowned.
"Since the wood is already decayed, it means it has lost its original use. Asking for two spirit stones for three useless pieces of wood seems a bit unreasonable, doesn’t it?"
He knew that the other party didn’t understand his real purpose for the decayed wood, and this gave him confidence.
"One spirit stone will do, as if I’m helping you dispose of waste wood."
Zhou Yuan was just testing Lu Xuan's limits. Seeing his attitude, he agreed with a nod.
These discarded pieces of wood were usually buried in an uninhabited area outside the market town once they accumulated in number. Getting one spirit stone for them was already quite good.
After reaching an agreement, Lu Xuan paid the spirit stones and took the three pieces of decayed wood back home.
In his yard, under the shelter, the dark red mushroom seemed to blend into the shadows.
Lu Xuan quickly took out the three pieces of decayed wood and carefully placed them around the Dark Essence Mushroom seed.
After using the Spirit Rain Technique, he noticed significant changes in the Dark Essence Mushroom seed.
The mushroom's roots seemed to be attracted by the special smell of the decayed wood, quietly sprouting many tiny dark red mycelium.
The dark red mycelium spread into the decayed wood, and Lu Xuan felt that the color of the Dark Essence Mushroom deepened. Inside, the channels that looked like veins had their thick liquid flowing faster.
After successfully planting the Dark Essence Mushroom, Lu Xuan finally felt relieved.
For the next period, he mostly stayed at home, spending most of his time carefully cultivating spiritual plants, while the rest of the time was used for practicing techniques and getting familiar with the incomplete Silver Splitting Blade.
He also visited the scattered cultivator market twice, hoping to find some unknown spiritual seeds from the stalls, taking advantage of the opportunity since scattered cultivators had returned from exploring secret realms.
Unfortunately, whenever he saw stalls selling spiritual seeds, they were all common ones that he was already familiar with.
His yard’s spiritual field was already full, leaving no space for other plants.
He had twenty Spirit Firefly Grass that were growing rapidly, two Corrosive Moon Trees with most of the Moon-Eroding Fruits already ripe, and a first-grade Red Cloud Pine that didn’t require much spiritual energy, needing only occasional stimulation with the Fireball Technique.
He also had a second-grade Sword Grass that required the Gengjin Sword Art and Spirit Rain Technique, and the second-grade Dark Essence Mushroom that mainly relied on nutrients from the decayed wood, so Lu Xuan didn’t need to use the Spirit Rain Technique on it.
He only needed to use the Spirit Rain Technique and Earth Summoning Technique to keep the decayed wood in its state.
Looking at it this way, Lu Xuan realized that first-grade spiritual plants were the least in his spiritual field, with only one Red Cloud Pine. However, the two spiritual seeds he obtained unexpectedly turned out to be second-grade plants.
During this time, he also harvested five Moon-Eroding Fruits.
Four were of good quality, and one was of excellent quality.
This brought him five White Light Orbs, two of which were fragments of the Silver Splitting Blade. With this, the artifact was more complete, with only a few small gaps remaining.
With the remaining fourteen Moon-Eroding Fruits, Lu Xuan estimated there wouldn’t be any problems.
He also had two first-grade talismans, the Sword Qi Talisman and the Evil Dispelling Talisman, both of which were quite good at this level.
As for the excellent quality Moon-Eroding Fruit, after absorbing it, a stream of information appeared in his mind.
"Recipe for the Cultivation Pill, detailing the materials and methods for refining the first-grade Cultivation Pill."
"Wow, a recipe! No wonder it's an excellent quality Moon-Eroding Fruit."
Lu Xuan was a bit surprised. Previously, he had only received Cultivation Pills from the White Light Orbs, but this time he got the recipe directly.
It’s better to teach someone how to fish than to just give them fish. It seems I’ll need to spend some time learning how to refine pills, he thought to himself.
"But I have no foundation, and starting from scratch means a high chance of failure."
"I wonder if the Moon-Eroding Fruit will yield more Cultivation Pill recipes. If I get more recipes, will it be like the Earth Summoning Technique and Gengjin Sword Art, where repeated absorption increases my pill refining experience?"
Lu Xuan looked at the more than ten round, plump Moon-Eroding Fruits hanging among the green leaves, feeling optimistic.
(End of Chapter)