**Chapter 7: The Bountiful Harvest and the Scent of Blood**
The Azure Cloud Realm did not care for the struggles of mortals or the ambitions of cultivators. The sun rose and fell with absolute, uncaring precision. But for a farmer, the rhythm of the sun was the rhythm of life itself.
Lu Yuan stood at the edge of his two-acre plot, the crescent-shaped iron sickle resting comfortably in his calloused hand. Before him lay a sea of gold and vibrant green. The Azure Spirit Rice stalks were thick, sturdy, and bowed heavily under the sheer weight of the densely packed spiritual grains.
The air was thick with a sweet, intoxicating aroma—a concentrated burst of pure wood-attribute Qi radiating from the ripe harvest.
"Time to reap," Lu Yuan murmured, a genuine smile touching his lips.
He stepped into the field, his movements deliberate and practiced. He grabbed a handful of thick stalks with his left hand and brought the sickle down with a smooth, sweeping motion of his right.
*Swish.*
The stalks severed cleanly. He laid the bundle carefully on the dry earth behind him.
*Ding.*
**[Spirit Farmer proficiency +1]**
The chime of the system was the sweetest music he could ask for. Instantly, a microscopic adjustment entered his muscle memory. The angle of his wrist shifted by a fraction of a degree. The amount of physical force he applied to the sickle was perfectly calibrated to slice through the tough outer fibers of the spirit rice without violently jarring the delicate grains at the top.
He stepped forward. Grab. Slice. Lay down.
*Swish.*
*Ding.*
**[Spirit Farmer proficiency +1]**
In his past life, Lu Yuan had spent his days hunched over glowing monitors, his physical world reduced to the clacking of a keyboard. Here, under the vast, open sky of the Azure Cloud Realm, manual labor possessed a meditative, almost sacred quality. Every drop of sweat, every ache in his lower back, was instantly validated by the translucent blue panel in his mind.
He fell into a trance.
The *Evergreen Qi Art* circulated quietly in the background. Because the ripe Azure Spirit Rice radiated so much ambient spiritual energy, Lu Yuan didn't even need to actively absorb it. The pure wood-attribute Qi naturally seeped into his pores as he worked, replenishing his physical stamina and keeping his Dantian perfectly full.
Hours passed. The sun climbed to its zenith, beating down mercilessly on the Clear Breeze Valley. Other independent cultivators in the neighboring fields were panting, taking frequent breaks to drink water and rub their aching muscles.
Lu Yuan did not stop. He moved like a tireless automaton.
*Swish.* (Novice: 45/100)
*Swish.* (Novice: 68/100)
By mid-afternoon, he had completely felled the first acre. He stood up straight, stretching his spine. He felt a deep, satisfying burn in his muscles, a testament to hard work rather than the agonizing, destructive pain of Qi deviation.
*Ding.*
**[Spirit Farmer proficiency +2]**
**[Breakthrough!]**
**[Spirit Farmer (Initiate: 1/200)]**
A sudden, profound understanding of the soil, the roots, and the spiritual crops flooded his mind. It wasn't a magical spell; it was an intuitive, bone-deep knowledge. He could look at a severed stalk of Azure Spirit Rice and instantly judge its moisture content. He could smell the dirt and know exactly what trace minerals it lacked for the next planting season.
He was no longer just a man swinging a blade. He was a true custodian of the spiritual earth.
He spent the rest of the daylight hours felling the second acre. When the sun finally began to dip below the towering peaks of the Flowing Water Sect, his two acres were entirely cleared, the harvested bundles lying in neat, perfectly spaced rows to dry slightly in the evening breeze.
Lu Yuan walked back to his hut, his hemp robes soaked in sweat.
He didn't rest. He fetched a bucket of cold spring water, washed his face and torso, and immediately began the next phase: threshing and winnowing.
He carried the bundles to a hard-packed clearing near his hut. Traditionally, farmers used a heavy wooden flail to beat the grain heads, separating the rice from the stalks. It was brutal, exhausting work that often damaged a small percentage of the harvest.
Lu Yuan picked up a wooden flail. He raised it high and brought it down on a pile of rice heads.
*Thwack.*
*Ding.*
**[Spirit Farmer proficiency +1]**
He struck again. And again.
As his 'Initiate' level proficiency guided him, his strikes became impossibly precise. He was hitting the exact structural weak points of the grain clusters, causing the rice to practically leap off the stalks without a single kernel being crushed.
After two hours of relentless threshing under the light of the moon, he had a massive mound of unhusked spirit rice mixed with dry chaff and broken leaves.
"Now, the winnowing," Lu Yuan breathed heavily, wiping his brow.
Normally, a farmer would use a large woven basket, tossing the mixture into the air and letting the natural wind blow the lighter chaff away while the heavier grain fell back down. It was tedious and relied heavily on the weather.
Lu Yuan looked at his hands. He was a cultivator. Why rely on the natural wind when he could command it?
He stepped back from the massive mound of grain. He raised his index and middle fingers, channeling a delicate thread of his wood-attribute Qi.
He didn't want the lethal, compressed crescent of the 'Initiate' level *Wind Blade Spell*. He needed to deconstruct the spell, expanding its surface area and drastically lowering its lethal pressure to create a controlled, sustained gale.
"Let's see if the proficiency panel recognizes utility," he murmured.
He adjusted the runic pathway in his mind, widening the aperture of the Qi release.
*"Wind Blade... disperse!"*
A gentle, localized gust of wind erupted from his fingers, sweeping over the mound of grain. The wind was perfectly calibrated. It caught the dry, weightless chaff and the broken leaves, lifting them into the air and blowing them twenty feet away into a neat pile. The heavy, spiritually dense grains of Azure Spirit Rice remained firmly on the ground, completely untouched.
*Ding.*
**[Wind Blade Spell proficiency +1]**
**[Spirit Farmer proficiency +2]**
Lu Yuan's eyes lit up. "Double progression. Using a combat spell for agricultural labor forces profound control over the elemental attribute."
He spent the next hour systematically blowing the chaff away. It was a masterclass in elemental manipulation. He controlled the wind like a maestro conducting an orchestra, peeling away the impurities until only a pristine, glowing mountain of pure Azure Spirit Rice remained.
He walked over to the grain and plunged his hands into it.
It was heavy, cool to the touch, and radiated a dense, comforting aura.
He began to bag it in large, woven hemp sacks. As an accountant, he naturally kept a running tally of the weight.
One sack. Two sacks. Ten sacks.
When he finished, he had twenty massive sacks of grain. Each sack weighed roughly one hundred pounds.
"Two thousand pounds," Lu Yuan calculated, staring at the sacks in awe. "The standard yield for two acres of low-grade fields in this valley is fifteen hundred pounds. My 'Proficient' level *Spring Breeze and Rain Spell* increased the yield by a staggering thirty-three percent."
And it wasn't just the volume. The quality of the grain was immaculate. The kernels were larger, their milky-white color tinged with a faint, healthy green hue indicative of high Qi saturation. If he sold this at the Myriad Treasures Pavilion, they would classify it as premium-grade, fetching at least double the standard market price.
But Lu Yuan was deeply, fundamentally paranoid.
"If Landlord Ma or Deacon Zhou sees this yield, they won't praise me. They will interrogate me," Lu Yuan muttered, the cold logic taking over. "They will demand to know how a crippled Level 2 farmer produced premium grain. They will suspect I have a heavenly treasure, a hidden high-tier cultivation method, or a master secretly backing me."
Any of those suspicions would put a target on his back the size of a mountain.
He needed to hide his success.
The agricultural tax was twenty percent of the gross yield. Twenty percent of a standard 1,500-pound harvest was 300 pounds.
Lu Yuan dragged fifteen sacks (1,500 pounds) into the center of his hut, leaving them in plain sight. These were the sacks that contained the slightly smaller, more average-looking grains he had mentally sorted during the bagging process.
The remaining five sacks (500 pounds)—the absolute premium, flawless grain that represented his 33% surplus—he dragged toward his leather storage pouch.
He channeled his Qi into the pouch, expanding its spatial aperture, and shoved the five heavy sacks inside. It was a tight fit, taking up nearly all the remaining volume next to his talisman arsenal, but the spatial compression held.
"My official yield is exactly fifteen hundred pounds," Lu Yuan declared to the empty room. "I am perfectly, utterly average."
He took three of the visible sacks (300 pounds) and placed them near the door. That was the tax.
Exhausted but deeply satisfied, he crawled into bed. The *Minor Dust Obfuscation Array* hummed silently beneath the floorboards, hiding the dense spiritual aura of his remaining twelve sacks of rice from anyone passing by.
He closed his eyes and initiated the *Evergreen Qi Art*, sleeping the light, restorative sleep of a cultivator.
The next morning, the bronze gong echoed through the valley.
It was tax day.
Lu Yuan stepped out of his hut, the three heavy sacks of grain resting by his feet. He wore his humble, patched robes, perfectly embodying the role of the tired, subservient tenant.
Down the path, the procession arrived. Deacon Zhou rode his Iron-Hooved Stallion, looking as arrogant and bored as ever. Behind him walked four burly guards, and pulling a massive, reinforced wooden cart was a Level 3 Earth-Ox, a docile but incredibly strong demonic beast used by the sect for heavy transport.
The cart was already half-full of grain sacks collected from the northern farms.
Zhou halted his stallion in front of Lu Yuan's property. His sharp eyes scanned the harvested field, then dropped to the three sacks by Lu Yuan's feet.
"Lu Yuan," Zhou commanded lazily. "Present your tax."
Lu Yuan bowed deeply. "Deacon Zhou. Three hundred pounds of Azure Spirit Rice. Exactly twenty percent of my fifteen-hundred-pound yield."
Two guards stepped forward. One carried a large, portable bronze scale inscribed with weight-measuring arrays. They hauled Lu Yuan's sacks onto the scale.
The array flared briefly, the needle settling perfectly on the three-hundred-pound mark.
The guard opened one of the sacks, grabbing a handful of the grain. He inspected it, sniffing the spiritual aroma.
"Standard quality, Deacon," the guard reported. "No signs of rot or pest damage. The weight is accurate."
Deacon Zhou looked mildly surprised. "A perfect standard yield? After a Qi deviation?" He sneered down at Lu Yuan. "You must have crawled on your hands and knees watering every individual stalk, Lu. I suppose desperation breeds competence."
"Deacon's words are profound," Lu Yuan replied, keeping his head bowed to hide his utterly blank expression. "I merely did my duty to Landlord Ma."
"Throw it on the cart," Zhou ordered the guards. "Let's move on. We have to deal with Old Man Chen next. I hear his fields were infested with Spirit-Eating Locusts. The old fool is likely short again."
As the guards tossed Lu Yuan's sacks onto the cart, the procession moved down the dirt path toward Old Man Chen's property.
Lu Yuan did not go back inside. He stood by his bamboo fence, watching them go.
When they reached Old Man Chen's farm, the shouting started almost immediately.
"Fifty pounds?!" Deacon Zhou's voice boomed with Qi-amplified rage. "Your yield was only two hundred and fifty pounds?! That doesn't even cover the seed cost, let alone the rent and the tax!"
Lu Yuan could see Old Man Chen, his gray hair wild, kneeling in the dirt, clutching the hem of Zhou's pristine white robe.
"Deacon, have mercy! The locusts came in the night! I spent all my spirit stones buying repellant, but it was useless! Just give me an extension! I will join a mercenary caravan, I will hunt demonic beasts to pay the debt!"
"You're a Level 3 cripple, Chen. The only thing you'd hunt is an early grave," Zhou spat, kicking the old man away. "Landlord Ma has lost patience. Your fields are confiscated immediately. Guards, strip his hut. Take anything of value. Bind him. He's going to the deep-vein spirit mines."
"No! Please! The mines are a death sentence!" Old Man Chen wailed, struggling as two burly guards hauled him to his feet, slapping him violently across the face to silence him.
They dragged the old man away, tossing him roughly into the back of the grain cart. Two other guards kicked down the door of Chen's hut, emerging moments later with a few pathetic possessions—a cracked bronze mirror, a worn cultivation manual, and a small sack of mundane coins.
Deacon Zhou looked back down the path, making sure the other farmers were watching.
"Let this be a lesson!" Zhou shouted, his aura flaring aggressively. "The Flowing Water Sect provides the land, the arrays, and the safety! Inability to produce is a crime against the sect! Pay your dues, or pay with your lives!"
He spurred his stallion, the cart rumbling forward, carrying Old Man Chen toward a dark, suffocating death in the mines.
Lu Yuan watched until the procession disappeared over the hill.
He didn't feel a shred of pity. He didn't feel a desire to play the hero.
He felt a cold, terrifying vindication.
"This is the world," Lu Yuan whispered to the empty air. "There is no justice. There is only power, and the illusion of safety granted by those who hold it. Old Man Chen wasn't evil. He just didn't have the strength to fight the locusts, or the capital to survive a bad harvest."
Lu Yuan turned and walked back into his hut.
He looked at the twelve sacks of grain sitting safely on his floor, hidden by his array. He patted his robe, where seventy-five spirit stones and a terrifying arsenal of talismans rested.
He had the strength. He had the capital.
"I will never be Old Man Chen," he vowed, locking his door.
That night, the Azure Cloud Realm was restless.
The sky was heavily overcast, choking out the moonlight and plunging the Clear Breeze Valley into pitch blackness. The air was thick, humid, and carried a strange, metallic tang that made the fine hairs on Lu Yuan's arms stand up.
He was sitting on his bed, cross-legged, practicing the *Sutra of Hidden Origins*. He was pushing the 'Initiate' level to its absolute limit, maintaining the dead-zone shell around his Dantian for hours on end, turning himself into a perfect, undetectable void.
*Ding.*
**[Sutra of Hidden Origins proficiency +1]**
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open.
The *Minor Dust Obfuscation Array* did not block physical vibrations. Through the hard dirt floor, Lu Yuan felt a series of heavy, rhythmic thuds.
Footsteps. Many of them. Running.
Then came the shouting.
"Cut them off! Don't let them reach the western ridge!" a harsh, desperate voice echoed from the darkness outside.
"Kill the Black Tiger dogs! For the Brotherhood!" another voice roared back.
The gang war.
It had finally spilled out of the market alleyways and into the farming districts.
Lu Yuan remained perfectly still. He did not light a candle. He slowly uncrossed his legs, silently sliding off the bed, and crept toward the front window. He peered through the narrow slit in the bamboo shutters.
The dirt path separating his farm from Fatty Wang's property had become a warzone.
A dozen men were engaged in a brutal, disorganized melee. They were low-level cultivators, mostly Qi Condensation Levels 2 and 3. They fought like street thugs armed with magic.
A man wearing a red bandana—the Iron Blood Brotherhood—swung a heavy iron broadsword, imbued with faint earth-attribute Qi, shattering the crude wooden shield of a Black Tiger Gang member.
Another thug fired a wobbly *Fireball Spell*, which missed its target and set a patch of dry grass ablaze, casting flickering, demonic shadows over the combatants.
Blood sprayed. Men screamed, clutching severed limbs or deep stab wounds. It was chaotic, loud, and incredibly pathetic compared to the graceful, terrifying battles of high-level cultivators Lu Yuan had read about.
"Stay away from the fence," Lu Yuan commanded silently, watching the brawl inch closer to his property line.
If they breached his bamboo fence, they would enter the perimeter of his *Minor Dust Obfuscation Array*. The array only confused the senses; if someone physically walked into it, the illusion would shatter, revealing his hut and his stored grain.
Lu Yuan slipped his right hand into his black robe, his fingers brushing the rough paper of a *Basic Fireball Talisman*. If they crossed the line, he would have no choice. He would have to vaporize them and bury the bodies before dawn.
Suddenly, the chaotic shouting outside ceased, replaced by a collective, horrified gasp.
The combatants froze.
From the dense pine forest to the south, a sound drifted over the battlefield. It was a high, piercing, mournful melody played on a bamboo flute. But the sound wasn't normal. It vibrated with a sickening, blood-red Qi that made Lu Yuan's stomach churn even through the protection of his array.
The demonic cultivator.
"Run," one of the Black Tiger thugs whispered, dropping his sword. "It's the Flute Demon! Run!"
Panic erupted. The gang members abandoned their turf war, turning to flee in all directions.
But they were too late.
The darkness beneath the pine trees exploded.
Five massive shadows burst from the treeline. They were Iron-Skin Boars, easily the size of small oxen. But these were not normal demonic beasts. Their thick, metallic hides were painted with glowing, jagged runes written in blood. Their eyes burned with a mindless, crimson fury.
They had been forcefully corrupted, turned into living, armored battering rams by the demonic cultivator's music.
The boars charged with terrifying speed.
The massacre lasted less than a minute.
A Level 3 Iron Blood thug tried to cast an *Earth Wall* to block the charge. The leading boar smashed through the stone barrier as if it were made of paper, its massive tusks impaling the man through the chest, tearing him in half.
Another thug tried to run, but a boar caught him from behind, trampling him into a bloody paste into the dirt.
Screams of pure, unadulterated terror filled the night, quickly silenced by the sickening crunch of bone and tearing flesh.
Lu Yuan watched through the slit, his breathing completely stopped, his aura locked down tighter than a vault by the *Sutra of Hidden Origins*.
He was watching a force of nature. The boars were Level 3, but enhanced by the blood magic, they possessed the raw physical power of Level 5 beasts. The gang members were nothing more than wet tissue paper before them.
One survivor remained.
It was Wang Lei, the scarred lieutenant of the Black Tiger Gang who had extorted Lu Yuan in the alleyway weeks ago.
Wang Lei was sprinting desperately, his face pale with terror, his chest heaving. He was running directly toward Lu Yuan's farm, hoping to use the thatched hut as cover.
"Don't cross the line," Lu Yuan willed, his fingers gripping the talisman so hard his knuckles turned white.
Wang Lei leaped over Lu Yuan's low bamboo fence.
He took two steps onto the property. He was exactly ten feet away from the boundary of the *Minor Dust Obfuscation Array*.
He didn't make it to the third step.
A corrupted Iron-Skin Boar, faster than a speeding carriage, slammed into Wang Lei's back. The impact sounded like a dropped melon. Wang Lei was launched forward, his spine shattered instantly. He crashed into the dirt just inches from the invisible dome of Lu Yuan's array, coughing up a fountain of dark blood.
The boar stomped on his skull, ending his twitching.
Silence descended on the valley once more, broken only by the heavy, snorting breaths of the blood-crazed boars.
Then, a figure emerged from the pine forest.
He walked slowly, his footsteps completely silent. He wore a long, tattered black cloak that seemed to absorb the faint ambient light. A dark bamboo flute rested in his pale hand.
Lu Yuan's pupils dilated.
The spiritual pressure radiating from the figure was completely unfiltered. It was a suffocating, metallic stench of fresh blood and rotting marrow.
*Level 7 Qi Condensation,* Lu Yuan evaluated, pure adrenaline flooding his system. *Late stage. Demonic arts. Highly lethal.*
The demonic cultivator walked among the mangled corpses. He raised his free hand, forming a claw-like gesture.
A profound, sickening suction force generated from his palm. The spilled blood of the gang members literally peeled off the dirt, defying gravity, flying through the air and condensing into a swirling, crimson sphere floating above the cultivator's hand.
He was harvesting them. Using their lifeblood to fuel his own progression.
Lu Yuan remained perfectly, absolutely still. He didn't blink. He barely allowed his heart to beat. The *Sutra of Hidden Origins* was working overtime, masking his life force completely.
The demonic cultivator absorbed the blood sphere into his own body, letting out a long, satisfied sigh.
Then, he turned his head.
His gaze swept over the darkness, locking onto the exact spot where Wang Lei's corpse lay.
He took a step toward Lu Yuan's property.
Lu Yuan's thumb rested on the activation trigger of his *Basic Fireball Talisman*. If the cultivator stepped into the array, Lu Yuan would throw five talismans point-blank. It might not kill a Level 7 cultivator instantly, but it would create a massive explosion, hopefully buying Lu Yuan enough time to trigger twenty more. It would destroy his farm, his cover, and likely his hearing, but it would keep him alive.
The demonic cultivator stopped at the bamboo fence.
He stared directly at the space where Lu Yuan's hut stood.
Through the *Minor Dust Obfuscation Array*, the cultivator only saw an empty, ploughed field of dirt. But a Level 7 divine sense was sharp.
The cultivator frowned, his pale, thin lips pressing together. He tilted his head, as if listening to a sound just out of range.
"Strange," a raspy, echoing voice drifted from the figure. "A dead zone in the spiritual flow."
He raised his hand, gathering a concentrated ball of blood-red Qi, preparing to blast the 'empty' space just to be sure.
Lu Yuan primed the talisman, the runic lines glowing a faint, invisible red beneath his robe. *Come on, step inside. Die.*
Suddenly, the sharp, piercing scream of a flare rocketing into the sky shattered the tension.
*Fweeeeeeee—BOOM!*
A brilliant white light exploded high above the northern part of the valley, illuminating the clouds with the crest of the Flowing Water Sect—a cascading waterfall.
The sect patrols had finally been alerted.
The demonic cultivator snapped his head toward the flare. He clicked his tongue in profound annoyance.
"Sect dogs. Always interrupting dinner."
He raised his flute to his lips and played a single, sharp note.
The five corrupted Iron-Skin Boars immediately turned and bolted back into the dense pine forest. The demonic cultivator cast one last, suspicious glance at Lu Yuan's 'empty' property, then melted into the shadows, his aura vanishing completely as he utilized a high-tier movement technique.
Lu Yuan did not move for a full hour.
He stood at the window, his hand still gripping the primed talisman, until his muscles cramped and his vision swam.
Only when the distant shouts of the Flowing Water Sect outer disciples sweeping the area reached his ears did he finally let out a long, shuddering breath.
He slowly lowered his hand, deactivating the talisman.
He stepped back from the window and collapsed onto his wooden stool, his legs giving out.
*Ding.*
**[Sutra of Hidden Origins proficiency +5]**
**[Breakthrough!]**
**[Sutra of Hidden Origins (Proficient: 1/400)]**
The massive jump in proficiency was the system's reward for maintaining absolute concealment under the terrifying pressure of a high-level scan. His dead-zone shell was now practically impenetrable to anyone below the Foundation Establishment realm.
Lu Yuan wiped a cold sweat from his forehead.
He looked down at his trembling hands.
"A Level 7 demonic cultivator operates freely in the outer valley, slaughtering gangs, while the sect patrols react too late," Lu Yuan analyzed, his voice tight. "The perimeter is gone. The valley is no longer a safe haven. It is a hunting ground."
He had survived tonight because he was invisible. But invisibility was a passive defense. If that cultivator had fired his blood blast on a mere suspicion, the array would have shattered, and Lu Yuan would have been forced into a life-or-death battle against an opponent five levels higher than him.
"I need a better array," Lu Yuan stated to the empty room, his eyes hardening with absolute, paranoid resolve. "Not just obfuscation. I need a lethal defensive perimeter. Something that will incinerate anyone who crosses my fence before they can even blink."
He pulled out the heavy velvet bag containing his seventy-five spirit stones.
He had the capital. He had the endless lifespan to grind the proficiency.
Tomorrow, the Faceless Merchant would return to the Ghost Market. And he was going to buy the most devastating, restricted array formation he could find.
The immortal farmer was going to turn his two acres of dirt into an impregnable fortress.