My Portable Spirit Farm: Rise of the Humble Servant

Chapter 213: A Bountiful Harvest!

The trek to the Spirit Medicine Garden was a long one, winding through the labyrinthine cavern passages for the time it took an incense stick to burn.

Pushing open the heavy stone doors, a complex scent immediately assaulted Chen Ping’s senses—a heavy, earthy musk of rich soil mixed with the sharp rot of decaying vegetation, all underscored by a faint, desperate pulse of vitality.

They stepped into a massive natural cavern with a soaring, vaulted ceiling. Narrow fissures in the rock high above allowed shafts of natural sunlight to pierce the gloom. One side of the cavern was a sheer cliff face; the other featured a massive, artificially carved terrace bordered by stone railings.

This was the Spirit Medicine Garden, meticulously cultivated by the Han Family Ancestor.

It spanned roughly two acres. The soil beneath their feet was a deep, rich brown, fine-textured and radiating a faint aura of Qi. It was undeniably high-quality spirit soil. Yet, the garden itself was a graveyard.

Withered yellow leaves, blackened stems, and shriveled, rotting fruits littered the pristine dirt. The remnants of countless spirit plants lay scattered haphazardly, having succumbed to centuries of neglect. Only in a few sparse pockets did a handful of survivors stubbornly cling to life, drooping listlessly and on the verge of turning to dust.

Chen Ping’s sharp gaze swept the desolate terrace, locking onto three distinct, surviving spirit plants.

The first stood slightly left of the garden’s center. It was a peach tree, roughly the height of a grown man. Its gnarled, dark golden trunk twisted violently upward, the bark textured in overlapping layers that looked unnervingly like dragon scales. The ancient, heavy branches coiled and stretched like slumbering beasts. Though most of its foliage had fallen, a few scorched, curled green leaves still clung to the tips, radiating a ferocious will to live.

Staring at it, the illusion was uncanny. The tree looked like a dragon preparing to strike.

A Dragon Tooth Peach Tree!

Chen Ping instantly recognized the legendary third-tier spirit plant. Cultivation lore claimed this species contained a microscopic trace of diluted True Dragon bloodline, hence its violent morphology. It took five hundred years to mature, after which it would bear a single, fang-shaped fruit every century: the Dragon Tooth Peach.

The peach contained hyper-condensed, volatile dragon energy. A mortal or ordinary cultivator who ate it raw would violently explode. It was a supreme treasure used by serpent-lineage demon beasts to purify their bloodlines, and the core ingredient for the top-tier third-tier pill, the Dragon Tooth Pill. Consuming the pill not only caused a massive surge in a Violet Palace cultivator’s power but offered a minuscule chance to awaken a True Dragon innate talent.

It was a treasure rarely seen in any Marketplace.

Chen Ping didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward, his eyes gleaming not with the greed of a looter, but with the profound satisfaction of a master farmer finding a flawless seed.

He carefully threaded his True Essence into the dirt, probing the root system to ensure no hidden Restrictions lay in wait. Confirming it was safe, he cast a wide net of energy, gingerly uprooting the entire tree along with a massive clump of the surrounding spirit soil. The roots ran deep, requiring significant effort to extract without snapping them.

With a thought, the priceless tree vanished into his Jade Pendant space.

The second survivor huddled in an inconspicuous, shaded corner. It was barely half a foot tall, sporting slender, deep purple leaves. Nine naturally formed, wave-like silver patterns rippled across the foliage. The edges were badly yellowed and wilted, with only a tiny fraction of its purple root exposed above the dirt.

Nine Curve Purple Ginseng! Surprise flared in Chen Ping’s chest. This was an exceptionally rare third-tier spirit medicine, an indispensable primary ingredient for refining the Violet Palace Pill—the absolute dream of every Foundation Establishment cultivator.

The ginseng was famously paradoxical. It possessed an immortal tenacity, but its growth conditions were agonizingly strict. It demanded near-perfect parameters of soil quality, Qi concentration, humidity, ambient light, and specific earth vein attributes. If even one condition fell out of alignment, the plant wouldn’t die—it would simply enter a bizarre state of suspended animation, halting all growth.

Because of this extreme finickiness, mature Nine Curve Purple Ginseng was practically extinct. The last recorded public sale was five centuries ago. Judging by the thickness of its root head and the clarity of the silver markings, this specimen had been planted here for at least eight hundred years. Yet, its stunted size proved it had been dormant for almost its entire life.

Treating it like spun glass, Chen Ping produced a specialized jade shovel. He meticulously excavated the ginseng and its surrounding dirt, terrified of snapping even a single fragile root hair, and transferred it into his pendant.

Anticipation burned in his gut. The Black Earth inside his Jade Pendant contained absolute, primordial vitality. It would undoubtedly shatter the ginseng’s stasis curse. If he could cultivate it to maturity, its value would be incalculable.

The final survivor clung to life near the sheer cliff face, starved of light. It resembled a frail orchid with narrow, elongated leaves. Most were entirely yellowed, but deep within the dying veins, fragmented specks of silver light shimmered faintly, like trapped stars. A weak, thread-like stalk rose from the center, bearing a shriveled, rice-sized green bud.

Stardust Grass!

Another top-tier third-tier treasure. It required five centuries to mature, turning a brilliant, captivating silver. After another five centuries, it would flower, produce seeds, and immediately wither into dust. It was a core ingredient for the Soul Nourishing Pill, a miraculous medicine capable of repairing shattered souls.

This grass was clearly in its extreme late-maturity stage, desperately trying to seed before it died. Despite its horrific condition, that tiny, shriveled bud proved it still held a singular breath of life.

Chen Ping painstakingly dug it up, roots and soil, and safely stored it away.

As for the rest of the garden, he merely cast a cold glance over the blackened, decayed remains. They had lost all spiritual properties. Useless.

Standing by the entrance, Han Feiyu watched this display with a mix of deep confusion and silent, bitter disdain. To him, Chen Ping looked like a starving locust, stripping the cavern of half-dead weeds.

Those specific plants—especially the Nine Curve Purple Ginseng and the Stardust Grass—were notoriously fragile. Yanking them from their specialized environment guaranteed they would wither into dust within days. In Han Feiyu’s eyes, this terrifying monster of a cultivator was acting like a greedy, ignorant country bumpkin wasting his own energy.

Chen Ping felt the man’s mocking stare but couldn’t be bothered to explain. He nudged the deep brown dirt with his boot. It was high-quality spirit soil, certainly, but compared to the miraculous Black Earth in his Jade Pendant, it was little better than mud. There was no need to take it.

Satisfied, Chen Ping turned his back on the ruined garden and walked out.