BXBX NOVEL Chapter 116 - 82: Ten Years_l
The next morning, Xu Yang opened his eyes and sat up, stretching languorously. He felt invigorated all over, a sense of comfort and exhilaration he had never known before.
He had slept through the night, finally resting peacefully without his usual dreams and divine wanderings, just deep and stable slumber.
That sleep had been incredibly restful, clearing away any dust that had settled on his soul.
In fact, there wasn’t much dust to begin with. In the Black Water World for over a hundred years, except for the initial battles with creatures like the Giant Turtle, he had mostly been lying low, enjoying himself—practicing his cultivation, refining elixirs, drinking wine, eating meat, and studying formations and various miscellaneous disciplines as hobbies. Life was simply too comfortable.
It was nothing like his time in the Great Zhou and Great Tang worlds, where he had been involved in manipulative schemes and deceit. It was not only disgusting but also incredibly boring, the same old tedious issues circulating over and over. The others might not be tired of dying, but Xu Yang was fed up with the killing.
Rather than struggling for power in the world or living the life of a king who indulged in luxury and privileges, Xu Yang much preferred to be carefree and idle, like a salted fish.
Moreover, the real world was also calm and peaceful, without worry or
annoyance…
If possible, he really wanted to continue like this forever, to cultivate into an immortal sincerely and quietly.
Unfortunately, such a wish is mostly unrealistic.
This world is still one of strife.
Lying low like a salted fish, avoiding the world’s conflicts, one could still end up extinguished in disaster, without even the capital to flee for life, when facing calamities like the descent of Mara and the Blood Moon Catastrophe.
Unlike those mighty gods and emperors who, even if they couldn’t defeat Mara, were able to use their great mana to break through the realm, taking their domains and Cave Heavens to seek refuge elsewhere.
This is the consequence of lying low. Although in the situation of the Black Water World his fate would have been the same whether he lay low or not, Xu Yang was still reminded by these experiences.
As a fish must strive, so must a person. Those who immerse themselves in pleasures without seeking progress will surely fall victim to catastrophe and be destroyed by it.
Heaven brings forth the killing intent, stars shift in battle!
Earth brings forth the killing intent, dragons and snakes rise from the land!
Heavenly tribulations, earthly catastrophes, divine calamities, demon catastrophes, human disasters, monster tribulations…
Looking around, killing intents abound, pushing one to desperate straits!
Even if one earnestly tries to avoid it all, without contention, it can’t ensure that “sitting at home, disaster comes from the sky.” so…
“Gotta do what’s gotta be done!”
Xu Yang shook his head, got up from his bed, went through his usual washing routine, and then shouldered a hoe to hit the fields.
In the paddy field, a sea of golden yellow awaited, another season of Spirit Rice ready for harvest.
Walking into the field, Xu Yang parted the ears of rice, like an old farmer who had toiled the land his whole life, checking on his hard-earned harvest.
A hundred years in Black Water, ten years in reality, he had now been farming on this small island for over a decade.
Thanks to various “fertilizers” enhancing the land’s fertility and the effects of the “Spiritual Planting” skill, he had been reaping bountiful harvests year after year, accumulating an astonishing amount of Spirit Rice.
In addition, the “Premium Breed Cultivation” project was progressing systematically and thriving. Although no second-tier Spirit Rice had yet appeared, various effects of first-tier Spirit Rice were cultivated, including some unique varieties of Spirit Rice not seen in the market.
This season, for instance, Xu Yang primarily grew a kind of Spirit Rice called “Blood Spirit Rice,” which significantly enhances the power of Qi Blood, especially effective for beast clans, and is a staple food for Beast Tamers.
This kind of Spirit Rice is best fertilized with the flesh and blood of Alien Beasts—the more it is applied, the better the effects.
So, whenever Xu Yang had some free time lately, he would catch birds and fish, bleed them, and use their blood as fertilizer, asking his Spirit Beasts to make a little sacrifice since, after all, the Blood Spirit Rice was mainly for them to eat.
Though using the blood of Spirit Beasts as fertilizer felt a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul, thanks to the planting skills, the overall yields were still positive.
Not to mention that Xu Yang also sometimes buried bodies to enrich the soil, and the Golden Eagles contributed their droppings. With the multifold application of fertilizers, the Blood Spirit Rice flourished magnificently, making all the investment worthwhile.
Parting the golden ears of rice, Xu Yang saw that the grains within looked like red pomegranates, the plump Blood Jade Spirit Rice coated by a husk, yet still faintly glowing red.
Xu Yang then parted another astonishingly vibrant stalk, which seemed more like a fruit tree, and plucked out a fist-sized grain of Blood Spirit Rice.
An exotic top-quality product—Giant Blood Spirit Rice!
Capable of greatly enhancing the power of one’s Qi Blood, it had a noticeable benefit for Foundation Establishment Cultivators and Demon Cultivators alike, and it could also be used to refine second-tier elixirs like the “Beast Blood Pill,” a mainstream pill for demon cultivators in Foundation Establishment to improve their cultivation, worth a small fortune.
Unfortunately, Xu Yang did not yet possess the elixir recipe for the Beast Blood Pill.
“This is for you,”
Xu Yang said with a smile, tossing the fist-sized Spirit Rice to the Golden Eagle at his side.
“Screech!”
The Golden Eagle cried out, grasping the Spirit Rice and swallowed it whole.
“Eat slowly, no one is fighting you for it.”
Xu Yang shook his head, patting its steel-like feathers, looking like an old ratner watcmng ms toonsn son.
Ten years might seem long to people, but to Spirit Monsters and Demon Beasts, it counts for little.
While ordinary beasts typically have lifespans much shorter than those of humans, once they awaken their Spirit Wisdom and enter the path of cultivation, their lifespans rapidly outpace those of humans. Many Qi Cultivation Realm Spirit Monsters and Demon Beasts can easily live for hundreds of years, effortlessly outliving many Foundation Establishment Cultivators.
The Golden Eagle was the same.
Over ten years, with Xu Yang’s Beast Taming skills and the resources lavished upon it, it had reached the pinnacle of “Demon Beasts,” comparable to a human Cultivator at the Perfect Qi Refinement stage. Just one more step would transform its Demon Body, shed its oscillatory bone, and allow it to become a true Foundation Establishment Demon Beast.
To meet its cultivation needs, Xu Yang had even made a trip to the market, spending a hefty sum to buy a Cultivation Technique suitable for avian demon beasts that could directly enter the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Of course, Laoliu and the other birds were also given this technique.
Xu Yang’s Qi Refinement cultivation had long been complete, and he was just waiting for the Foundation Building Pill to make a breakthrough, so over these years, he didn’t mind the loss of strength and kept using enlightening spirit awakening.
Now, the number of fierce birds he was raising, as well as the alien beasts and spirit monsters in the two fisheries to the east and west, has skyrocketed, with quite a few demon monsters and demon beasts emerging, among which the Golden Eagle and Electric Eel King were the prominent figures.
The combat power of these demon beasts was extremely considerable, each awakening an innate divine ability, and although they dared not claim to be the match of Foundation Establishment Cultivators, killing a few Perfect Qi Refinement Loose Cultivators was not a problem.
But this was limited to loose cultivators; the disciples from large sects and major forces were not included.
Cultivation was a matter highly dependant on one’s background; cultivators nurtured by sects and supported by families were almost like a different species compared to wild, wandering, and solitary loose cultivators, with a vast difference in combat ability.
As the “Thunder Lightning Mana King,” Xu Yang could dominate among Qi Cultivation loose cultivators, and even those of Foundation Establishment influence had to treat him with caution. However, the Qi Cultivation disciples from Golden Core sects did not fear him and even intended to contest his skills.
It wasn’t that thunder cultivators weren’t strong, but that loose cultivators were at a disadvantage, whether in terms of cultivation techniques or magic artifacts, in both quantity and quality, compared to elite cultivators of sect origins.
If “Shi Jian” were from a sect background, those individuals wouldn’t dare challenge a thunder cultivator of the same realm even if they had ten times the
courage.
This was the plight of loose cultivators, whose strength was inferior to that of sect cultivators except for a few with great fortunes. Fortunately, Xu Yang was among that minority.
“Gugu! Gugu!”
After gobbling up the Spirit Rice, the Golden Eagle looked pitifully at Xu Yang and even made a “gugu” sound, a trick it must have learned from some bird.
Xu Yang unceremoniously slapped it.
“I told you not to eat so fast, it’s gone now. Watch carefully, wait until it’s ripe, then you can have a few more, after all, you gave the most blood and contributed the most,” he said.
“Gugu!”
Hearing this, although the Golden Eagle was disappointed, it quickly became motivated again by the grand picture Xu Yang painted, flapping its wings excitedly like a child weighing over a thousand pounds.
“Go, go, go, out of here,” Xu Yang shooed it away and picked up a hoe to dig another part of the fallow field, burying a few bodies encased in ice there.
Helpless, despite cultivating his moral character and remaining uninvolved with the world for ten years, there would inevitably be the shortsighted who forced their way onto his doorstep. Over the years, he had buried many, and the topsoil was almost piling up.
With no choice, he had to keep digging deeper and plan the fields properly, resting one plot while planting another, to make more effective use of the soil and take his farming undertaking another step towards success.
Now, although it appeared that Xu Yang was the only one laboring, in reality, there were hundreds of cultivators accompanying him silently within the ground, offering themselves selflessly.
Highly meritorious hard work, no less!
After burying a few new bodies, Xu Yang put down his hoe, freed his hands, and began to stir the Gang Yuan within his body with Divine Intent.
Instantly…
“Whoosh!”
Above the Spirit Field, clouds gathered, and rain rich in Spiritual Energy fell down.
Minor Cloud Rain Skills!
An essential skill for Spiritual Plant Farmers, which Xu Yang had mastered.
The cloud cover was small, just barely over the rice field, but the downpour of Spiritual Rain was immense, already comparable to that of Spirit Lands when employing the Minor Cloud Rain Skill.
As mentioned before, the power and effects of cultivating skills were influenced by two major factors: one was the cultivator’s own mana, and the other was the external Yuan Spirit of the environment.
In the Spirit Lands, teeming with Yuan Spirit, the power of cultivating skills would be enhanced.
In the mundane world, with sparse Yuan Spirit, the power of cultivating skills would inevitably decline.
In such cases, cultivators must compensate with their own mana to perform the skills normally, at great expenditure.
But now, Xu Yang did not consume too much Gang Yuan mana and managed to perform the Minor Cloud Rain Skill at a normal level in the mundane world.
Why was this so?
One reason was that Xu Yang had buried many Spirit Stones, arranging a Spirit Gathering Array to enrich the island’s Spiritual Energy.
But this alone was not enough to match the Spirit Lands of Foundation Establishment forces.
So, there was a second reason, which was the “minor cloud and rain” trait of the spirit plant skill coming into effect.
The Attribute Panel, Skill Traits, with tremendously high positions.
In the Black Water World, the Red Moon Cataclysm, the Nether River Blood Sea that turned into the blood rain of the Red Moon, affected all beings in the Three Realms, turning them into demon objects, except for the blessed lands and domains of deities and emperors such as the famous mountains and great rivers, and the vast seas, which could resist the blood rain and remain uncompromised.
Xu Yang was not a great deity and could not resist the blood rain, but his nurtured Aquatic Clan and Water Army could withstand the blood rain’s mutation, as could Blackwater River. As a Spirit Land, it went unaffected by the blood rain, still providing support to Xu Yang, using the entire river’s strength to assist him in a mutual destruction battle with the Asura Demon General.
All these were due to the effects of skill traits.
The position of the Attribute Panel, the power of the Skill Traits, was not inferior to the Red Moon blood rain.
This gave Xu Yang a clearer understanding of the power of his external “cheat.”
The source of the Red Moon blood rain came from the very foundation of the Demon Realm, the Nether River Blood Sea!
Thus, even it could not mutate his Spirit Land or Aquatic Clan, showing the formidable nature of the Attribute Panel and Skill Traits.
Of course, the Attribute Panel and Skill Traits, no matter how strong, still required his own power to support them.
When facing the Red Moon blood rain, the Blackwater River could last only for a while, and once the rain accumulated and turned into a blood river, the sheer volume disparity left him helpless..