As the sun set, the afterglow sprinkled over the rural village, golden light intertwining with the new green of the rice paddies, forming a peaceful and harmonious picture.
Smoke from the wooden houses curled upwards, blending into the gradually darkening sky, as if it were the most natural connection between heaven and earth.
"Bone Bone~ Bone En!"
The girl in the straw hat pulled up her pant legs, stepping into the wet rice paddies, bending down to plant the rice seedlings into the mud~.
Egui Peng hummed a tune no one understood, while simultaneously releasing a green Grassy Terrain from her body, using Grass-type magic essence to nourish the fields and seedlings, helping them grow stronger.
Beside the girl, sturdy Great Ogre Clan members systematically planted rice seedlings.
The cultivated land was not only for rice seedlings but also for vegetables and fruits.
The Cardinal World also had various crops, including those unique to other worlds and plant seeds from Blue Star.
Due to the existence of skills, creating crops, altering genes, and cultivating varieties were far simpler than on Blue Star.
This made the biodiversity of the Cardinal World far more comprehensive than described in the original work.
"Whoosh la la~~"
In front of the wooden house, a small river flowed gently, its clear water sound harmonizing with the sounds of farming in the distant fields, creating a tranquil pastoral life.
This stream, about four to five meters wide, was specially dug by Hong Maru and his people.
The Great Ogre Clan had planted many cherry and peach trees along the riverbank; when the wind blew, pink and white petals fell like flying snow, truly transforming the village into a paradise within the Jura Great Forest.
"How does it feel?"
Bai Luo sat by the river, holding a fishing rod, leisurely waiting for a fish to bite.
"Very good, I like this world."
Snow Empress stood behind Bai Luo, glancing at Ice Empress not far away, who was playing with the children of the Great Ogre Clan: "It's been a long time since I've seen Ice Ice so happy."
Ice Empress seemed aloof, but in reality, she had a bit of a childish nature, much like Egui Peng.
Egui Peng was a good child, and not long after meeting Ice Empress, the two became close.
Oh, and we should add Zhu Cai too.
The three of them were like mischievous tomboys, often led by Zhu Cai to wreak havoc on the brainless Soul Beasts in the Great Forest.
Of course, this was a good thing.
Soul Beasts were inexhaustible.
As long as there was magic essence in this world, kill one batch of Soul Beasts, and new ones would soon be born.
Unlike Soul Beasts, in the Cardinal World, Soul Beasts were no different from resources.
Monsters hunted Soul Beasts, and human adventurers also hunted Soul Beasts.
Soul Beasts: When can we stand up?!
Unfortunately, Soul Beasts could not stand up.
Because Soul Beasts lacked the essential thing for evolution: a soul.
The reason Bai Luo didn't subdue Soul Beasts was precisely because Soul Beasts lacked souls, and they couldn't provide magic essence to Bai Luo.
"I've been learning management from Miss Zhu Cai recently."
Snow Empress's self-positioning was Bai Luo's deputy.
And to be a good deputy, both wisdom and strength were indispensable.
She didn't like being subservient, yet she was unwilling to leave Bai Luo, which is why she chose the position of deputy.
Moreover, having seen the new world, if she couldn't continue to grow stronger, wouldn't it be a waste of Bai Luo's good intentions?
Snow Empress would never let go of this hard-won opportunity easily.
"Also, Bai Lao is very formidable; his swordsmanship has benefited me greatly."
After returning to the Cardinal World, Snow Empress began to establish her prestige.
The first thing she did, like Egui Peng, was to subdue the entire Great Ogre Clan, including Bai Luo's dependents like Hong Maru and Zhu Cai.
Under Bai Luo's command, no one was Snow Empress's match except Egui Peng and Ice Empress.
Even Egui Peng, when facing Snow Empress in her fully unleashed Snow Empress form, had to avoid her sharp edge and rely on delaying tactics to wear her down.
However, Snow Empress would not give Egui Peng such an opportunity at all.
Perhaps at first, Snow Empress didn't understand Egui Peng's abilities and suffered quite a bit.
But from then on, in the battles between Snow Empress and Egui Peng, the latter never gained an advantage again.
Bai Luo could only say that the Unique Skill, Sword Saint, truly brought Snow Empress too much help.
"And Peng Peng, she's been making rapid progress recently."
Half a month had passed since their return to the Cardinal World.
During this half-month, the Great Ogre Clan village's development was flourishing, and the clan members who had gone out for mercenary quests had also returned.
And the return of new members naturally brought more magic essence to Bai Luo.
Egui Peng's Growth was still Bai Luo's most important means of acquiring magic essence, if not the only one.
However, now that Egui Peng had reached Rank A, to gain experience points, her opponents had to be at least Rank B.
In the entire Jura Great Forest, Rank B Soul Beasts were already scarce, and most of them were in the labyrinth where the Storm Dragon was sealed.
Bai Luo temporarily had no plans to deal with the Storm Dragon.
The Dragonkin race made Bai Luo decide to develop discreetly, trying his best not to let those Dragon Kinds discover any issues.
This decision significantly slowed down Egui Peng's efficiency in harvesting experience.
In half a month, Egui Peng's magic essence barely reached 48,000.
Bai Luo's magic essence, however, due to Egui Peng's improvement, officially broke through the 90,000 mark, entering the realm of A-rank peak.
"Let's go, Xue'er."
Bai Luo put his things into his spatial storage and then called out to Snow Empress: "Let's begin today's training."
"Mm."
Snow Empress quickly followed, as she would train Bai Luo's combat abilities every day, helping him familiarize himself with various powers.
Bai Luo's magic essence was vast, and its value was very high.
However, Bai Luo's skill in combining various abilities and his improvisation in actual combat were far from excellent.
Despite having such immense power, Bai Luo could only utilize less than 5% of it... 0
Of course, Snow Empress could tell that Bai Luo was not unskilled in combat.
Bai Luo definitely possessed combat talent.
The only thing Bai Luo lacked was experience.
Soon after, Bai Luo and Snow Empress returned to their wooden house.
The two did not go to the arena specially built by the village.
Because it wasn't necessary.
With a spiritual world like the Soul Spirit Space, they could completely conduct simulations in their consciousness.
"Eh?"
Ice Empress, who was about to go find Egui Peng to play, suddenly stopped: "Has it started again?"
"Perfect, let me see my master's progress."
Ice Empress split a wisp of her consciousness, allowing it to control her body to walk towards the paddy field area, while more of her energy was focused on the battle within the Soul Spirit Space.
Zhu Cai and others took the same action as her.
Except for Ice Empress and Snow Empress, who were permanent residents outside, other dependents, with Bai Luo's permission, could enter the consciousness space in their soul spirit form.
Such a good combat stage was not only for Bai Luo; other dependents also liked to apply for duels to conduct practical combat sparring.
Over time, a combat power ranking was even created among the dependents.
Among the seven dependents, Snow Empress undoubtedly had the best record.
Next was Egui Peng.
Zhu Cai and Ice Empress had nearly identical records.
Basically, if one lost a match today, she would win it back tomorrow.
Hong Maru, whose Unique Skill leaned towards a legion-type nature, was a step behind the two women.
Cang Ying and Zhu Cai, one specialized in assassination and the other was a priestess, simply couldn't defeat those battle maniacs head-on.