My Portable Spirit Farm: Rise of the Humble Servant

Chapter 247: The Tea Tree Matures

After finishing his brutal but necessary critique of his apprentices’ alchemy, Chen Ping left Green Mountain. Using Sword Riding, he cut through the clouds and descended toward his shop in the Marketplace.

Behind the counter, Wang Fa was rapidly flicking the beads of an abacus. His face was flushed with healthy color, his eyes bright and vigorous.

Thanks to the Top Grade Qi Gathering Pills Chen Ping had steadily supplied him, the old manager had successfully pushed his cultivation to the fourth layer of Qi Condensation.

Three years to break through to the fourth layer.

It was a testament to Wang Fa’s sheer, grinding effort. If cultivation were measured purely by hard work, Chen Ping suspected the old man might actually outpace him. After all, Chen Ping was originally burdened with the absolute worst of the worst—the Yin Spirit Vine Spirit Root.

Sensing Chen Ping’s arrival, Wang Fa immediately pushed the abacus aside and hurried over, a wide, welcoming smile plastered across his face.

“Boss! You’ve come out of Secluded Cultivation?”

“Mn. Just checking in,” Chen Ping replied, his gaze sweeping over the display shelves.

The variety of Pills offered was sparse, but the quality was undeniable. However, the premium shelves—specifically those marked with the coveted “Top Grade” plaques—were completely bare.

Following his gaze, Wang Fa’s smile melted into a look of bitter distress.

“Boss, it’s the same old headache. The Pills… especially the Top Grade ones, sell out the moment they touch the shelf! Every single day, regulars and wandering cultivators drawn by our reputation come asking for them. Our restocking speed simply cannot keep up with the demand. The waiting list for some of these orders is stretching months into the future.”

Chen Ping frowned slightly.

His three apprentices spent nearly half the year chained to their furnaces, burning through mountains of Spirit Grass. While their success rates were steadily climbing, their output was a mere drop in the bucket compared to the ravenous appetite of the Marketplace.

He let out a quiet sigh. “There are no shortcuts in alchemy. My three disciples are already pushing their limits.”

Wang Fa hesitated, glancing around before leaning in close, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Boss, what if we… outsource? We could buy stock from outside the Sect or from independent Alchemists. They wouldn’t even need to be Top Grade—ordinary quality would sell just fine! Our shop’s reputation is ironclad. Even if we just act as middlemen and flip them for a markup, we’d rake in a fortune in Spirit Stones and relieve the pressure on our own supply.”

Chen Ping didn’t even blink. He shook his head with cold finality.

“Absolutely not. This shop’s entire foundation rests on our flawless reputation and absolute quality control. Every Pill we sell comes from our own furnaces. We guarantee the efficacy. We guarantee the purity. If we start flipping outsourced goods, the quality will inevitably fluctuate. The second a defective Pill poisons a customer, our brand is dead. Never bring this up again.”

His tone was flat, but the lethal decisiveness behind it was unmistakable. Wang Fa, who knew exactly how ruthless his boss could be, paled and nodded frantically.

“Yes, yes, of course! This old man was blinded by the Spirit Stones. Rest assured, Boss, we will only sell what we forge ourselves.”

“Good.” Chen Ping’s cold expression thawed marginally. “Maintain the status quo. Keep the business steady and reliable. Later on, when Green Mountain produces more Alchemists, we can discuss scaling up.”

“Understood, Boss.”

With the shop’s affairs settled, Chen Ping returned to Green Mountain. He sealed the heavy stone doors of his quiet room, plunging himself into a new cycle of Secluded Cultivation.

His Sect contributions were flush. The Bai family had guaranteed a steady monthly supply of third-grade spiritual spring water. His parents were safe, and his disciples were progressing. Now, he needed to ruthlessly optimize his own combat power.

His primary goal: comprehend the second stage of the Nine Yin Nine Yang Scripture, pushing his second Dantian across the Foundation Establishment threshold.

The next day, Bai Yuan made good on his word.

He personally delivered one hundred pounds of third-grade spiritual spring water, along with the promised five-pound monthly quota. With this massive influx of resources, Chen Ping’s Spirit Grass irrigation problem was entirely solved for the foreseeable future.

Time lost all meaning inside the stone walls of the quiet room. In the blink of an eye, three months vanished.

On this particular day, Chen Ping projected his consciousness into the Jade Pendant space.

The environment inside was staggering. A thick, silvery mist of hyper-dense Qi rolled over the soil, making the Spirit Field look like a genuine immortal’s sanctuary. The Spirit Grass grew at a terrifying, visible pace.

Chen Ping was Proficient at this routine. He extended his Divine Sense, delicately siphoning the stored third-grade spiritual spring water to nourish his most precious plants.

But as his Divine Sense swept over the center of the garden, his breath hitched.

The Ancient Green Cloud Tree wasn’t his only treasure. Sitting proudly in the soil was the Enlightenment Tea tree.

The ancient, elegantly twisted tree had undergone a silent, miraculous transformation. It was no longer just a vibrant emerald green. Sprouting from its branches were exactly forty-nine tender new leaves.

These leaves were entirely unlike any spirit tea he had ever read about. They weren’t green; they possessed a profound, ethereal pale-gold hue. Natural, intricate veins crawled across their surfaces, forming complex, almost hypnotic patterns that pulsed with pure Dao Rhyme. A faint, liquid light flowed through the veins, emitting a strange, delicate fragrance that instantly silenced the chaotic thoughts in his mind and sharpened his focus to a razor’s edge.

The Enlightenment Tea… it matured? Chen Ping’s heart hammered against his ribs. A wave of wild euphoria washed over him.

He quickly did the math. Since he had transplanted the Enlightenment Tea tree into the Jade Pendant space, it had accumulated exactly six hundred years of age under the accelerated temporal laws. Three months ago in the real world, it had been approaching the five-hundred-and-sixty-year mark.

It was perfectly on schedule.

However…

Chen Ping’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

According to every ancient text he had ever scoured, the Enlightenment Tea tree was a cursed miracle. Because it possessed such terrifying, heaven-defying Dao Rhyme, the laws of the world demanded a heavy toll. It matured only once every six hundred years. The moment it birthed its forty-nine leaves, it was supposed to rapidly wither, pouring every last drop of its life essence into the tea before crumbling into dead ash.

It was strictly a one-time harvest.

But the tree standing before him wasn’t dying.

After producing the forty-nine miraculous leaves, it wasn’t showing a single sign of decay. Instead, it was thriving. Its bark glowed with iridescent light, its vitality roaring like a furnace. The Dao Rhyme permeating the air around its trunk felt thicker, heavier, and more permanent.

It was as if reaching maturity wasn’t a death sentence, but an ascension.

“Incredible,” Chen Ping muttered, realization dawning on him. “The temporal and spatial laws of this Jade Pendant space are completely isolated. It actually allowed the Enlightenment Tea tree to succeed in Defying the Heavens to change fate!”

The rules of the outside world simply did not apply here.

Even so, Chen Ping wasn’t about to tempt fate.

The ancient texts explicitly warned that once the Enlightenment Tea leaves matured, they had to be harvested immediately. Left on the branch, their tips would yellow, their roots would blacken, and the precious Dao Rhyme would bleed back into the atmosphere until they rotted into useless mud.

He refused to gamble on whether the Jade Pendant space would preserve them indefinitely.

Moving with surgical precision, Chen Ping Gingerly plucked the forty-nine pale-gold leaves. He handled each one as if it were forged from spun glass, sealing them instantly into pre-chilled cold jade boxes to lock in their spirituality.

The moment the final leaf was severed from the branch, the strange fragrance in the air spiked, and Chen Ping swore he could hear the faint, echoing chime of a distant bell ringing in his ears.

With the harvest secured, he didn’t immediately leave.

He violently suppressed the urge to brew a cup right then and there. Instead, he sat cross-legged in the dirt beside the Enlightenment Tea tree, his Divine Sense locked onto the trunk.

He sat there for a full twenty-four hours, observing the tree.

Its golden glow dimmed slightly after the harvest, but its core vitality remained an inferno. The remaining branches and emerald leaves stayed lush and vibrant. There was zero sign of rot.

Only then did Chen Ping finally relax. The Jade Pendant had permanently broken the tree’s suicidal biological cycle.

Letting out a long, heavy exhale, Chen Ping withdrew his consciousness, his eyes snapping open in the darkness of his cave dwelling.

He had harvested the Enlightenment Tea leaves. The next step was to test their legendary effects.