Chương 104: Chapter 103: Planting

Yang woke with the morning light entering the cave. Today was the day. It had been exactly seven days since he began the Soil Enrichment Technique on the patch of ground outside the cave entrance. The seed pouch was where he had left it the night before, on the corner of the table beside the techniques manual, both placed out in anticipation of this morning. He picked up the pouch and the manual and went outside.

The mountain air was as it always was at this hour, sharp and cold, the light still pale and low across the floating peaks. He stood at the cave entrance for a moment and breathing it in. Then he went to the soil patch. Seven mornings. He had come out here every one of them, kneeling at the edge of this same piece of ground, placing his palms against it, and feeding qi slowly into the earth. He crouched now and pressed both palms flat against the soil.

The difference between the first morning and this one was not subtle anymore. That first day, the earth had felt inert, cold in a way that went past temperature, the flatness of ground that had never been worked. What was beneath his palms now felt changed in a way that was difficult to articulate. Warmer than the ambient temperature alone accounted for. Slightly yielding, as though the earth had developed a degree of give that hard-packed soil did not naturally have.

The qi channels he had been feeding were open, no longer the hairline tightness of the first session. They received the slow outflow from his palms without resistance. He held the contact for several minutes, performing the Soil Enrichment Technique one final time before planting, and then lifted his hands and sat back on his heels. Done. The soil was as ready as he could make it. He opened the manual and read through the Seed Awakening Technique from the beginning. He hadn't forgotten it.

He had read it enough times to recite most of it without the page in front of him. But reading it through before beginning had settled into a ritual over the past, and the habit had served him well. There was a difference between knowing what a technique said and having it present fresh in the mind at the moment of application. He read to the end. Then he closed the manual and opened the seed pouch. The Spirit Spiral seeds were easy to distinguish from the others in the pouch.

Smaller than the Blue Jade seeds, darker, with a faint sheen the Spirit Grass seeds did not have. He tipped three carefully into his palm and looked at them for a moment, then returned two to the pouch and closed it. Three was what the manual specified for a first planting. Three was what he would plant. Now the Seed Awakening Technique. He placed the first seed between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, centered at the tip of the fingertips the way the manual described.

Yang brought his hand to chest height, closed his eyes, and let his thoughts settle first, and then extended his spiritual sense into the seed. The first sensation was simply smallness. The seed was tiny and the act of extending his spiritual sense into something this size required a finer degree of attention than sensing the broad channels in soil or the qi content of talisman paper. He adjusted, and beneath the outer shell, found it. The manual had called the Spirit Spiral's internal qi signature distinctive.

This seed felt like something already in motion. A rotation, small and tight, turning steadily on its own axis. Just turning steadily like a gyroscope. He followed the rotation. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Once around, feeling the direction and the speed and the quality of its movement. Then a second time, settling his spiritual sense into the rhythm of it rather than just mapping it. Then he began.

He sent qi inward along the spiral's own path, matching its direction, moving at the seed's pace rather than imposing his own. This part had required the most thought when he first read the manual. He was accustomed to directing his qi output, in talisman inscription, in the few techniques he knew, the practitioner's intent shaped the flow. Here the technique required something closer to following than leading.

The qi moved because the seed's rotation drew it forward, and his task was to feed what was already moving rather than to begin something new. Yang held the contact and waited. The warmth came first. A slight increase in temperature beneath his fingertips that was not from his own qi output. Then a second rhythm, faint but distinct once he knew what to feel for, a pulse alongside his own heartbeat. The seed's internal circulation shifting from passive to active, from receiving to absorbing his qi on its own.

The awakening was complete. He held it a moment longer to be certain, then opened his eyes. The seed looked exactly the same in his hand. Still small and dark with the same faint sheen. But his spiritual sense sensed the change clearly enough, it was drawing small amount of qi from him. Exactly in the part where his fingers were touching the seed. He pressed a shallow depression into the prepared soil with one finger and set the seed carefully inside it. Then he moved to the second.

The second and third followed the same process. He did not rush between them. Each seed received the same attention as the first, the settling of mind, the two full rotations before infusion, the waiting. The second seed responded more quickly than the first, the warmth arriving within a minute of contact. The third sat quietly in his fingers for considerably longer before the faint pulse finally answered. He waited it out without hurrying.

When all three were in the ground he covered each at two finger-widths of depth, lightly, without packing the soil down over them. Yang stood and looked at the three small mounds of earth. Three tiny points in a prepared patch of mountain soil. No visible sign of what he had spent a week working toward. He had known this was how it would look. It still required a small conscious adjustment to be at peace with it. The interesting part was months away at minimum. He went to get the water basin.

He had filled it the previous evening and left it to sit overnight. He submerged both hands to the wrists and circulated qi outward through his palms, the Spirit Spring Rain Technique from the manual Senior Brother Lin Yi had given him, was more refined than the Qi Dew technique he had been using before. He felt the water change as the qi dissolved into it, the subtle shift in it that the manual called sweetness and that he could not quite describe in any other way. One full breath cycle.

He lifted his hands and cupped his right hand over the basin as the water rose from the basin in the air like a large blob beneath his hand. Yang walked the row of three planted seeds slowly, releasing the water in a fine spray from chest height, wrist loose, fingers slightly curled to hold the water in place as it dispersed into individual droplets before reaching the soil. A mist, rather than a pour. The prepared soil darkened where the water landed and drank it in without any pooling at the surface.

He made two slow passes along the row and then stopped and stood at the edge and looked at it for a moment longer before turning to the other seeds in his pouch. He had three Spirit Spiral seeds in the ground. He still had the Blue Jade and Spirit Grass seeds Senior Brother Lin Yi had given him, and now that the Spirit Spiral plot was established, he could begin on those.

He had already selected the spots for them further along the path, away from the Spirit Spiral seedlings, where the absorption-phase Spirit Spiral plants would not compete for their qi. He performed the soil enrichment technique on the other plots, one for each type of seeds, since these seeds don't need multiple soil enrichments. Blue Jade, he knew from Senior Brother Xu Wei's garden.

He had not used the Seed Awakening Technique on them before because he was taking care of already grown plants, but the technique itself was straightforward for a herb whose internal signature was as settled and compressed as anything. No rotation to follow. Just the careful sensing and the qi infusion along the natural direction of the seed's own pathways. He worked through the Blue Jade seeds first, planting each immediately after awakening it in the prepared second plot.

Then the Spirit Grass, which responded even more quickly than the Blue Jade, its signature simple and vigorous, the awakening complete in less time than either of the others. He performed the Spirit Spring Rain Technique over the new plots, walking the rows with a measured pace, and then stood back and surveyed the work. Three plots. Three types of plants. All of it invisible and months from showing any result. Now all he needs to do is water these plants daily.

He went inside to clean himself up and go through his morning rituals before settling down on the meditation platform. Now it was time to practice Heavenly Diversion.