Beast Taming: I Have an Immortal Mansion-Chapter 45: Qingfeng Silver Hero

「Three days later.」

An unexpected blizzard arrived, the wind whipping up a snowy fog that blanketed the land for a hundred miles.

Watching the snowflakes dance outside the window, Fang Qingyuan sat inside, holding a jade slip and studying peacefully.

This jade slip was one of two containing the insights of Spirit Plant Cultivators. After returning from the Scripture Pavilion, Fang Qingyuan hadn’t rushed to view it. Instead, he first centered himself, calming his mind and body, before finally picking up the slip to study it.

Pressing the jade slip to his brow, Fang Qingyuan extended his Divine Sense. Instantly, streams of information flooded his mind.

The experience of planting several types of Tier One Spirit Plants, the environment and nutrients required for their growth, how to manage them from seed to harvest, methods for dealing with over a dozen types of pests and diseases, and how to pair different Spirit Plants to best conserve space on the Spiritual Land...

All this information appeared as text in Fang Qingyuan’s mind, a true eye-opener for him.

After a long while, Fang Qingyuan slowly lowered the jade slip and rubbed the spot between his eyebrows.

The notes and insights left behind by this unknown Spirit Plant Cultivator were both solid and detailed. Fang Qingyuan had gained a great deal from just a cursory read.

’But to truly absorb all the information in this jade slip, one read won’t be enough.’

’Knowledge from books is ultimately shallow; true understanding comes from practice.’ To truly enter the path of a Spirit Plant Cultivator, Fang Qingyuan knew he had to put his knowledge into practice. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

At this thought, Fang Qingyuan’s consciousness shifted, and he entered the Immortal Mansion Space.

Outside, the north wind howled and snow fell in flurries, but inside the Immortal Mansion Space, it was like spring all year round, without a trace of the cold.

Fang Qingyuan first went to the small bamboo grove where the Golden Jade Scorpion-tailed Bee Queen resided. After checking on the Bee Queen, he found that she had fallen into a deep slumber after laying forty to fifty eggs.

The Golden Jade Flower Honey Fang Qingyuan had left for it was gone, consumed completely.

Seeing this, Fang Qingyuan shook his head. ’I haven’t seen any returns yet, and I’m already out nearly two pounds of Golden Jade Flower Honey.’

A pound of Golden Jade Flower Honey cost eight Low-grade Spirit Stones. For an ordinary Qi Refining Cultivator, that was a true luxury.

’But since I’d recently come into a windfall, this expense is nothing to me.’

So, Fang Qingyuan took out another pound of Golden Jade Flower Honey and placed it before the Bee Queen, hoping she could eat it immediately upon waking to replenish her strength.

After observing the Bee Queen, Fang Qingyuan turned his gaze to the pupae nearby.

The forty to fifty pupae the Bee Queen had laid a few days ago had now been placed one by one into small hollows on a piece of Spirit Wood by Fang Qingyuan.

Because there was no first batch of Worker Bees, Fang Qingyuan still had to feed these pupae himself.

After Fang Qingyuan dripped a few drops of Golden Jade Flower Honey into each hollow, the pupae immediately began to squirm.

Watching them consume the Golden Jade Flower Honey, Fang Qingyuan mused, ’These first-batch pupae will need another five or six days to mature into Worker Bees.’

’Once I have this batch of Worker Bees, I won’t need to look after things so often. I can leave the rest to them. After all, that’s what Worker Bees are born to do.’

After dealing with the Bee Queen, Fang Qingyuan went over to the small flower garden.

Thanks to the black soil in the Immortal Mansion, the flowers were blooming luxuriantly and looked exquisite. Unfortunately, they were all mundane plants; not a single one was a Spirit Plant.

The method for determining if a plant was a Spirit Plant was simple: see if it could absorb and store Spiritual Power.

Golden Jade Flower Honey could only be made from the flowers of Spirit Plants; ordinary flowers wouldn’t do.

’Sigh, buying Spirit Plants is another Spirit Stone expense. This small Land Realm plot would need at least a few hundred Spirit Plants to fill it, and even the cheapest Spirit Plant costs at least three Spirit Stones.’

’Everything requires Spirit Stones, but Spirit Stones are so hard to earn.’

’Even though my assets have reached seventy-three Middle-grade Spirit Stones, that’s only temporary. If I keep spending like this, I’ll burn through my savings in no time.’

At this thought, Fang Qingyuan withdrew his consciousness from the space and returned to the courtyard. He said to the lazily lounging Yinbao:

"Come on, let’s go check on our Tea Garden."

....

Braving the wind and snow, Fang Qingyuan brought his saddle-ray, Yinbao, to the nearby Qingfeng Mountain. Protected by his Daoist Robe, the biting wind and snow couldn’t touch him.

Yinbao, on the other hand, was constantly shaking off the accumulating snow, looking for all the world like a dog that had just climbed out of the water.

Fang Qingyuan pulled out a few dried fish and casually stuffed them into Yinbao’s mouth. Then, he squinted his eyes, watching several figures approach in the distance.

When the figures reached Fang Qingyuan and saw his attire, they hastily knelt and bowed, saying with trepidation:

"We greet the Immortal Master. May we ask if the Immortal Master has important business here?"

Hearing their question, Fang Qingyuan looked at the men and stated his purpose directly:

"I am Fang Qingyuan, a disciple of Tianshan Villa. By the grace of the Villa Master, this Tea Garden is now my property. Have you received word of this?"

After Fang Qingyuan finished speaking, the men exchanged a glance and then put on joyful expressions.

"A Steward came to inform us a few days ago. We didn’t expect you to arrive today! The wind and snow are heavy out here, please, Immortal Master Fang, come into the garden to talk."

These men were all mortals. Without prominent Spirit Roots, they couldn’t cultivate. However, Fang Qingyuan noted their agile and sturdy builds; they walked through the deep snow as if on flat ground. They were clearly masters of the internal martial arts.

’But that’s as far as it goes. In my eyes, if they had any malicious intent, Yinbao could kill them all without me even having to lift a finger.’

Fang Qingyuan followed them for a few hundred meters and arrived before several houses. The dwellings resembled a small farmstead. With a brief sweep of his Divine Sense, he discovered about a dozen more people inside.

Most of the people in the houses were women and children. There were chickens and ducks in the front yard, and vegetables growing in the back.

Fang Qingyuan surveyed the scene, thinking to himself, ’These must be the tea-farming households that look after the Tea Garden.’

’A tea garden covering over an acre and a half would definitely need people to manage it. But hiring a Qi Cultivation Cultivator to stand guard here long-term wouldn’t be cost-effective.’

’So the sect found a few mortal families to watch over the Tea Garden and save on operating costs.’

’These mortals aren’t needed to deal with any Spirit Beasts that might come to steal the produce; they only have to take daily care of the tea trees.’

The tea trees in the garden Fang Qingyuan now owned were not true Tier One Spirit Plants. If they were, a field of them covering over an acre and a half would be immensely valuable. How could Lechuan have possibly borne the cost to give them to Fang Qingyuan?

The Qingfeng Silver Hero Tea produced in the Qingfeng Tea Garden was a mutated type of tea leaf collected from these trees. Every year, during the Qingming season, each tea tree in the garden had a chance of producing a few silver-white leaves.

Aside from these silver-white leaves, the rest of the tea was merely mundane and wouldn’t sell for more than a few Spirit Stones.

According to the information Fang Qingyuan had received, the Qingfeng Tea Garden only produced about ten pounds of Silver Hero Tea each year.

Converted into Spirit Stones, that was a value of roughly ten Middle-grade Spirit Stones.

It didn’t sound like much, and hardly seemed to match the scale of Lechuan’s reward. However, the Tea Garden produced this amount every year. This meant that even if Fang Qingyuan did nothing, he would still have an annual income of ten Middle-grade Spirit Stones.

More importantly, Fang Qingyuan now held the deed to this Tea Garden. As long as Tianshan Villa was not conquered by another sect, this Tea Garden would belong to him.

For ten years, and for a hundred years to come.