Qin Zhou bought another hoe and returned to the village.

After breakfast, he retreated to the alchemy room to process the thirty Spiritual Heart Fruit.

The flesh of the Spiritual Heart Fruit was the most basic alchemical ingredient—simply scoop it out and use it. The fruit’s seed could be planted in spirit-nourished soil, requiring little effort to take root and sprout.

It was an exceptionally vigorous spirit plant. Compared to other crops that took years to produce a tiny sprout, the Spiritual Heart Fruit sprouted in ten days, bloomed in ten days, and bore fruit in ten days.

A harvest could be gathered within a month.

If the well in the courtyard were fully excavated, the Spiritual Heart Fruit’s growth cycle could be halved.

These fruits couldn’t be widely cultivated in the mortal world precisely because the spiritual energy here was too sparse, and there were few fields where spiritual energy gathered to nourish crops.

He would use the flesh of these thirty Spiritual Heart Fruits for alchemy, while the remaining pits would be sown in the fields on the back mountain.

After separating all the flesh from the pits, Qin Zhou hoisted his hoe and headed for the back mountain.

Chen San followed closely behind the young master, unsure of his intentions.

But whatever the young master did, he surely had his reasons.

Then, Qin Zhou began clearing the wasteland.

With each clumsy swing of the hoe, his unskilled movements left Chen San gawking in astonishment.

Young master… when did he learn to do farm work?

“Young master, let me dig,” Chen San offered, stepping forward.

“No need. I’ll do it myself,” Qin Zhou waved him off.

“By the way, Chen San, do you recognize the young master of the Zhang family?” Qin Zhou asked suddenly.

Chen San paused. “I do.”

“Tell me about him.”

Was the young master testing him? Well, if he were to stay by the young master’s side in the future, there were certain people he simply had to know.

Chen San recounted everything he knew in detail.

There was only one prominent Zhang family in Ping City, and their feud with the Qin household was straightforward—nothing more than rivalry among competitors.

The Zhang family’s shop sold potions of mixed quality, with questionable efficacy, and their reputation couldn’t hold a candle to the Qin family’s.

In short, they simply couldn’t stand each other.

Young Master Qin, however, had a gentle disposition, unlike the arrogant Young Master Zhang, and often found himself at a verbal disadvantage.

“This time, Master… with the unfavorable outcome of your initiation into the sect, Young Master Zhang must have heard the news. When he sees you, he’ll likely…” Chen San whispered, “Master, don’t listen to those words. They’re all slander!”

Qin Zhou thought: I’ve already met him. I’ve heard all the slander.

“Mhm. I know.”

Thinking it over, the fact that his failure in the civil service exam was common knowledge probably had something to do with this Young Master Zhang.

He wasn’t the type to hold grudges over every little thing, but he wasn’t so generous as to let people walk all over him either. He’d settle this score later. “Young Master, is this enough?” Chen San was puzzled when Qin Zhou set down his hoe after digging only a small patch.

“Mm, let’s plant this much for now.” He pulled out the fruit pits and buried them one by one in the soil.

After planting, all that remained was to wait for sprouts.

If they sprouted, it would prove this plot was indeed the spiritual field from his game.

Qin Zhou had no other choice. If he were a cultivator himself, he might be able to discern at a glance whether this field contained spiritual energy. Unfortunately, with his 0.01 talent growth, who knew when he could break through to become a cultivator? He could only resort to this expedient measure.

After all, practice makes perfect.

Moreover, he had a premonition that perhaps only after truly stepping through the threshold of cultivation could he unlock the game’s save file.

Including this unlocked backpack.

And this unusable alchemy furnace.

Returning to the alchemy room, Qin Zhou gazed at the three-legged furnace standing half a person tall before him, feeling a sense of “I knew it.”

He vaguely recalled that this furnace, too, had been upgraded level by level. The game’s system was strict: a Level 1 furnace could only refine basic-tier pills, while higher levels yielded increasingly rare potions.

To further enhance the villagers’ innate talents, he had invested considerable effort into this furnace.

Now it seemed that even spirit artifacts bound to their masters—be it the Cosmos Bag (backpack) or the alchemy furnace—remained unusable after ten thousand years of slumber without the master’s spiritual energy to activate them.

In that case, he would have to find an alternative path for his Marrow Cleansing Pill.

“Chen San.”

“Yes, young master!”

“We must return to the manor early.”

His furnace in this alchemy room was unusable, but the Qin Manor surely possessed functional alchemy furnaces.

Besides, the Spiritual Heart Fruit seeds would take ten days to sprout anyway.

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

Little did they know, the moment Qin Zhou and Chen San departed, someone else arrived in the village.

A beam of light cascaded down from the sky.

A figure materialized silently.

He wore all white, his hair as black as ink, a jade hairpin the color of mutton fat pinned in his hair. Hovering in midair, he gazed distantly at the quiet, lifeless little village, his brows slightly furrowed.

His divine sense radiated outward from him like ripples spreading across water.

Hm? No one.

It was hard to say if it was disappointment or some other emotion. The youth seemed accustomed to that feeling of unmet expectation.

He floated lightly to the ground.

Before him stood the courtyard house at the village entrance. The protective barrier he had set up remained intact.

The young man approached the door and pushed it open.

Having cast the barrier himself, it naturally offered no resistance.

Yet the scene that greeted him upon opening the door startled him.

Clear signs of recent activity filled the courtyard. The ground was spotless and tidy, the moss by the well had been scrubbed away, and even the plaques hanging above each room had been polished to a fresh shine.

Evidently, someone had stayed here.

If it had been that group, they certainly wouldn’t have cleaned the place spotless.

The young man stood motionless in the courtyard for a long while. Maple leaves from the trees outside the wall drifted in, slowly falling and landing on his shoulder.

After a moment, he withdrew the lingering nostalgia from his eyes and muttered coldly to himself, “Even if it’s been cleaned up, moving in without the owner’s permission is still rude.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than voices suddenly echoed from outside the courtyard—

“Is this really it? Did that Qin family young master truly lose his mind, running off to live in these mountains? What a godforsaken place! And our young master too—why did he send us to scout out Qin Zhou?”

“You’re right. Qin Zhou got rejected by so many sects—clearly, he can’t cultivate. As long as the Qin family can’t produce cultivators, the pill trade in Ping City will eventually belong to the Zhang family. What else could Qin Zhou possibly pull off?”

“Enough. We’re just servants—we follow orders. Hey, there’s a dilapidated courtyard up ahead.”

“A dilapidated courtyard? Let’s check it out!”

The young man watched them approach the gate but paid them no mind.

His barrier protected the small courtyard—no one could enter, and if they did, they’d only get lost in an endless loop.

The young man clearly had complete faith in his barrier.

In the lower realm, no one could break his barrier.

That was precisely why he took an interest in the “Qin Zhou” that these two mentioned.

Not the old geezer, nor those useless fools from the upper realm—someone who broke his barrier, moved into the courtyard, and even cleaned it up—

“Qin Zhou.”

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

Qin Zhou, already at the mountain’s base, suddenly glanced back.

“Young Master?”

“Nothing.” Qin Zhou shook his head.

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

Ping City and the small mountain village weren’t far apart; it took only half an hour on horseback to reach it.

When Qin Zhou brought Chen San back to Ping City, it wasn’t yet evening. He decided to head straight to the shop again.

Seeing him return carrying another bag, the shopkeeper understood.

“Young Master, why not leave these alchemical ingredients with me? I’ll process them when the alchemist arrives next time. If you need Spiritual Pill now, we still have some in stock…”

Qin Zhou countered, “How often does the alchemist come?”

The shopkeeper paused, taken aback. The young master, wholly devoted to cultivation, had never once inquired about the shop’s affairs.

“Sir, he visits every six months and refines two batches per visit. Each batch yields about twenty pills.”

“And the fee?”

“One hundred and fifty Spirit Stones.”

Cultivators’ currency was Spirit Stones, with one Stone roughly equivalent to a hundred taels of silver—enough to sustain an ordinary family for years.

“What price do we fetch for these Spiritual Pills?”

“Between five and ten Spirit Stones, young master,” the shopkeeper replied. “Depends on the quality.”

A staggering profit margin.

But only two batches a year suggested these Spiritual Pills weren’t selling well. The alchemist’s wages were also a terrifying expense.

Qin Zhou pondered, then suddenly asked, “What if we dismiss the alchemist?”

The shopkeeper gasped. “Young Master, this alchemist is a disciple of an immortal sect. We cannot dismiss him lightly.”

For the Qin family, the only thing that could rival the Zhang family was these two batches of Spiritual Pill.

And paying that wage wasn’t a loss. While it appeared to be for the alchemist, it was also a way to curry favor with the immortal sect behind him.

The shopkeeper couldn’t fathom what had gotten into the young master. Had the sting of being rejected by the immortal sect really driven him to meddle recklessly in the Qin family’s business?

Qin Zhou observed the manager’s expression and simply asked, “May I use the alchemy chamber?”

The manager was even more puzzled, but recalling the alchemy ingredients the young master had taken from the shop today, he began to understand. “Young Master, you wish to refine pills?”

“Yes.”

The shopkeeper shook his head repeatedly, hesitating to speak.

“Why can’t I use it?”

The shopkeeper’s face twisted in distress. “Young master… it’s not that I won’t let you use it, but…”

“Speak plainly.”

“Young master! Alchemy requires magical techniques to activate the potions. With the alchemist absent, we have no one capable of performing the alchemy.”

Those without spiritual power cannot refine pills!

The shopkeeper’s face fell. He knew this matter weighed heavily on the young master, that the pain of lacking the talent to enter an immortal sect was his own. He didn’t want to say it either! But this was the truth!

Even Chen San, standing behind Qin Zhou, felt his heart skip a beat.

The group held its breath, fearing the young master’s reaction.

Qin Zhou, however, remained surprisingly composed. His tone was level as he stated, “Spells merely aid in better controlling the heat. As for refining pills with divine fire, I doubt the masters who refine pills for the Qin family shop have reached that level. But mastering the heat control? That I can manage.”

Put plainly, even ordinary people could refine a basic-level Spiritual Pill. It was just that the pill ingredients were prohibitively expensive. Yet, even if he said this aloud, few would likely believe him.

These words came from the mouth of the Qin family’s eldest son, who had always been underestimated. Yet, inexplicably, his calm and composed tone seemed to carry an air of credibility. Everyone present couldn’t help but turn their gaze toward him.

Young Master, something about him seemed different. But they couldn’t quite put their finger on it.

After a moment, the shopkeeper relented. “Young Master, the alchemy room is inside. Would you like to proceed now…?”

Qin Zhou nodded. “The Spiritual Heart Fruit has been peeled for some time. It must be used soon.”

The shopkeeper had no choice but to lead him there.

Forget it. Let the young master try. Even if he fails, at least he’ll see his own limitations.

Still, the shopkeeper couldn’t fathom it. The young master had only been away for a few days, yet now he was so confident that he could refine pills. Could he have had some extraordinary encounter during his time out?

The shop assistants who overheard their conversation dared not speak, but they were quite curious. They’d never heard that Young Master Qin could refine pills.