66: Intensive Training Camp

Lin Jingyu squatted in the damp corner, carefully picking up the plant he had just taken out of the Spirit-Sealing Jade Box with two fingers.

It was wilted, its six fluffy 'tails' drooping softly, looking like foxtail grass that had been frosted, the malnourished kind.

'A product of the Ancient Cave Mansion... This is it?' The corners of his mouth twitched uncontrollably, and his mind went into overdrive. 'If I threw this thing into a pigpen, even the pigs would complain about it poking their mouths, right?'

It couldn't be that an ancient powerful being, just for fun, specifically grew a foxtail grass in his Immortal Cave, right? It must be different from ordinary foxtail grass in some way.

He unconsciously rubbed his smooth chin, which hadn't yet sprouted any signs of maturity.

'Maybe... I should get Little Ash to test if it's poisonous?' As soon as this thought popped into his head, he squashed it. 'Forget it, forget it. That little thing is Jingxia's precious darling. If anything happens to it, she'll chase me down the street with a cleaver, and her glare alone could kill me a thousand times over.'

He sighed, resigned himself to finding a relatively soft patch of mud by a small pond, and directly used his hands to dig a small hole. He carefully planted this 'ancestral grass' and even specially circled it with a few small stones to give it a 'VIP exclusive area.'

He muttered to the plant, 'Alright, Your Elder, you rest here in this 'feng shui treasure land' for now.'

'If one day Your Ancestor manifests its spirit, comprehends the Supreme Sword Intent, kills through the Nine Heavens and the earth, and sweeps through the cultivation world, I'll have made a good investment, right?'

He remembered a book he read on Blue Star where the protagonist was a blade of grass that eventually became insanely powerful.

Turning his gaze to another Spirit-Sealing Jade Box on the ground, Lin Jingyu took a deep breath, trying to shake off his earlier disappointment. He rubbed his hands together, and his eyes reignited with a small flame of hope. This box looked more exquisite; maybe...

He daydreamed while opening the box with the pious hope of someone scratching a lottery ticket, carefully channeling a bit of spiritual power into the Jade Box.

'A talisman treasure? A Spirit Pill? Even a Cultivation Technique would do! The Evergreen Art is everywhere, and its efficiency in cultivating spiritual power is notoriously terrible.'

The box lid clicked open softly.

The next second, the anticipation on Lin Jingyu's face was like it had been doused with a basin of ice water, instantly freezing and shattering. His gaze fell from hopeful brightness into a confused abyss, finally settling on a numb, almost lifeless expression.

'Damn it! Why is it grass again?' He felt a surge of frustration, almost enough to make him spit blood. He felt like his cultivation worldview had been shaken to its core.

Inside the box lay a lantern fruit.

Its roots were a bit more robust than the foxtail grass, about as thick as a finger, and its entire body was a malnourished yellow-green color. At the top hung a dozen or so small fruits wrapped in semi-transparent thin skins, like tiny, shriveled lanterns.

The only thing that showed its 'ancient artifact' identity was its bizarre shape—while normal lantern fruits had one stalk per 'lantern,' this one had three 'lanterns' crowded together on a single stalk, looking like conjoined triplets, giving off a vibe of 'stunted growth, scarce resources.'

'lantern fruit... Ancient Cave Mansion... Lin Jingxie, you bastard!' Lin Jingyu felt a surge of anger rush to his head.

'Are you the Reincarnation of Shennong or something? Or do you have a late-stage obsession with collecting weeds? Is this why you collect these useless things? Where's the Legacy Jade Slip you fought so hard for? Where are the talisman treasures? The Spirit Stones? You're showing me this?'

He was so angry he spun around in circles, wishing he could dig up Lin Jingxie's corpse and whip it.

Wasn't this too much? Others were getting Spirit Pills, talismans, treasures, even old grandmasters as assistants.

All he got was grass!

The three spring flower was just a fragrance, useless, just a weed!

The hundred-year mountain sweet potato was essentially just a sweet potato, also a kind of grass!

Only the earth dragon grass barely qualified as a Spiritual Plant.

But soon he came to terms with it. If that Ancient Cave Mansion really had some rare treasures, how could Lin Jingxie have ended up dead by his hands?

Finally, resigned, he bent down and planted this 'triplet lantern fruit' next to the foxtail grass, letting the two 'brothers in misfortune' keep each other company.

Looking at the two new 'grass masters' in the corner, Lin Jingyu felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. His enthusiasm for cultivation had been dampened by these two weeds. He slumped back onto the cold meditation cushion, feeling like his life was a sea of darkness.

No! I can't just give up like this!

Lin Jingyu shook his head vigorously, forcing down his dejected feelings. He still had his greatest treasure—that heavy Jade Slip containing the Taihao Elixir Canon. That was the real Treasure Trove!

He picked up the 'brick' again, his eyes sharpening.

'Trainee Alchemist chapter, huh? I'll see just how high this barrier is! Could it be harder than reaching the heavens?'

He gritted his teeth and slammed the Jade Slip against his forehead with a 'smack,' a determined look on his face.

A flood of information poured into his mind like a broken dam.

'Mind Dividing into Three Uses...' He read the first condition, his eyebrows furrowing so tightly they could squash a fly.

On one hand, you had to control the heat as precisely as a precision instrument; on the other hand, you had to constantly monitor the subtle changes of dozens of medicinal ingredients in the Pill Furnace like an experienced doctor taking a pulse; all the while, you had to guard against the Pill Furnace suddenly going 'boom' and performing a 'blossoming flowers' trick on you.

Besides splitting his personality, he couldn't think of any other way to achieve Mind Dividing into Three Uses.

Next was the condition about 'mastering a set of fire-controlling techniques.'

One set of techniques included hundreds of hand seals.

His mind instantly filled with countless demonstrations of those hand seals. They were so complex that his fingers would have to twist like a braid, and the spiritual power flow was as intricate as micro-carving art. It required completing dozens of changes in an instant.

'This isn't controlling fire; this is using spiritual power like an embroidery needle to dance a fingertip ballet!' He felt his fingers already starting to cramp involuntarily, as if foreseeing the future agony of his fingers tangling during practice.

'Mastering a complete set of pill-controlling techniques...'

The pill-controlling techniques were similar to the fire-controlling techniques but even more difficult.

Because you had to combine the medicinal ingredients at different times, temperatures, and states, precisely adding, fusing, and guiding their properties, which required changing the techniques and spiritual power guidance.

Just looking at it made his vision go dark, feeling like his brain's CPU was overheating from overclocking.

Finally, regarding the memory of Spiritual Plants, it was relatively simpler, but the amount of text to memorize was enormous.

The various attributes and characteristics of a single Spiritual Plant were described in no less than a thousand words!

With eighteen thousand kinds, that would be over ten million words!

This was something no human could possibly memorize.

Writing them down one by one would fill several rooms with paper.

'When will I ever finish memorizing all this? Even if I squeeze my brain dry, it won't fit! Is this even humanly possible?' He wailed, almost throwing the priceless Jade Slip like a brick in frustration.

A immense sense of helplessness washed over him like a cold tide, leaving him with no strength to struggle.

This wasn't just an introduction to Alchemy; this was clearly a devil's boot camp designed to torture even immortals!