Realizing what was happening, Lu Feng instantly perked up.
If he could become an Alchemist, who on earth would want to farm?
Yet a moment later, Lu Feng frowned again. "Alchemy seemingly requires an alchemy furnace and all sorts of materials. Where am I supposed to get those?"
Furthermore, alchemy required pill recipes, which were closely guarded secrets.
As a penniless nobody at Qi Condensation Layer 1, where on earth was he going to get his hands on such things?
"Sigh, I might as well start with farming first and think about other things once I've saved up enough spirit stones."
"Right, since turning the soil can increase my Spirit Planter proficiency, can I also increase my proficiency by doing other tilling work?"
Having figured this out, Lu Feng hoisted his spirit hoe and returned to the thatched cottage.
Finding the bag of spirit rice seeds placed inside the room, Lu Feng picked it up to gauge its weight, discovering that there were about ten pounds of spirit rice seeds inside.
Lu Feng had never planted spirit rice before, but he knew ordinary rice cultivation techniques.
Moreover, this skill came straight from Earth.
Holding the spirit rice seeds, Lu Feng frowned slightly. An acre of ordinary rice required about five pounds of seeds, but he had no idea about spirit rice.
"Screw it, I'll just plant it like regular rice!"
Having made up his mind, Lu Feng began preparations for seed breeding. The first step was choosing the field, but unfortunately, Lu Feng only had one acre of spirit field and no room for choice.
Since that was the case, he would start directly with seed soaking.
Lu Feng then brought out a wooden basin, filled it with water, and poured all the spirit rice seeds into it.
The spirit rice of the Immortal Realm was larger than the rice of the mortal world by a third.
As the spirit rice seeds were poured into the basin, some inferior seeds quickly floated to the surface of the water.
Lu Feng reached out and scooped out all these floating seeds; they were completely unusable.
Only the spirit rice seeds that sank to the bottom of the basin could be used normally.
Afterward, he poured out all the water in the wooden basin and refilled it with fresh water.
At this moment, new information suddenly popped up on the Proficiency Panel.
[You performed a spirit rice seed selection task, Spirit Planter proficiency +1]
"Ah, my proficiency really did go up!"
Lu Feng stroked his chin with a look of certainty.
Next, this basin of spirit rice seeds needed to soak for six hours.
After simply eating a bowl of spirit rice porridge, Lu Feng lay down on the wooden bed and went to sleep.
Early the next morning.
Lu Feng got up early, and after finishing breakfast, he resumed the seed-soaking work.
Pouring out all the water in the basin, he went to the stove to boil a pot of water. When the water temperature dropped to around forty degrees Celsius, he poured it into the wooden basin, letting the spirit rice seeds soak for fifteen minutes.
Once the soaking was complete, he took all the seeds out and put them back into the cloth bag. The next step was germination.
[You performed a spirit rice seed soaking task, Spirit Planter proficiency +1]
Seeing the information jumping on the panel, Lu Feng's enthusiasm grew stronger and stronger.
He placed the bag containing the spirit rice seeds into a wooden bucket, packed the bucket full of hay to cover it, and used the smothered method for germination.
Germination required waiting for twelve hours, which was a full day.
Taking advantage of this time, Lu Feng went to his spirit field to select an area for seedling cultivation.
In the end, he chose a patch in the northeast corner as the seedling nursery. Using the spirit hoe, he tidied up this area, sectioned off a small plot, and cast the Spirit Rain Spell to irrigate it separately.
[You cast the Spirit Rain Spell once, proficiency +1]
Having finished setting up the nursery area, the afternoon had already arrived.
After being busy all day and finally getting the preparation work done, Lu Feng sat on the ridge of the field, resting while looking at the distant scenery.
At this moment, his state of mind had grown much calmer.
Ever since stepping into the cultivation world, he had carried a sense of urgency, as if he would instantly die of old age if he didn't work hard at cultivation.
Yet now that feeling was gone. Perhaps life was supposed to be like this.
Just then, Li Yang walked over from the distance.
"Fellow Daoist Lu, good afternoon."
Lu Feng looked up at Li Yang and nodded, saying, "Fellow Daoist Li, good afternoon to you too."
"Hehe, I saw Fellow Daoist Lu busy in the spirit field from afar. I wonder what you're doing?"
Lu Feng felt somewhat surprised. He was tidying up the field for seedlings; couldn't the other person tell?
Even so, he kept his guard up and casually made up an excuse. "Oh, I had nothing to do, so I'm tidying up the spirit field."
"I see!"
Lu Feng patted the dust off his body, stood up, and cupped his fists. "This is my first time planting spirit rice, and I'm not very familiar with the details. I wonder if Fellow Daoist Li could offer some guidance?"
He wanted to probe the other party about how spirit rice cultivation differed from ordinary rice.
"Hehe, since Fellow Daoist Lu has asked, how could Li keep secrets from you? Cultivating spirit rice is relatively complex..."
Li Yang began to recount the methods and precautions for planting spirit rice. Lu Feng stood aside, listening silently and occasionally asking a few questions.
Through Li Yang's explanation, Lu Feng gained a concrete understanding of spirit rice cultivation.
As it turned out, the way these people planted spirit rice was extremely backward. Basically, they waited until mid-April, scattered the spirit rice seeds directly into the spirit field, and then waited until harvest time after weeding and killing malevolent pests.
As for the yield per acre of spirit rice, it was entirely left to the heavens.
Hearing this, Lu Feng wore a dark expression, but he still cupped his fists in gratitude. "Thank you for clearing up my doubts, Fellow Daoist Li. If there's ever anything you need help with in the future, just give me a call."
"Haha, we're neighbors, helping each other is only right. Well, it's getting dark soon, I should head back."
"Alright, safe journey, Fellow Daoist Li!"
Lu Feng returned to the thatched cottage and looked at the covered wooden bucket, wondering whether his way of breeding seeds was good or bad.
"Whatever, forget it! The spirit rice seeds are used up anyway, so even if there's a problem, this is all I can do."
Night passed quickly.
As time went on, the injury in Lu Feng's Dantian slowly improved, and in another three days, it would practically be recovered.
After finishing breakfast, the moment he walked over to the wooden bucket, a message popped up on the Proficiency Panel.
[You performed a spirit rice germination task, Spirit Planter proficiency +1]
Seeing this, he directly lifted the lid and took out the cloth bag containing the spirit rice seeds.
Opening it up immediately, he discovered that every single seed inside had sprouted a little white tender shoot.
"Haha, it actually worked!"
A wave of excitement washed over Lu Feng. He then picked up the germinated spirit rice seeds and headed to the seedling area—the so-called seedbed—to begin sowing.
Once all the seeds were sown, new information popped up on the panel once again.
[You performed a spirit rice sowing task, Spirit Planter proficiency +1]
Afterward, he covered the seeds with soil and once again cast the Spirit Rain Spell to irrigate the area.
[You performed a spirit rice irrigation task, Spirit Planter proficiency +1]
"Huh?! Previously, irrigating the spirit field didn't increase my Spirit Planter proficiency, but now it actually did! Could it be..."
Lu Feng guessed that this was because there were spirit rice seeds in the spirit field he had just irrigated, which was why his Spirit Planter proficiency had increased.
Next would be the twenty-day seedling nursing period. To avoid wasting the spiritual Qi within his body, he cast the Spirit Rain Spell a few more times on other areas of the spirit field.
That way, the proficiency of the Spirit Rain Spell would continuously rise, and he really wanted to see what kind of difference a Small Success-level Spirit Rain Spell would make.