The bells of dawn echoed through the Monarch Spirit Sect like ripples in a still pond.
Mist coiled around the mountain terraces, wrapping each layer of the sect in pale silver light.
From above, the sect looked like a series of floating islands chained to the spine of heaven.
In those terraces, Yang Yin Long worked.
Two years had passed since he had awakened his past-life memories during the Dao Heart Examination.
Two years since a boy with a ninth-grade spiritual root had entered a world that judged worth by talent alone.
And though the heavens ignored him, he refused to stay small.
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The Monarch Spirit Sect was a fortress of knowledge as much as power. Its disciples were divided not just by cultivation level but by specialty, by their chosen Art.
To cultivate alone was the path of madmen and heroes.
To cultivate with skill—to master one of the Hundred Arts of Cultivation—was to root oneself within the fabric of the mortal and immortal worlds alike.
There were Alchemy Masters who refined pills that shaped destinies, Formation Masters who wove qi into invisible patterns, Artifact Refiners who forged heaven's roar into steel, Winemakers who distilled enlightenment into taste, Beast Tamers who made armies out of monsters, and Spiritual Farmers—the quiet backbone of them all—who nurtured the very herbs that fed those professions.
The elders often said:
"The Hundred Arts are not side paths. They are the soil from which the Dao itself grows."
Yang Yin Long believed that.
He had no divine root to ascend fast, but he had patience.
And patience was the root of every Art.
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His first decade in the sect began among the Fields of Verdant Qi, a vast slope of terraces where the sect cultivated spirit herbs for alchemy and trade.
Each terrace shimmered beneath protective arrays that adjusted temperature, rain, and qi flow. Spirit grasses swayed in the wind, glowing faintly blue. Rows of Silverleaf Herbs spread fragrance into the air.
The work was hard but rhythmic—alive.
Under the guidance of Elder Qing, an old man whose beard was longer than his temper, Yang Yin Long began learning the Entry-Level Arts of the Spiritual Farmer, the three foundational techniques that separated an ordinary worker from a true cultivator of the soil.
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The first was the Rain Summoning Art, a low-grade water technique that condensed moisture from heaven and redirected it into rainfall.
At first, he failed spectacularly.
His qi was too weak, his control too unsteady. The sky would rumble faintly, gather a few drops… then dump them all on his head instead of the fields.
Other disciples laughed. He didn't care.
Each day he practiced beneath the same square of sky until, one morning, the clouds gathered smoothly, and the rain fell evenly across his terrace.
Elder Qing had passed by then, stroking his beard, muttering,
"Hmm. At least this one listens when heaven speaks."
The moment wasn't glorious, but it was honest.
He had learned to listen—to both sky and soil.
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The second art was the Earth Spirit Technique, a method to enrich spirit soil by channeling qi through the ground's ley veins.
It was harder.
The soil resisted him. His qi kept dispersing, sinking without rhythm.
Only after months of meditation beside the terraces did he realize that he was treating the earth as an object, not a partner.
He knelt, placed both palms to the ground, and breathed in time with the soil's slow pulse. His qi synchronized, flowing into the roots of herbs without resistance.
The soil responded. Its dull gray hue shifted faintly golden; sprouts straightened, leaves shone brighter.
The vitality of the field rose tangibly, even to untrained eyes.
Elder Qing only chuckled.
"You're late to bloom, boy. But at least you bloom true."
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The third art was deceptively simple: Golden Spirit Finger Technique.
A thin thread of metal qi condensed around the fingertip to hunt and eliminate spiritual pests—qi-eating bugs invisible to the naked eye.
Yang Yin Long spent weeks chasing these creatures through his plots, pricking the air with flickers of golden light.
It wasn't until his hand bled from overuse that he finally mastered it.
Now, with one precise flick, the golden light burst forth, sharp and clean, erasing a nest of invisible parasites burrowed beneath a Firepetal Blossom.
The technique wasn't powerful, but it required balance, precision, and control—traits far rarer than raw strength.
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Years blurred together in rhythm: dawn farming, noon meditation, dusk study.
Yang Yin Long's progress in cultivation mirrored the seasons.
He rose from the second to the third layer of Qi Condensation after two years, his meridians widening like growing roots.
The Origin Nurturing Technique—that neutral five-elemental method—proved perfect for his work. Each rotation of qi resonated with the plants around him.
He discovered that when he used wood qi during planting, the seeds sprouted faster. When he infused earth qi, their vitality deepened.
Nature and cultivation became mirrors of each other.
But progress slowed as he reached the third layer.
For four long years, he sat at the bottleneck.
Qi refused to move forward. Every meditation ended the same—circulation steady but stagnant, like water trapped in a sealed jar.
Other disciples mocked him for staying behind, but Yang Yin Long no longer measured time in years.
He measured it in understanding.
He studied soil compositions, moonlight cycles, and the rhythm of spiritual rainfall. He mapped how thunderstorms affected fire-element herbs, and how wind qi improved pollen spread.
While others fought beasts for experience, he fought ignorance.
Each season, his terrace bloomed fuller than any other. His plants grew faster, stronger, brighter.
Even his bottleneck began to feel less like failure and more like gestation—the waiting before birth.
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It came one night after ten years in the sect.
The moon was full, silvering the terraces. A thin mist hung above the herbs.
Yang Yin Long sat cross-legged between rows of glowing plants, his breathing slow, steady, synchronized with the pulse of his field.
He performed the Earth Spirit Technique one last time, channeling qi into the soil. The land responded in kind, returning a soft hum that entered his body through his palms.
Suddenly, the stagnant qi within his dantian stirred.
It moved once—hesitant—then again, stronger.
Like a river breaking through stone, it surged upward through his meridians.
A soft ripple spread outward. The herbs around him bent toward him instinctively, their qi threads drawn into resonance.
The bottleneck shattered.
His entire body hummed with vitality. His meridians expanded, his senses sharpened, and a new layer of internal harmony formed.
The fourth layer of Qi Condensation—achieved not by pills, but by patience.
He exhaled slowly, the breath steaming faintly in the cold air.
No heavenly tribulation.
No elder applause.
Only the whisper of leaves and the scent of spirit soil.
He has only broken through the first small bottleneck of his everlasting cultivation journey.
He opened his eyes and smiled faintly.
"Growth doesn't roar," he murmured. "It breathes."
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When dawn came, Elder Qing found him standing quietly at his field.
The old man tapped his cane against the ground. "You broke through," he said, more statement than question.
Yang Yin Long nodded. "Last night."
"Good." The elder looked over the terrace, noting the vitality in every plant. "You know, boy, you could move to alchemy now. You've got the control."
Yang Yin Long smiled. "Maybe later. For now, I still have roots to study."
The old man grunted approvingly. "Stubborn fool. You remind me of myself before my beard turned white."
Later that day, the sect overseers arrived to record harvest results.
When they saw the density of qi in his herbs—thicker than any other first-order farmer—they were forced to acknowledge his progress.
He was officially listed as a First-Order Spiritual Farmer, eligible for advanced techniques and higher-tier fields.
But to Yang Yin Long, titles meant little.
He returned to his small dormitory, washed his hands, and sat down to record the day's qi patterns as usual.
His hands were rough from years of work, yet steady.
Each stroke of his brush across parchment was calm, deliberate—ten years of persistence crystallized into clarity.
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He paused halfway through his notes, then added a final line:
''The Dao of Heaven is vast, but even Heaven begins as soil.If I cannot ascend by talent, I will ascend by understanding.''
He laid down his brush and closed his eyes, allowing the pulse of the mountain to seep into his heart.
Outside, sword cultivators sparred.
Alchemy halls boomed with explosions.
The sect's geniuses were already climbing toward Foundation Establishment.
But Yang Yin Long felt no envy.
His qi flowed steady, anchored in the world around him.
He could feel life itself—grass, wind, water—all whispering the same rhythm: grow slowly, but never stop.
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As night fell, he stood on the terrace and looked down at the lights of the sect's lower peaks.
Ten years had passed.
He had reached the fourth layer of Qi Condensation, mastered three entry-level Arts, and earned recognition as a cultivator of soil.
To the world, he was still an outer disciple—unremarkable.
But inside, something deeper was germinating—a calm, indestructible will that even Heaven's pride couldn't shake.
He whispered to the moonlit fields,
"Others chase thunder. I'll cultivate patience."
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End of Chapter 2
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