Chen Ping returned to the Hundred Herb Garden without incident.

He pushed open the wooden door of his small hut. The familiar scent of medicinal herbs mixed with the damp, earthy smell of soil washed over him, loosening the knot of tension in his chest.

He bolted the door and checked the latch twice.

Only then did he allow himself to breathe.

With a thought.

The spoils of war—the bandits’ gear, his new furnace, the raw herbs—materialized on the floorboards.

He reached for the gray storage pouch first.

His Divine Sense probed the interior. Empty. It was useless to him, but it would fetch a decent price in the Marketplace.

Next were the weapons: a ghost-head saber, two poisoned daggers, and a heavy iron ruler.

Garbage. The materials were common iron, barely capable of conducting Qi. They were the lowest tier of Dharma Artifacts, fit only for the scrap heap.

Talismans: three Fireballs, three Earth Shields. Combined with what he had burned in the fight, this was their entire arsenal.

Pills: three small porcelain bottles containing pungent Qi Recovery Pills.

Chen Ping crushed one between his fingers. The powder was coarse, the Qi within thin and impure. Better than dirt, but not by much.

No cultivation aids. No Qi Gathering Pills. No Spirit Nourishing Pills.

These bandits were bottom-feeders, desperate enough to kill for scraps because they couldn’t afford the basics.

Spirit Stones: two dull, low-grade stones.

Chen Ping sighed, shaking his head. He had risked his life for pocket change.

He glanced at the defensive gear: a cracked yellow shield, a vine-woven breastplate, and a crude turtle-shell mirror. All were damaged, radiating faint, dying energy.

More scrap for the recycling shops.

He was about to sweep the junk aside when his fingers brushed a hard lump in the lining of the scar-faced man’s jacket.

He ripped the seam open.

A palm-sized disc made of gray-white stone fell into his hand. It was carved with dense, intricate patterns. In the center was a small recess, surrounded by tiny, depleted chips of spirit stone.

“An Array Disc?”

Chen Ping’s eyes narrowed.

The craftsmanship was crude, but the core runes were unmistakable. Spirit Gathering.

He injected a wisp of Qi. The lines on the stone flared with faint light, and a weak suction force tugged at the air.

“A Tier 1 Low-grade Spirit Gathering Array!”

A jolt of genuine joy shot through him.

The Hundred Herb Garden’s Qi was thin, and his hut was on the periphery, practically a dead zone. This disc was a lifeline.

He cleared the floor, shoving the rest of the junk back into his Jade Pendant.

He placed the disc in the center of the room.

He retrieved a Spirit Stone from his stash and slotted it into the central recess.

Hum.

The disc vibrated.

The runes ignited with a steady gray-white glow. The chips embedded in the stone flared, contributing their last dregs of power. An invisible field expanded, filling the room.

The stagnant air began to move. The thin, scattered Qi of heaven and earth was pulled toward the center, condensing into a palpable mist.

Chen Ping closed his eyes, sensing the change.

After half an incense stick’s time, he opened them.

The Qi density in the room had increased by roughly fifty percent.

It wasn’t a miracle artifact—his room just had such a low baseline that any improvement felt massive.

“Better than nothing,” he muttered.

A fifty percent boost meant faster recovery, faster refining, faster progress. Over months and years, the difference would be staggering.

With the array humming, Chen Ping turned his attention to the herbs.

He entered the Jade Pendant.

He planted the seeds for the Marrow Cleansing and Qi Gathering Pills into the Black Earth. With the twenty-fold growth acceleration, they would be ready for Division Propagation in days.

The fifty sets of Spirit Nourishing herbs were already mature. He harvested them all.

He wouldn’t replant them. The Spirit Nourishing Pill was losing its effectiveness as his cultivation advanced. It was time to upgrade.

But he wouldn’t waste the harvest.

He returned to the hut, fired up the bronze Alchemy Furnace, and began to grind.

For five days, he didn’t step outside.

The fire roared. The room filled with the acrid stench of burnt herbs. Failure was the only constant. Dregs piled up in the corner.

But Chen Ping remained calm. He analyzed every burnt batch, every unstable reaction, refining his Fire Control and timing.

Fifty attempts.

Eighteen successes.

Eighty-three Spirit Nourishing Pills sat in five jade bottles.

Chen Ping wiped the sweat from his forehead, smiling wearily. The success rate was low, but for a novice alchemist working with a new furnace, it was acceptable.

Winter melted into spring.

The snow in the Hundred Herb Garden vanished, replaced by the damp smell of thawing earth. Green shoots pushed through the soil outside.

But inside the Jade Pendant, the cycle of life spun twenty times faster.

The Marrow Cleansing and Qi Gathering herbs were flourishing. Chen Ping had propagated them until the Black Earth was full again—four hundred stalks swaying in the spiritual wind.

One morning, Chen Ping entered the space to inspect the Cold Star Grass.

He had culled the crop down to one hundred plants. They were now technically ten years old.

The blades were a foot high, serrated and sharp, dotted with blue specks like stars in a winter sky.

But Chen Ping’s eyes were drawn to the center of the patch.

One plant towered over the rest.

It wasn’t just tall—it was a giant.

While its siblings were a foot high, this monster was nearly two feet.

And it was changing.

The stem was no longer green and fleshy. It was thick, brown, and woody, covered in bark that cracked with age. It wasn’t grass anymore.

It was a tree.

The leaves were lush and dense, exploding from the branches in thick clusters. Each leaf carried the signature star-points of a ten-year-old herb, but there were hundreds of them.

Chen Ping crouched, running a finger along the rough bark of the main stem. It was hard as wood.

Shock crashed through him.

Cold Star Grass was an annual herb. It lived for a decade, flowered, seeded, and died. It did not turn into wood. It did not become a tree.

“This space…” Chen Ping whispered, staring at the anomaly. “It doesn’t just accelerate time. It forces mutation?”

His heart hammered against his ribs.

If this was just a freak of nature, it was a curiosity. But if the leaves retained their medicinal property…

He plucked a leaf and tasted it.

Cold. Bitter. Potent.

It was perfect.

This meant the plant wouldn’t die. It wouldn’t need to be replanted. It was a perennial source of high-grade ingredients. As long as it lived, he could harvest it forever.

He had broken the cycle of “plant, wait, harvest, destroy.”

The value was incalculable.

“A Spirit Tree…”

Chen Ping’s eyes glittered in the dim light of the space. This secret was worth killing for.

Just as he reached out to touch the leaves again, the sound of heavy footsteps echoed from outside the reality of the pendant.

Someone was in the Hundred Herb Garden.

Chen Ping snapped back to the present. He flashed out of the space instantly, reappearing in his hut.