"Third-grade auxiliary treasure, Pure Jade..."
Lu Xuan held the transparent jade talisman and murmured to himself.
"I didn't expect the first-grade Red Cloud Pine to produce a third-grade treasure."
He was a bit surprised. Although the difference between second-grade and third-grade sounds small, there is actually a significant distinction. Second-grade treasures are still in the Qi Refining stage, mainly used by mid to high-level cultivators, while third-grade treasures are already in the Foundation Establishment category.
"I guess the perfect quality plays a big role. However, as the grade of a spiritual plant increases, it becomes harder to find a perfectly matured one. This time, I got lucky; one out of the five Red Cloud Pine seeds is of perfect quality."
Lu Xuan speculated.
The third-grade Pure Jade, while mainly used as an auxiliary item, has extremely rare value. It can help guard against evil spirits, and just this function alone can attract countless cultivators to fight over it.
In the cultivation world, dangers lurk everywhere, and the ways evil spirits invade cultivators are many and varied, often silent and unnoticed. With this Pure Jade, one can resist and even block the invasion and pollution of malevolent spirits to some extent.
Not to mention, wearing Pure Jade for a long time can also slightly enhance a cultivator's spiritual awareness.
Spiritual awareness grows naturally during breakthroughs, but there are few other ways to enhance it. Usually, it involves rare special techniques, high-grade pills, or certain heavenly materials.
Recently, Lu Xuan felt the market town, which was already not very safe, becoming even more turbulent. Cultivators were increasingly mutating, and even Wang Shan, a small leader from the Law Enforcement Hall, fell victim to an evil spirit's poison. Recently, there have even been reports of contaminated strange insects and spiritual plants.
All signs indicate that the market town is becoming riddled with problems, with more and more evil cultivators and spirits surrounding it like leeches, sucking blood.
The appearance of Pure Jade can at least help Lu Xuan avoid being harmed by evil spirits and keep himself safe. As for everything else, he would leave that to the big families and powers in the market town.
For Lu Xuan right now, growing spiritual plants is still the most important thing.
He found a thin red string and tied the transparent jade talisman around his chest.
A cool sensation spread from his chest, keeping Lu Xuan's mind clear. The jade talisman emitted an invisible light, sweeping away the murky aura around him.
After picking all five Red Cloud Pine seeds, the spiritual plant lost its effectiveness.
Lu Xuan understood that spiritual plants generally fall into three categories.
The first type matures once and loses its usefulness afterward. This is common among low-grade spiritual plants, like the Spirit Firefly Grass and Moon-Eroding Fruit he picked earlier, as well as the current Red Cloud Pine.
The second type has a certain growth period, during which it will periodically produce spiritual fruits and leaves. Lu Xuan estimated that the second-grade Pure Wondrous Tea he is currently growing belongs to this category.
The last type is based on age; the older the spiritual plant, the stronger its effects. These are usually high-grade spiritual plants.
Of course, there are all kinds of spiritual plants, and Lu Xuan couldn't guarantee that other types wouldn't appear.
He set aside two Red Cloud Pine seeds with the other three, planning to sell them when the opportunity arose.
Pine seeds contain rich spiritual power and have a unique and wonderful taste, especially favored by female cultivators. Lu Xuan's seeds are at least of good quality, and he estimates he can sell them for a good price.
In the following days, besides normally cultivating spiritual plants and raising Red Whiskered Carps and Cloud Stepping Leopards, Lu Xuan focused on the Bloodsucking Vine and the Blood Spirit Leaf, which was gradually recovering.
The Blue Water Python is indeed a second-grade monster, and its effects are much stronger than the Double-Winged Golden Scale Snake blood he bought at Wanbao Tower.
After pouring the red and green blood onto the Bloodsucking Vine, the green patterns took more than a day to gradually disappear.
A pound of Blue Water Python blood could last for over ten days.
Lu Xuan figured this would be quite a burden for Yu Jie’s father. Although they have secret techniques for hunting snake-type monsters, they are only at the fifth layer of Qi Refining, and long-term hunting of second-grade monsters is not easy.
Under Lu Xuan's careful care, the Blood Spirit Leaf had mostly recovered, but its broad leaves still bore scar-like marks, making it look somewhat unbalanced.
It was nearly mature, so Lu Xuan decided to harvest it. As expected, there was no white light orb.
The harvested Blood Spirit Leaf was of inferior quality, marking the first time such a quality spiritual plant appeared in the spiritual field.
Lu Xuan didn't mind much; after all, being able to restore it to this state was already quite good, and he hadn't spent much thought or time on careful cultivation.
With the mutated Blood Spirit Leaf successfully restored, Lu Xuan put it in his storage bag and hurried to the Hundred Herbs Hall.
There are about twenty to thirty spiritual cultivators collaborating with the Hundred Herbs Hall. They don't have Lu Xuan's ability to monitor the status of spiritual plants at any time, so they can only defend passively, leading to even more mutated spiritual plants.
As soon as he entered the Hundred Herbs Hall, Steward He, who was counting spiritual medicines at the counter, spotted Lu Xuan.
"Lu kid, your spiritual plants in the field haven't encountered any problems, have they?"
"Thank you for your concern, Elder He. Everything is normal; there are no signs of invasion or pollution among the spiritual plants in the field."
Hearing the thin old man's concern, Lu Xuan felt warmth in his heart.
"That's good. What about the two mutated Blood Jade Ginseng and Blood Spirit Leaves? Have you figured out anything?"
Upon hearing Lu Xuan's words, Steward He let out a sigh of relief and asked.
Lu Xuan smiled and said nothing, taking out a spiritual plant from his storage bag.
"This is a newly matured spiritual plant; please give it a price."
"This is..."
The thin old man’s eyes narrowed.
Although the spiritual plant before him looked ugly and of poor quality, his rich experience allowed him to recognize it as a Blood Spirit Leaf at first glance.
From what he knew, Lu Xuan's collaboration with the Hundred Herbs Hall involved Spirit Firefly Grass and Blood Jade Ginseng, so everything fell into place.
"You really managed to restore that severely mutated Blood Spirit Leaf to normal?"
His tone was shocked. It’s worth noting that the Hundred Herbs Hall has more than one spiritual cultivator capable of growing third-grade spiritual plants, but they are often at a loss when facing mutated plants.
Among them, the two spiritual plants brought out had severe mutations, and after several attempts, they had not improved at all.
Yet Lu Xuan, a loose cultivator spiritual cultivator, managed to restore one of them to normal. How could that not surprise him?
"Cough, cough!"
He lightly coughed to hide his surprise.
"This spiritual plant has too many damaged parts, and the spiritual energy contained within is lower than normal."
"Just this inferior spiritual plant, I can reluctantly take it for twenty-five spirit stones!"
He couldn’t stand seeing Lu Xuan so pleased in front of him and pretended to be indifferent, speaking casually.
"Haha, thank you, Elder He."
"I was thinking of collaborating with you, but since you look down on this inferior spiritual plant, I guess that’s that."
(End of Chapter)