Master of Fangcun Chapter 22 Cultivating the Lengshan Vessel

Chapter 22: Cultivating the Lengshan Vessel

Li Shun shifted his gaze to the center of the spirit field.

"It seems to exist entirely outside the frawork of ordinary plants. If not for the shared origin of their qi, it would be difficult to believe it was ever a Lengshan Grass at all."

Li Shun's original plan had been to preserve his one Lengshan Vessel for use in repairing the Self-Reflection stone statue when the need arose.

But having successfully cultivated a Vessel-Grass, other thoughts had begun to stir in his mind.

"With only one, once it's used it's gone entirely. But each activation of the Self-Reflection ability damages the stone statue, it cracks and crumbles from the backlash every ti. I need a continuous supply of high-tier spirit materials to nourish and restore it.

"The Lengshan Grass has beco nearly useless for repairs, essentially negligible in effect. But if I could cultivate Lengshan Vessels directly here in the Fangcun space, in aningful quantity..."

Once the thought had taken hold, it could not be pushed back down.

Li Shun weighed the matter carefully from every angle and concluded it was entirely worth pursuing.

He began without hesitation.

"My current understanding of the Lengshan Vessel is nearly zero. Trying to work out its cultivation thod from nothing, with no foundation, would be complete folly.

"The fastest way to deepen my understanding of its fundantal nature in a short period of ti… Is to swallow it directly and experience it from the inside."

In the physical world, Li Shun crawled into his completed underground escape tunnel, called forth the Lengshan Vessel with a thought, and took it from the Fangcun space.

Looking at the strange, floating wonder before him, he didn't hesitate.

He grabbed it and bit in.

The texture was not very different from ordinary Lengshan Grass.

The only difference manifested the mont it was swallowed, when its dicinal properties dissolved and released.

If the cold current produced by Lengshan Grass was a trickling mountain stream, then the Lengshan Vessel was a flash flood tearing off a cliff.

That terrifying torrent of extre cold surged through Li Shun's ridians and mind like a series of enormous sledgehamrs swung with primal savage force, striking again and again, shattering and reforging.

Strangely, he felt no pain whatsoever. The unceasing flow of cold energy the Lengshan Vessel released acted as a shield around his consciousness, keeping his mind crystalline and clear throughout.

Under the nourishnt and reshaping of that domineering force, his spirit sense and ntal faculty began expanding at a pace that bordered on the incomprehensible.

Twofold. Threefold. Fourfold—

If Li Shun's spirit sense before swallowing the Lengshan Vessel was a seedling just pushing through soil, then in the space of an instant after the dicinal power erupted, that seedling had skipped decades of growth and beco a towering tree reaching to the sky.

The depth of his spirit sense and the speed of his thought beca utterly incomparable to what they had been. Li Shun used this elevated state to analyze everything he was absorbing from the Lengshan Vessel.

When the ferocious dicinal power was finally exhausted entirely, Li Shun continued to sit cross-legged on the cold earth of the tunnel, motionless as a monk in deep ditation, still apparently subrged in the lingering resonance of the Lengshan Vessel.

After a long while, he finally opened his eyes.

"Lengshan Grass. Lengshan Vessel-Grass. And this Lengshan Vessel. They appear to belong to vastly different tiers and yet, in their fundantal nature, all three are different stages of the sa evolutionary continuum of life.

"From weak to strong, ascending in layers. And beyond these three, at the very end of this evolutionary line, there stands a final apex, sothing that looks down upon and commands everything below it.

"Could that apex be the Changle Marquis's true goal?"

...

The first swallowing of the Lengshan Vessel had vastly expanded Li Shun's spirit sense, but had not yet yielded any workable cultivation thod.

This result was more or less what he had expected.

While waiting for nightfall and the activation of the Self-Reflection, and adhering to his principle of never wasting a single reversal cycle, Li Shun made another visit to the Jixia Bookshop.

Unlike usual, the bookshop's front doors were firmly, completely shut.

Li Shun frowned, stepped forward, and knocked hard.

After a long pause, extrely heavy footsteps sounded within, and the door was slowly drawn open.

In the doorway appeared an elderly figure, his hair a brittle, exhausted white, face mapped with deep furrows, spine bent into a permanent stoop.

Both of them blinked.

"You are...?"

"You are...?"

After a mont of mutual bewildernt, Li Shun's pupils contracted sharply, a jolt of cold shock going through him.

Because in the brief mont of looking, he had recognized the other person's face from beneath the ruin of age.

It was Zhou Xunzhen. Shopkeeper of the Jixia Bookshop.

In the span of only a few weeks, Zhou Xunzhen had aged to this.

Zhou Xunzhen, for his part, appeared unable to recognize Li Shun at all.

"I ca to purchase a page of the Emperor’s Records," Li Shun said, forcing down the horror in his chest.

"The Emperor’s Records?" Zhou Xunzhen's mory seed to have declined with devastating severity. He had not only forgotten Li Shun entirely, he now appeared to have lost track of what books his own shop even contained.

"I'm terribly sorry... dear custor." After a confused, fumbling search through the dim bookshelves, Zhou Xunzhen turned back, trembling from head to foot. "I'm afraid this old man's shop... doesn't seem to carry the book you're looking for."

Li Shun stared at the figure before him, ancient, diminished, radiating the unmistakable aura of a body in its final decline and opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

Ultimately, with a composure that cost him genuine effort, he sealed his lips shut, said nothing at all, turned, and quietly left.

On the walk back, the image of Zhou Xunzhen's once-youthful face and the horrifying dried-husk visage he had just seen cycled through Li Shun's mind alternately, without pause.

"Not two months and he has declined to this degree?

"Is this the cost of the Twelve Perpetual Lives?"

"Borrow longevity from heaven… What is borrowed must be repaid?"

Even as night fell, Li Shun had still not fully erged from the shock Zhou Xunzhen had dealt him.

"Three tis a day, I reflect upon myself!"

As the words rang out, everything was restored.

The Lengshan Vessel that Li Shun had swallowed appeared once again in the Fangcun space. And the vastly expanded spirit sense was stripped away, returning him to what he had been before.

The whiplash of going from giant to dwarf in an instant left Li Shun feeling scraped hollow, drained of substance.

It took him so ti to adjust.

When he had settled, Li Shun repeated the process: descended into the underground tunnel, called forth the [Lengshan Vessel], and swallowed it.

This ti, he did not direct his attention to the changes in his own spirit sense.

He focused entirely on the Lengshan Vessel itself.

From within that ceaseless, flood-tide surge of cold energy, in a state of extre concentration and deep resonance, Li Shun seed to catch a glimpse of sothing for just a fleeting instant. A faint, half-ford, pale cyan silhouette, lurking sowhere just beyond the edge of perception.

...

Ti moved quickly. By now it was May.

Strange developnts had begun to manifest gradually across the Lengshan County region.

Ordinarily, even at the height of the sumr's three most sweltering months, Lengshan County never grew particularly hot.

But this year—

Beneath the blazing sun, Lengshan was cold no longer.

It had beco instead sothing like an enormous furnace, scorching without rcy everything within it.

Barely into the first days of May, temperatures within Lengshan County's borders had climbed to extres that ordinary people could barely endure.

In broad daylight, the entire main street was devoid of shadows, every resident had retreated into the cool shade of their hos.

The relentless, inescapable heat made tempers frayed and volatile. From every corner of the city, the sharp sound of argunts erupting over trivial matters could be heard at intervals throughout the day.

And yet, inside the Lengshan County Magistrate office, the atmosphere was entirely different, a breath of cool air moved through every chamber. The killing heat of the outside world seed to be held at bay by the formations, and a pleasant, refreshing coolness perated the compound.

Even so, Fang Xun had a faint sheen of sweat on his brow, and behind the apparent calm of his eyes lay a poorly concealed urgency.

Until - waaah! the clear, piercing cry of a newborn shattered the stifling silence.

Fang Xun's whole body jolted. He pushed through the door at once.

Inside, an elderly midwife was cradling a brand-new infant, beaming with delight and pouring out congratulations. "Congratulations, my lord, congratulations! It's a young master!"

Fang Xun, however, did not rush to look at the child. Instead, he pressed a fingertip until a drop of his own blood welled up, and pressed it to the infant's brow.

Only when he watched that vivid crimson seep completely into the texture of the skin, feeling in his own spirit the unmistakable tug of blood recognizing blood did Fang Xun let out a long breath of relief.

"Indeed, its my bloodline."

Becoming a father for the first ti suited Fang Xun's mood enormously. He rewarded the midwife lavishly and with great generosity.

He cradled the tiny bundle and walked back and forth across the room, unable to contain his excitent.

"Xun-Lang(Darling,) now that we even have a child, when are you going to formally take as your wife?" From the bed, Yu Niang who was still visibly weakened from the birth, her voice was thin and fragile as she asked this in a small, tentative voice.

Fang Xun, who had been wholly absorbed in entertaining the infant, let his gaze flicker and then looked away, responding with perfunctory vagueness: "Ha. No rush."

Then he turned back to the baby with his full attention, giving the matter no further thought.

He did not notice the flash of hatred that crossed Yu Niang's eyes and was gone.

...

Within the Fangcun space.

The Lengshan spirit field had been divided in two.

One half continued to cultivate Lengshan Grass in the sa orderly fashion as always.

On the other half,

Dozens of Lengshan Grass plants were wound around and through one another, locked in what appeared to be a battle of mutual destruction — devouring and strangling one another without pause, like combatants committed to fighting to the last.

The battle appeared to be approaching its final stage.

"Dozens of days and nights of unbroken research. Three reversal cycles. Three swallowings of the Lengshan Vessel.

"And now, the final step."

...