After looking around, Jia Yi left the shop once more. He had waved the helper that approached him away, to not give any hopes. Seemingly used to it, they all allowed him to look around without bothering him.
Outside, Jia Yi walked further and reached the mid-point of the market.
Here, there were various tea houses and theatres, from outside, he could already hear some voices. There was a large garden in the centre with beautiful flowers and verdant grass. Cultivators would walk through the garden to relax.
He smiled, knowing that for many qi-refining cultivators, this was probably the only time and place they could relax.
After all, the sect might be abundant, but you won't specifically go out of your way to look at the scenery while you are busy with various things.
But being in the market, you will always have a feeling of "Since I'm here anyways…"
'Actually, every other reason is probably only a side-reward. The real bonus is this piece of land, this garden, that opens minds and clears hearts.'
In the world of cultivation, there was the concept of a Dao Heart.
It is a combination of Courage, Resolve, Motivation, but also requires one to be Calm, Clear and connected to Nature.
Constantly cultivating and competing only fulfil the former half, but doing so will harm the second half.
It was for this reason that Jia Yi saw some rudimentary symbols in the garden.
He didn't know exactly what it was, but he felt it was good. The family likely knew the science behind it, so he would look into it later.
Back on track, he continued towards the north. The entrance was full of general purpose shops and food stalls, but the other streets were different.
To the north was the key of the Jia families' cultivation – spiritual plants. They naturally cultivated various and didn't only focus on rice and corn, that was just their foundation.
The west market street sold various consumables, such as elixirs and talismans. The east sold tools and weapons.
Arriving in the north street, Jia Yi walked down the path quite a bit before he saw what he wanted: a seed shop!
It was a bit barren compared to other shops. After all, this market was mostly tending qi-refining cultivators. Jia Yi had only seen three foundation building cultivators, and they all had a weaker aura than his aunt, likely early-stage foundation building.
A waiter approached him, and this time, he didn't wave him away.
When he was in front of him, Jia Yi smiled and told him his request "I am looking for a mid to high grade spiritual plant, it would be best if it's a water-type plant, and the growth cycle shouldn't exceed a year."
His request was rather specific, but this time, he was trying to experiment.
The name "Green Shining Rice" and "Green Gleaming Rice" obviously contains green, because it's of the wood element. As a calm and nourishing element full of vitality, it's the most liked type of food.
But he thought that maybe because of the excessive amount of wood energy, the Verdant Dream only contained wood and no other elements.
He thought that maybe he could influence the elemental affinity of the dream by entering other elements.
The waiter nodded and bowed "Please follow me, young master!"
Jia Yi and the other two followed behind, taken to a small showcase on the side.
There, he saw a small water pond, as well as a few boxes with symbols on them.
"This is the first-grade late-stage Clear Hearted Lotus. It refines the water it resides in, making it Clear Heart Spiritual Water. This effect is slightly stronger than natural spring water and is used when making tea. Besides being spiritual, it also cleanses the heart, said to improve comprehension of techniques and smoothen cultivation."
Then he showed the other boxes, generally, the symbols on the box depicted the plant itself "These are three types of edible water plants: the Cyan Water Bamboo, it's plump stems are delicious. The commonly known Black Water Chestnut, very delicious and served in various ways, and the Light Water Spinach."
Jia Yi quickly realised that even though it wasn't rice or corn, it was likely that many of the seeds sold here had something to do with food. Tea water, a snack and two greens…
Then he thought again, it would be really nice if he could eat something.
He asked "What about the lotus? Does it also mature after a year?"
The waiter nodded "Indeed. It clears a cubic-metre large pond in a bit over a month. Most of the water is basic inferior spiritual water used for irrigation, but a total of one litre per cubic metre is lower-grade clear heart spiritual water.
Its full capacity is to clear ten clear water ponds purely, consuming a pond's worth of water in the process. After transforming the water, it absorbs another pond worth of spiritual water in the span of a month, during which its roots will break off.
A Lotus has five treasures: roots, leaves, flower, head and seeds. The broken-off roots are used in pharmacy, because they are extremely clear and have absorbed a lot of spiritual water, making recovery medicine with them will enhance the effectiveness of clearing meridians, veins and the heart.
The leaves are round and nearly see-through after maturity, so sometimes, they are used to make paper-windows or become decorations. The flower is extremely beautiful and can be viewed to pass time, it's often used together with the leaves to make decorations, because the scent they give off slightly calms the heart and clears dust.
As the heart of the lotus, the lotus head is the main medicine for various heat-reducing medicine. Many weapon refiners, who are close to fire everyday, take this medicine regularly to reduce the overbearing heat. After all, even if they have a fire root, too much heat left in the body untreated might become fire poison, a lot worse.
Sometimes the head is also used for decorations.
Lastly, the lotus seeds are oftentimes used in conjunction with tea. You can put a seed at the bottom of a cup of tea, pour the clear-heart spiritual water over it, and then the tea leaves. This way, the effect of the clear-heart spiritual water will be strengthened, and you can even eat the seed at the end as a sweet aftertaste."
Jia Yi was intrigued and decided that he would be taking this.
Then he asked the waiter to prepare a thousand ten-cubic metre ponds, as well as a thousand lotus seeds.
Both the waiter and his two cousins behind were shocked, but the latter quickly calmed down, while the waiter had to adjust for a moment before he went back, looking back several times, as if to confirm he wasn't dreaming.
From the beginning, Jia Yi didn't intend to cultivate seven acres of rice, because he earned a lot of extra rice, so he could make up a hundred kilograms to complete the mission.
As for taking a mission to cultivate clear heart water lotus? He had looked through the catalogue and because of his achievement, he was allowed to cultivate late-stage plants, but the focus was still rice.
After seeing the prices, he was sure he didn't want to cultivate any more rice. The profit wasn't large enough to convince him. Ten spirit stones per kilogram might seem a lot, but in fact, the growth cycle of a late-stage rice plant was two years, which basically reduced the profit from ten per-kilogram per-year to around five per-kilogram per-year.
The growth of mid-stage rice was only a year, but the profit was only two stones less than that of a late-stage one.
Lotus, on the other hand, was very profitable.