"Senior, we hope to have satisfied your needs! If you need something, our An family shop would be very happy to welcome you again!" a young man bowed to Jia Yi and the others.
"Sure, you can go now." Jia Yi casually waved his hand.
Although he was satisfied, as a higher-ranked family, he couldn't give these people too much hope.
These lower-ranked families relying on their Jia family all wished to build connections with them.
Such politics weren't in his interest, so he could only act indifferent.
Not that it was difficult for him. Anyways, he had a cold personality in his past life. Only in this life did he get a cheery personality when planting, farming, and interacting with his family.
Jia Yi looked at the hundreds of ponds around him, his expression delighted.
Xianghe on the side exclaimed in surprise "Brother, all these ponds, they really look beautiful! But, won't others see?"
"What's wrong with seeing this? It's not like we're doing anything wrong!" Xianghu refuted.
Jia Yi shook his head "Actually it's a bit wrong. Since I took the mission for seven acres, then I would have to plant seven acres. After all, couldn't others just take the mission for ten acres randomly, plant whatever they want, then buy the required plants and submit it to gain contribution points?
But no worries. Aunt wouldn't care about this as long as no one reported it. The farmers only come here in the morning and don't care about the farm in the evening, so no one saw it.
With the fields of you two blocking north and east, and this acre of ponds being in the far north-east, it will naturally be secretive enough.
This measure is just to not be too obvious. The farmers might guess a thing or two after some time, but they are all close family members and wouldn't report it.
Remember, whatever you do and plan, it's best to take a dual approach. One is to guarantee the baseline and the other is the best outcome.
The best outcome is that they don't see it so they can't report it, and the guarantee is that they don't dare to report it even if they see it."
Although his words were a bit cruel, Xianghe and Xianghu nodded, being used to this side of his.
Being together with him for so long, they knew Jia Yi was very affectionate for his close family and seniors, even elders and ancestors he never saw, as long as they benefitted him. Such as their third-generation ancestor Genyu… but to everyone else, regardless of their origin, he would be cold and calculating.
These members who had to rent spiritual fields from others were mostly collateral branches. Although Jia Yi was technically one too, his relation with their branch was close, so he counted as a side-branch in most cases.
After saying all this, Jia Yi reverted to his smile and said "Alright, you two, come help me generate water and fill these tanks!"
The two cousins felt better when they saw their elder brother return to his cheery nature. They nodded and started casting spells.
Jia Yi was proficient in many spells, the cloud-summoning spell was a renown spell that would summon a cloud of rain. He had learned and used it for a long time, so he could multi-task while casting the spell.
Putting the jade slip containing the knowledge to grow Clear Heart Lotus on his forehead, he slowly immersed himself into the sea of knowledge.
Every so often, as if automatic, he would cast the spell anew or move to the next pond, continuing to fill it.
Xianghe and Xianghu on the side looked at him with admiration. Xianghe was better, she had a strong water root, so she was able to continuously cast the spell. On the other hand, Xianghu didn't have a water root at all, so he was rather slow, barely summoning a few clouds before having to recover.
Meanwhile, Jia Yi slowly understood the technique.
Actually, it wasn't difficult. After all, the lotus was still in the range of a first-grade spiritual plant, so it was rather easy. Plants generally only started having unique requirements at the third stage, in the second stage, they might require extra materials or some extra spells, but they generally didn't need to be considered for first-grade plants.
Just plant it, use your common spells in rotation, kill pests, and in the case of the lotus, you had to make sure there was enough water.
For example, if your pond was a cubic metre large, you would have to either change the pond or switch the water, both of which would be harmful to the plant. Instead, it would be better to have a large pond.
There were several examples and Jia Yi found the best case scenario: a twelve-cubic-metre pond, after a year, it would have ten-litre worth of low-grade clear heart spiritual water, and ten thousand litre worth of inferior spiritual water.
The extra two thousand inferior spiritual water would be consumed by the lotus during its generation of water, and in the last two months of spiritual transformation, the lotus wouldn't generate any more low-grade spiritual water, so the profit was fixed.
Fortunately, although low-grade spiritual water wouldn't be generated, inferior grade would still be transformed.
Jia Yi's ponds were ten cubic metre. He only had an acre, which would exactly fit a thousand ponds. If the pond was larger, he would earn less spirit stones in total, something he didn't accept.
Anyways, it just required a bit more effort.
The jade slip recorded a simple method: change 2% of the water in the pond every month. Take two hundred litres of inferior spiritual water out and swap it with normal water, this way, after ten months, you would've swapped two thousand litres of inferior spiritual water.
This method had two requirements: first, you had a strong soul and could discern the difference between the transformed water and not transformed water, and second, you would have to spend extra time every day when tending the lotus.