Cultivating Immortality by Raising a Cat (GL) Chapter 84

Clear Heart Hall’s cooking tasks had said before that cooking spiritual plants and spirit beasts usually required special fire. For example, the earth fire used in Clear Heart Hall’s kitchen, fake earth fire from tools, furnace fire from cauldrons, spirit fire from spirit beasts, a cultivator’s fire spiritual root, strange fires from different lands, or even heavenly fire.
Because none of these were things the current Lin Mianmian could control, she had never accepted the tempting cooking tasks from Clear Heart Hall.
This time, Lin Mianmian had the courage to build a firewood stove in her courtyard and directly use mortal fire to stew Body-Nourishing Soup because, during the apocalypse, the few dishes recorded in the Food Classic that she had been lucky enough to eat had all been cooked with normal firewood at the time. They had not been as particular as Clear Heart Hall said, yet the effects had been very clear.
As for whether the quality cooked with mortal fire would be worse than those cooked with earth fire or spirit fire, Lin Mianmian was also somewhat unsure.
Using Bitter Jiji Grass as an example, a bowl cooked with earth fire in the cultivation world could replenish one ten-thousandth of her ability. During the apocalypse, because abilities had the ability to recover naturally, and food in the base had always been tight, Bitter Jiji Grass Soup could only be drunk one bowl at a time. Even if it could also replenish one ten-thousandth of her ability, she would not have felt it then.
So Lin Mianmian had calculated that if she wanted to stew Body-Nourishing Soup to its best effect, perhaps she still had to follow local custom and use earth fire. But Lin Mianmian’s own conditions did not allow it, so she could only make do with mortal fire. Judging from her experience in the apocalypse, it should not fail. Even if the effect was a little worse, it should not have no effect.
Lin Mianmian knew her cooking skills and experience were very limited, so every step of the stewing followed the Food Classic’s record strictly.
Nine Ice Lotus petals and fifteen Woman’s Wood seeds floated up and down in a pot of boiling lotus pond water. Lin Mianmian moved a chair over and stared seriously at the pot, waiting for the lotus petals to become transparent.
Only, Lin Mianmian had not expected that once she started staring, she would stare for a full day and night.
Fortunately, this grass demon body could endure. By dusk the next day, Lin Mianmian, who was slumped beside the stove, finally saw the lotus petals slowly turn transparent.
Interestingly, the whole pot of lotus pond water had been boiled on high flame for a full day and night, yet by now, more than half a pot still remained.
Fine. In the cultivation world, science could not explain things anyway.
After stewing beside the stove for a full day and night until this grass demon was almost stewed into dry grass, she finally reached the point where the lotus petals turned transparent. After that, adding bee water and honey, then stewing for the time it took one incense stick to burn, was so simple it barely counted as a matter.
After the bee water and honey were added, although the soup only stewed for one more incense stick, the original half pot of liquid quickly concentrated. When spooned into a bowl, it only filled a little over half a bowl.
The soup was complete.
There was no ten-thousand-foot glow, no dramatic sound effect, no strange fragrance that made people drool…
It was ordinary and plain. The soup was translucent and slightly thick. The lotus petals had almost melted into it and could not be clearly distinguished. The Woman’s Wood seeds sank faintly at the bottom of the bowl, half visible and half hidden. When she leaned close to smell it, there was only a faint flower fragrance.
Looking at it… it looked just like white fungus lotus seed soup…
When it entered the mouth, it was smooth. The taste was clear and light, slightly sweet with a returning sweetness. The lotus petals could barely be tasted. The Woman’s Wood seeds were also very soft and melted in the mouth.
Eating it… the texture was also like white fungus lotus seed soup…
It looked unimpressive and did not show much flavor, but the effect was real.
After one bowl of Body-Nourishing Soup entered her stomach, compared with drinking Bitter Jiji Grass Soup, the warmth in her stomach was even stronger. Energy gathered and rose, hazy and gentle, slowly flowing together.
Lin Mianmian closed her eyes and carefully felt the change in her ability. A moment later, she opened her eyes, and they were full of joy.
One-thousandth!
This one bowl of soup had increased the ability in her core by one-thousandth!
It was equal to the effect of drinking ten bowls of Bitter Jiji Grass Soup.
Lin Mianmian worked hard to press down the joy of successfully cooking the Food Classic’s Body-Nourishing Soup.
The energy contained in Body-Nourishing Soup truly made one happy, but the more important matter came after this.
After all, although Body-Nourishing Soup replenished ten times the ability of Bitter Jiji Grass Soup, when the price of the ingredients and the stewing time were calculated into it, it was probably still less cost-effective than Bitter Jiji Grass Soup.
But Lin Mianmian had another guess about this Body-Nourishing Soup.
When the heat in her belly eased a little and the threads of ability rising upward gradually lessened until they stopped, Lin Mianmian quickly took two huge Moon Rock Sand Boxes from her storage bag. She opened the boxes. Forty bowls of Bitter Jiji Grass Soup were neatly placed inside.
After steadying her mind, Lin Mianmian worked with both hands. In one minute, twenty-eight bowls were gone.
Only after she had drunk half of the twenty-ninth bowl did that familiar feeling of fullness appear.
Lin Mianmian endured the discomfort and poured down the last half bowl.
Her body felt a little uncomfortable from drinking and replenishing too much, but her heart bloomed with joy.
On ordinary days, when she had not eaten any spiritual plants or spirit beast meat, Lin Mianmian could only drink twenty-eight to thirty bowls of Bitter Jiji Grass Soup, replenishing twenty-eight to thirty ten-thousandths of her ability.
If she ate other spiritual plants or spirit beast meat first, the amount of Bitter Jiji Grass Soup she could drink would be even less.
But today, this Body-Nourishing Soup had replenished ten times the ability of Bitter Jiji Grass Soup, yet it had only taken up, or rather, had not even taken up the place of one bowl of Bitter Jiji Grass Soup.
If being unable to drink more Bitter Jiji Grass Soup meant the body could not bear more, then Body-Nourishing Soup, with its multiplied ability content, did not bring the body a multiplied pressure.
In other words, calculating only by Body-Nourishing Soup, perhaps she could drink thirty bowls in one day, or even more.
What did thirty bowls mean? It meant that in only one day, her ability could be replenished by three percent. In just a little over a month, she could fill the ability in her core.
Before, using Bitter Jiji Grass Soup, she could only replenish about ten percent in a month. It would take almost a year to fill her core ability.
Compared like this, Body-Nourishing Soup won completely.
Only, drinking Bitter Jiji Grass Soup at Clear Heart Hall basically counted as having no cost. Body-Nourishing Soup required buying Woman’s Wood. If she did not do missions, Ice Lotus and Water-Spraying Bee honey also needed to be bought. Calculating it, one bowl of Body-Nourishing Soup cost about thirty to forty low-grade spirit stones.
In other words, she needed forty low-grade spirit stones to replenish one-thousandth of her ability. Using it to urge second-grade spiritual plants like Moon-Watching Epiphyllum to grow could at most earn around twenty low-grade spirit stones. It was completely spending more than she earned.
After finally making the soup from the Food Classic successfully, Lin Mianmian was utterly unwilling to give up Body-Nourishing Soup, which could quickly restore her ability, and go back to drinking Bitter Jiji Grass Soup.
Many things were like this. If one did not move forward, one moved back. Since she had moved forward, how could there be any reason to retreat?
When costs increased, those second-grade spiritual plants with short growth cycles, low growth-urging difficulty, and also low value were no longer suitable as output.
Lin Mianmian wanted to shift her gaze to third- and fourth-grade spiritual plants. Unfortunately, on the surface, she was only a first-layer Qi Refining disciple who had drawn qi into her body three months ago, and her spiritual root aptitude was only thirty-two percent. For now, she had no way to obtain spiritual plant seeds higher than second grade through the mission area of All Affairs Hall.
She could buy them, though…
But after Lin Mianmian looked back and forth for several days, she found that cheap third-grade spiritual plant seeds cost six or seven middle-grade spirit stones each, while the most expensive cost ten middle-grade spirit stones. As for fourth-grade spiritual plant seeds, they cost as high as thirty or forty middle-grade spirit stones.
The spirit stones Senior Sister Yuan had given before, a few times added together, amounted to more than sixty middle-grade spirit stones. The spirit stone bag A-Bai had left when she left three months ago also had around thirty middle-grade spirit stones. Calculating it, Lin Mianmian now had just over a hundred middle-grade spirit stones. It did not look like much, but it could be counted as one-third of a Core Formation elder’s official yearly salary.
To urge a third-grade spiritual plant to maturity, the ability consumed would naturally be more than the one-thousandth needed for a second-grade spiritual plant. Based on Lin Mianmian’s experience in the apocalypse, it would take at least about one-fiftieth of her ability to urge one plant. Calculated by Body-Nourishing Soup, the cost of one plant had already reached eight hundred low-grade spirit stones, which was eight middle-grade spirit stones, and that did not even include the seed money.
Since so much cost was already being invested, if she was going to buy, she naturally had to buy the spiritual plant seed with the highest return rate.
Warming-Spirit Grass, third-grade spiritual plant, mature in five years, ten middle-grade spirit stones per seed.
On All Affairs Hall’s sale list, third-grade spiritual plant seeds cost six to ten middle-grade spirit stones each, and their maturity periods ranged from two to five years. Lin Mianmian had taken an interest in the most expensive one, which also had the longest maturity period: Warming-Spirit Grass.
For no other reason than this: Warming-Spirit Grass was the main material of Warming-Spirit Pills, the common pills used by cultivators to stabilize their realm when crossing from Qi Refining into Foundation Establishment. Demand was high, it was easy to sell, and All Affairs Hall’s purchase price was thirty middle-grade spirit stones per plant.
After deducting costs, one plant could earn almost twelve middle-grade spirit stones. Compared with Moon-Watching Epiphyllum, where one plant could earn twenty-some low-grade spirit stones, this was a huge profit. Most importantly, Warming-Spirit Grass was bought by the sect at a real price year-round. It did not have the Moon-Watching Epiphyllum newbie benefit limit of only accepting fifty plants.
As for the five-year maturity period, Lin Mianmian felt that for her ability, that was not a problem at all. After comparing with the third-grade plants she had urged during the apocalypse in World-Viewing Hall, she estimated that even if she could not urge them in patches, the time for urging a single plant should be controllable to about one hour.
After choosing the output, Lin Mianmian still wanted to lower the cost.
Although Woman’s Wood was a low-level ingredient, planting it was rather troublesome. It needed to be planted into a tree, then the tree heart was taken while the tree body was discarded. It took up a lot of space. Not only could it not fit in the small courtyard, dealing with the extra things would be very inconvenient and too easy to draw attention. So the expense of buying Woman’s Wood could not be saved.
As for Water-Spraying Bee honey, spending three to five days doing a round of beehive-cleaning missions could earn a small jar. Each bowl of Body-Nourishing Soup only needed one palmful, which was enough to use for a long time. No need to buy more.
Pond water and bee water had no cost and could be obtained as much as needed.
Then there was Ice Lotus.
Ice Lotus was a second-grade spiritual plant. Urging one flower to maturity required one-thousandth of her ability, equal to one bowl of Body-Nourishing Soup, or forty low-grade spirit stones… But making Body-Nourishing Soup required three flowers… A flower that lost money was not worth urging.
The Five Elements Sect’s Ice Lotus Pond was as large as a lake. Every year, the Ice Lotuses brought back by disciples through missions were only one or two thousandths of the whole. The rest of the lotus pond was collected in one go by a Core Formation elder. High output meant low price. Lin Mianmian had checked. At All Affairs Hall, three Ice Lotuses cost only ten low-grade spirit stones.
In the end, the cost of one bowl of Body-Nourishing Soup could only be lowered to thirty low-grade spirit stones. It could not be lowered further.
When one carried small secrets, one had to act more carefully.
The Ice Lotuses at All Affairs Hall were sold mixed together. Lin Mianmian’s original plan to urge Ice Lotuses from lotus seeds died halfway because of cost. She could only take another Ice Lotus picking mission before the final harvest began and float around on the pond.
This time, when picking, ninety percent of what Lin Mianmian picked were Seven-Petal Ice Lotuses. Only at the end did she randomly pick some with other petal counts and mix them on top. When turning in the mission, she directly used All Affairs Hall’s selling price to buy the pile of Ice Lotuses she had picked.
Fortunately, the senior brother who accepted the Ice Lotuses only roughly counted the number and did not question why most of those Ice Lotuses had seven petals. Only then did Lin Mianmian truly let out a breath of relief.
Woman’s Wood and Ice Lotuses together cost Lin Mianmian about thirty middle-grade spirit stones. It was enough to make one hundred bowls of Body-Nourishing Soup and replenish one-tenth of her ability.
Only, Lin Mianmian did not dare put the materials in one pot and cook them all together, nor did she dare buy cooking tools on a large scale. She only bought some pots, bowls, ladles, and basins from All Affairs Hall and Clear Heart Hall, then borrowed some from Xiong Lanlan and the others. Altogether, counting pots, basins, and bowls, there were only about fifty. She would have to cook for two days and nights to finish these one hundred bowls of Body-Nourishing Soup.
Fortunately, this soup did not need water added even after long boiling, which allowed basins and bowls to all be used.
The small courtyard’s restrictions activated. In the courtyard, fifty small fires densely lit up. The bowls and basins set over the fires puffed out steam. Standing in one corner of the courtyard, Lin Mianmian wiped the sweat from her forehead, then touched the four full large water buckets beside her, hoping there would be no need to use them.
The two rounds of cooking were truly exhausting, and Lin Mianmian rested once in the middle.
Three days later, fifty bowls of Body-Nourishing Soup that had been finished first sat in the Moon Rock Sand Box. Fifty bowls cooked later were steaming hot on the fires that had just gone out.
Since childhood, adults had always said that soup had nutrition only when drunk hot.
Lin Mianmian looked at the huge amount of soup in the courtyard and tightened her palm. This was another guess she was about to verify.
Go, attacking grass demon!
The fragrant, smooth soup had barely entered her mouth before she impatiently swallowed it into her belly. Strands of warm current followed one another, the front not yet moving far before the back continued. They gathered into large patches of warmth and surged up to her head and forehead.
The whole body felt comfortable.
Lin Mianmian did not stop to properly feel this hard-to-describe comfort. She only lowered her head and picked up bowl after bowl of hot soup in the courtyard, drinking each mouthful down.
Like this, from in front of the house, she walked step by twisting step toward the courtyard gate.
She poured down another mouthful. Lin Mianmian habitually took one step to the right and reached out, but touched the cold courtyard wall.
Lin Mianmian straightened and looked at the courtyard full of pots, bowls, ladles, and basins that were already empty. She touched her stomach, which was not very full.
Oh, impressive…
Moon Rock Sand Box checkpoint, begin!
When Lin Mianmian drank to the thirtieth-some bowl of Body-Nourishing Soup from the Moon Rock Sand Box, she began to feel full. But this feeling of fullness was not like the rejection from her body being unable to bear more when she drank Bitter Jiji Grass Soup until she could not drink anymore. It was more like eating too much… Like before the apocalypse, when she ran into delicious hot pot, a buffet, or dishes her mother made… and could not control her mouth for a while, then ate until her stomach was stuffed.
Lin Mianmian looked at the dozen-plus bowls of soup left in the Moon Rock Sand Box, closed the box lid, and got up to start cleaning the courtyard.
Pots, bowls, ladles, and basins were stacked and set aside. Firewood that had not burned completely was picked up and put in one place. Charcoal and ash that had burned almost through were piled together.
After cleaning the courtyard once, Lin Mianmian opened the sand box and smoothly finished several more bowls.
Then, after washing the pots, bowls, ladles, and basins clean, the remaining dozen or so bowls of Body-Nourishing Soup were also drunk by Lin Mianmian without pressure.
Her ability smoothly increased by ten percent. Added to the thirty percent from the previous three months, the ability in Lin Mianmian’s core had now replenished to as much as forty percent.
The result was pleasing.
But the most pleasing thing was not the total of forty percent.
It was that Lin Mianmian had finally verified her guess.
This Body-Nourishing Soup was indeed different from Bitter Jiji Grass Soup. With the latter, once she drank a certain amount, the body would begin to have an unable-to-bear reaction, and then she could not drink more. This was related to the body’s endurance for spiritual plants. But Body-Nourishing Soup was different. It seemed like ordinary food and only had to do with a person’s appetite.
The unable-to-bear reaction Bitter Jiji Grass Soup brought to the body took almost a full day to dissolve before she could start drinking again. Body-Nourishing Soup was different. As long as she moved a little and digested a little, making room in her stomach, she could continue fighting.
In other words, as long as Lin Mianmian could drink Body-Nourishing Soup, she could keep drinking it. She did not need to consider the body’s endurance for spiritual food.
That also meant that as long as Lin Mianmian was willing to spend spirit stones, she could restore the ability in her core to full in a very short time.
Lin Mianmian felt the core that was almost half full and could only say that she was still poor.
Thirty middle-grade spirit stones had already been spent. Although more than seventy remained, Lin Mianmian could not bear to continue using them to buy materials and stew Body-Nourishing Soup.
Before she could truly use ability to nourish ability, she still had to save a little.
After successfully verifying her guess about Body-Nourishing Soup, Lin Mianmian entered the next step without stopping: urging Warming-Spirit Grass to grow.
Originally, she had wanted to buy ten grass seeds at once and was also confident she could urge them in a patch. But when she stood at All Affairs Hall’s sales counter, worried that her low cultivation buying high-grade spiritual plant seeds might draw attention, and looked at the many kinds of seeds in front of her, she suddenly seemed to have her blocked mind opened. She heavily slapped her forehead.
The senior brother in charge was completely confused. He was about to ask whether this little junior sister was unwell when he was met with the little junior sister’s bright smile.
“Senior Brother, I want to buy one Warming-Spirit Grass seed.” Lin Mianmian held ten middle-grade spirit stones and her disciple plate in both hands and offered them.
“Cough…” The senior brother in charge was dazzled by the bright smile. She had clearly stood at the end of the line with her head lowered, as if she had some difficulty. When she came before him, she even foolishly hit herself. She had looked like a silly passerby. But when she raised her head, her eyes were actually this bright with confidence. Also… when she smiled, she was so cute.
Lin Mianmian had no idea that her fourteen- or fifteen-year-old face, though not fully grown, was small and lovely. Her skin was like smooth cream, and because of the joy of understanding, there was a faint pink in her cheeks and brightness in her eyes. She had brought a small amazement to someone else. Right now, other than complaining that she had been so foolish before, her whole heart was fixed on the Warming-Spirit Grass that would open a good cycle of spirit stones.
“Senior Brother?” Seeing the senior brother before her only look at her and not take the spirit stones, Lin Mianmian could not help feeling guilty. But thinking of the grand plan of earning spirit stones later, she could not bear to retreat. She only pushed the spirit stones and plate in her hands forward a little. “Senior Brother, I want to buy one Warming-Spirit Grass seed.”
“My name is Wen Liangzhi.” The senior brother in charge smoothed the nonexistent wrinkles on his robe and said with a warm smile.
Lin Mianmian obediently said, “…Senior Brother Wen.”
The senior brother in charge nodded again and again.
“Senior Brother Wen, I want to buy one Warming-Spirit Grass seed.” Lin Mianmian did not show anything on her face, but her heart sank more and more. Could it be that he saw her cultivation was too low and would not let her buy it?
“All right, all right.” Wen Liangzhi had only been amazed for a moment. He was not foolish. After the little junior sister repeated it several times, he finally took a tray and accepted the spirit stones and disciple plate in Lin Mianmian’s hands.
If one asked whether Wen Liangzhi had any thoughts about Lin Mianmian, it was not to that point. It was only… mm… Junior Sister’s hands looked so small and white, like the little radishes Master had pulled from the field yesterday…
The senior brother in charge taking the spirit stones finally let Lin Mianmian breathe in relief.
Then the next question was…
“Senior Brother Wen…” Lin Mianmian took a deep breath. “The grass seed…”
“Oh, oh, the grass seed.” Wen Liangzhi pulled back from his memories of last night’s cold-dressed little radishes. He pressed Lin Mianmian’s disciple plate against the cabinet behind him, placed it back on the tray, then took out a storage bag. In the end, he could not help kindly reminding her, “Junior Sister, you have only just drawn qi into your body. This Warming-Spirit Grass is already a third-grade spiritual plant…”
When Lin Mianmian heard this, her back suddenly stiffened, and her whole person straightened. Earlier, fearing he would see her low cultivation had only been fear. The senior brother before her probably did not have the ability to accurately see another disciple’s cultivation. But when buying in the end, once the disciple plate was swiped, everything was clearly written.
“Hm… Junior Sister, no need to be nervous. I only wanted to say that when using something of a higher grade than your own cultivation, you must be especially careful.” Wen Liangzhi saw that this little junior sister, who had originally been happy, had been made stiff-faced by his one sentence and hurriedly explained. Then he poured one dark green seed from the storage bag onto the tray and even moved the tray closer to Lin Mianmian.
“Many thanks, Senior Brother.” Lin Mianmian quickly reached out and gripped the seed and disciple plate in her palm. Then, as her words sounded, she had already gone several steps away.
Wen Liangzhi looked at the little junior sister’s retreating back and touched his nose. Mm, was he that frightening? Looking at her like this, this little junior sister was not like yesterday’s cute white radish anymore. She was more like the spirit beast his martial uncle raised, quick in movement and also disliking him for being scary…
Lin Mianmian did not know that even buying something could make her run into a senior brother who imagined so much. She was only even more grateful that she had not bought ten Warming-Spirit Grass seeds and had not greedily bought a fourth-grade spiritual plant seed.
Buying only one had already made her be asked.
If she wanted to buy ten, she might not have been able to buy them.
If Wen Liangzhi knew what Lin Mianmian was thinking right now, he would probably fall onto a pile of white radishes and cry that he had been wronged.
The Warming-Spirit Grass seed was tightly held in Lin Mianmian’s hand.
It would be a beginning. A true beginning for her cheat power.