Today, the Affairs Hall was bustling with life. Crowds of spirit farmers streamed in, hauling their harvests of spirit rice to pay the sect's land tax.
Several long queues wound across the square, the air thick with the faint fragrance of freshly hulled grain.
The lines moved slowly. After waiting for nearly an hour, Ji An finally reached the front.
"Spirit rice, one hundred and ninety-six jin… hmm, not bad quality. Let's count it as two hundred jin. That earns you forty contribution points," the supervising cultivator declared.
Ji An's brows furrowed slightly.
On his way here, he had weighed his Yellow Sprout Rice himself exactly two hundred jin. He had even tossed in two extra handfuls, just to be safe. And yet, here, it had somehow shrunk by a few jin.
"Senior Brother," Ji An said evenly, "this doesn't match what I measured."
The man narrowed his eyes, his smile stretched but insincere.
"New around here, aren't you? I'd say it's your scale that's off.
Why don't you ask the brothers behind you when the Affairs Hall's scale has ever been wrong?
You're in the back, tell him if the scales here have problems?"
Behind Ji An stood an old cultivator, wizened like Old Huang.
"The Affairs Hall's scales never make mistakes," the old man replied with a smile, though at the same time, he gave Ji An a subtle, knowing wink.
Ji An pressed his lips together, then silently handed over his jade token.
"Then it must be my scale that was wrong.
Please deduct the contribution points. I'll exchange them for three acres of spirit rice seeds and one acre of primary talisman-grass seeds."
He knew perfectly well that the scales here were rigged. And the hall's disciples knew that the farmers knew. Still, they did it brazenly. That meant there was a whole grey chain of profit running behind the scenes.
As a mere Qi Refining third-level cultivator, Ji An couldn't afford to stir up trouble.
And he had no intention of asking Li Changfeng for help. For something this small, it wasn't worth owing a favor. Besides, in broad daylight before so many witnesses, Li Changfeng would be forced to stand with the Affairs Hall anyway.
The clerk accepted his jade token, swiped it across a spirit plate, then sneered slightly.
"So you really are a new disciple.
Two hundred jin of spirit rice gives forty contribution points. Three acres' worth of spirit rice seed costs twelve. One acre of talisman-grass seed costs four.
Your token had no contribution points before deduction; twenty-four remain."
Ji An reclaimed his jade token and left, heading toward the Scripture Repository.
The Affairs Hall disciples were too busy collecting land tax to handle jade slip exchanges today.
At the library, he exchanged twenty contribution points for the slips on talisman paper crafting and ink blending.
Not in any rush to leave, Ji An took the chance to browse miscellaneous cultivation records, hoping to broaden his horizons.
He quickly lost himself in the texts. By the time he looked up again, the setting sun had already painted the sky.
Riding his talisman bird away, Ji An felt a heaviness in his heart.
The records clearly stated that the Golden Spirit Sect had migrated here from the Central Continent over two thousand years ago. More than twenty sects had relocated at the same time.
But through the centuries of storms and upheavals, only three still stood: Golden Spirit Sect, Falling Maple Valley, and Yuanhe Mountain. The rest had all perished.
The books hinted that this migration had not been entirely voluntary.
They also recorded that once every few thousand years, humanity would inevitably clash in a drawn-out war against the demon clans entrenched in the mountains of the Western Continent.
From his former life's habit of reading strategy-laden novels, Ji An pieced together a chilling truth: if another war came, these western sects would serve as the buffer between the Central Continent and the demons.
All the more reason, once he broke through to mid-stage Qi Refining, he had to gather two hundred contribution points as quickly as possible and redeem those offensive spell jade slips.
He knew that if a great war ever broke out, no one in the sect would be spared.
The Golden Spirit Sect had already been rooted in these lands for over two thousand years, but no one could say how long it would be before the next war arrived.
Ji An would rather be accused of worrying over nothing than one day face slaughter and realize he had no skills to rely on.
In the end, the only one a person can truly depend on is themselves.
He divided up his three acres of land, two and a half acres planted with spirit rice, and half an acre with primary talisman grass.
Talisman grass, too, matured once every three months. When the time came, he could attempt to make talisman paper.
Adding one more craft would allow him to make far better use of his time.
Earning spirit stones by gathering mountain pearls of condensed wood essence was not only laborious but also yielded very little.
Ji An wove hand-seals, and soon clouds gathered to blanket all three acres of his fields. Spirit rain pattered down, mist rising and spreading into the air.
Satisfied, he nodded and was just about to leave when he caught sight of a familiar figure walking along the path not far away.
He stepped forward, cupped his hands, and greeted with a smile:
"Senior Brother Liu! What a surprise to see you today. I imagine you must have just broken through to late-stage Qi Refining?"
"Haha, indeed, I advanced just last night."
Liu Yu's spirits were high. His face shone with warmth, and he nodded pleasantly.
Ji An's eyes flickered slightly. It had been about five months since they last met. In all that time, Liu Yu's cultivation had only moved from Qi Refining's sixth layer to seventh. It was far from the rapid progress he had shown before. Was breaking through the middle stages of Qi Refining really that difficult?
Thinking it over, Ji An spoke:
"Senior Brother, on the day the Foundation Establishment elder lectured the new disciples, you didn't attend. I heard an interesting point raised that day, which allows me to share it with you."
He carefully recounted Qin Yan's explanation about methods to improve one's spiritual aptitude, all the while watching Liu Yu's expression closely.
But Liu Yu's face remained calm and unshaken, showing not the slightest ripple. Ji An thought to himself: So, to him, this so-called secret is probably nothing new.
When Ji An finished, Liu Yu gave a faint smile. "Thank you for telling me."
He paused for a few seconds, then added:
"I'll share a little tip in return. For Qi Refining disciples whose aptitude is below Earth-grade, when they try to break through to mid-stage and late-stage, they almost always face bottlenecks.
If time permits, it's best not to rely on pills to break through. Grind through it slowly. Otherwise, it may harm your chances of breaking into Foundation Establishment later."
If one already needed pills to break bottlenecks during Qi Refining, then when attempting Foundation Establishment, their success rate would be half a percent lower than those who hadn't.
Half a percent sounded insignificant, but since even a Foundation Establishment Pill did not guarantee success, a single pill might not suffice if luck was poor.
The news Ji An had shared about improving aptitude had been useless to Liu Yu, because he already knew it. But when he'd seen the range of Ji An's Minor Rain Technique from afar, he knew instantly that the spell had been cultivated to the Great Accomplishment level.
This junior's talent for farming spells was extraordinary. With this gift, his future would surely not be bleak.
In theory, as long as a Qi Refining disciple had enough resources, breaking into Foundation Establishment wasn't all that difficult. The real difference lay only in when.
For cultivators, Foundation Establishment was where the true path began. Qi Refining was merely the groundwork of the cultivation world.
Is there such a saying?
Ji An was inwardly shaken. Now he understood why Liu Yu's recent breakthrough had taken so much longer.
It made him even more determined to one day take a master's. Without a teacher's close guidance, who knew when he might stumble into a pitfall.
"Thank you for your advice, Senior Brother. Ji An will remember it always."
He bowed deeply and respectfully.
He had originally planned to simply buy a pill and force his way through the mid-stage bottleneck as soon as he reached it. Now, he realized he would have to take a more careful approach.