In the days that followed, Chen Ping went completely underground.

He was in no rush to attempt alchemy. The Foundation Establishment Pill was notoriously difficult to refine; at his current level, attempting it would be nothing short of arrogance. It was far beyond his control.

Instead of risking the precious main ingredients on a gamble, it was wiser to preserve them. His goal was not just a single pill, but sustainable production. He intended to cultivate the “source trees” for the Foundation Establishment materials.

To grow a tree capable of producing these ingredients, he first needed to sacrifice a significant baseline of the raw materials themselves.

Therefore, rather than refining the herbs into pills and potentially wasting them on failed attempts, he would plant them. He would turn a handful of herbs into a forest.

While his long-term assets grew, he began a systematic liquidation of his lower-tier inventory.

During this period of agricultural expansion, his primary objective was to amass Spirit Stones. He needed raw capital to upgrade the Jade Pendant space.

Previously, an investment of one thousand Spirit Stones had expanded the Black Earth by a single acre. This time, he planned to pour in ten thousand. He wanted to see if a massive injection of energy could trigger a qualitative change in the dimension itself.

And he meant a literal transformation, not just an expansion.

Having spent day and night with the Black Earth, Chen Ping felt a vague premonition. The space was alive in its own way, and its growth was far from finished.

As for what form this evolution would take, he couldn’t guess. He could only play the role of the provider, feeding it Spirit Stones until the change revealed itself.

Fortunately, earning Spirit Stones was a trivial matter for Chen Ping.

The easiest and most stable method was, of course, alchemy.

With the Black Earth providing an endless supply of high-quality main ingredients, his overhead was negligible. He only needed to spend a pittance at the Marketplace for common auxiliary herbs.

His first production run focused on Marrow Cleansing Pills.

The Cold Star Grass trees in his space now possessed a medicinal age of over one hundred and forty years. This far exceeded the standard ten-year efficacy found in the wild.

Using such potent raw materials to refine a basic Marrow Cleansing Pill was practically cheating.

With that level of material quality, even a mediocre alchemist could produce decent results. And Chen Ping was far from mediocre.

His technique was superb.

At this stage, the Marrow Cleansing Pills he produced were almost exclusively High-grade, marked by two lustrous Pill Veins. Occasionally, he even produced a Supreme-grade pill bearing three distinct veins.

The Qi Gathering Pills followed a similar trend. The yield of High-grade pills was absurdly high.

The main ingredient, the Qi Gathering Grass tree, also boasted a medicinal age of over one hundred and twenty years—again, eclipsing the standard ten-year benchmark.

Only the Body Nurturing Pills lagged slightly behind. The main ingredients—Body Nurturing Fruit, Moonlight Grass, and Three-Star Flower—only had a medicinal age of eighty years. Consequently, the output was mostly Mid-grade, with High-grade pills being a rarity.

However, these three types of pills—especially the High-grade Marrow Cleansing and Qi Gathering Pills—were the “hard currency” of the cultivation world. Among Qi Condensation disciples, they were universally desired and perpetually in short supply.

Chen Ping was careful not to expose himself by setting up a stall in the bustling Marketplace. That would be painting a target on his back.

Instead, he utilized discreet channels, offloading his stock in small, irregular batches.

He sold directly to the owners of large apothecaries at slightly below market value. While this cut into his profit margins, the trade-off was safety and stability.

Every transaction was calculated. He rotated the types and quantities of pills to ensure no pattern could be traced, avoiding the gaze of those with ulterior motives.

…

Six months passed quietly.

Time slipped away in a monotonous cycle of cultivation, alchemy, tending to spirit herbs, and cautious black-market dealings.

during this downtime, he also attempted to study the Profound Yellow Puppet Technique and the Nine Yang Nine Yin Scripture.

The results were disheartening.

No matter how hard he analyzed them, he couldn’t grasp even a shred of their true essence.

Chen Ping began to suspect that he hadn’t brought back cultivation manuals at all, but illegible heavenly scriptures.

Perhaps the key lay with the Enlightenment Spirit Tea tree. Only when it matured, produced leaves, and he consumed the tea, would he possess the mental clarity required to comprehend these Heaven-rank techniques.

Come to think of it…

Was it possible the Enlightenment Spirit Tea tree had been left there specifically for him?

Chen Ping’s pupils constricted. A sudden chill ran down his spine, numbing his scalp.

He immediately shook his head, forcefully abandoning the unrealistic notion.

How could anyone plan that far ahead? A scheme spanning ten thousand years?

Impossible. His imagination was running wild.

Chen Ping killed the thought completely. He refocused his energy on alchemy, refusing to dwell on the terrifying implications of the tea tree.

After half a year of unremitting effort, the harvest was ready.

Chen Ping finished counting the proceeds from his final batch of pills and added them to his stockpile.

A literal hill of Spirit Stones shimmered in the dim light of his cave dwelling, casting a mesmerizing glow.

“Twenty-one thousand, three hundred and seventy-four Low-grade Spirit Stones…”

Chen Ping whispered the number.

This was his net profit after six months of grinding labor, deducting all expenses for his own cultivation and the Spirit Spring maintenance within the pendant.

It was more than he had projected.

Staring at the mountain of wealth, Chen Ping had only one thought: It’s time to upgrade.

He sat cross-legged on the floor. With a thought, he summoned the Jade Pendant from his Dantian and placed it atop the pile of stones.

He pushed his intent into the artifact. A small vortex opened in the center of the Jade Pendant, resembling the maw of a starving beast finally allowed to feed.

Hum…

A strange, oscillating hum resonated as a terrifying suction force erupted from the jade.

The hill of Spirit Stones began to dim at a speed visible to the naked eye. The glowing crystals turned into dull, grayish-white powder, their energy stripped away in an instant.

Vast, pure Qi surged like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, frantically devoured by the Jade Pendant.

The feeding frenzy lasted for the time it took an incense stick to burn.

When the final Spirit Stone crumbled into dust, the Jade Pendant gave a violent shudder.

Crack!

A faint but crisp sound echoed from the artifact’s surface.

Chen Ping leaned in, his gaze intense. The rough, grayish-white outer shell—that strange material that was neither stone nor jade—had developed several fine hairline fractures.

The cracks spread rapidly, webbing across the entire surface.

Moments later, flakes of the gray “skin” began to peel away, falling with a soft rustle.

Where the dead skin fell away, a warm, brilliant luster was revealed.

When the last piece of stone skin dropped, the Jade Pendant in Chen Ping’s hand had undergone a complete metamorphosis.

It was no longer the unassuming, ugly gray rock of the past. It had transformed into a jade token half the size of a palm, forged from a material of warm, translucent teal.

The jade was exquisite and pure, warm to the touch. Inside, misty azure clouds seemed to flow slowly, as if a living sky were trapped within. It radiated an aura that was ancient, restrained, and majestic.

Densely packed inscriptions covered its surface, silent testaments to its former glory.

Chen Ping suppressed the wild beating of his heart and immediately sent his consciousness into the Jade Pendant space.

The world had expanded!

The Black Earth, originally only two acres, had stretched outward, nearly doubling in size to a full four acres.

While Chen Ping was elated, he also felt a twinge of disappointment.

Previously, a mere thousand Spirit Stones had bought him an acre. Now, twenty thousand stones had only yielded two.

The law of diminishing returns had kicked in. It seemed that future expansions of the Black Earth would require exponentially more resources.

The newly formed land was just as dark and fertile as the original, radiating thick Qi and vitality.

However, the Black Earth itself had undergone a subtle change.

It was a shift so minute that anyone who hadn’t lived with this soil day and night would have missed it entirely.

It had turned purple.

The Black Earth was still black, but there was a faint, almost imperceptible violet hue mixed within.

It was a very subtle purple, invisible unless one looked with the utmost care.

Only Chen Ping, the master of this domain, could sense the evolution.