After reaching home, Ryan went straight to his room, closed the door, spread a cloth on the bed, and dumped all the seeds onto it.
He then sat cross-legged on the bed and began meditating to calm down.
After a few minutes of meditation, Ryan felt his mood settle. He opened his eyes and picked up one seed.
He then performed a hand sign to cast a spirit stamp spell on the seed, storing the vine entanglement spell within it.
Soon, spirit energy gathered around the seed and slowly injected into it, forming a seal.
Ryan was thrilled when his first attempt was successful. He brought the seed closer to his face to examine the seal and discovered that it was shaped like a small vine plant, turning the seed into a small green jade that could be crushed easily.
Ryan injected the spirit energy into the seed until he felt an obvious obstruction, indicating that the spell was ready. He then carefully placed the successful seed aside, took the next one, and began performing seals.
The second one, possibly due to a lapse in concentration, failed while the seal was half-formed and turned into debris.
Next, Ryan closed his eyes to meditate and adjust his mood once again.
Then, Ryan started engraving seals on the seeds.
A total of 50 out of 70 were successfully branded, and the debris from the remaining 20 seeds was collected and placed in a cloth bag. Ryan decided to use them to make a small bottle of solution to mix with the spirit water the next time he prepares the seeds for storing the spell, to increase the success rate.
Ryan patiently filled the seeds with spirit energy, taking small breaks to adjust his spirit recovery rate with the input of spirit qi. After filling all fifty seeds, he placed them in a cloth bag tied at his waist.
When Ryan stepped outside, he saw that it was already evening, and the merchants will be preparing to leave the village with the grains they had acquired.
Ryan saw his grandfather resting, so he quietly closed the front door and left the house without disturbing him.
Within a minute, he reached the village square and saw the merchants packing up as he had expected. He noticed the trinket merchant was busy talking to the caravan guards, irritating them by asking to start the return journey.
Ryan hid in the crowd and didn't approach the merchant again, instead observing him through gaps in the crowd.
Maybe because of his repeated pleas of the trinket merchant or because the guards of the caravan realized it was getting late, they immediately asked the merchants to load the collected goods which they bought at the village and meet them at the village entrance in ten minutes.
All the merchants quickly packed the last few items and directed their carts towards the village entrance.
Ryan followed them with the rest of the villagers until the entrance, then he quietly slipped away and headed west of the village to a small hill where he could observe the main road.
Ryan climbed the hill and activated spirit vision, one of the spells that allows him to observe the spirit qi in the surroundings. The spell helps in observing the realm of the cultivators, gives distant vision, and also provides night vision capabilities.
When Ryan activated his vision spell, he saw twenty horses tied on the other side of the hill, hidden by trees so no one could see them from the ground. He also noticed a few people hiding there discreetly, observing the main road for something.
Within a few minutes, Ryan saw the merchant caravan passing through the main road beside the hill. It stopped as one of the merchants' goods spilled from the cart and fell.
The trinket-selling merchant got down from the cart and started picking up the items on the ground. When no one was observing, he threw a book from his pockets into the nearby bushes and resumed his journey.
Then Ryan saw one of the bandits slowly leave the place, get into the bushes, take the book, and return to his friend, handing the book to one of the sturdiest people in the group.
The burly person picked up the book, started reading it with concentration, and then gave a vicious grin.
All the other bandits to started laughing and began packing to start the raid once the lights in the village were extinguished.
Ryan immediately knew the bandits have decide to raid the village today night, so he silently slipped from there and went back to entrance of the village and saw the villagers were searching for him.
As soon as they saw Ryan coming back, they enquired where he has gone and started scolding him for leaving outside the village without informed the adults.
Ryan said sorry for his reckless behavior and told them lie that he was felling his stomach bloated so he went to the nearby mountain to pee.
Then he elaborated tale where he heard few horses sound and adult laughing which prompted him to check and saw there are about 20 members on the other side of the mountain hiding. so, he felt fear and came back running to the village to inform them.
Everybody listened to Ryan story and felt sweat oozing from their forehead after hearing few armed were hiding next to the hill near the village.
The villager immediately took Ryan to the village chief who was present at the village square and asked him to describe the details to him.
Ryan repeated the same tale to the village chief which made the chief solemn and declared all women and children in the village to go back to their houses and tightly lock the door while asking the men to bring some weapons and meet him at the village square as bandits are going to attack them.
The chief then asked Ryn to return to his house and lock his doors and hide safely until the morning.
Ryan wanted to help but the village chief dismissed him after scolding him for thinking such reckless ideas and sent a villager with him to drop him at the house.
Ryan hung his head low and followed the villager back to his house where the villager explained the intricates to old John and asked him to be safe and left solemnly.