After having his Treant Avatar take the Little Stone Spirit out, Qi Ping no longer focused his attention on it. For now, he just needed to wait quietly for the Little Stone Spirit to eat and undergo its transformation.
At this stage, planting the spiritual woods and herbs was the most important task.
Qi Ping first sowed all the second-order spiritual seeds. Only then did he take out the two precious seeds he’d bought—one costing twenty-eight spirit stones and twenty-eight thousand black market points.
One seed was shrouded in watery vapor, covered with a distinct aura of the Law of Water.
The other was surrounded by moonlight energy and extreme yin spiritual power, radiating a terrifying aura of bitter cold.
But as Qi Ping looked at these two seeds, he fell into thought.
“Let me transplant the Moonlight Tree, Starwood, and Dark Iron Tree over to the side first… I’ll give the most concentrated spiritual energy spots closest to the spirit vein to the Rippling Wonderwood and Nether Moon Soulwood. It’s more important to get them growing quickly…”
“The Blazing Sunwood is my life-bound wood—it’s always my top priority for nurturing, so I’ll leave it where it is!”
“That settles it!”
After making his decision, Qi Ping sprang into action immediately. Before long, he’d relocated the Starwood and the other spiritual woods, then carefully planted the two spirit wood seeds not far from the heart of the spirit vein.
After planting the seeds, he cast Plant Growth, infusing the seedlings with spiritual energy imbued with the power of growth.
Strictly speaking, his territory hadn’t yet reached third-order level, far from meeting the standards required for planting third-order spirit woods.
The reason third-order woods like the Blazing Sunwood could grow here was twofold: first, they could absorb energy like sunlight to sustain themselves, and Qi Ping had engraved spells to assist with that absorption. In the early stages, he’d also constantly used Plant Growth energy to supplement the spiritual energy the Blazing Sunwood needed.
By now, the Blazing Sunwood had cultivated and used the Great Solar Refinement Art—the spell Qi Ping had engraved—to the point where it had surpassed the master. It was only slightly behind Crow Crow in that regard.
Decades of daily practice and cultivation, combined with the Blazing Sunwood’s naturally perfect affinity for the technique, made this achievement hardly surprising.
Still, even so, third-order spirit woods were the absolute limit of what his current territory could support. If he ever wanted to plant higher-quality spirit woods, he’d have to wait until the spirit vein advanced to third-order.
After planting the Rippling Wonderwood and Nether Moon Soulwood, Qi Ping’s daily life of cultivation and farming settled back into peaceful routine.
He’d completely handed over care of the flowers and spiritual herbs in his territory to the bees. His daily Plant Growth casts were now mainly focused on nurturing these two spirit woods, along with the fire-attribute spiritual herbs he needed for his own cultivation.
As long as he could ensure a sufficient supply of resources for cultivation, he poured all his remaining Plant Growth casts into the Rippling Wonderwood and Nether Moon Soulwood.
For the rest of his time, Qi Ping devoted his energy to researching formation fusion, contemplating and practicing water-fire cultivation techniques and spells, and creating new spells suited to these two spirit woods.
Besides that, Qi Ping always kept the Illuminating Azure Serpent’s egg close by. Every so often, he’d infuse it with gentle spiritual energy to help the little serpent inside develop better, while also building affinity with it.
Creating the two engraved spells was actually the easiest part.
Because the spells he needed this time were quite simple. For production-type spirit woods, all you need are spells that accelerate their absorption and refinement of spiritual energy and law power.
Take the Rippling Wonderwood, for example—it needed to absorb and refine water-attribute spiritual energy and the Law of Water. Since Qi Ping had already comprehended the true essence of the Law of Water, it only took him a few days to create a rather impressive Water Marsh Refinement Art. It was far more refined than the old Moonlight Refinement Art, and its conceptual foundation was higher.
However, creating a spell for the Nether Moon Soulwood took him longer.
Although he was familiar with moonlight energy, the main component was extreme yin power, which he hadn’t cultivated before. So he had to study and search for similar yin-attribute spells while deepening his understanding.
Fortunately, among the many spells he’d seized, there were plenty involving yin attributes, along with techniques for absorbing and refining yin power. Building on those, Qi Ping spent about a week creating the Nether Moon Refinement Art.
Once both spells were finished, Qi Ping immediately contracted the Rippling Wonderwood and the Nether Moon Soulwood and engraved the spells onto them.
Just as he’d expected, these tailor-made spells fit the spirit woods perfectly.
The advantage of Qi Ping’s spell-crafting ability really shone through here. Otherwise, if he’d had to search for suitable spells for contracting spirit woods, it would have cost him immense time and effort—and the compatibility might not have been that high.
Not like now, where the spells not only fit perfectly but also aligned seamlessly with his current resource needs.
After finishing the spell-engraving tasks, Qi Ping shifted his focus to formation fusion and researching water-fire techniques, all while continuously contemplating the essences of Water and Fire.
And so, another five years passed.
That year, with abundant resources and his powerful talents backing him, Qi Ping’s cultivation smoothly broke through to the late Foundation Establishment stage. His strength and lifespan both rose to a new level!
On top of that, Qi Ping also accomplished the evolution of his bee swarm to late second-order.
With plenty of spiritual herbs and enough balanced bees needed for the transformation, the evolution went off without a hitch.
In fact, Qi Ping managed to unlock over twenty new bee types!
Among those, he unlocked an enhanced version of the Pharmacist Bee!
The Pharmacist Bee was key to the swarm’s development—its research and honey-brewing abilities were incredibly important to Qi Ping and his animal companions.
And once the Pharmacist Bee evolved, the shared skill [Brewing Artisan] also became stronger.
Besides the Pharmacist Bee, Qi Ping also unlocked a Physique Bee with an exceptionally sturdy body, and an Energy Bee with highly refined internal spiritual energy.
Qi Ping decided to focus on cultivating both of these types. Their combat abilities weren’t particularly outstanding, but the traits they brought were very beneficial for enhancing the Bee Queen’s physical constitution and spiritual energy aptitude.
The Magus Insect King’s bloodline was simply too powerful and extremely difficult to absorb. So Qi Ping had to do everything he could to elevate the Bee Queen’s aptitude—only then would the bees she birthed be strong enough, and only then could they withstand the bloodline pressure of the Magus Insect and successfully evolve!
This was the most crucial hurdle on the bees’ path to immortality—no room for carelessness!
Once they succeeded, the bees’ bloodline would undergo a fundamental transformation and elevation!
And lastly, there were the Balanced Bees and the Wind Blade Bees.
The Balanced Bees went without saying—they were the most important players in devouring the Magus Insect King’s bloodline.
As for the Wind Blade Bees, they were a pleasant little surprise for Qi Ping.
Golden Marrow Bees were originally spirit insects with the highest proportion of wind attribute. Yet despite evolving the bees so many times, it was only now that Qi Ping had finally produced a pure wind-attribute bee.
But now that the Wind Blade Bee was here, it marked a perfect conclusion to the bees’ foundational evolution chapter.
This pure wind-attribute Wind Blade Bee was the most perfect bee Qi Ping had evolved in all this time.
It not only inherited the Golden Marrow Bee Queen’s robust physique, but it was also uniquely exceptional in wind-attribute abilities.
Its signature talents were Wind Armor and Wind Blade.
Wind Armor could cover its body with a wind-attribute protective layer, using flowing wind blades to defend itself.
Wind Blade, meanwhile, was a fairly powerful wind-attribute offensive spell.
But what truly delighted Qi Ping was the discovery that Wind Blade Bees seemed capable of forming an exceptionally high-tier storm formation!
