My Portable Spirit Farm: Rise of the Humble Servant

Chen Ping’s consciousness descended into the Jade Pendant space.

A year had passed in the outside world, and the flow of time had left a profound mark on this miraculous expanse of pale purple earth.

The most striking change dominated the southeast corner.

The fields of low, emerald-green True Essence Grass that once carpeted the area were gone. In their place stood a solitary, peculiar spiritual plant.

It was a tree, roughly five feet tall. Its trunk was as tough and gnarled as an ancient vine, the bark shimmering with a warm, jade-like luster. Several twisted branches extended outward, but instead of ordinary broadleaves, the tips bore clusters of slender, emerald-green “grass blades.”

These blades were far plumper than the original grass, their veins pulsating with thick, verdant spiritual light. The vitality radiating from them was potent enough to make a cultivator’s heart skip a beat.

This was the result of the Black Earth’s evolution rules: the True Essence Grass Tree.

It had broken the shackles of its species, achieving a medicinal age of one hundred and twenty years. Moreover, the sheer volume of harvestable “grass blades” on its branches was dozens of times greater than a single stalk could ever provide.

It stood quietly rooted in the pale purple soil, a monument to genetic transcendence.

Chen Ping condensed his True Essence into a spectral hand and gently brushed the canopy. With a thought, several grass blades detached and drifted into his palm.

They were warm to the touch, smooth as jade, and brimming with surging medicinal power. They surpassed the quality of standard hundred-year-old True Essence Grass.

Although the margin of improvement was slight, the implication was massive: its potency was continuously climbing.

“With this, the mass production of Supreme-grade True Essence Pills is just around the corner,” Chen Ping murmured.

Even more miraculous was the tree’s regeneration. The moment he plucked the blades, the bare branch tips began to sprout new buds at a speed visible to the naked eye.

He didn’t need to replant. He didn’t need to wait for cycles. This tree was an inexhaustible, self-repairing source of top-tier alchemy materials.

As for the remaining ordinary True Essence Grass? Chen Ping had already uprooted them all. They were inefficient clutter now. He would refine them into standard pills and liquidate them at the Marketplace.

Chen Ping shifted his gaze to the rest of his garden.

Nourished by the Tier 2 Spirit Spring water, most of the spiritual herbs had gained over forty years of medicinal age in just one year.

Ideally, he wanted to upgrade the irrigation system. He had considered upgrading the Tier 2 Spirit Spring outside his cave dwelling to Tier 3.

However, a trip to the Marketplace had doused that ambition with cold reality.

Spirit Springs could not be forcibly upgraded through formations alone. The grade of the spring was tied to the grade of the underlying Spirit Vein.

To get a Tier 3 spring, one needed a Tier 3 Spirit Vein.

If he could raise the vein to Tier 3 Low-grade, there was a chance the spring would evolve. If he raised it to Tier 3 Mid-grade, the probability skyrocketed.

So, the bottleneck wasn’t the water; it was the land itself.

But upgrading a Spirit Vein was a monumental undertaking.

First, the formation required to facilitate the evolution from Tier 2 to Tier 3 cost a flat one hundred thousand Spirit Stones.

Then came the fuel cost.

Chen Ping ran the numbers mentally. To push his current Tier 2 Top-grade vein to Tier 3 would require feeding the formation one hundred Spirit Stones every single day for ten years.

Total cost: nearly five hundred thousand Spirit Stones.

When the final figure settled in his mind, Chen Ping felt his scalp tingle.

Five hundred thousand. Even with his newfound wealth, that number was staggering. It was no wonder small clans and minor sects never bothered upgrading their main veins. The cost was simply prohibitive.

For now, he would have to make do.

The limited supply of Tier 3 Spirit Spring water he had traded for was strictly reserved for his most critical asset: the Foundation Establishment materials.

In the center of the space, three True Essence Fruit Trees now stood over three zhang tall, their canopies lush and vibrant.

The oldest tree bore nine fruits. Their skins were covered in intricate, dense patterns, releasing waves of heavy, fruity fragrance. These were True Essence Fruits with fifty years of medicinal age.

The two younger trees carried eighteen unripe, green fruits.

“The True Essence Fruit is a stubborn species,” Chen Ping mused, calculating the timeline. “To plant the fruit and have it grow into a spiritual tree, the seed must possess at least a hundred years of potency. Otherwise, I could have expanded this orchard long ago.”

He had no intention of harvesting the current batch for alchemy.

In another year, the first batch of fifty-year fruits would mature into hundred-year fruits.

He would not refine them. Instead, he would plant them.

His strategy was long-term: turn those nine fruits into nine new trees. Eventually, he would possess a self-sustaining forest capable of churning out Foundation Establishment materials on an industrial scale.

His gaze swept to the southwest corner.

Here, three hundred and twenty stalks of Five Elements Yin Spirit Vine grew in a tangled, verdant mass. Their age had increased significantly, but Chen Ping noted a crucial detail.

Despite the sheer quantity, not a single vine showed signs of evolving into a tree.

“It seems the ‘evolution’ rule has limitations,” Chen Ping analyzed calmly. “Not all herbs can break their species limit and transform into a woody plant.”

He wasn’t disappointed. The Black Earth wasn’t omnipotent, and knowing its boundaries was valuable data. The vines were still accumulating medicinal age, which was profit enough. He abandoned the idea of division propagation for them; letting them grow naturally was the optimal play.

In another corner stood the Soul Nurturing Wood.

It was three feet tall now, its trunk vigorous and dark brown, radiating a sense of ancient strength. Three narrow, elongated leaves grew from it, dark green and serrated, looking like they were carved from the finest imperial jade.

They emitted a cool, tranquil aura that washed over the soul, calming the mind instantly.

Medicinal age: one hundred and sixty years.

Just those three leaves alone were worth over fifty thousand Spirit Stones.

Chen Ping surveyed every inch of his domain. Most plants were progressing linearly, accumulating value without mutation.

Finally, his eyes settled on the edge of the space, near the invisible barrier that defined his world.

There lay a single seed.

It rested quietly on the pale purple soil, radiating a life force that was terrifyingly powerful yet completely dormant.

A full year had passed, and it remained exactly the same. No roots. No sprouts. Not even a hairline crack in its shell.

Compared to the explosion of life around it, this seed was an obstinate statue.

Chen Ping’s Divine Sense wrapped around it gingerly, probing the abyss of its vitality.

He had tried everything. He had watered it with precious Tier 3 Spirit Spring water. He had even extravagantly dripped his own Essence Blood onto it.

The result? It was like a stone sinking into the sea—no ripples, no reaction.

“Is the pale purple Black Earth… still not high-tier enough?”

Chen Ping frowned, staring at the stubborn object.

When the Jade Pendant space absorbed Low-grade Spirit Stones, the soil had evolved from black to pale purple, drastically boosting its growth catalysis. But against this mysterious seed, that upgrade apparently wasn’t enough.

“I need to upgrade the dimension itself.”

The thought took root.

If Low-grade Spirit Stones could push the space to its current state, what would happen if he fed it Medium-grade Spirit Stones? Would the purer, denser Qi trigger another evolution?

The silent, dormant seed felt like a challenge. It was waiting for a better environment.

Chen Ping felt a surge of urgency. He needed to upgrade the space, not just for efficiency, but to force this defiant seed to finally reveal its secrets.